Trump loses the government shutdown messaging war

27:05Mississippi grew by 242 percent. Louisiana and West Virginia grew by 234 percent. Georgia by 227. Tennessee by 221. These are largely Republican states that are going to feel the brunt of this. So what is what like? Why not relent on this issue that is overwhelmingly going to help red states? So I think there are two answers to this. One answer is just straightforward, and that is last spring when they were negotiating the deal. They wanted to do a trillion, that's with a T, a trillion dollars in tax cuts for a handful of billionaires and multi-multi-millionaires and billionaire corporations. and because they had other stuff running in there, they were going to run up the federal deficit by trillions more.

27:55So they looked around and they said, okay, where can we cut? And they decided the place they could cut was on healthcare. So the money that's being taken out of the healthcare system, no surprise, is right at a trillion dollars. And that's the money that's going over the billionaires. But, you know, I want to make a related point. It's definitely about the money. And they just didn't want to have to face the fact that they would be upping the deficit even more. So that was part of it. But you know what part of this is? It's a fundamental question of do you want a government that works for people?

28:35And if you really think that the job of government is just to help out the billionaires and keep the masses quiet enough that they will work in your fulfillment centers and pave your roads and mow your lawns and not raise any problems, if you think that is the role of government, then the Trump administration is for you. because that's the direction they're pushing everything they can. But if you genuinely think that the role of government is to be on the side of people and to try to help build a safety net for folks so that if your grandma outlives her savings and has to be in a nursing home or your cousin has a baby that runs up a million dollars in medical bills in the first month, or your neighbor gets hit by a bus and needs a wheelchair or a home health aid, that we can be there for each other.

29:43And government is the way to do that. So I think it's both things. They wanted to be able to give that money to the billionaires, but I think also they don't want government to work for families. And healthcare is a place, geez what's so ironic here the health care system's already broken right already not working and their answer is make it worth less make it more painful for people make it more costly for people make more people say government is not on my side that's what the republicans want right so they can use that as a pretext to say this way we should privatize everything we should privatize Social Security.

30:25We should privatize the post office, not have to pay for anything, not have to worry about spending federal revenues on on these pesky little projects. This way we can keep giving ourselves tax cuts and not feel like we have to offset it with something. That's right. That's right. It's a big plan here. Yep. Trump will push back on this and has pushed back on this and has come out and said, you know what the Democrats want? They want they want health care for illegals. And so can I get can I get a very clear explanation of of of the reality here? are in terms of what Democrats are pushing for with these ACA subsidies and whether undocumented immigrants are even eligible for ACA subsidies.

31:04So can we just start with Trump's statement is a lie. Federal law is absolutely clear. The number of undocumented people here in the United States who are getting assistance from Medicaid or from the ACA is exactly zero. It is not legal right now. That's it. Nothing more. And every time Donald Trump tries to run this play, we should all just look up and say, liar, liar, liar, because that's what's happening here. And it's one more effort to distract people. Understand this. Not everybody who has Medicaid actually realizes it's Medicaid. In different states, it's called different things. In Oklahoma, it's called SoonerCare.

31:54In Massachusetts, it's called MassHealth. I just learned that in Vermont, it's called Dr. Dinosaur. Go figure that one out. But the point is, it's called something different. It's still the same federal program. So there are a lot of folks who don't realize that this cut that is barreling toward them is actually going to hit them smack in the head or hit people they love, people they care about smack in the head. And that's exactly what Donald Trump and the Republicans are counting on, that they're not going to have to pay a price, that, yeah, life will get tougher for you, but no one's ever going to be able to pin it on Trump and the Republicans.

32:36How is this not a win win for Trump? Because he's come out and I'm going to throw to a clip right now of some of the things that he said Republicans are able to do if and when we do actually get to a shutdown. Say about the state of the Democrat Party when they have a 33 percent favorability rating on average in recent months and they're willing to shut down the government over health care. They are shutting it down. We're not shutting it down. We don't want it to shut down because we have the greatest period of time ever. I told you, we have 17 trillion dollars being invested. So the last person that wants to shut down is us now.

33:08Now, with that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. And, you know, you all know Russell Vought. He's become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way. So they're taking a risk by having a shutdown because because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people. We don't want to do that, but we don't want fraud, waste and abuse.

33:48And, you know, we're cutting that. So right there, he's basically saying that a shutdown would enable him to make deeper cuts, to fire more people, to to be more surgical in the ways that he wants to continue to gut the federal government. So on one hand, he he notches a win if the government shuts down because there's no oversight, as if there's really any oversight now on him as it is. But there's no oversight from from Congress or anybody else. And more power is consolidated into the executive branch. And on the on the flip side, I mean, like he really doesn't you know, he doesn't benefit much by by by doing any of that.

