MAGA Mike Shuts Down House as He Loses All Control

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2:52Ben Meiselas:Oof, MAGA Mike Johnson has shut down the House of Representatives. He's sending all of the members home. He's saying it's time to go on an early vacation. This as he's totally lost control of the House of Representatives. Four MAGA Republicans joined forces with the Democrats to put forward a discharge petition that would force a vote for a three-year extension on the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Certain so-called moderate Republicans who are not all that moderate were trying to propose different solutions in order to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies via discharge petitions. They ended up getting into a fight with each other so they could actually propose nothing.

3:44Ben Meiselas:And you had Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries hold his ground and say, that's not what the American people want. They want a clean three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Meanwhile, MAGA Mike and other MAGA leadership was telling those so-called moderate Republicans that we will absolutely kill any bill, any discharge petition that has any extension at all of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. So what went down yesterday was that those four Republicans joined forces with the Democrats. They effectuated the discharge petition. And rather than allow it to ripen now, Magamike calls a vacation.

4:25Ben Meiselas:He says, we're all leaving. This way he can avoid a vote on the discharge petition to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, and he wants to push it until later in January. And this assures that the Affordable Care Act subsidy extension will expire when it expires on December 31st. Folks, this is as cruel as it gets. And it gets even crueler because yesterday, MAGA Mike put forward and had his Republican base support another health care plan that had nothing to do with extending the Affordable Affordable Care Act subsidies. But what it actually did is in Section 202, it limited women's reproductive rights and basically stopped funding for any plans that would provide women's reproductive rights in blue states as well.

5:18Ben Meiselas:So it would effectively kill women's reproductive rights in blue states or severely harm them if you were on an existing plan. So not only did Maga Mike refused to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. He took the lack of extended Affordable Care Act subsidies and said, let's screw women's reproductive rights. So Maga Mike is running through the halls of Congress and he's saying, I haven't lost control. I haven't lost control. This as he's lost control of the house, as those four Republicans were like, okay, well, if we can't support an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, because Maga Mike, you're killing it.

5:56Ben Meiselas:We're going to join forces with the Democrats. And Hakeem Jeffries held his ground. And those Republicans sided with Jeffries. Watch Maga Mike run away right after he shuts down the house and says, everybody's going home. Here, play this clip. I have not lost control. Because this is the third time. Look, we have the smallest majority in U.S. system. These are not normal times. There are processes and procedures in the house that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities. And when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you know, you don't have to deal with it.

6:36Ben Meiselas:Now, before Maga Mike shut it down and you see him running in the hallways there saying, I haven't lost control. I haven't lost control. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote, Urgent update. Our bipartisan petition to force a vote on a straightforward extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits now has 218 signatures. Mike Johnson should bring the bill to the floor immediately. Mike Johnson's response, vacation. We're all going home. We're shutting it down. Just how irresponsible, how immature and how dangerous that is, right? And just think about it though, in the past three weeks, there's been like three separate discharge petitions.

7:20Ben Meiselas:Maybe you go back slightly longer than that. You have the Epstein discharge petition, then there was a discharge petition to overturn Donald Trump banning collective bargaining agreement by federal government employees. And then there was this discharge petition to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. But rather than Mag and Mike taking it up immediately after this bipartisan and run around him because he and Trump are blocking it. He shuts down Congress. You can't get more demeaning and just despicable than that. Well, you can. Donald Trump then held that deranged national address, if you even want to call it that, last night.

8:00Ben Meiselas:And what was Donald Trump saying? Donald Trump said, it's the Unaffordable Care Act and Democrats are the one raising your premiums. They're the ones fighting to raise it when it's the exact opposite. Donald Trump's tactics are the Putin tactics. Like when Putin goes denazification, right? And makes those vicious lies as pretext to invade Ukraine. Donald Trump goes, it's the Democrats who are raising your premiums. We need to go attack Venezuela because they stole our land. They stole our oil. They're bringing in fentanyl when they're done. What are you even talking about? There's no fentanyl coming out of Venezuela.

