Rep. Beyer Responds to MAGA Mike’s Massive GOP Cover Up

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2:36Ben Meiselas:And the orders from Donald Trump are make sure you don't speak with Democrats, yet alone even negotiate with Democrats. It's an interesting development about what's going on in the United States Senate because there are some discussions actually taking place to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies and possibly push forward three of the 2026 appropriation bills. So there is some discussion taking place among senators to figure out how to protect Americans' health care. Some bipartisan conversations taking place. The issue, though, is that Maga Mike Johnson has said under no circumstance will he even entertain any bipartisan solutions in the Senate that protect the Affordable Care Act subsidies.

3:22Ben Meiselas:And Magamike's told his members, do not even show up. If you see a Democrat, you don't talk to them at all because Donald Trump, Magamike's daddy, says you don't talk to them and you don't even negotiate with them. So that's the status. You have Democrats in the Senate trying to work. You have some Republicans in the Senate trying to figure out a solution right now. You've got Democrats in the House saying, let's try to figure this out. Let's talk in the public. Remember fifth grade government, you know how the parties are supposed to talk to each other. That's the way government's supposed to work.

3:57Ben Meiselas:No Kings. And then MAGA Mike's like, nah, we've got a King. Whatever Donald Trump says goes. And Donald Trump says, we can't talk to you. So you have MAGA Mike out there going in front of the press and just saying some of the weirdest stuff. So MAGA Mike went out today. He starts talking about how he hates the no kings protests. And he goes, this is the Marxist pro Hamas, pro Antifa types, whatever the hell that means. Like you just know how outrageous these statements are from these people. Like the most heinous statements while Americans are suffering. You have MAGA Mike out there leading a press conference about healthcare being taken away from 20 million Americans.

4:37Ben Meiselas:And what MAGA, well, by the way,$20 billion is going to bail out Argentina and this is what Maga Mike saying it's ridiculous here play this quote I mean the contrast between these parties could not be any more stark and I I encourage you to watch we call it the hate America rally that'll happen Saturday let's see who shows up for that I bet you see pro Hamas supporters I bet you see Antifa types I bet you see the Marxist in full display the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic and we do and that's what here doing every single day if you're standing up for the foundational truths you really don't need to go there i'm standing up usually those are the people you worry about most and it just looks out of this like dystopian movie i don't even know what i'm even watching there as he spews lie after lie so then the press figures okay well we've got maga mike up here he's talking a bunch of nonsense to their credit the press today was like let's ask him a real question so maga mike what do you think about one of the people in your caucus, Corey Mills, a MAGA Republican who was accused of beating his girlfriend and stolen valor.

5:42Ben Meiselas:Does that make you in any way concerned to which MAGA Mike says, I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to let's talk about serious things. I don't think that's a serious thing. Here, play this clip. There's the only it's been reported for a while. Corey Mills was accused of beating a girlfriend in his DC apartment. He was accused of stolen valor by the people that he claimed to have saved on the battlefield that have been on the record so that he did not save them. I mean, this has been happening since the beginning of the year. Are you concerned about these allegations against Corey Mills?

6:11Ben Meiselas:Look, you have to ask Representative Mills about that. I mean, he's been a faithful colleague here. I know his work on the Hill. I mean, I don't I don't know all the details of all the individual allegations and what he's doing in his outside life. You have to ask him about things that are really serious. Thanks, Mr. Speaker. He said, I don't know the details. This follows yesterday where he said, I don't have a strategy regarding the show. Remember, they never have details about I don't know what Donald Trump wrote. I don't know what this person is. I don't know what this person did, but I am going to go speak a bunch of nonsense about the peaceful.