34:24So what incentive is there for him to to actually make a deal with the Democrats here? If he will consolidate more power and notch more wins by virtue of it shutting down. So that clip says everything you really need to know about Donald Trump, right? He's saying we could hurt even more people. And Democrats are the ones who don't want to hurt people. So we're going to hurt Democrats by hurting working people all across this country. And we got a whole lot of ways to do it. I got a couple of responses to that. The first one is they're already doing it. And there aren't stops on this government right now.

35:03Look, the courts are doing their best in some places, but so far the Supreme Court just seems to give a pass every time. But I see it exactly in reverse here. And that is, there comes a time you've got to stand up and fight back. You just can't say anymore that we are going to lie down and let Donald Trump do whatever he wants. look it's been nine months now and things have not gotten better he never reached a point where he said you know what i got enough now i have imposed enough pain on people i have gotten enough crypto dollars i have helped out my billionaire donors there is no enough for this man so this is the fight this is the fight to pick right now the fight over health care for millions of Americans, the fight that will touch every single person in our country, and to stand up and show that we can fight.

36:03Because here's the risk that Donald Trump runs. We stand up and fight back. We push back. We make clear that this is Donald Trump and the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans shut down, and that everything that is not working is not working because of them, all of a sudden the world starts to look different. Because understand, we watched Donald Trump just go on and on, but he is not indifferent to hearing that people don't like what he's doing. Remember last April, he was doing all the tariff stuff and all of a sudden the stock market went down and he said, whoa, not so much, right? He decides he's going to go invade and then, whoa, he gets pushed back and he decides, maybe he's not going to Chicago.

36:56Maybe he's going to pull and try to do it another way. He is listening. So this is the moment. I know you hear this all the time, you know, call your senator, call your rep, call the White House, talk to each other, put it out online. But it really is, because if we could come together and push back, if we can get a win here on health care, if we can show that we fight and that we know how to stick together, that we know how to bruise them over trying to impose this kind of pain on the American people. that's when we start to take our country back. That's when we start to make this democracy work again.

37:43That's when we start to put checks and balances back in place. Whatever you are most aggrieved about that Donald Trump has done, fighting back starts with coming together in a big joint fight and winning. And I think the healthcare fight is exactly the right place to do that. And finally, let's on. Let's end off with this. You know, there there is still a not insignificant, a nonzero faction of Democrats who who are in support of a shutdown. I believe it's like a third of Democrats. Two thirds of Democrats are against the prospect of a shutdown. And I think that there are plenty of examples of why that would be so dangerous.

38:26But for those last third, can you talk about just some specific instances? And Trump alluded to this in the clip that I showed you before, but it's also he's not a trustworthy narrator. And so he will just say whatever, you know, errant synapse fires in his brain and words fall out of his face. What kind of power does he have in the event that a shutdown does occur and that Democrats, even from the minority, no longer have any say on anything because Congress is no longer in session? So that's a really difficult question. And the reason it's difficult is we have no precedent here. Always before, we have had presidents who were willing to follow the law.

39:07We now have somebody who says, you know, if he's got a hammer, he can break anything he wants. And that Democrats have no power to stop him. Hell, Republicans have no power, it seems, to stop him. So we're living with a guy right now who thinks he can fire anybody. and the Supreme Court so far that when the cases have bubbled up to them, they've said, you know what, go ahead and fire those folks while we decide whether or not it's actually legal to do that. I have to say, I take his argument that he can do so much more as nothing more than an empty threat at this point. Donald Trump doesn't feel bound by the oversight of Democrats in Congress.

39:57He doesn't feel bound by the laws that are written on the books. He doesn't feel bound by the advice of his own lawyers, if there are any still around, who are willing to say to him, Mr. President, what you're doing here is not legal. He doesn't feel bound by any of that. I think that means it is time to wage a fight. And the fight has to be all of us. The fight has to be the giant pushback to say, Donald Trump, the people are not with you on this and not with you by a little bit, not with you by a lot. Because the people of America think that it is wrong to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to your billionaire friends and to take that money away from little babies who need health care and seniors who need nursing homes, that we are willing to stand up and fight for our values.

41:02That's where the power is, and I think it's about time to show that to Donald Trump. We'll leave it there. Senator Warren, thanks so much for the time. You bet. So good to see you. No Lie is brought to you by PrizePix. You and I make decisions every day, but on PrizePix, being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on PrizePix where it's good to be right. Now, I watch football every weekend, also every Thursday, every Monday, so as much football as I can possibly get. It's the one respite that I have from politics. Now with PrizePix, I'm able to actually gamify, get paid in the event that I'm right with football.

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42:44That's code BTC to get$50 in lineups after you play your first$5 lineup. Prize picks. It's good to be right. I'm joined now by Congressman Ro Khanna. Thanks for joining me. Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me on. So we have seen kind of a scheme unfold in real time in terms of preventing what would have been the adoption of a discharge petition that would have compelled the release of the Epstein files. Now, Mike Johnson's figured out a way to maneuver around that. Can you explain where we are in terms of this scandal at the hands of Mike Johnson? Well, he's refusing to seat Adelita Grijalva, who won her seat in Arizona.