8:35Ben Meiselas:What land did they steal? What are you talking about? Here's what Donald Trump says. Here, play this clip. Now, in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats, and they are demanding those increases, and it's their fault. It is not the Republicans' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it. And by the way, it shouldn't be lost on us that MAGA Mike Johnson is shutting down the House of representatives before the day when the Epstein files are set to be released. That's when he's sending all of the members home on a vacation before they're supposed to actually go home in the first place.

9:18Ben Meiselas:Now, as Magamite continues to lose control, when he's confronted with the fact that he's going to cause 22 to 24 million Americans to lose health care now by refusing to allow this Affordable Care Act extension. Even with this discharge petition, MAGA Mike says, yeah, it's only 7%. 7 % of 330 million is 23 million people, as Jonathan Reiner points out. That's a lot of freaking people. And they just poo-poo 23 million people losing their health care and dying. That's why these MAGAs are a death cult, right? I mean, who does this? Play this clip of MAGA Mike. Let's play it right here. But here's here's the false narrative.

10:01The Democrats are pretending as though this affects everybody in the country. It affects seven percent of Americans, this extended subsidy. And of those, even if it was extended without any reforms at all, it would only reduce that small group of Americans premiums by five point seven percent. The Democrats are trying to pretend as though this is all about Americans. No, I understand that this is not for everybody, but it's 22 to 24 million Americans, and there are some Republicans whose districts are going to face some real trouble and some real issues with this. We've talked to some of them.

10:37I understand that Mike Lawler from New York was particularly upset yesterday that he was kind of furious about it, said it's idiotic, it's political malpractice. That's what he told Axios on some of this. They said they could hear him yelling from outside the room yesterday where all of you were meeting. Well, no, no. I was in that room with him, and Mike Lawler is one of my close friends. In fact, I was with him in his district in New York City just two weeks ago, campaigning for a couple of days, raising him money and helping him get reelected. He's an essential member of our conference and a really smart guy.

11:07And what he was arguing for is this 7 % of Americans. But here's the point. What we're going to do today is the first of multiple steps to help not just 7 % of Americans, but 100 % of Americans reduce their premiums, actually reduce their premiums, not subsidize insurance companies to raise the premiums, but reduce them. And the first of those votes is today. This is the lower premiums for all Americans act. We're going to have on the floor. Look, magnesium is something most of us lack. And if you're taking the drugstore variant, you're still not getting the full picture and industrial farming, chronic stress, and everyday aging all make it worse.

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13:04Ben Meiselas:You got to give a hat tip. You got to give credit where credit is due, right? Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, he stood on business. He stood his ground. Take a look at how Axios describes it. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries adhered to a single principle to outflank MAGA Mike Johnson on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Don't give an inch to Republican moderates looking for an escape hatch. Jeffries got everything he wanted. Frankly, the people got everything they wanted because Jeffries stood on business. Democrats will get a House vote on a three year extension on these subsidies without any income caps or offsets.

13:45Ben Meiselas:One senior House Democrat told Axios of the leadership's thinking, we're going to have to negotiate with the Senate, but you don't start from a place of weakness. You start from a place of strength. You have Democrat Jared Huffman say Jeffries has been validated completely after Democrats started 2025 with a lot of angst and people wondering if we had the medal. Even Democratic Congress member Ro Khanna said he held his ground and we won. Democratic Congress member Tom Swasey, he described how the MAGA plan all fell apart as they refused to reach a basic compromise. And Swasey was saying, look, I was trying to reach a compromise with these Republicans when it comes to the Affordable Care Act subsidy extensions.

14:32Ben Meiselas:You know, maybe we do income caps. I don't know. We'll try to figure out a solution. He goes, but ultimately they fought each other. They're out of control. And so they had no choice but to join the Democrat three year Affordable Care Act subsidy extension. Here, play this clip right here. That's absolutely right. This is a Democratic proposal to just extend it for three years. And I'm not opposed to income caps. I have lots of bipartisan bills I've signed on to to have income caps. And if you make above three hundred thousand dollars a year, you don't get a tax credit. So and there's and fraud protections and things like that, which were part of the compromises we made.

