Transcript of Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi Discusses Trump’s Major Failures

Republican leaders are absolutely panicking right now as Donald Trump refuses to focus on anything that actually helps the people in the United States, America. And he's focusing on things that are hurting the people as he plays Emperor with no clothes around the world and people are utterly disgusted at what he's doing. We'll get to that in a moment. We're seeing Republicans speaking up against Donald Trump. When we saw Republican Congress member, Dan Bacon say, We will impede you if you think you're going to invade Greenland, okay? And Republicans will impede you. So let me just make that very clear as long as I'm here in Congress. And then the Republicans, Democrats, independents, we all get this news heading into the weekend about Democratic Party momentum. Here, let's play this clip. The Democratic Party has some momentum this morning. The Cook Political Report showing 18 House races shifting towards Democrats ahead of November's midterms, suggesting they are in a position at the moment to take back the House. It cited President Trump's current unpopular, as well as Democrats' success in the last special election cycle as reasons for the favorable environment. Let's talk about what Republican Congress member Dan Bacon just had to say about Trump continuing to threaten to invade Greenland.

Let's play it.

To threaten countries who oppose his strange talk on Greenland is also absurd. I think a lot A lot of the stuff about invading Greenland, he says, I believe it's really being done for negotiating effect, but he says it almost every day. I feel like people like me and others, we got to speak up and say it's wrong. You don't threaten a NATO ally. They've been a great ally. We've had bases on there since World War II. Denmark has fought with us on our pirate side in Iraq and Afghanistan. I feel like it's incumbent on folks like me to speak up and say these threats and bullying of an ally are wrong. And just the weird chance that he's serious about invading Greenland, I want to let him know it would probably be the end of his presidency. Most Republicans know this is immoral and wrong, and we're going to stand up against it.

So what would happen if he decided to use military force to take over Greenland?

Well, I think one way or the other way, whether it's even a Republican control or if it's a Democrat control after November, I think it would lead to I think it's invading an ally, to me, is a high crime and misdemeanor. We have a treaty. We have the NATO agreement. It would be basically suffering this whole agreement and invading an ally, a democracy. It's immoral, it's wrong.

What did Donald Trump have to say about that during a press conference earlier in the day? He just wanted to emphasize that he sees himself as king, tariff king. He Me, Tariff King. Me, Tariff King. Here, play this clip.

I understood how to deal with him, and I'm the Tariff King, and the Tariff King has done a great job. And I hope we win the Supreme Court case, because if we don't, be a shame for our country. Be a shame.

We have me, Tariff King. Tariff King do good job. Tariff King must win in Supreme Court. What are we even doing here, folks? That's my new line. What are we even doing here, folks? Let's bring in Democratic Congress member from Illinois Illinois, Raja Krishnamurthy, who's also the Democratic Senate candidate there in Illinois. And so you want to learn more about that. We'll talk about that later as well. But, congressmen, it's good to see you. And you see what's happening there. I mean, You've got Bacon, you've got others. And it does feel that there's a change here as Trump's craziness and dangerousness, even what he's doing on immigration, is deeply unpopular within the Republican base right now. What he's in Minneapolis in getting a lot of fans for it. What do you make of his moment?

I think you're right. You can see Republicans peeling off from the President on a number of different fronts, whether it is 15 Republicans in the House joining with all Democrats to extend the ACA tax credits by three years, or whether it's on tariffs, or whether it's with regard to the war power's resolution in the Senate on Venezuela. And now, yeah, I think Greenland is one of those things that gets people basically saying enough is enough. Enough with the chaos at the same time that working families are confronting such high costs of living. They're not able to really flourish economically. And basically, he's doing the opposite of what people want them to do. They want them to focus on their economic problems. Instead, he's making those problems worse, and he's potentially us into war. And we could talk about that later as well.

Yeah, let's do them in order. So the first thing, what the American people are feeling right now. Trump's out there saying, We have an economic miracle. We've never been hotter. All the data coming in is amazing, which it's not amazing. But also a broader question I have is, even with the data, that's bad. The data is not good that's coming in. But how do we even And I'm not trying to get into conspiratorial areas, how do you trust the data where 40 % of the inputs into the consumer price index are estimates? How do we know? I mean, look, 2. 7 % year over year inflation is not good He's considering we would be back to 2 % right now had Trump just done nothing. But I know what most people who watch this show say, whether it's their health care costs or electricity or the things that matter in their lives, it's far more than 2 % year over year. So how do we make sense of all of that?