43:23By the way, she didn't win a squeaker. She won 69 % to 30%. And he's trying to delay. But there's been so much pressure on him. And this is where people's voices matter that now he's saying, OK, I'm going to swear her in when we next her in session. That will be October 7th. and if he follows through, that means she gets warning, she signs the discharge petition, she says it's the first thing she's going to do, number 218, and then we have seven legislative days that have to pass, and we get a vote. It will be the first time, Brian, in the history of Donald Trump since his first term that a Republican Congress will be forcing a vote against him.

44:05I believe we're going to get an overwhelming vote once there's actually on the floor, 40 to 50 Republicans standing up against him. And that will be sent shockwaves across Washington and across the country. Where do you draw the confidence from, given the fact that we've only seen four Republicans thus far sign their names onto the discharge petition? Well, they have shown a lot of courage because they're getting bullied by the White House. They're getting bullied by everyone and they've stopped to it. But the reason I'm confident is once there's an actual vote, say, do you want to have a full release of the Epstein files?

44:41Voting no on that is a pretty, pretty hard vote and actually could cost you your seat in some places. And so I think once we get it to a vote, the speaker will tell Toronto, look, I tried everything. Now we got to try to block it in the Senate. And a lot of Republicans will vote for it. The beauty of this issue for us is that we're standing with survivors. It's the right thing to do. We're protecting children. But we're also showing that it's not just that we're against Donald Trump. Now we're on the side of people reeling against the system. Many of them voted for Trump because they thought Trump was going to take on the system.

45:19And now we're saying, no, actually, he's part of the problem. He's part of the system that's protecting rich and powerful men who were pedophiles. We are actually a part of a coalition to take down this rut-rigged, corrupt system. It's Democrats who are the true reformers, and we're forcing the release of the file. So it changes our party from being a party of the status quo to recognizing that people are angry with the rigged system, that Trump's become part of the swamp, and we're taking it on. I understand that there is obviously virtue in the fight. I understand that we may be in a situation where we can flip a lot of these Republican lawmakers and hopefully Republican senators who recognize that they probably don't want to be on the wrong side of this thing.

46:01But the final step, of course, in getting any legislation passed is the signature from the president. And so I think it's safe to say that Trump is not going to sign a bill that would release the Epstein files in which his name appears God knows how many times. And so is the actual is the actual strategy to compel the release of these files to to hope that if and when he refuses to sign on to this legislation, that it then goes back to Congress and there's some veto-proof majority that compels its release? Yes, that's why we want the big numbers. We want to try to get to a veto-proof majority, which I don't think is out of the question.

46:41Look, I know I haven't done a whip count and I don't know, but there's a chance that we could get an overwhelming vote. The second is that if we could get this passed, I mean, think about it. It's the first time Donald Trump has ever, in his entire presidency first or second term at a Republican Congress rebuked him. And at some point, he may just think this is not worth the political cost. He hasn't thought that yet, but he may release the files with his name redacted. He's already gone through eliminating his name everywhere. And people always ask me, how are you going to know you get the real files?

47:14The victim's lawyer has seen the files. So Bradley Edwards will be able to corroborate whether we're getting the rail files. And there's a lot more to it than Trump. There are hundreds of rich and powerful men who knew about Epstein's abuse of young underage girls and turned a blind eye who helped cover for him. So he got a lenient sentence and who basically were standing in the way of prosecution. And some of them participated, according to the victims, in a farm system where they were engaged in abusing young girls. Congressman, does all of this suggest that you're not confident that the oversight committee, that the documents the oversight committee is getting are going to satisfy, are going to be satisfactory, are going to be all of the documents that are contained within the files?

47:59Well, the oversight committee is doing a good work. And I give Robert Garcia a lot of credit and some relief credit. I was on Lawrence O'Donnell. Lawrence O'Donnell said, look, the real way you need to get the files is to ask the Epstein mistake. The Bradley Edwards is on the show. Now, think about how hard the FBI is investigating this or Pam Bondi's investigating it when they never thought, oh, yeah, maybe we should just get the documents for the Epstein estate. It took Lawrence O'Donnell having the victim's attorney on to talk to a congressman of the Oversight Committee to come up with a rocket science genius idea that, yes, let's get documents for the Epstein estate.

48:36Josh Patel and Pam Bondi never thought to do that. And then they're claiming they had a thorough investigation. Anyway, to Garcia's credit, He ran with it once we did the letter. Homer felt so much pressure, he subpoenaed them. We are getting documents for the Epstein estate. Some of them have been pretty eye-popping, the idea of Dershowitz and all the excuses that he's been making for Epstein, the fact that Musk and Peter Thiel and Gates were on the aisle, and the fact that the birthday book existed and it had the letter that Donald Trump sent. And I think we're going to continue to get documents.

