Transcript of Suzan DelBene on Democrats’ Final Push to Win Back the House New

Donald Trump is facing the wrath of his own top supporters. Trump MAGA voters are done. They are out and they are sharing their stories. I'll show you this 3-time Trump voter saying he has deep regret for ever supporting Donald Trump. Play this clip.

I voted for him 3 times and I can't— he ain't done what he said he's gonna do.

Are you questioning your support for the president right now?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Put America first, like you said, you know, make America great again, not Israel or China, any other nation great again. It was us.

We have another Trump voter saying that Donald Trump's promises were all false. Donald Trump is an utter fraud. Play this clip.

He gave us a lot of promises, especially in the trucking industry and the shipping industry with the tariffs and everything, bringing stuff back to America, lowering prices, make it more affordable for the economy. And we got the opposite. I believed him. I thought that when you ran a slogan, you had to stand on it.

The fine folks at Home of the Brave spoke to truckers who voted for Trump, and they are done with him as Trump is destroying their livelihoods. Here, play this clip.

Donald Trump, I used to support him, but going into a war, I don't support him now. Trucking is in everything you do. Everything that you see, touch, feel came in on a truck. Diesel prices changed. In January, it was costing about $700 to fill it up. I filled it up a couple days ago and it was over $1,300. Every time somebody go to war, the prices go up. Get out of Iran. We don't want to be there. Going into a war, focusing on foreign countries that we have nothing to do with, that don't help anybody. We don't have time to suffer. We have bills to pay, families to feed, people to take care of. We live paycheck to paycheck. With the way these prices are going, are going, it's going to put us out of business for sure.

Another Trump voter saying Trump is a bald-faced liar. That's the nicest I can say about him. Play this clip.

Would you tell him about the campaign promises that led you to vote for him and what we're living in right now?

I would call him a bald-faced liar. That's, that's all I can say nicely. I've already retired from one company and I went to work just to cover my insurance and my gas, things like that, and the price of food that keeps going up.

So you were planning to retire, but you had to go back into the workforce.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

How does that feel?

It really, it really sucks.

A Florida Trump voter had this to say. Play this clip.

If you could go back to 2024, talk to your younger self, what would you tell him before he went to go vote?

Should have voted different.

Feel hoodwinked.

Been hoodwinked.

Why?

Broken promises.

What were you expecting?

Good economy, no wars. Simple.

What about Republican podcaster, I guess quasi-libertarian, but he was definitely a Trumper through and through, Sean Ryan. What did he have to say recently on a podcast appearance that he made. He said, I've completely changed my mind on Donald Trump. Play this clip.

Have you changed your opinion on Trump now?

Oh, yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Why?

Oh, man, for just for a multitude of reasons. I'm just, you know, to put it plainly, I'm not really happy about anything that's happening right now. I think he's totally gone against what he said he was going to do. And what do you think? Are you happy?

I'm not an American, so I tend to try and— but I think, I mean, one of the things I think a lot about is this situation in Iran and how much of a blunder that appears to be. I don't know a ton about the military or war or conflict, but logically, I can't reason my way out of that situation. I can't find a good outcome. at this point to what's going on there. And because you have been a service person and you served for America, I was curious to get your perspective on what you think is going on there. And do you see a golden bridge or a positive outcome?

No. No, I don't. At this point, I don't know what's going on there anymore. Nothing seems to make any damn sense to me. I don't think there's any positive outcome for America.

What about the folks in West Virginia right now? Trump loses West Virginia.

Hmm.

Here, play this clip.

A message for the president, something you'd like to know. Help, help, help. We need help. The seniors really need help. These people are suffering a lot. They just don't know the half of it.

I love Donald Trump. He shouldn't promise people things that he ain't gonna do though. You know, Donald Trump said it wasn't gonna be no wars. America was gonna come down to where people be living good over here. They ain't living good.

Okay.

They ain't living good. I know people that's working right now, barely making it.

Sometimes I just sit down and cry. Like when you're looking at your bills or— Yeah, and then trying to figure out what you're gonna eat out of a can or something. Right now we're broke. We're broke. We don't even have money for gas. The economy? No, I don't like it. I really thought President Trump would move right on in and take care of everything. He's disappointed me.

We need help.

We really need help. We can't, we can't, we can't go on much longer like this. It's just like Washington's turned their back on us. That's just what it feels like.

Even Ohio Republicans, they are livid at Donald Trump's push for data centers in their backyard. You know how Donald Trump says you're not going to be rich unless you have data centers everywhere. I call them SI centers. Let me show you former Trump voters, Republicans, MAGA people who are pissed off that Trump and the MAGA Republicans have forced data centers down their throat, destroyed their farms, destroyed their house value, destroyed their communities, destroyed the environment. Here, play this clip.

They don't care.

At this town meeting in a Trump stronghold near Cincinnati, the message for politicians was clear.

I retired out here. Now all of a sudden, I may not be able to get back what I put into my home. Who wants to live next to a data center?

Nobody. Nobody.

Nobody knows it better than Angel Shelton. Here in rural Southwest Ohio, she says there is one thing that will determine her vote in the Senate race between Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Jon Husted. You voted for President Trump. You voted for Republicans in the past?

