Leader Jeffries on Trump’s Collapsing Term

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3:33Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is panicking as his trip to China is backfiring in his face. Now, somebody must have told Donald Trump that Xi Jinping has been saying that currently American power is declining and China's power is rising. Xi Jinping talked about the Thucydides trap and how a lesser power China is now surpassing the greater power the U.S. and that the U.S. needs to get out of China's way as China becomes the dominant player in the world. And so Donald Trump now is trying to rationalize how could Xi, who Donald Trump admires so much, say that during their state meeting together, during their state dinner together.

4:19Ben Meiselas:So Donald Trump just went on social media and he said, oh, no, no, no, you don't get it. Xi Jinping was talking about Biden. And he also said that we're hotter than ever right now. He was saying we're in a decline as a country when Biden was in office. That's how pathetic Donald Trump is. Here's what Donald Trump posted as he finally broke his silence on social media, ranting and raving like a lunatic, the lunatic that he is. He writes, when President Xi very elegantly, very elegantly, referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation, he was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden administration.

5:03Ben Meiselas:And on that score, he was 100 % correct. Our country suffered immeasurably with open borders, higher taxes, transgender for everybody, men and women's sports, DEI, horrible trade deals, rampant crime, and so much more! Now, obviously, Xi was talking about America right now. I'll show you the readout from what Xi Jinping had to say, which, by the way, is published publicly. But here's the thing. Attacking the person who came before you as a leader, even if you disagree with them, even if you don't think they did a good job, that's the ultimate sign of weakness. Like you don't see any other world leaders out there disparage and defame the leaders who came before them, even where there's kind of massive differences.

5:52Ben Meiselas:And sure, you may say it once or twice or a few times, but making that the main thing you say when you're traveling abroad ultimately damages the country. Now, everything Trump is saying is a lie as well about former President Biden and Trump so pathetic and weak, but it just, no matter what, it just, it's not a way leaders behave. It's not a way humans should behave. Trump goes on to say, President Xi was not referring to the incredible rise of the United States has displayed to the world during the 16 spectacular months of the Trump administration, which includes all-time high stock markets in 401ks, military victory and thriving relationship in Venezuela, the military decimation of Iran, To be continued, strongest military on earth by far, economic powerhouse again with a record $18 trillion being invested into the United States by others, best US job market in history, and with more people working in the United States right now than ever before, ending country-destroying DEI and so many other things that it would be impossible to readily list.

6:59Ben Meiselas:In fact, Xi congratulated me on so many tremendous successes in, should say, short period of time. Sure, Donald. Sure, Donald. And here's the thing, the level of delusion there where every single thing is a lie, it's not just embarrassing. It's incredibly damaging. There's not record jobs. We're in a jobs recession right now. Our economy is not booming right now. Most Americans, other than billionaires and deca-millionaires, are suffering right now. Donald Trump goes on to say that Iran's military is totally decimated. It's not totally decimated. They control the Strait of Hormuz. They've replenished their drones and ballistic missiles and launchers.

7:42Ben Meiselas:And then he puts in, to be continued, exclamation point, again, just creating more global uncertainty while the world moves on from the United States. America first equals America alone. And you just have Donald Trump again, just whining and whining. Oh, Xi Jinping told me how good I am. Then Trump says two years ago, we were in fact a nation in decline. On that, I fully agree with Xi. But now the United States is the hottest nation anywhere in the world. And hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before. Again, so utterly pathetic. More clips of Donald Trump's disastrous interview with Sean Hannity were just released.

8:24Ben Meiselas:Hannity said, so what did G ask you? What did G want from the U.S.? Watch what Donald Trump says. Play this clip. What does he want from the U.S.? A lot of things. We talked about a lot of things. Too many things to discuss, but a lot of things. We had a very good meeting, but - Yeah, and we know that Donald Trump gave G the H-200 chips, the semiconductors. Donald Trump allowed Xi to assert dominance over Taiwan. Donald Trump allowed Xi not to bring up any of the topics that the US wanted to talk about. Then Donald Trump said, Xi is going to order 200 jets from Boeing, and he wanted 150, and I got 200.