49:10But ultimately, what we need is the witness interviews. of the victims and the interviews and memorandum of big alleged rich and powerful men who abused them. And that's what the FBI, their FBI forms, we know they exist, these memorandum, and that's what we really need to see. And those are with the Justice Department or at the FBI. So I want to switch topics here and talk about the ongoing government shutdown. Can you can you speak about the fact that all of this is predicated on the Republicans Republicans unwillingness to meet Democrats with the one thing that they're asking for, which is an extension of the existing ACA subsidies.

49:46This is not, by the way, some some expansion in subsidies. We're not looking to add anything that we didn't have before. This is a continuation of the existing ACA subsidies so that when 2026 rolls around, people are not stuck paying health care premiums that are 75 to 100 percent more expensive for 24 million Americans. You summed it up, Ryan. This is to prevent the doubling of your healthcare premium. Everyone who's getting a premium on the exchange, your rates are literally going to double. Meaning if you're paying$7 ,000 for healthcare insurance, you're going to be paying$14 ,000. And by the way, all of the rates of anyone on private insurance are going to spike because of the Medicaid cut and because the ACA health insurance companies are going to have to go somewhere else to cover their shortfall.

50:36So this is a health care tax on the American people. When Donald Trump ran, do you remember this, that he ran? I'm on day one going to bring down costs for the American people. How many times did he have that line? And what has he done? He's increased costs with tariffs, and now he's going to double Americans' health care costs. We're actually doing the Republicans a favor. We're actually helping them politically, literally. If I were J.D. Banson and Senator Thune and Mike Johnson, I would figure out a way of just taking this deal and saying, thank you. Thank you for not having us get totally wiped out in the midterm elections because you saved us from having health care premiums go up double for Americans and cost us all our swing seats.

51:16And that's why I'm glad that the Democrats this time are holding our ground and we should not budge. We are on the side of the American people. And all those pundits are saying, oh, they blame the Democrats, they blame the Democrats. First of all, let me just be a little bit bold and blunt here. No one thinks the Democrats have much power in Washington. That's what they dislike about us. We're not strong enough. No one is going to believe that the Democrats are holding this up. They think the Republicans have all the power. They want the Democrats to fight harder. So this argument that the Democrats are blocking this is just not believable.

51:48Trump, that way, is a victim of his own success. He has convinced the country he's the only one who's got power. And secondly, the independents are polling at negative 20 % in terms of Donald Trump, blaming Donald Trump for this. So can you explain the rationale here? This is an issue that's going to land squarely in Republicans' laps when people see in an election year, by the way, a midterm year, when they see their healthcare premiums double, what is the rationale recognizing, by the way, that the majority of states that saw the biggest increases in ACA subsidies and ACA enrollment, rather, were Republican states.

52:27We're talking Tennessee, West Virginia, Texas. And so what is their rationale? Why would they put themselves in such a perilous position in their desperation to rip health care away from people? Because they've been obsessed with a single thought. Repeal Obama, right? That's how Kump ran. Obama wasn't born in America. He has to show his birth certificate. How many times in the campaign trial did he say, I'm going to repeal the Affordable Care Act? I'm going to repeal the Obamacare. I'm going to repeal everything Barack Obama did. How many times did we have votes on that in the first term of Trump?

52:59It was 77 times there were votes to repeal Obamacare. You wouldn't remember the number, Brian. That's surprising. That's where my brain cells go, unfortunately. And John McCain saved us. He saved the Affordable Care Act. The irony, the guy who lost to Barack Barack Obama saves the Affordable Care Act because he has some decency for the American people. But they've still tried. And look, they've repealed. They've had a silent repeal of 30 or 40 percent of the Affordable Care Act because of the Medicaid cuts. That is cutting the expansions of Medicaid that were at the cornerstone of the expansion of health care.

53:35And now they want to go after the rest. Well, the way to go after the rest is to get rid of the tax credits on the premiums. People aren't going to be able to afford it. And we'll go to having a country which has 30, 35 million uninsured again. Right. It's basically reverting back to the system we had before and eliminating any semblance of the legacy that Obama left behind, because this is about massaging the fragile ego of a 79-year-old man. Yeah, but this one goes beyond Trump. This has been the obsession of the Republican Party. I mean, since the Tea Party, they have been running on repeal Obamacare.

54:12And they will go through any lens to do this. And it needs to be exposed because it makes a political sense. It's not like they get some pollster there saying this is the fight they had. This is their obsession. And they're like, OK, we have power. We have things that we are obsessed about. If we could have the House, Senate and the presidency and we could raise the minimum wage to$15 and pollsters said, oh, you know, this is very unpopular, we would fight for that. This is their obsession. Their fight is to take away health care. Yeah. Let's finish off with this. You have recently called for a Palestinian state.