6:44Ben Meiselas:No, King's protest coming up. I want to bring in Democratic Congress member Don Byer. Great to see a Congress member. Byer represents Virginia's eighth congressional district. The most federal employees in the country live in Congressman Byer's district. I want you to first just respond to the distraction, deflection, destruction by Mag and Mike. And then let's talk about what's going on here, as it does seem that the Senate's trying now, at least they're talking. That's good. Baby steps, talking. But Mag and Mike saying, we ain't talking. So what do you make of all of this? Well, thanks for playing those Mag and Mike clips.

7:18That was so disappointing. First of all, saying that the millions and millions, probably tens of millions of Americans who show up on Saturday for the No Kings rally, our leftist, Antifa, Marxist, Hamas supporters, is incredibly insulting and stupid. He needs to come out and see what happens in Washington, D.C., in the jurisdictions I represent, Arlington Alexandria Falls Church. But the average age is probably 62. They are overwhelmingly professional. They are moderate. They are really good people who love their country. And they're coming out to protest because they love their country. It's the opposite of what Mike Johnson suggests.

7:56And then to suggest that he doesn't know the details on Cory Mills, come on, everybody here knows the details of Cory Mills. It's been written about extensively. You know he's paid attention to that. He's just afraid to say anything because the margin is so thin. It's very, very disappointing. And just the notion that if the Senate Republicans are making progress with Democrats on finding a way out of this, to extending the Affordable Care Act tax incentives for a couple of years or longer making them permanent. Mike Johnson says he won't bring it back because he's afraid of his own people. I don't like to do it a hominem attacks.

8:31I've served with four different speakers. This is the fifth one, by far the weakest speaker, I think, in American history.

8:38Ben Meiselas:Well, you know, he's not even talking. You know, the strangest part about this whole thing, and I've talked to lots of people who have been with other government shutdowns, they're like, look, in the past, you'd be trying to like work together, come up with solutions, like the way, as I said at the outset, like in your fifth grade government class, you know, your first time you learn, it's like, yes, when the parties need each other's votes, you have to talk to each other and have conversations and try to build consensus. And I remember with former President Biden, you know, you would have McCarthy show up frequently and what do you need?

9:12Ben Meiselas:What do you need? All right, let's do this. Let's do that. Everybody taking people are a little upset about this, a little happy, but deals are made. Right now, they're not even like, can you even explain like what it's like? They're not even talking. These Republicans are not talking to Democrats and Democrats are showing up to work and Republicans, they do that press conference and then they like leave for the day. Then they go on Fox, they say their lies and then it's like, all right, rinse and repeat. Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, I'm here in the Capitol right now and I'm surrounded by lots and lots of my Democratic friends.

9:43I haven't seen a single Republican here. The halls are largely empty. And, you know, what Hakeem Jeffries, Catherine Clark say again and again is we're here, we're willing to negotiate. We want to talk. There's nobody to talk to. They're just, they've shut down conversation and discussion. And so, hey, they have the White House, the Senate and the House. They think they can do anything they want. Open the government. You're in power.

10:07Ben Meiselas:Talk to us about your congressional district. It's Arlington, Alexander, Falls Church. church. I went to school at GW, Georgetown. I know those areas. I know those areas well. Go out there to restaurants, come back. Friends would go there. Friends who lived in the areas and apartments in those areas would travel to D.C. Being hit and impacted the most. I mean, I know that you're going to be going to food banks and clinics after. People are really being hit by this. Like this isn't Republicans are treating it like they've got their talking points. All right, We're going to say pro-Hamas, pro-terrorists.

10:47Ben Meiselas:And they almost are like, well, the Democrat talking point is we have to help Americans and just help people. And they're almost treating, say, people's health care. They're almost treating it because everything they do is phony. These are like talking points for Democrats about protecting people's health care. And I think the thing is it's not talking points. It's like whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or an independent, if your ACA subsidies are extinguished, you're going to have to pay a lot more money. If you're being laid off by, you know, either because of what Trump's done to the economy or a government worker, you may have to go to a food clinic in order to get food.