9:10Ben Meiselas:No, The market expected 500 planes to be ordered. And now Boeing stock is crashing because people believe 500 would be ordered. You got 200, 300 less than everybody thought. Here, play this clip. We want things from them. One thing he agreed to today is going to order 200 jets. That's a big thing, Boeing. Boeing. 200 big ones. That's a lot of jobs. That's a lot. Boeing wanted 150. you got 200. He said, sort of, I think it was a commitment. I mean, you know, sort of like a statement, but I think it was a commitment. The markets love it. The Dow topped 50 ,000 today. First time since before the war.

9:55Ben Meiselas:And then Hannity said, did you discuss China's support of Iran, Wichy? Did you discuss the fact that China is actively giving military equipment, intelligence, economic support, financial, diplomatic, military. I mean, you had foreign minister Aragji from Iran in Beijing last week with Wang Yi, China's foreign minister. And they were saying that, like it's not even like secret intelligence. Yes, our intelligence community says that China's providing military and economic and diplomatic and other support to Iran. But Wang Yi and Aragji said it yesterday. Watch what Donald Trump says. Play this clip.

10:35Ben Meiselas:The issue, and you've been asked about it, and you've spoken about it, and that is China's support of Iran. How big a discussion was that today? We discussed it. I mean, when you say support, they're not fighting a war with us or anything. No. He said he's not going to give military equipment. That's a big statement. He said that today. That's a big statement. He said that strongly. But at the same time, he said, you know, they buy a lot of their oil there, and they'd like to keep doing that. So pathetic. And then Donald Trump says, Xi says he would like to make deals regarding Hormuz. So maybe we'll see.

11:12Ben Meiselas:What do you mean, maybe? Maybe we'll see. Here, play this clip. President Xi would like to see a deal, man. He would like to see a deal, man. And he did offer, he said, if I can be of any help at all, I would like to be of help. He did say that. Yeah, he did say that. And look, anybody that buys that much oil has obviously got some kind of a relationship with him. But he said, I would love to be a help. If I could be of any help whatsoever, he'd like to see the Hormuz Strait open. He said, if I could be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help. By the way, most intelligence right now suggests that as soon as Donald Trump gets back, that we're gonna be in open hostilities with Iran next week.

11:52Ben Meiselas:And that Donald Trump just wanted this trip to happen for his own personal vanity and then open up hostilities with Iran next week. So stay tuned for that. I'll just show you what Xi Jinping's readout was. This comes from the foreign ministry spokesperson of China. Xi Jinping meets with the U.S. president. Here's what it says. President Xi noted that transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe and the international situation is fluid and turbulent. Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations? That's not talking about Biden.

12:31Ben Meiselas:It's talking about right now. It goes on to say that Xi Jinping said, quote, constructive strategic stability means positive stability with cooperation as a mainstay, healthy stability with competition within proper limits, constant stability with manageable differences and lasting stability with expectable peace. Xi pointed out that the two sides should implement important common understandings reached and make better use of communication channels in the political and diplomatic and military fields. By the way, that used to be a line that the U.S. talked about with Xi Jinping. That's usually what greater powers say to lesser powers, lecturing them on how to use diplomatic and military lines of communication.

13:16Ben Meiselas:But here the U.S. is getting lectured from China. That's a real role reversal. And people who are familiar with diplomatic language will tell you that's the language of dominance as opposed to a lesser power. And Trump didn't say that at all. I mean, Trump said, I like Chinese food. There's so many Chinese restaurants here. And then President Xi stressed that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations. If handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.

13:54Ben Meiselas:Taiwan independence and cross-strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water. Safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the biggest common denominator between China and the U.S. The U.S. side must exercise extra caution in handling the Taiwan question. Now, Jesse Waters, Donald Trump's propagandist, here's how he's describing things in a predictably disgusting way. Let's play this clip. I hear they're big fans over there. The Chinese have made major inroads into the American restaurant scene. But get this, there are over 20 ,000 McDonald's, Taco Bell's and KFC's in China.

14:38Ben Meiselas:And they're growing every year by the thousands. And once the United States gets fast food into a country, that's it. Fried chicken big macs chalupas they start listening to our music watching our movies they start marrying our women i'm just kidding we don't allow that but that's basically now an american colony we got them hooked and it's pretty much over um the chinese have a history of expanding and then collapsing expanding and then collapsing so trump the strategy is ride it out peacefully as they expand alongside them peacefully. And when they collapse, you feast on their carcass. Okay.

15:20Whatever you say.