54:50That announcement was met with some unorthodox response by Laura Loomer. So first off, can you explain what happened between you and Laura Loomer and just your reaction to kind of how that situation devolved into what it is now? Well, I was shocked. I got a dose of reality into this right-wing network, and when they attack you, look, I have been very outspoken on Gaza. I have called and said that we should not have military sales to net meow to kill salons. And then I led a letter in the House of Representatives to say that the United States, like France, like England, like Canada, like Australia, like 150 other countries should recognize a Palestinian state.

55:32Three of Hamas, demilitarized, but a Palestinian state with a two-state solution. And I got 47 other Democrats to sign that letter. And that upset a lot of people because APEC was counter organizing against me to say that we shouldn't recognize the Palestinian state. And they only got 30 on their letter. And then I went to Dearborn, Michigan, and that was a sin because you can't go to speak to the Arab anti-discriminationally conference, ArabCon in Dearborn. And Laura Lumina lost it that I went there and I spoke and she started saying that I was speaking at a pro-terrorism conference. And then she had these bots who've just been attacking me, my family.

56:10I mean, it is awful, but it's not going to intimidate me. I am there to stand on principle, whether it means the release of the Epstein files, whether it means the call for a Palestinian state, whether it means calling out big money and the influence of big money. You know, I believe in independence and I believe people want politicians are going to be independent. Can you talk a little bit about the strategy that you think is being employed by Benjamin Netanyahu here because it seems like he is doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on this strategy of trying to raise Gaza to the ground. And if it's to make his position as the leader of Israel stronger, only for him to see democracies across the world that were otherwise staunchly pro-Israel, countries like France, countries like the UK now calling for a Palestinian state in defiance of what Netanyahu is doing.

57:07What is the strategy at the end of the day for this person? Well, his strategy is he believes that he is on a messianic mission for Israel, that he's going to take out Hamas, he's going to take out Hezbollah, he's going to denuclearize Iran, that he's going to fight all these battles through force, and that that's going to leave Israel more secure. And the reality is just the opposite, that he's made Israel now a pariah. He's made them a pariah among not just the world, but among young people. And he's made them for the first time in America more unpopular, more unfavorable, not just among Democrats, but amongst Democrats and Republicans.

57:51And so this is the time, though, for bold leadership in our party. We need to be very, very clear that we cannot continue to provide arms to Netanyahu. They're killing civilians. We need to recognize a Palestinian state that we need to call out the special interests that have too much of a grip on our party and be against any of that PAC money and super PAC money. I think that more than anything, the American people want a politics of conviction. I've seen this in the Epstein fight where they're tired of a government that provides incunity for rich and powerful men. I've seen this in the Palestine fight where the real issue is, of course, the thousands of civilians killed in Palestine.

58:32But it's also what corrupt? Why are we having if forces corrupt our politics that are making people take positions that defy our own eyes when we're seeing bombing of women and children? And are we going to have a party willing to speak up for moral truths? And I think if we want as a Democratic Party to get young people back, if we want to get independence back, we've got to start with the politics of conviction and the politics of principle and taking on a system that people believe is rotted. Believe it there. Congressman, appreciate your time and thanks for the fight. Thank you. Thank you, Brian.

59:07I'm joined now by the co-host of Pots of America, Tommy Vitor. Tommy, we have some major news as far as the feud between Gavin Newsom and the state of California and Trump and his administration are concerned. The New York Times just posted an article explaining how the Trump administration is asking colleges to sign a compact to get funding preference. So basically, they have to pledge loyalty to Trump's agenda to be able to access research funding. And so Newsom had come out recognizing that we've seen this before. We've seen it with law firms, with other universities, with tech CEOs, with media outlets.

59:40Newsom had come out and tweeted, if any California university signs this radical agreement, they'll lose billions in state funding, including Cal grants instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers and surrender academic freedom. And so talk to me a little bit about whether we are seeing a sea change here in terms of how Democrats, I mean, specifically Gavin Newsom here, are recognizing that they should fight fire with fire. I don't know about all Democrats, but Gavin Newsom certainly is. He's like, OK, you want to redistrict Texas? We're going to do it in California.

1:00:12You want to mess with schools all over the country? Well, we're going to punch back here in California. And like maybe that is because Gavin is more pugilistic than some of the other elected officials. Maybe it's because California is like the fifth biggest economy in the world and he's got a lot of actual power here. I like it because, as you mentioned, I mean, when ABC News caved, that didn't stop Trump from going after Jimmy Kimmel and celebrating when his FCC chairman tried to get him kicked off the air permanently. And now Trump's threatening a lawsuit over, you know, this dust up over Kimmel and comments he made about Charlie Kirk.