11:24Ben Meiselas:You don't have medical services. So talk about that. Well, Ben, first, I represent the congressional district that has the most federal employees. It's also the most politically sophisticated and the best educated. And so we've gotten hit really, really hard by all the rifts, by the fork in the road. When they shut down USAID, it seemed like every U.S.-based USAID contractor lived near my home. And yet, we did a quick survey yesterday. Of the last 1 ,000 incoming calls, 90 % have been stick with the shutdown, stand up for America, stand up for health care for every American. So they're really brutalized by it.

12:03The food bank, our largest food bank in Arlington, Arlington Food Assistance, whatever, their number of people they're serving is the largest ever, 50 percent higher than COVID, which had been the largest ever. So people are really hurting, but they're also willing to stand up because they love their country.

12:21Ben Meiselas:So, Congressman, where do you think this goes next? What happens after, you know, I mean, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for this government shutdown. Given the Mag and Mike position, the Trump position, do not talk, do not have discussions. And I saw Congresswoman McClain after Mag and Mike goes, Congresswoman McClain, she does a thing where she just like kind of yells where she like holds up. She goes, just sign the damn thing. Just sign it. It's like, well, that's not how you actually do deal with negotiations. So like what happens next? You know, I go back to Abraham Lincoln who said, you know, public sentiment drives everything.

12:57That's a paraphrase. He's more eloquent. And so let's see how public sentiment evolves over the shutdown. So far, the public is very much on the side of avoiding the 100 percent, 200 percent, 300 percent increases in Affordable Care Act premiums. They're against the 20 million people whose health insurance is being stripped away through the big, ugly bill. As long as that happens and Donald Trump's numbers continue to go down, eventually the Republicans are going to realize that they just need to do the right thing. And Ben, the amazing part is they're going to get creamed in the 2026 elections unless they fix health care.

13:33I mean, it affects their people way more than it affects our voters. And so the chance for us to pick up 40 or 50 Republican seats is out there if they don't fix it. And that's not what they want. So we're offering a win-win situation. They just have shut their ears to it.

13:50Ben Meiselas:And then finally, I want to talk about this while I've got you on, because your career before getting into politics, running a successful business, having lots of employees and predictability, certainty, direction, it seems everything that we don't see right now with this current administration and not just mixed messages they're sending to the business community, but in many cases, outright hostility. And frankly, you know, is the government going to say, we want to take over your business the way they have before and implemented, you know, those types of controls on certain businesses. And it just seems every day you could wake up and Donald Trump could make a social media post about China one day, and then the markets have a strong reaction.

14:40Ben Meiselas:And then the next day he says, actually, we're friends. Then it has another reaction. You know, some people in that period of time are just getting completely wiped out as well, though, you know, before he sends his next, you know, social media post. And I just wonder kind of your reaction, you know, wearing both your political hat and business hat at just what you're seeing every day here, because these Republicans like to brand themselves as, you know, being, you know, oh, we're the ones who know about business. But like all of their actions to me seem as reckless as can be from business and political perspective.

15:15Yeah. And Ben, we've seen that from the beginning of the year. What businesses love is certainty. If I'm going to go out and borrow some money or I'm going to convince, you know, some friend to invest money in my business, they need to know and I need to know that there's a future there, you know, that the market will be there, that the regulations will be straightforward, that the tariffs aren't going to kill us. I saw an interesting thing this morning, the National Federation of Independent Business, all the small businesses across the country, do a survey every month. And the number of people that responded was less than 8 % of their memberships, the lowest ever.

15:49So what you're finding out is these businesses, they don't even know how to respond to a survey because they're so afraid and uncertain.

15:56Ben Meiselas:I appreciate you coming on, Congressman Beyer. We'll keep on following your work on committees, your floor speeches. and we hope you come back soon. Thank you, Ben, very much. Good luck. Thanks for keeping us informed. Oh, absolutely. Congress member Don Beyer, Virginia's 8th Congressional District. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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