15:21Ben Meiselas:Should be noted that the bond markets are not reacting in any way that shows that there's stability following these meetings. The U.S. Treasury Department's$25 billion auction of 30-year bonds officially came in at a high yield of about 5.046 percent, the first time in 30 year that the 30-year bond yield auction has closed above 5 % since August 2007, per the Financial Times. Now I'm joined by Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, great to see you as always. Donald Trump has always been exhibiting, I think, cognitive and physical issues that we've been observing this term and even frankly before, but it seems to be getting much worse lately, that kind of cognitive, physical deterioration.

16:11Ben Meiselas:We've seen a lot of members who are very deeply concerned about what they're observing just in how he's behaving on a day-to-day. I wanted to get your reaction to it. Well, the American people absolutely should be deeply concerned. We need a wellness check on this guy. He continues to exhibit signs of decay. The other day, he literally engaged in an unprecedented social media firestorm of posts that were unhinged, that were based on conspiracy theories that were attacking Barack Obama. Clearly, he has Obama derangement syndrome and going after other folks, going all the way back to the 2016 campaign.

16:54Ben Meiselas:He seems to believe he still won the 2020 campaign. Something is really wrong with this guy, which is why I've publicly called upon a wellness check, an intervention, because it's dangerous at this moment to have this individual sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue calling the shots as the president of the United States. You know, you mentioned Obama derangement syndrome. It also seems that he has Jeffrey's derangement syndrome. It's kind of post after post about you right now. And so what's your reaction to all of those kind of very personal attacks that he's been making on you? Well, clearly at this point, I'm living rent free in his head.

17:35Ben Meiselas:And what's incredible is that the country's falling apart. The economy is a disaster. Gas prices have skyrocketed. He's gotten us involved in this reckless and costly war of choice over in the Middle East. Healthcare is being ripped away from the American people. Inflation is through the roof, but he has time to post about me, seemingly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I think the problem is he didn't expect Democrats were going to fight back on all the things. And we're battling him on a terrorist, battling him on health care, battling him on his one big ugly bill, battling him on Epstein, battling him as it relates to his reckless and costly war of choice.

18:20Ben Meiselas:And we're going to battle him until we win in November and take back control of the House of Representatives. Clearly, he can't handle that because he's so used to the sycophantic behavior of my Republican colleagues who've been nothing more than a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda. We're going to be the exact opposite, a check and balance on an out of control president and an out of control executive branch. You know, not sure if you saw this, Howard Lutnick's transcript was finally released. He refused to sit for a video deposition. And in that transcript, he said that he would not answer any questions about his communications with Donald Trump regarding Jeffrey Epstein.

19:02Ben Meiselas:Apparently, the Epstein cover up is now subject to executive privilege and those executive privilege objections were made. So in addition to it not being videotaped, not being under oath, he refused to answer any questions about whether he covered up the Epstein files with Trump saying the cover up is executive privilege. Your reaction, Leader Jeffries? It's extraordinary. The ongoing cover up that has taken place. We're going to continue to stay on the case led by Robert Garcia and the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who've been doing a tremendous job in making sure that we lift up the demands of the survivors for both transparency and accountability, which is why we haven't relented as it relates to making sure that Pam Bondi is forced and compelled to testify under oath.

19:48Ben Meiselas:And we're going to continue to press our case forward because clearly we're in the midst of a cover-up. The Trump administration is hiding something and the American people deserve to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But my understanding is Bondi does not want to be under oath the same way Lutnik wasn't, and she doesn't want to be on videotape at the end of May because she doesn't want the American people to see her reaction the same way people couldn't see Lutnik's reaction, although that transcript is absolutely heinous when I read it. So what's your reaction and what you want to say to Pam Bondi about the fact that she refuses to do this in video and Republicans who are basically enabling that in the House Oversight Committee saying no video.

20:35Ben Meiselas:She came before the Judiciary Committee and embarrassed herself. In fact, because of the pressure that House Democrats put on her at that Judiciary Committee hearing, we believe eventually it resulted in her being terminated, just like we forced Kristi Noem out of her position as Secretary of Homeland Security. But Pam Bondi came before the House and she tried to act like a gangster in front of us. And so where's that gangster persona right now? Show up under oath, testify on camera so that the American people can see you. Or was it all just a fraudulent act and performance for Donald Trump? The stakes are high right now and you're going to be forced to testify under oath, on camera, one way or the other.