1:00:45So it's clear that, like, when you give an inch to Donald Trump, he will try to take a mile. Right. You got to throw a punch back. So if we're seeing the extent to which Newsom is getting positive coverage from this, if we're seeing the extent to which his approval ratings are rising, if we're seeing the extent to which the polls show him as a 2028 contender getting more and more likely, then why aren't other Democrats recognizing the example that he's setting and following along? I mean, you just mentioned that California responded to Texas's mid-cycle map redraw with their own. We haven't seen any other states do that.

1:01:20We haven't seen it happen from Illinois, from Maryland, from New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Washington. We have other weapons in our arsenal, but nobody is using them. Now we've seen Trump go after these universities all across the country. He's been doing it for months. And yet Newsom and California are the only state that's actually fighting back. Yeah, I mean, I think we had some bad news about redistricting in Utah this week, too, right? I mean, so the trajectory has not been great in terms of the odds of winning back the House in 2026. I mean, I do think, look, you're starting to see some Democrats try to fight back.

1:01:52I mean, the government is currently shut down because Schumer and Senate Democrats decided to pick a fight and said, look, you have to extend these ACA subsidies so that people's health care doesn't go up or else we're not going to fund the government. We'll see how this fight plays out. I think you're right, though, that Governor Newsom is proven to be the one most adept at waging this kind of political war. But if other governors see the extent to which it's working, these are all political animals, right? Everybody here, what do they say about senators, that every senator looks at themselves in the mirror and sees a president?

1:02:22So these people all see the tack that's working here. They see the media environment that we're in. And so why not take this as some positive reinforcement and recognize, like, I don't even have to be the first one to do it. I don't even have to have to, you know, step out onto a limb here. Newsom did it for us. And look at the look at the reaction that he's getting. Yeah. Part of it's like a lack of fear in Newsom's part. Part of it is maybe they just did a better job thinking and preparing for these kind of eventualities, because it just does seem like they've been they've been not only willing and able to punch back hard, but they have a plan in place.

1:02:57Like you have a strategy that's ready to go, whereas a lot of other elected officials have just been kind of flailing for the last nine months. Right. If they could even bring themselves to punch back, then you have to actually follow up your words with actions. And so, you know, it's difficult enough to get these people to actually say the right thing or to have some posture where they're forward leaning and aggressive and willing to show some fight. But then if they get called on their bluff, they got to be willing to do it. And for so long, we see some, you know, we see a lot of these Democratic, you know, governors, senators, members of Congress who aren't willing to actually put their words behind their put their actions behind their words.

1:03:32Yeah. I mean, look, hopefully this government shutdown fight goes well for Democrats and we'll see a little more momentum behind fighting. So on that point of the government shutdown right now, the main issue, and I want to reiterate this, and I know that people who have watched my channel and listened to my podcast know what I'm about to say. But the reality is the more we can repeat it, the better off we'll be. And that is that the Republicans have shut down the government right now. Let's not forget that they control the House, the Senate and the White House. If they wanted to reopen the government, they could.

1:04:01The only red line that Democrats have pointed to, the only way that we're using our leverage is to continue the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act that already exist. Because without those subsidies, as we head into 2026, people's health care costs are going to rise double or triple from where they are right now. And so this is not just going to impact Democratic states. It's going to impact Republican states. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the five top states that have seen the biggest increases in ACA enrollment are all states that voted for Donald Trump. And they include states like Texas, like West Virginia, like Tennessee.

1:04:35And so everyone is going to be hit by this by this failure to increase to continue the ACA subsidies that already exist. And so Democrats are saying, look, you need some of our votes to reopen the government. And so all we want is a continuation of those existing subsidies. Republicans are saying the Democrats want to fund health care for illegal aliens. And the reality is there is not a single dime of federal funding that goes toward undocumented immigrants. If you look at healthcare.gov's own website, this is a website that's run by the Trump administration. They concede on that website that undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health care on the marketplace.

1:05:10And so that argument is pretty easy to understand. And it's also something that's going to impact all Americans. Everybody understands the very simple concept of what happens when your health care gets more expensive. And so now we've seen some of these Republicans start to flail, and they get into the space where they're beginning to try and explain away their logic. And in politics, when you're explaining, you're losing. And so I'm going to put a tweet right up here on this screen from J.D. Vance. And I'm just going to read the first couple sentences. This is important. Money is fungible. And it's why the Democrat and media lie that health care is not going to illegals is so preposterous.

1:05:47Consider, for instance, two states' Medicaid programs, Ohio and New York. New York gives Medicaid to illegals and Ohio doesn't. When the government gives billions of dollars to New York for Medicaid, that frees up state money in New York that can then be spent on illegals. So when we say that no money is going, no federal funds are going to undocumented immigrants, they're saying, well, all money is fungible. So any money that goes into any of these states via federal funding for anything can ultimately be used for undocumented immigrants getting health care, which seems like a really roundabout way of trying to make this argument.

