Transcript of Trump Privately Spirals as He is Abandoned!

Donald Trump is officially running out of time, and he's running out of people. His chief of staff is gone, top aides are on their way out, his movement is fractured, his critics in Congress have been wiped out, and the president himself said something this week that tells you exactly where his head is: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone." We have a president right now, this morning, who's increasingly alone and counting down his days until he's a private citizen. And so what he's doing is he's doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on many of his monument-building efforts in honor of himself, trying to repair the MAGA movement that is extremely fractured, all while acknowledging that many people aren't even listening to him anymore.

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So what you that is Pete Hegseth getting yelled at, as you know, by a service member at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after laughing and joking in front of the tomb. Pete Hegseth could soon be on his way out. We'll have to see. Now, I spoke with a few people that I want you to hear from today, this morning. The first, the communications director for the DCCC, the campaign arm for the Democratic Party. We talk about what the communication strategy was in 2026 heading into 2028. And then I speak to a congressman newly elected from California about healthcare and what the future of healthcare holds.

Yes.

How are you feeling, and what does this look like for the future of the Democratic Party?

Feeling incredible. As of this morning, 260 seats. It is the largest majority of the century. It's the largest majority, I think, since the early '90s when Bill Clinton came into power. So we're feeling really, really good at the DTRIP. My voice is still a little hoarse from all of the celebrating we've been doing. It's a really, really good thing for the country. The Democrats are going to be back in control of the House and the Senate. We're actually going to be able to deliver on promises that we have made to the American people for the past two years. First and foremost, that's lowering costs.

Yeah. Now, you're a comms person.

Yes.

And this incoming caucus, you have everyone from the far left to the center. It's a huge tent in the Democratic Party these days. What would you recommend to Democratic leadership moving forward on how to message the Democratic agenda, given the wide-ranging opinions in the caucus?

I think you're seeing it already. You know, one of the best things about being a Democrat is that we can have internal disagreements within the caucus and at the end of the day, know that everyone you work with is fighting to make the country and the world a better place. And whether you're on the, you know, more moderate side of the spectrum or the farther left side of the spectrum, at the end of the day, every single one of those candidates who won, and in particular the 45 candidates on our battlefield who flipped seats from red to blue, they were talking about lowering costs.

260 seats. That's bigger than anyone thought, right?

Yes. Yeah, it's it's bigger than we thought. I will say, though, we knew a wave was coming. And I think there's a misconception that the wave is just an anti-Trump, anti-Republican vote. Certainly a part of it. But if you look at the candidates on our battlefield, they won over independent voters, Republican voters, and of course Democrats. And they did it because they localized their campaigns as much as possible and spoke to the issues that people cared about. So you have someone like Lindsey James in Iowa too, a seat that at the start of the cycle we put on our we put on our battlefield.

Mm-hmm.

No one thought we would flip this seat. I was laughed at when we talked about it being competitive last year. She won. This is a double-digit Trump seat, and she won by talking about the issue of affordable housing. She won by talking about repealing these tariffs that are just wreaking havoc on farmers in her community. And, you know, the quality of our candidates, coupled with all of them discussing positive visions for what they were going to do when they got into office, that's the real reason this wave was so big.

And moving forward to 2028, because you mentioned a lot of these double-digit Trump seats.

Mm-hmm.

They're going to be up on the ballot in less than two years now. How do you keep these seats?

Yeah, it's delivering. Beginning of the day, end of the day, it's delivering. We have to lower costs. We have to show the American people that we're fighting for them. I give a lot of credit to soon-to-be Speaker Jeffries for this, because you look even as far back as the government shutdown last year after Republicans passed the big, ugly bill that ripped away Medicaid, that refused to restore the Affordable Care Act tax credits. You saw Democrats standing up and fighting to restore access to affordable healthcare, standing up and fighting and saying, "We're not going to settle for, you know, the wealthiest people in the country getting these massive tax cuts paid for by cutting food assistance, paid for by cutting healthcare access."

Now, before I let you go, I do got to ask you. Democrats love to lose elections sometimes.

Mm-hmm.

We're looking to.

And lose candidates.

And.

Fine.

Into.

Fine.

A majority with 260 seats.

Yes.

Maybe even a little bigger when all votes are tallied. What do you say to leadership, and what do you recommend to them so that they don't get so that they can get out of their own way sometimes?

Yeah. You know, I think you look at the folks, again, on our battlefield, which was 92, 92 incumbent protection districts and districts that we were trying to flip. We have won, obviously, a big, big majority of them. I think the biggest piece of advice is just don't forget where you came from. I don't think it's going to be a problem for this incoming caucus at all. Because, again, you look at these candidates, they are rooted in their communities. They are known outside of politics.

Mm-hmm.

Coaches high school baseball. You know, you look at Sam Forstag in Montana 1. You look at Randy Viegas in California 22. These are folks who are known outside of politics and kind of are able to rise above partisan politics in a way that I really think is going to get them reelected, but also not let them forget where they came from and who they're fighting for.

Courtney, appreciate the time.

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

And now here's my conversation with the congressman, Dr. Richard Pan.

Great to be here today with incoming Congressman Richard Pan from California's 6th Congressional District.

Yes.

How you feeling?

It's been an amazing journey, and looking forward to going to work for people.

What does that look like today? What does work look like on day one?

Well, work right now is, because I'm not actually in Congress yet, is setting up my office and getting my staff put together. And so to be sure that we're ready for people as soon as I I'm sworn in.

And what are your priorities when you are eventually sworn in in January?

