Transcript of Rep. Pramila Jayapal Responds to Trump’s Disaster Policies

We just got a bombshell report from the New York Times, Julie Turkowitz, out in Venezuela. She says that she was there this week to document what is taking place there and to speak with people who may have relationships with those who were killed on those fishing boats. Here's what we're hearing from that story. In an interview with the Times, one woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the dead men said that her husband was a fisherman with four children who left one day for work and never came back. We're getting more information about who these people actually were, but there's been zero transparency from the Trump regime. And this comes as Pete Hegset, as the Daily Beast reports, has been throwing manic temper tantrums. And I think as part of one of those tantrums, a rage, demanded that you have all of the top generals and admirals show up to Quantico so he can lecture them about their grooming habits and the warrior ethos and just other really deranged stuff. And this also comes at a time that we're seeing a new report out. The Trump regime or the Trump organization, I guess, to be confused with the Trump regime, They're now doing another billion-dollar deal with Saudi Arabia.

They're going to build a new commercial and housing development over there. This is in addition to the other one that they've been building. It seems like a billion-dollar deal with Saudi Arabia or Qatar or one of these countries every single day. And this also comes at a time that Donald Trump has been bragging about the 24 karat gold that's all over the White House. He said that when world leaders show up, they're just so stunned. They don't know what to do with all of the gold that's everywhere in the oval office. I want to bring in Democratic Congresswoman Jaya Paul from Washington. Congresswoman, there's gold everywhere. They're bragging about the foreign leaders, how impressed they are with gold. And he says, When they show up and they see it and they hear about all the things he's doing, bombing fishermen or doing these projects in Saudi Arabia, he goes, they say, you're hot. They say, this is so hot, Donald. I can't even believe that's an intro, Congressman.

It is a strange, bizarre time where literally you have a President who is thinking about plating the ballroom in gold when he's thrown 15 million Americans off of health care. He's fired over 150,000 federal workers already and threatening to fire more if we go into a shutdown. And I sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I can tell you that there is absolutely no transparency about anything that this administration is doing with foreign governments. And I think that it is because it is about gold. Okay, let's just bring it back to the gold here. It is about gold, about the gold that goes to the Trump family for the luxury golf course or hotel or whatever they get to build or the plane they get to build, or maybe he's making deals for what he's going to put into that golden ballroom that he's building. There is no transparency around how we are using American foreign policy, what we're doing with other leaders, or who we're negotiating with. I mean, you look at the dictators that we are negotiating with to send immigrants from here, kidnapped immigrants from here to those countries, to Sicot in Venezuela, to places that are so horrific and outrageous.

I think this is all part of the same story, complete corruption of this administration. And And it's really like a giant scam on the American people. That's who's getting screwed here.

We see all different types of people getting screwed. Farmers farmers, many of whom voted for Donald Trump, are just getting absolutely obliterated right now. Just a microcosm, too, into Donald Trump's thinking. I think when you look at China's not buying from our farmers. So is Donald Trump prioritizing his trade negotiations with China about how we get American strawberries and corn and other things over there? No, he's focused on a TikTok deal for his rich right wing oligarch friends because he says that he, and we heard from Netanyahu recently, they envision controlling the algorithm in ways that benefit MAGA through their oligarch friends. While we bail out Argentina, while then Argentina starts undercutting the soy bean farmers in the United States with China. And then Donald Trump says, It's a golden age, but we've got to bail out the farmers. And you think of just that triangle, it all goes to screw Americans at the end of the day, unless you're one of his oligarch friends.

That's right. I mean, you saw it with the billionaires that were in in the White House, the tech billionaires that were in the White House, all praising them because they're going to get these deals so that they can buy more underground compounds and luxury yachts. But I was reading an article this morning. I think it was in the Washington Post or the New York Times, It was about the people who supported Trump who are seeing this, and they're feeling really betrayed. Because remember, this is the guy that said on day one, he's going to lower prices for the American people. This is the guy that said, on day one, I'm going to end all the Wars. Everyone's going to be thanking me, and of course, I'm going to get a Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, none of those things have happened. And in fact, it is the farmers, it is the small business owners, it is the seniors who are seeing their hospitals shut down or their nursing homes shut down. It is all of the people in red states as well as blue states, many of whom voted for Donald Trump, that are now seeing that he's a con man.

He's all about himself, and he is doing active work to enrich himself and his big billionaire buddies while he really makes life impossible for working Americans. And I think the only thing that we have, the only thing we can say about all of this is it's very sad. But I do think you look at his ratings that are in the tank and you see how unpopular the Big Bad Betrayal Bill is, and you see that Americans are waking up. They don't believe anything. They believe less and less of what he's saying.

But what's so fascinating, too, is when you then watch the weekend shows, I saw you on some of those shows or the corporate news, they make you, like literally you, respond to his talking points as though, Here's what one side says. But then we've got Congresswoman Jaipal, what is your response? And what to me they should do is say, This His nonsense, it's false. When he goes, The Democrats just want to give a trillion dollars to illegal immigrants, and that's what's holding up the budget. That's not a true statement. Donald Trump says, Congresswoman Jaia Paul, that the Democrats want transgender for everybody, and that's what's holding. I'm like, I don't even know what that means, transgender for everybody. I'm not even sure. And what none of them cover, zero of them, is that over the weekend, Donald Trump made a post with AI saying that he was bringing something called called Med Bed.