Look, I think that when Trump says that the affordability crisis is a hoax, I think that he is basically saying something that runs counter to what everyone is feeling and seeing. You go to the grocery store and it's not a hoax. Everything is more expensive now. It's hard to buy groceries for a family of four or five people when your paycheck is basically the same as it was last year. And so in terms of what the government is putting out in statistics and so forth, I think that what really matters is people's lived experience, and they are living a fallacious experience right now, whether it's affording their groceries, affording their rent, buying a home, affording their childcare, their healthcare premiums are skyrocketing right now, in part because the ACA tax credits We're not extended. Education costs are going up. So given all that, people are like, focus on my problems, not on your fantasies.

Talk about Donald Trump getting us into the wars, as you've said. I mean, we've already been involved now in military actions across the globe. I mean, it seems every other week there's almost a military action, if you think about it. We can't forget there was recently a bombing in Nigeria, right? And then Venezuela. And then on January second, Donald Trump tells the protesters in Iran. He says, I've got your back. He goes, Go out there and fight. Because if Iran kills one protester, Trump's language, we will go in there. We, the United States, guns are blazing. We've got your back. Well, from all the reporting now, Iran has killed thousands, whether that's low thousands or 20,000. No one really has a number, but we know it's a huge number. And what Trump has been talking about today is, I stopped Iran from hanging 800 more people. I greatly respect them for doing that. You greatly respect them for I mean, that's a good thing that you're not hanging 800, but we went from we're going in there guns ablazing, we've got your back to we stop them from hanging 800 more protesters. When you send a message like that, you're going it.

America's words must matter and mean something if you're going to say it.

Donald Trump's words mean nothing, and we know that now. I don't think anybody should put a lot of stock in what he promises, whether it's an election promise to reduce prices or whether it's a promise to back people up if they go protest in the streets. It's just so tragic that so many people were murdered, killed, gunned down by the Iranian regime. But at the end of the day, we got to avoid these foreign entanglements, okay? That's why I introduced the NOVA Act. I think I talked about this with you last week, the No Occupation of Venezuela Act, which would basically block taxpayer funds from being used to run Venezuela or occupy Venezuela or being used to help oil companies here exploit oil resources in Venezuela. That's not what taxpayers want, and they don't want to be entangled in an endless war in Iran or Cuba or Greenland or anywhere else. And I I think at this point, we got to put our foot down. I hope my Republican colleagues, you don't need a lot of them. You need some profiles and courage to stand up for what's right and basically say, no more wars, no more of these Iraq and Afghanistan endless wars.

Let's talk about, briefly, your Senate run. I'll be honest. A lot of people, when they look at the Senate, particularly right now, have felt a little bit betrayed at some of the things that have happened in the Senate. I understand it's a more in theory, we try to work together and all of these things. But then people feel like, Okay, well, that's great. But then look what Mitchell McDonald did in order to screw over Obama from getting a Supreme Court justice. So like, yeah, but in the biggest issues, Republicans have not what they were supposed to do. Democrats have heated in the Senate, particularly to this unwritten codes and things like that. Running for Senate, how can you assure the people? Obviously been a fighter as a member of Congress, and people have been following you here in the way you fight, the way you cross-examine people during the hearings and all the legislation you brought forward. Tell me about the move to the Senate, though, and how you envision your role? Because I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but it's a blue state. The primaries are really important part. You're still going to have a race after the primaries.

But what do you do if you get past the primaries? And how are you framing your Senate run?

So Basically, I frame it around my life story. I think I've told you this before, but I came to this country when I was three months old from India. And when we first got here, unfortunately, my father fell in hard times. He lost his income. But thanks to the generosity of the American people, we were allowed to move into public housing and food stamps, spent a good portion of my childhood in those programs. Eventually, my father got a break, got a great job in Peoria, Illinois, and that's where we made it into the middle class. And pretty much every night And he'd say, think of the greatness of this country. And whatever you do, make sure it's there for the next families who need it. And that's become the mission statement of my life. That's my why. And I believe that right now, that American dream, if you will, is under mortal assault by Donald J. Trump. And so it's my duty to do everything I can to fight to ensure that others have a shot at their dreams, at their American dream, regardless of whether they're working for middle class or growing a business.

And I feel like they think that that dream is, and it is, slipping out of grass during the chaos of Donald Trump for all the reasons that we just talked about, not addressing the affordability crisis, intangibles wrangling us in foreign adventures that oftentimes cost us treasure, but also lives. And we've got to move back to where working families and people want us to devote our attention, which is their economic uplift. And that's the central focus of my campaign.

Where can people find out more about it, congressman?

Www. Rajaforil. Com.

Check it out. Thanks, congressman, for joining us.

Thank you, sir.

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