Yes, I did.

Jon Husted's on the ballot. Is that— does this issue take that into account, how you're going to vote?

Absolutely. And he's not getting our vote.

That one issue: data centers. Earlier this year, Angel learned an Amazon data center was being planned here, right down the road from her hay farm.

It absolutely kills our dreams.

Now she worries about its impact to her property and quiet way of life.

Who do I blame? I blame John Husted, President Trump, along with our local commissioners. They don't care about other people.

This is what they were saying on Rogan the other day. Here, play this clip.

Let me ask you this, because I think one of the main reasons why Trump won was because he came and you were like all of us. I was fucking really pro-Trump. But how do you feel now that like We're seeing like the things aren't panning out the way that we were told they were going to pan out.

Well, the no new wars thing is the one that fucked a lot of people. No one thought that we were going to go into this prolonged war with Iran, that who knows how long that's going to take and what that's for. What's the reason why we're there in the first place? And there's some people that say that Iran was ramping up their missile production, we had to stop them. But then there's a lot of other people that know a lot about nuclear bombs and nuclear weapons and say, Not, not only is it like insanely difficult to develop a nuclear weapon, but they weren't even close to doing it.

Now I want to bring in the chair of the DCCC. Congresswoman DelBene, just interviewed her. She's in charge of the Democratic strategy to take back the House of Representatives. You're going to want to watch this. And I think this interview will leave you feeling a little bit more optimistic, but certainly don't get complacent. Now's the time to roll up the sleeves. Ignore the polls, work harder than ever for democracy, for freedom, for liberty, and to hold the corrupt war criminals and those who cover up child sex trafficking rings, these despicable, vile pieces of trash, hold these people accountable. Let's bring in my interview with Congresswoman DelBene.

I wanna bring in Congresswoman DelBene, who's also the chair of the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And this is big, home stretch.

Hope so.

Got the midterms coming up. So here's how I think we do this interview. I want you to kind of take me into the DCCC war room. I mean, you're responsible for the nationwide strategy for the House of Representatives, Democrats taking control of the House. So when people watch the Midas Touch Network and they see our interview with a lot of these great candidates, the whole process of who are— who the candidates are going to be and the nationwide strategy, I mean, that's you and a team of people, of course, and an incredible team that you work with. So let's pretend, you know, I'm in the war room with you and our 7 million subscribers are there and we're, you know, we're talking about a few weeks away for the election. Talk to us, talk to the troops and tell us how you see the country looking right now.

Well, we are in a strong position. We are absolutely gonna take back the majority in the House of Representatives. We need to net 3 seats to take back the majority. And we have a very expansive map across the country as people, across the country have soured on the Republican agenda and are feeling the pain with rising costs, with a now forever war, with communities seeing healthcare hospitals close, healthcare harder and harder to afford. And so our secret sauce is our candidates. As you talked about, they are independent-minded, focused, deeply connected to their community, and are running to actually do their job, which is to be a representative and go back to Washington, D.C. and be a voice for their communities as opposed to a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. So we have great candidates. We have— we need to net 3 more seats to take back the majority. We're on offense in 66 districts across the country and literally all across the country. So we're in a strong position. It's all about reminding people what's at stake, making sure that people understand how important it is that they turn out and vote. When they do, we absolutely will win.

Now, you have a view in the weeds, also a 30,000-foot perspective. So as you've gone through this journey now, like, I remember interviewing you 18 months ago. I mean, you know, here we are now in the last kind of lap of this marathon, if you will. As we're heading to that finish line, are there any surprises? Are there things that are happening now that you reflect on or have you seen develop that have accelerated? Or talk to us about this specific moment. Any surprises?

I think, you know, what we've seen is just the huge developments we've seen across the country, more and more districts coming into play. People want change and they want change everywhere. So I'd say even in these last few weeks, we continue to see races move in our direction. We saw, you know, since Labor Day, we've had 101 races move in our direction by the race raters, the prognosticators who know these races, just 18 moving in our direction yesterday. So I think maybe the one thing people don't realize is just the momentum in every corner of the country, including in districts that they gerrymandered to try to make safe for them in places like Florida and Texas, we have opportunities to pick up seats. And these are seats that looked like safer red seats to Republicans. But even Republicans in districts are struggling. People have suffered with rising costs. The economy— people look to Democratic candidates to stand up on the economy, to stand up for healthcare, to stand up against the corruption from the administration. So the swing has been big and continues and will probably continue to grow as we get closer to Election Day.

Right.

You mentioned the gerrymandered seats. People have referred to this as a dummy-mander in the sense when the MAGA Republicans want to create additional seats, they have to dilute some areas that they may have had a safer seat in to try to push that into a blue area. And by diluting it, something that may have been a +18 Trump may become a +11, for example. And so something that was a +2 now becomes a GOP +9 was their thesis going into it. But that was based on a 2024 map and a logic that was based around that. But now, I mean, you tell me, you know better than me. I'm hearing, you know, anything that's a +12, +15, +17, in 2024 that was a MAGA seat. Those are the types of seats that are in play. So by diluting seats, this may have backfired in their face and they may have put more seats even at play. Are you, are you seeing that as my analysis sound, or do I just kind of rant and rave here?