Well, you know, we need to follow through on the things we talked about during the campaign. You know, people are struggling with the cost of living. And so think, what are we going to do to try to bring those costs down, being sure people have access to healthcare? So some of the things, of course, are let's see about repealing, you know, rolling back some of the cuts in HR 1, which actually don't take place until the beginning of the year. So they haven't actually even happened yet, but people are looking at the fact that we're going to lose healthcare. Let's look at what's, you know, the the Iran war, right?

Mm-hmm.

We need to pass, you know, resolutions to hold this administration accountable. After all, it's Congress's responsibility to declare war, not the president's, right? We need to bring back the ACA tax credits because we have a lot of families who a year ago basically can't afford their health insurance. And by the way, open enrollment is opening up soon too. So they need to know that maybe this for the next coming year, they can get affordable healthcare coverage. So those are just sort of the initial, like, let's try to roll back some of the things that this last Congress did.

Mm-hmm.

But of course, we need to then go beyond that. So not just stop there, that's in the very beginning, but then say, "Okay, let's let's come up with positive actions to basically address those that cost of living, to address the access to healthcare." You know, too many people, even with insurance, are looking at their co-pays and deductibles and as well as their premiums and saying, "I can't afford this."

So how do you actually do that when you still have a Republican president in the White House who's going to he says he has the veto hat. He's going to be.

Yes.

Mr. Veto. He's going to block anything you guys do. How do you even roll things back?

Well, I think what we do is we put it on his desk.

Okay.

And then he's going to decide whether he's going to veto it or not. If he wants to talk, let's talk. But guess what? We're never going to be accused of not trying.

Mm-hmm.

Because I think that's what we got to do. So, you know, President Trump will still be president, but we definitely need to continue to keep putting that pressure on, not only legislatively, but also in other ways, certainly oversight as well.

Mm-hmm.

So while we're trying to move legislation and moving solutions, we also are going to hold this administration accountable. We can do both at the same time, and we will.

So let's talk about that accountability portion.

Yes.

This week, the attempt to impeach Pete Hegseth failed, at least was blocked for now. Would you support an impeachment effort against the Secretary of Defense when you guys take office?

Well, I think certainly what we should be doing is investigations. And when those investigations show that they have caused harm to the American people, that they have shown that they have been self-dealing.

Mm-hmm.

We should certainly consider impeaching them. That's something I think that we also need to work with the Senate. Thank God we now have a Democratic Senate, because it's not enough just to impeach. We need to convict.

Right.

Right? So we need to build that case. And now with the Democrats having the gavels, we can actually conduct the kind of oversight that has been so lacking by the Republicans. It's always the job of Congress, no matter which parties in Congress, no matter which parties in the White House, to be sure that there's oversight over the executive branch. When I was in the state legislature, I was in a place we had Democratic governor, Democratic legislature. I still conducted oversight, and I held the executive branch accountable when I felt that they were not doing their jobs correctly, even though it was the same party.

Mm-hmm.

And there's then that that's impeachable, then we should definitely consider impeachment.

Is there anyone off-limits? I mean, if you have, for example, one of the Trump kids or Jared Kushner, anyone off-limits from oversight?

Well, by the way, oversight, of course, over official activities. So certainly anything, anyone who is acting in official capacity.

Mm-hmm.

Acting in the name of the U.S. government, then they are subject to oversight. Departed administration, they're subject to oversight.

Let's talk about healthcare briefly, because you are a doctor.

Yes.

If you had it your way.

Mm-hmm.

What would healthcare policy look like in the United States of America?

Okay. Well, I mean, I would say, first of all, as someone who's been a student of health policy and history and actually, I teach at UC Davis, I teach health policy, and we go over the history of Medicare and Medicaid and how that legislative came together. We talk about the Children's Health Insurance Program and the ACA.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So unfortunately, what I have to tell my students is that we never had health reform because a group of people came into the room and, like, tried to work out the best healthcare plan and then put it before Congress.

Sure.

And then it got, you know, it's a it's a deal, right? And we've seen many failures before as well. So but I do think that we can move, continue to move the ball forward. I believe that healthcare is a right. Everyone should have access to healthcare. It should be affordable. It should be high quality. I do think it's possible to get it done. When I was in the state of California, we got 4 million more California's healthcare coverage.

Mm-hmm.

During my time there. So we can make progress. I want to see that we're continuing to make progress forward. Certainly, I have a lot of different ideas about how we could go about doing that. And then there's the question is, what's the political will to get any of that done?

Sure.

Right? But certainly, I think we do need to tackle the cost of healthcare, including deductibles and premiums, right?

Mm-hmm.

As well I mean, deductibles and co-pays as well as premiums, because people aren't afford. We we do need to try to address the fact that I think people with chronic conditions in particular.

Mm-hmm.

And that includes, by the way, mental health as well. We need to create better incentives to be sure we improve not only the quality, but also the efficiency and also the cost of that care. Oftentimes, we try to avoid those people because they are more costly to take care of. So instead of being bounced around, we need to have systems that actually improve the quality and the and reduce the cost of that care, things like and we should be looking at what kind of things we can put in place that are already in existence that we might be able to build on as well.

Mm-hmm.

They're concerned about how much it's going to cost out of their budget. I do think there's a lot of things we can do. Now, admittedly, we have to get past.

Sure.

President Trump for the first two years, but he won't be there after that. So we can if nothing else, we can lay the groundwork and to get to a place where certainly we can provide people much more security when it comes to healthcare.

Congressman, appreciate the time. Thank you.

Thank you so very much. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Aaron.