1:06:20really in the depths of trying to, I mean, like when you start a tweet that says money is fungible, I don't really know that you're winning the messaging war. So I'm curious to your response to this. And you pause before it got even dumber. He says, it's like if you give a mobster$100, but he promises you he won't spend the money to buy a gun and commit a crime. But then he takes $100 and he buys food and then takes the money he would have spent on food and buys a gun. It's like, okay, buddy. This is what money is fungible means. Like, I just don't know that this is the bumper sticker message that they were going for?

1:06:49So a few thoughts here, JD. First of all, the state and federal governments are not criminal enterprises. I think this sort of... Well, some government are enterprises. Well, right, yeah, the current Trump administration. But this is sort of a broad brush comparison. I think it ignores some details. This ignores legal restrictions, budgetary controls, accounting practices that govern the way tax dollars are spent. Also, again, state and federal programs, they're not criminal enterprises. is like funds that are earmarked for Medicaid have to be used in accordance with federal law. You don't just free them up to do whatever you want with them.

1:07:24But he's saying that those dollar bills look the same as these dollar bills. They're all green. So how do you really tell which dollar bills, unless you're following the serial numbers, are going from one to another? It's just like, look, this money cannot legally be used to cover undocumented immigrants. Period. I guess the scenario they're getting at is that someone is undocumented and they come into an emergency room with a life-threatening illness, the doctors treat them. That is current law because of a law passed by the during the Reagan administration. Right. In 1986. It's the only morally acceptable thing to do.

1:07:54We're going to let people die. If somebody walks into an emergency room with a gunshot in their chest, is the first question going to be, hold on, let me see your papers. Where's your green card? Like, what are we talking about? Both of my parents were health care workers. My dad worked in the emergency room. The notion that he wouldn't treat somebody because of their legal status when they're bleeding out or dying is so backwards. And the fact that it's coming to us from the pro-life party just really gives the whole game away. They're showing their entire ass here. People who think like that, that's just not a country you want to live in.

1:08:30Dying. We should take care of people who are dying in this country. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say. And it looks like the broader effort by these Republicans to try and make this money is fungible argument in response to Democrats just saying, don't let our premiums double or triple in health care is not working out well for Republicans. I'm going to also throw on the screen right now a raft of polling from the last few days that show the extent to which this message is not breaking through on behalf of the Republican Party. There was a recent Washington Post poll that showed that Republicans are getting blamed 17 points higher than Democrats.

1:09:06Morning Consult poll showed Republicans are getting blamed 13 points higher than Democrats. New York Times shows seven points higher than Democrats. The Marist poll shows that Republicans are getting blamed 11 points higher than Democrats. So we can see in poll after poll after poll that the party that's taking the brunt of the blame for this thing is the Republicans. Does that surprise you? It doesn't. But look, the polling other than the Democrats historical inability to actually message anything that that might be a little surprising. Yeah, that part's tough. Yeah. I mean, look, the polling so far has been better than I expected.

1:09:38The Washington Post, they did this like big online poll where they could kind of get back some more specifics in the responses from people. And they would say things like, yeah, I blame the Republicans because they control everything right now. So like, I don't know, which is correct. How are the Democrats at fault for this? You know, over time, that can evolve and change. And I think people just sort of like get grumpy that the government's not open, that it's not working, that we look stupid and feckless. So God knows how this will end. But hopefully that kind of early good data, you know, kind of stiffens the spine of wavering Democrats who might decide like, OK, this is going on too long.

1:10:13I know this is not a prediction show, but what do you presume is going to happen here if the Republicans decide not to relent because Trump is just having too much fun trafficking in allowing Project 2025 to that agenda to carry out without any oversight from Congress because the government shut down? I mean, honestly, that's my big fear, which is that Trump thinks he can win the messaging war. He thinks he can blame Democrats and make us pay a price. And meanwhile, like Russ Vogt, his OMB director, is just rampaging through the government. I mean, it's not even necessarily about winning the messaging war because nothing here is popular.

1:10:48Saying that you're going to make sure that health care premiums rise two to three times higher than they were right now is not popular. Cutting Medicaid from 17 million Americans is not popular. Most of their agenda is not popular. But he doesn't seem to be too... I mean, frankly, this is a party that doesn't even seem very interested in the fact that there is an election coming up because nothing they're doing is is kind of adhering to to, you know, popular support. The really what they've been looking for is any any excuse to be able to just undermine democracy at every turn. That's what Russ Vot is doing.

1:11:20Yeah, they're just usurping power. And then the broader problem for Democrats is like, what's the point of getting in a protracted negotiation with the Republicans over budgeting and spending levels and whatnot? when the White House will then just go through this thing called the rescissions process and just claw back money ad hoc against the will of Congress. So it's like either way we lose in some sense because we just can't trust anything Trump will do because they've proven they will just do things that are illegal or kind of completely outside the normal bounds of how Congress is supposed to work.