No, you're absolutely right. They had to move votes around to try to make what they thought were more safe Republican seats And, and what they did was give us opportunities. And in a place where so many people have soured on Republicans across the board, the generic ballot where you kind of look at the movement since 2024, we're up 8 in special elections. We've been up 13 points. So these seats that were, you know, Trump plus 10, those get wiped out when you have a great candidate, and candidates overperform those numbers. So even in districts where folks thought they were even safer, when we have great candidates who are on the ground working hard, who want to actually go to D.C. to be a representative, we win. And that's why we are winning. They have seemingly infinite money, and they are spending it all over the country. So our job is to make sure that people know who our candidates are, to get their message out. When we do, we win. And that's what we're making sure we do right now, especially as we head into these final weeks.

You know, it certainly looks as they get more and more desperate, they start to flail. And I mean, it seems like this almost like a Ponzi scheme, if you will. I mean, what the announcement on Friday was, uh, Trump talking about a Russian diesel deal when there were supposed to be sanctions that were put on Russia. Instead, it was removing sanctions, which I don't even think is lawful based on the prior laws that exist regarding the underlying sanctions. But there's not even a lot of diesel. So when you actually calculate the amount, so it just seems like some performative market manipulation that delivers a PR win for Putin. And people here just get this feeling like this was your plan. Like, this is, you know, this was a guy in 2024, Trump, who said, I'll end this war.

in 24 hours.

And now as we approach the final stretch of this election, he's saying, this is what I'm doing. I mean, it's crazy.

It's crazy. And it's been crazy for a long time. He, you know, keeps saying things that have nothing to do with solving problems for the American people. If he really wanted to solve a problem that he created, he would end a war where he had no strategy, no plan that continues to impact the American people with high gas and diesel prices, puts service members at risk. That would be the solution. Congress should have a say. If Republicans wanted to do something about it, they would actually join us and do our job to make sure that they're hearing from Congress that we do not support this effort. Some Republicans are changing their mind now. It's too little, too late because they know they're losing. It has nothing to do with standing up. It's more political expediency. And you've seen him talk about this, talk about sending checks to folks. No plan, no strategy. People see that and they see that they're flailing and they want some leadership. And we have great candidates who are going to provide that leadership.

You talked about the money issue. It's a real issue. They've got unlimited funding by their oligarchs while 99% of Americans suffered. The right-wing oligarchs, the Musks and all of them, They may— they became trillionaires, you know, basically as every, you know, on the backs of everybody else suffering. So there is a money that's real. I mean, you know, look, we know that on an individual basis, Democratic candidates have done really good jobs individually. But if people are watching this at home and they want to help and they want to figure out, you know, I don't want to throw money in the wrong places, or maybe it's not about even money, maybe it's just What can I do a few weeks out? What's, what's your final message to them before we go?

So we have our— all the key races across the country up on our website, dccc.org. So you can see the races that we think are critical to taking back the majority. They do have seemingly infinite money, but no message, no substance. So I always say even infinity times zero is still zero. We need the resources to get our message out and to get our message out in rural districts to communities where they redrawn the lines and people need to know what district they're in to make sure we continue to communicate with voters. So every dollar that we bring in right now is going out the door. And as I was talking about earlier, with our map expanding and continuing to expand, we wanna make sure we get to every race where we have an opportunity. And so resources are critically important for us to get to all parts of the country and even new races that are coming online where we have opportunities right now.

Well, I remember very vividly our discussions a month or two after that very dark day last November when the election went in a direction that was profoundly negatively impacting our country, I think in ways worse than even our wildest fears. And you had a plan. And you came and you spoke to a very skeptical audience here on this network with what that plan looked like. And then we touched base with you a year ago. And so now to speak with you again over here and seeing the plan actually come together, it's, you know, I think it gives people a little bit of kind of confidence that there are people like you who know what they're doing behind the scenes. So, you know, that's not an underhanded compliment. It is a real compliment.

Well, thank you. I'll take it and remind folks that, you know, we have opportunities in South Carolina with Nancy LaCour, in Texas with Johnny Garcia and Bobby Pulido, in Florida with Pia D'Andrea and Val Dalton and Lila Gray to flip seats. These are all folks who can flip seats and incredible opportunities. Check out the candidates. They are all very, very impressive veterans, firefighters, teachers, mayors, ministers, even a Grammy Award-winning musician. People who really are running because they feel a mission, a patriotic calling to stand up for their country, we are absolutely going to be successful because we take nothing for granted. It means all of us working hard to get things across the finish line. We're going to do that, but let's make sure we all commit to working every day, um, all the way through the tape so that we can see success all across the country.

Congresswoman DelBene, chair of the DCCC. Fun story, I interned for the chair of the DCCC 25 years ago or so, 20 years ago or so. And so I was the— I was given Capitol Hill tours and making photocopies and full circle. Appreciate the work you do, Congresswoman.

Hey, thank you so much.

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