Transcript of Rep. Bynum Discusses Fighting Back Against Trump and MAGA

MAGA Mike Johnson was just sabotaged on the House floor by his own party. MAGA Republicans would not even allow MAGA Mike Johnson to advance a procedural motion on a veterans bill. This was a big priority for MAGA Mike Johnson. He wanted to have MAGA Republicans run on the fact that, look, we helped the veterans heading into the midterms, but the MAGA Republicans revolted against the way MAGA Mike Johnson tried to package this veterans bill. So MAGA Mike was like, all right, I guess we're gonna have to recess again. So he shuts down the House of Representatives. It's supposed to get back into session next week. MAGA Mike's already talking about a continuing resolution cuz they can't pass a budget in order to try to keep the government from shutting down yet again. Yes, we're on the verge of another government shutdown if MAGA Mike doesn't do a continuing resolution. And now MAGA Mike is also being asked by Donald Trump to put forward this reconciliation package to give hundreds of billions of dollars to Donald Trump's catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran that no American other than the neocon war hawks want the Americans to actually be in.

This is an absolutely despicable and catastrophic war. So you have MAGA Mike flailing. MAGA Mike was literally standing there on the House floor. He's like, what do I do? We can't even get the procedural motion passed. The MAGA Republicans were like mocking him on the House floor. Democrats were not going to help MAGA Mike Johnson because the way MAGA Mike Johnson was also trying to package this veterans bill. It was hurting veterans who needed certain, like, critical care, and it was like taking from them. It was like a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. And then you had, like, MAGA Republican Lisa McClain go on state regime media, which calls itself Fox, and she was talking about the SAVE Act, and that's the Voter Suppression Act, and they want to try to stick this SAVE Act thing into a reconciliation bill and tie it to the military spending for the catastrophic unlawful war. And so then Lisa McClain, like while MAGA Mike is like frozen and shutting down the House of Representatives, you've got MAGA Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain goes on state regime media and she's like, look, don't the American people want this? They call it the Save America Act, but it's a voter suppression bill.

Don't the American people want it? What's the big deal? Why are women even complaining? Don't they, wouldn't, don't they want to go when they vote to show their birth certificate and some Social Security information and then cross-reference reference it with their current information if they have a different name than their maiden name. That's what all women want to do, right? That makes a ton of sense. It makes it easy for everybody. Watch what Congresswoman McClain had to say. Play this clip.

Your thoughts there?

Oh, I have so much to say on that, but let me sum it up on this. Is Alyssa, have a little bit of faith in women. And let me remind you that when you go to get your marriage license, a You have to have a driver's license. You have to have photo ID. Shocker. Are we against marriage? Well, the Democrats might be. But second, in some states, you actually have to have a birth certificate. So she doesn't even know what she's talking about. But she is right on this. If we don't pass the Save America— or I should say, if we do pass the Save America Act, the Democrats are shaken in their boots because they know that we're going to have much more fair elections. And that scares the bejesus out of them.

Well, I am You know, and then on the Senate, the tactic that they're just taking right now is just taking the cue from Donald Trump. And they're just like, you know what? There's a bunch of Democratic senators here who aren't even valid. They're just like unlawful senators. And so we should just kick them out of the Senate. I mean, it's just straight up fascism 101 right here. Like you've got a MAGA Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. He's like, we probably got 4 or 5 of these Democratic senators who aren't really even senators at this point because of all that voter fraud that we're just making up. What are you talking about? Donald Trump deranged speech he gave on Thursday when he actually declassified documents. It's like documents from Russia and China that, that say that, like, implicate Donald Trump, basically. Uh, here's what Tommy Tumerville has to say here. Play this clip.

But if you look at what we have, and in terms of, of, of what happened in 2020, we know President Trump, they put the screws to him. Uh, you know, there's no doubt, you know, I've seen the evidence. The same thing with— we probably have 4 or 5 senators that didn't legally win. They shouldn't be up here. And it's just unfortunate that that's happened. But again, slowly the information is coming out. I think you'll hear more tonight from President Trump. I don't know exactly what he's going to talk about, but the American people need to know how crooked these Democrats are. They cheat, they steal. They've tried to kill— yeah, they've tried to kill the president 3 times. They killed Charlie Kirk. It's unbelievable.

Yeah.

And we need to fight back. And thank goodness for President Trump.

Well, and then, and then you have Senator Loomis. Here's what she had to say. Let's play this clip.

In your mind, are Senators Ossoff and Warnock duly chosen and sworn?

I don't know, Jake. And then you have MAGA Republican Senator Rick Scott, and his big idea on the Senate side is we should go to a minimum 7-day workweek. That's what we should be doing, a 7-day workweek. Here, play this clip.

So are Democrats going to come across the line and join some of you? And are they as clear-eyed on the mission? I hope so. You know, Americans work 5 days a week. You know, the minimum we ought to work is 7 days a week. I'm a business guy. As the business people have to work every day, we need to work every day to get this stuff done.