1:11:53And the other Republicans, Speaker Johnson or John Thune, who most people have never heard of, will never say a word to criticize them or defend the institutions they're ostensibly leading. Right. So obviously that process is going to continue to play itself out. We will, of course, stand on top of all of this. But before we go, Tommy, I wanted to talk about one international issue while I've got you. And that is that Donald Trump has struck up some NATO-esque deal where Qatar is now guaranteed Article 5 protection. So basically if Qatar is is attacked, then in the same way that a NATO country is attacked, Article 5 says that if you attack one, you attack all.

1:12:35And so he's basically promising American troops a security guarantee in the event that Qatar has some security issue. Can I have your general response to that? And is this what was promised when we were told that Donald Trump would be an America first president? This is batshit crazy. I mean, first of all, you can't just pass a treaty that requires us to go to war through an executive order. That kind of thing should go through Congress. That's nuts. Apparently, we figured out what Qatar got when they gave Donald Trump a$400 million luxury airliner. Apparently, it gets you a NATO security guarantee.

1:13:08Although I was talking to Dan Pfeiffer, and he reminded me that on top of that$400 million plan, there's also all kinds of real estate deals, golf course deals, other funds that have been steered into the pockets of Trump, his family, and the people around him. But this is nuts. America First is not defending Qatar's, you know, sovereignty in the event of an attack by Iran. And by the way, the Israelis bombed in Doha in the capital of Qatar last month. Does that mean under this plan that we would currently be at war with Israel? Like, what the hell are we talking about here? This is fucking insane.

1:13:41Yeah. And tell me, this is on top of the fact that we've already seen that Donald Trump has also promised Argentina a$20 billion bailout. And this is at the same time that Argentina has struck a side deal with China to buy soybeans. And so American farmers were cut out of this deal, American soybean sales to China have gone down to zero. It's Argentina's farmers that have now sold their soybeans to China. And then in retaliation for that, Trump is bailing out Argentina to the tune of$20 billion while our farmers are at home watching their futures get decimated because when supply chains change, they often don't go back to where they were before.

1:14:19We saw after Trump's first trade war in 2017 where South American farmers had picked up a lot of the business that was led off by these American farmers because of these tariffs. That business has not come back to the same degree that it was before. Australia's beef market has also surged in recent years as the result of that initial trade war. And we've seen now that Australia is selling much more beef to China to compensate for what American farmers aren't selling. And so these are two instances where Qatar is benefiting from its personal relationship with Trump. And now because the president of Argentina, Millet.

1:14:57Yeah, Javier Millet. The reason that they are apparently going to get a$20 billion bank bailout in Argentina is because Millet is like one of those CPAC guys. He's a Trump fan. Who brings his chainsaw to these CPAC events and his buddy buddies with Trump. And he was on stage with Trump and Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw that ultimately went to Elon Musk because he was in he was in favor of these doge cuts. And so he's just like a Trump guy. He's a Trump guy. And also, you know, the United States is currently slapping a giant tariff on Brazil because Brazil had their own version of January 6th with a former president, Jair Bolsonaro, tried to stage a coup.

1:15:33And now he's being prosecuted. Trump is mad about that because it makes him feel bad that he's seeing another autocrat who tried to stage a coup, get prosecuted in another country. So we slapped tariffs on them. So now the Brazilians are cutting all these deals to sell stuff like soybeans to the Chinese. And again, it's hurting American farmers like America first. Foreign policy has turned into it's unrecognizable. It's 20 billion dollar bailouts for the Argentinian banks. It's sending troops to defend Qatar. It's reinvading Afghanistan to take back Bagram Air Base. This is another thing Trump floated this week.

1:16:04It's Donald Trump being the governor of this organization that's going to control the Gaza Strip going forward. Like what is happening here? None of this makes any sense. Yeah. And behind all of it is a trail of broken promises that Trump made to Americans that he was going to be so focused on what happens in this country that he invoked the cost of eggs. Like that's how granular he got when he was spewing his his selling his bill of goods to the people who voted for him, that he was focused on the cost of eggs, of groceries, of housing, of rent. All of those things have gotten more expensive.

1:16:39And yet now, despite his promises of being an America first president, he's using that money to send overseas to the very people who are striking deals, cutting American farmers out of the equation. Yep. So the whole thing is just completely backwards. Great work, Donnie. With that said, for everybody who's watching right now, it's very important that we help build up this progressive media ecosystem, especially to get our message out. And it's important in moments like these where, you know, these messaging wars are what determines what the Democrats, what the Republicans do moving forward. And so if you are not yet subscribed to Pots of America's YouTube channel, please make sure to subscribe.

1:17:10I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Also subscribe to this channel if you're not yet subscribed yet as well. Completely free. Great way to support independent media. Great way to build up. the ecosystem more broadly. Tommy, appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ro Khanna, and Tommy Vitor. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera.

1:17:41If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to briantylercohen.com to learn more.