15:08But because the Republican leadership refused to put anything on the floor, these Republican colleagues that are very concerned about this issue said, you know, we're going to just do what we can. We got to get this thing off the ground.

15:21Ben Meiselas:And then to rub it in that MAGA Mike has just completely lost control, you then had Democratic Congress member McGovern really pushing back at that MAGA guy, Congress member Mast who chairs the Foreign, I think Foreign Intelligence or Foreign Services Committee. And Congress member McGovern starts in response to Mast holding up photos of like John Kerry with Maduro from like many years ago. McGovern's like, okay, how about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein? How about Donald Trump and Putin? How about Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un? Really? You want to start showing photographs? That's what we're doing here?

15:57Ben Meiselas:Here, play this clip of McGovern. Let's play it. Mr. Speaker, this is serious. It is not a joke. It's not just about pictures, but pictures tell a thousand words. You came here to prevent the president from defending the United States of America. Number one. Number two, he made a big deal about pictures, that if you're in a picture with somebody and you touch them, that somehow you were affiliated with them. Well, here's a picture of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin with a nice handshake. What does that say? That Trump is somehow, you know, Vladimir Putin's friend? Or here's Trump with Kim Jong-un, you know, giving him a nice hug, another dictator that Trump seems to be enamored with.

16:41I mean, Mr. Speaker, you know, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said some strange things today about, you know, how you interpret photographs and if people are shaking hands or whatever, but somehow if your arm is around somebody, that means that you're dear friends. And I'm just looking at this photo of Donald Trump with his arm around Jeffrey Epstein. By your standards, they must be in love. But, you know, this is not this debate is not about the gentleman's personal weird code untouching. This is about war.

17:13Ben Meiselas:And then as Magamike shuts down the House of Representatives, our friend Pablo Monriquez, who does a great job on the Hill, here's what he interviews AOC. He's like, what do you think about J.D. Vance? And she goes, I would stomp him in a head to head if we ever had to run against each other. Here, play this clip right here. Do you think that you could beat J.D. Vance in a head-to-head race for president, as polling suggests in 2028? Listen, these polls, like three years out, are, you know, they are what they are. But let the record show, I would stomp him. I would stomp him. Thank you, Congresswoman.

17:55Ben Meiselas:And finally, let me play you out with Democratic Congress member Jamie Raskin. And Jamie Raskin basically says, can we just get real here for a second? if Trump and Maga Mike and Stephen Miller really had their way. I mean, do you realize what they would be doing to our country? Like, do you realize if they could truly get through everything they wanted, how none of what they're doing makes any sense? Let's play this clip. Trying to throw money at soldiers, but that's not how you build a strong economy. And I mean, take his comments on immigration. Again, the exact opposite of the truth. I mean, if he and Stephen Miller really had their way and they not only staged all of these conflicts all over the country and raided people's communities, but say they really got rid of 12 million undocumented people in the country, we would see a collapse of a whole bunch of sectors, including the farm sector, including seafood, including construction, including landscaping.

18:58And there are already serious labor shortages that have broken out all around the country. And yet he always goes back to the well of stereotyping and demonizing people instead of saying, let's get together and pass an actual comprehensive immigration reform bill. And that's the last thing I guess I'll say, Caitlin. There were no plans. There were no programs. There were no policy proposals. There's nothing out there. It was just a bunch of meaningless rhetoric.

19:24Ben Meiselas:Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think. Sorry, Magamike, you lost control, but how pathetic is it that he shuts down the house? What a baby. Hit subscribe, help us get to 6 million. Thank you so much and have a great day. Love this video? Support independent media and unlock exclusive content, ad-free videos and custom emojis by becoming a paid member of our YouTube channel today. You can also gift memberships to others. Let's keep growing together.

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