I mean, by the way, MAGA Mike was also getting trashed by Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said that MAGA Mike, MAGA Mike's plans are an utter disappointment. It's, it's the, the, the big problem is MAGA Mike's plans lack a pro-growth tax and spending reforms. I mean, by the way, the debt is out of control right now. In this past year alone, they've added what, like $3.5 trillion in debt? It's approaching $40 trillion, uh, in total right now. I wanna bring on Democratic Congresswoman Bynum right now. Here's an interview I just did with Congresswoman Bynum, cuz I wanna see what's going on on the Democratic side with all of this chaos coming from MAGA Mike Johnson, Donald Trump's catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran. The American people are absolutely suffering right right now. Gas prices are going back up. Inflation is rising. Gas prices were always up. They're just going back to the highest point ever right now. The price of crude right now is what, increased 20% this week. Let's bring in Congresswoman Bynum.

Janelle Bynum. Congresswoman Bynum, great to see you again. So technically, Congress is back after MAGA Mike recessed. For weeks. And I say technically back because, you know, unfortunately, MAGA Mike has to pass a rule and he sets the agenda, I suppose, because Republicans control the House.

And he says he doesn't control the weather. Correction.

But I have no clue what they're doing other than he's saying we need hundreds of billions of dollars for Pete Hegseth to fight communists on our shore. I know what's going on.

Nothing's going on. Yesterday we voted on like daylight savings time, and not one constituent has ever asked me since I've been in office here about daylight savings time. Like, that was, that was the thing we spent an hour on yesterday. I'm like, don't we need to be putting kids through school? Don't we need to be feeding kids? Don't we need to be taking care of our seniors? Don't we need to figure out how to get out of these wars? Like, don't we have other work we need to be doing? Right.

And, you know, just when you see a report yesterday about inflation because of the memorandum of understanding going, going—

Trump was the arsonist.

He created the fire, the horrible condition. Then it goes down a little bit from the problem he created, and then he goes and creates the problem again, and then he escalates. And now there's a never-ending war with no defined anything and killing people overseas with taxpayer money. What do you— what? No one wants this.

No.

What are you doing? No, no, but nobody— whatever you— no one wants any of that over there?

Well, that's when the arsonist is the firefighter, right? That's when he comes in and tries to look like the hero when he set the fire himself. And nobody's asking for that. What we are asking for is a president that comes to the American people through Congress and makes his case, asks for permission, and has a strategy and a strategy going in and a strategy to get out. Like, that's how normal people would expect a government to work. He's just out there doing his own thing. And, you know, I think it's probably time to change his diaper. Yeah.

And, uh, we should talk about that, you know, in the sense of, you know, as the American people are struggling looking for steady leadership and predictability, he's out there behaving— just the behavior is a scary thing to observe, especially if you had someone in your family who has Alzheimer's, who's of that age. And you see it happening and it's impacting policy.

They're going to do a 20% fee and I'm the guardian of Hormuz.

I've decided I am hereby not doing— I'm no longer the guardian of Hormuz, you know. And then, you know, whether it was the NATO summit, you know, the Islamic Republic of Japan and, you know, all over the place, you know, and referring to Zelensky as Putin and then saying, ask me questions, pretend I am Putin. And I will roleplay Putin. I'm like, what is going on?

Well, it's a colossal embarrassment. You know, we used to be the leaders of the free world, and now everybody's like, eh? And so for me, it's about, you know, how do we reestablish American leadership in the world? How do we stop being the world's police? Because we've invested in diplomacy, soft diplomacy, hard diplomacy. And, you know, what are we leaving our children? That's— those are the questions I'm asking. And what are my taxpayers going towards? My tax dollars going towards? Is it just, just to fund his exploits? Is it to enrich his family? Is it to make his billionaire friends trillionaires? Is that what we're paying for? I'm not here for that.

Right.

Because too frequently, the way media covers politics is the day-to-day game. So they set it up as this side versus that side and everyone's yelling it. But to me, I always say with this network, we got to step back and ask the broader question. Like, what is the point of government? What is the point of all of this? It is not to have some dystopian reality game show where we're all non-consensual extras. It is to actually deliver things for us. And that's what we should be focusing on. And when we focus so much on the game, which is how the media wants to push this, whether it's for ratings or just their old way of thinking, because I'm sure people like to watch this shit anymore, to be honest. You know, It's not funny.

It's not. Well, here's what's happening. So over the weekend, you know, we passed the housing bill and the president didn't sign it. It was veto-proof. And, you know, not a lot of people reported on that. This was a huge deal. Huge. You know, when you're talking about Americans not having to compete like they did before— is it perfect? No. But not having to compete with private equity to buy their first home. And when we're talking about bringing down the first-time homebuyer age from 40 back down to 25, 26, like, those are big deals. But instead, you know, they're focusing on the president's antics, or we're focusing now on daylight savings time or the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, we're focusing on other things rather than the things that Americans are telling us are on their mind, which is housing.