21:23Ben Meiselas:You can either do it now or you can wait until Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives and you will be compelled to do it then. But you are not going to be able to evade the scrutiny that comes from testifying in the public domain. Leader Jeffries, I want to get your reaction to Donald Trump's trip to China. On the one hand, you had Xi Jinping talking about a restructuring of global architecture, China being a dominant power, multilateralism. On the other hand, you had Donald Trump talking about Xi Jinping is so strong. You're such a good leader. I love to eat Chinese food or there's lots of Chinese restaurants in the United States.

22:06Ben Meiselas:What's your reaction to how America was being represented by Donald Trump in China? Donald Trump went overseas to China and embarrassed the country as always. It's unfortunate, but it's extraordinary to me that you had an American president go over to China and bend the knee to the Chinese Communist Party. It's because Donald Trump has put America in a position of weakness, including but not limited to by this reckless war of choice that has actually resulted in Iran being stronger today than they were before the United States of America went in as a direct result of the strategic mishaps, the stumbling fumbling, and bumbling of this corrosive, toxic, incompetent Trump administration, of course, including the so-called Secretary of Defense, Pete Hexeth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in American history.

23:08Ben Meiselas:And so Donald Trump went over to China with a weak hand. And as a result of it, I think America is not going to benefit in any way from the bilateral summit that took place over in China. God help us all when it comes out what Donald Trump gave away to the leader of the Chinese Communist Party because of how weak Donald Trump has been as president of the United States of America. Well, it seems to be those coveted H200 semiconductor chips is one of the things that he gave that for national security reasons. It wasn't even under discussion, but Donald Trump seemed to give that away and weak cards.

23:52Ben Meiselas:And he showed his weak cards while he was there. He's like, look at my weak cards, everybody. But I want to talk about Donald Trump's golden ballroom, which we now know is going to cost one billion dollars. MAGA Republicans trying to push that through to make the taxpayers pay one billion dollars for that. a golden triumphal arch to be bigger than Pyongyang's arch, reflecting pool, turning it into an actual pool, coating it blue with someone who he claimed was his pool guy, but then said it wasn't his pool guy on the no-bid contract. I can keep going through these, though,$10 billion settlement with himself in a lawsuit that he brought against the IRS that he's making taxpayers pay for.

24:30Ben Meiselas:I guess this is what he's focused on. So what's your reaction to all of that? Yeah, Donald Trump and Republicans continue to be focused on self-aggrandizing behavior, celebrating themselves. Even though they've been a complete and total disaster, they failed the country in every way possible, but they have zero interest in actually making life better for the American people. Instead, he's focused on spending a billion dollars in taxpayer money to construct a monument to himself on public property, the east wing of the White House, and build this so-called ballroom. I mean, Donald Trump is making the case for why Republicans need to be thrown out of office in November.

25:12Because these people are getting ready to spend a billion dollars when they won't spend a dime to actually make life more affordable for the American people.

25:20Ben Meiselas:wouldn't spend a dime to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, don't want to refund the taxpayer money that was taken from everyday Americans as a result of the Trump tariffs. Instead, they want to give it to their corporate friends, family, and buddies. This is actual corruption unfolding in real time before the eyes of the American people, and it will be a voting issue in November. We are committed to cleaning up corruption and making sure that we actually restore some integrity here in Washington so that the focus is on actually improving the quality of life of the American people as opposed to subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and shameless, which is what Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans have been all about.

26:09Ben Meiselas:Leader Jeffries, you think Republicans are going to get thrown out in the midterms and you're going to become the speaker. You think the Democrats are going to win in these midterms? Lots of people very worried after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. And then these MAGA Republican states eliminated all these black congressional districts. So where do things stand there? Yeah, it's outrageous what has happened in terms of what the Supreme Court has unleashed. The largest assault on black representation since the Jim Crow era. There's a return to Jim Crow-like tactics in terms of destroying black opportunity districts all across the South.

26:44Ben Meiselas:We have to continue to forcefully respond, not just in terms of pushing back in the South as it relates to what happens, but in states all across the country. And that's an ongoing effort. Now, we began this Congress only three seats short. So Republicans have the narrowest majority of any party since 1930, the Great Depression. During the first Trump midterm election, we were 24 seats short. And in that midterm election, Democrats flipped 40 seats. And 31 of those seats were, in fact, in districts that Donald Trump had just won in 2016. We're in a more favorable political environment at this particular moment in time.