Oh, my God. I saw that.

That's stunning. Aliens from outer space that are going to come down and cure people's cancer with a Med Bed. No one mentions it. To me, that's what... What?

Well, I think that's the value of what you're doing, right? That's the value. We have to create a different ecosystem for media because even all of the mainstream channels, he's bullying them. Jimmy Kimmel goes off the air. He comes back on the air. He threatens to take somebody else off. There are lawsuits where these people settle. I think what we have to understand is with an authoritarian, with a dictator, with somebody like Donald Trump, who is completely exceeding every presidential power that is in the Constitution, he is overtaking all the other institutions, the only response has to be we have to create our own movement of people who can resist and do resist and stand up to the bully. Because what we have to learn as Democrats is this is not like other times where you have a reasonable party on the other side who's going to negotiate with you. This is a guy who lies, who breaks promises to the American people, but also to us in Congress. I mean, we make a deal about government funding for the last CR, and then he essentially goes and rescinds a whole bunch of money and eliminates a bunch of agencies that he doesn't have the power to do.

And so we can't keep responding as if this is the same moment where we're dealing with a responsible party because the media is not really covering it, and exactly as you said. And I think that we have to keep putting out the information and making sure that we are just framing this as it is with the facts, not the way Donald Trump wants to frame it, but as it is.

And I think about the threats directed very specifically at you. I mean, I could only imagine what goes on behind the scenes, but very publicly, you had this Republican house guy, John Gillette, who in response to a post talking about just being peaceful and protest peacefully and coming together and just calling out what's happening, though, in a very regular way, he responds that until people like this, like referring to you, that advocate for the overthrow of American government are tried, convicted, and hanged, it will continue. That's not like a rando on social media, which I'm sure you get a ton of. That's a guy who's in the House, state representative in Arizona. And that's constant that we see from them. I mean, with all of these tragedies that have happened recently and all of these national traumatic, no matter what it is that happens, right away, they seem to just civil war, this, that. And it's like, What are you talking about?

Well, they want to turn up the temperature, and they want to blame Democrats for any political violence, when actually the studies on this show that political violence has come much more from the right. We condemn it all. Let me be clear, we condemn it all. But what they are now trying to do is the same pattern of suppressing dissent. My resistance lab trainings, and anyone can sign up for and let's show people that we intend to continue this, resistancelab. Us, we go into peaceful, nonviolent protest. Nonviolent protest that is a legacy of Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi and people across the world who have been fighting back against authoritarians, that is what they're trying to say is so horrible because they want to shut it down. It's been incredibly successful. We've trained over 15,000 people in all 50 states in just four and a half months, and we're going to continue to do them because this nonviolent resistance movement is the only way to build the people's power to actually take on the authoritarians that are taking over our country right now. They've taken over the institutions largely, not completely, but largely, and we need people to step up.

It's a very different situation than others, and they're going to keep trying to define us as the people that are inciting violence. But here's an elected official state representative from Arizona calling for me, a federal elected representative in the United States Congress, to be hanged. That is stunning, calling for my execution. I'm not going to let it lie. I'm not going to normalize it. And I'm also not going to let it scare any of us. They're attacking our trainings precisely because they know how effective it is when we do nonviolent people's powered resistance movements. They know how effective that is. They want to shut it down. We're not shutting it down. We're going to get even more people on the next one because of this. But it is appalling. And I'll be honest, it's scary. It puts all of us in danger. But you don't see Pam Bondi or Cash Patel going after this guy.

Congresswoman, before we go, do you see signs of hope as we're approaching October? Again, you mentioned Trump's approval is plummeting. It doesn't seem like Americans like this authoritarianism. Do you see hope as we start approaching the end of this year?

I do. I really think that people are seeing him for who he is, a con artist who is in this to enrich himself and his big billionaire buddies. And they see that the billionaires are getting richer and getting trillions of dollars of tax cuts while Americans are losing their health care and seeing grocery prices go up, electricity bills go up, people making decisions about the story The story that I was reading where they're eating casseroles every night because that's what's most cost-effective for this family that runs small businesses, and they voted for Trump. So I think people are beginning to see this. And I also think that people are beginning to realize that our checks and balances are not working and that they need to stand up and they want people to resist. They see that whether it's Epstein, whether it's foreign affairs, whether it's domestic affairs, that Trump is not working on their behalf. I'm not saying we've won this battle, but I do think that the American people, Republican, independents, and Democrats, they are not going to be taken for a ride forever. And I think that that's some of what we're seeing.

But we have to continue, like you said, to fight back against some of the mainstream media that frames this completely backwards. And we have to make sure we're getting our message out, not only about what Democrats oppose, but what we fight for, how we are fighting to make life affordable for people, how we have brought down health care costs, want to do more to fundamentally make it possible for everyone to thrive, not just barely survive.

Congresswoman Jaya, Paul, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

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