And I always say, just listen to what people are saying, because I'm sure, as you know, in your district, the people are telling you very clearly. And it's only people who think that they are smarter or know better than what the people are saying.

They're the people out there saying, you know, we could try to move these people 0.2% to the right and 0.2% to the left.

They're not numbers.

They're, they're human people.

We're people. I mean, I listened to yesterday, it was Mr. Warsh, who's now the head of the Fed. And it was really interesting as he came in. It was the drama of it all. When he came in, there was all of this, you know, cameras flashing and people crowding around his desk as if he was, you know, the soothsayer of the world. He has a lot of control. But what he has to remember is that behind every mortgage is a family. And that is something that is immutable. Behind every home is a family. Behind every carton of milk is a kid that's drinking it. Behind everything that we see in our world is a person, is a human, is a family. And I think as lawmakers, we should never forget that. It is very easy to get so far away from the truth that you start drinking your own tea.

You know, one of the— there's so many, but I know one of the great betrayals that you're focused on is Trump just throwing young people under the bus us. And, you know, younger people maybe hadn't seen the Trump fraud show from the '70s and the '80s. I mean, look, reality is, is that, you know, older generations still fell for it again and again and again, which is a whole conversation we can get into, the human psyche. But younger people were being promised affordability and better jobs, and this is the way, and I'm going to make you so rich, and things are going to be amazing. And Trump went on the, the podcasts that at first were not political and were, you know, for reasons that are whatever, appealing to, you know, these younger people. And then at the very end, you know, they basically sold the young people the oligarchy, you know, that was going to take from them. And I know you have the K-30, you know, program that you do, but you've been very focused on, you know, this, this Trump regime and politicians in general are not focusing enough on kids.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, people really want something for the future. I have a lot of older people in my district, have a lot of younger people. The consistent story is, I want a future. I want a future for my kids, my grandkids, for myself. And, you know, when you have things like— I have a 20, almost 25-year-old daughter. And she told me the other day it costs $75 for her to pay her rent. Like, when did that become normal? Like, I should be able to pay my rent for free. And no sooner than she said that, when I went to pay my gas bill that was $31, it cost me— $275. Why is it costing almost 10% for me to pay a bill? That's crazy. Or when you think about what a pound of ground beef costs, a gallon of gas, um, the fact that she comes over to our house every weekend and— I'm an enabler— but she comes over every weekend and packs up, you know, toilet paper, paper towels, because why? Groceries are expensive and they're not coming down. This is the great fraud that we are putting on our young people, and it's not fair.

And that's why we should be fighting, you know.

But then what Trump does is he rolls out his gimmicks. Gas prices are going up again. I'm going to roll out Freedom Centers, 15 gas stations in Pennsylvania that nobody even knows who's funding these things. I'll make it $3.47, and I will try to extrapolate 150,000 gas stations based on these 15. And nobody knows who's funding and subsidizing these 15 stations. You know, groceries are going up, everything's going up. What do you do? You basically co-opt a Walmart sale, which is what he did, and basically said, I took a Walmart coupon, which I don't know, 10, 15% off ground beef. And Trump says, look, that's demonstrating that ground beef prices are down 10 to 15% because his view is you just give somebody something. And there's so many numbers out there that he can say 19.2 trillion, bajillion, gajillion, and people just get lost in it.

This is a big ego trip because here's the thing: when you make people eat out of your hand, you force them to become dependent on you, and you make it seem like you're providing them some great benefit when all you are is making them dependent. And I think that is the opposite of freedom. That is the opposite of what people signed up for when they thought they were getting a president that was going to be interested in them. I mean, many of us knew, like, he was— he was gonna be trash, as he has turned out to be. But freedom is when you have the opportunity to make your own choices— what you buy, when you buy them. You can live where you want to live. You can love who you want to love. You can go where you want to go. You don't have to be restricted by somebody else's rules. And what he is doing is trying to make Americans eat out of his hand based on what he allows us to have.

You know, one of the biggest tells when he gives speeches now, one of the lines he uses is he goes, "I would be the best communist," he said, "because all I would do is promise people I'll give you this, I'll give you that, I'll make it great, and I would be the greatest communist," he goes, "since Lenin." Because again, he makes it even extra weird by calling Lenin Lenin.

How do you hear this much stuff? Because I had to tune him out and just focus on keeping the main thing the main thing for the people that I represent, for Black people in this country and for Americans abroad. Like, I don't understand how you can take in that much Trump and not have your stomach sick every day.

You know, I do it so I can then bring people like you on the network to speak the truth to the people and show that there is a contrast out there. Anything you want to say before we head out?

Well, you know, we got to love our kids harder than we love the chaos that Donald Trump is delivering to America. We have to stand up and fight for them. We have to make sure that they have a better future than what we had. And I'm unapologetic about that. And forget Trump. We got to just work on the things that, that they need right now.

Congresswoman Bynum, thanks for joining us.

My pleasure.

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