Rep. Boyle Discusses Trump and MAGA Republican Chaos

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1:48Ben Meiselas:Republicans in the House of Representatives are absolutely losing it right now after a federal judge in New York responded to a letter brief filed by Democratic Congress member Ro Khanna, along with Republican Congress member Thomas Massey, who's basically been pushed out of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. Remember, they brought that discharge petition that led to the Epstein Transparency Act, which the Trump regime has violated, and the Trump regime has refused to produce the Epstein files. They've only turned over about 1%. So you'll recall that Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey sent a letter to federal judge Engelmeyer in the Southern District of New York, and they wanted to intervene in a case there regarding Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

2:41Ben Meiselas:And they were requesting that that federal judge appoint a special master or independent monitor to oversee the production of the Epstein files so that it could be in the hands of someone independent versus the Trump regime, since the Department of Justice has been essentially turned into a racketeering enterprise for the purpose of covering up a child sex trafficking ring. Well, federal judge Engelmeyer responded this morning and in an order, he ordered the Trump regime to respond about the request that was made by Kanna and Massey about whether they can intervene to request a special referee or independent monitor or special master to turn over the documents and what their position is about their noncompliance with the Epstein Transparency Act.

3:36Ben Meiselas:And so how are MAGA Republicans who are getting their orders from Donald Trump responding? They were just losing it on Capitol Hill today. And we've got the receipts. We've got the videos. We've got what went down. So here you have MAGA Republican Congress member James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, and he responds by saying, well, to the best of my knowledge, the Department of Justice is doing everything right, he says. We're cooperating. They're cooperating. This is the transparency that the American people want. And the MAGA Republicans, James Comer and others are saying it's actually going great and the files are being produced.

4:18Ben Meiselas:So why is everybody upset? Listen to what Comer says here, play this clip. I'm bonding for the documents. She started producing the documents. Then Congress voted for the, uh, the discharge petition, uh, to send another message. And we all voted for that. But they are sending documents. They sent a big batch. The Democrats were unhappy. They said there weren't enough redactions. So now the DOJ is going through trying to make sure they redact everything. So from my standpoint, the Department of Justice is cooperating. They are turning over documents. We would all like for them to turn documents over quicker.

4:56Ben Meiselas:But at the end of the day, they are complying. President Trump is answering your questions about Epstein. He's answered them over and over and over again. Who we haven't heard from is Bill Clinton. And I stated why, the amount of time that Epstein spent with Clinton while he was president and post presidency. So I don't think it's out of line for former President Clinton to come in for a bipartisan subpoena and sit down and answer questions. So thank you all very much. And then James Comer says that, uh, at the end of the day, the key thing here is we're subpoenaing Bill Clinton. That's his big announcement.

5:34Ben Meiselas:And we're going to hold Bill Clinton in contempt if he doesn't show up. This is about Bill Clinton, not Donald Trump or anybody else. Let's make it about the Clintons here. Play this clip. Unanimously by the committee in a bipartisan manner, we will move next week in the house Sobersack committee markup to hold former president Clinton in contempt of Congress. By the way, just release the Epstein documents. Bill Clinton's called for the release of the Epstein documents. I'm not here defending Bill Clinton or any, just focus on releasing the Epstein documents as required. You see, they want to just try to distract you with everything else.

6:11Ben Meiselas:And then James Comer says that Hakeem Jeffries, the democratic leader, should go to a Somali therapy center and get some type of therapy for his disdain for me because leader Jeffreys was calling out James Comer and other MAGA Republicans for covering up a child sex trafficking ring. So James Comer says that Jeffreys needs to go to a Somali therapy center. These people are so despicable. Here, play this clip. Have you ever seen Alan right now? Bill, go ahead. We asked Hakeem Jeffries about this last night and he called you a deeply unserious person and said he doesn't have faith in you to lead this investigation.

6:51How would you like to respond to him?

6:52Ben Meiselas:Well, look, the feeling's mutual. I don't have any confidence in Hakeem Jeffries. I don't think Hakeem Jeffries ever mentioned my name the first nine years I was in Congress. In the last two months, he's mentioned my name and made slurs at least five times. I think that Trump derangement syndrome is morphing into Comer derangement syndrome for Hakeem Jeffries. My advice to Hakeem Jeffries is, first of all, recognize the fact that the members in your conference voted to subpoena Bill Clinton. It was the Democrat members of the Congress that voted for that subpoena, number one. And number two, he clearly has a problem with me.

7:32Ben Meiselas:maybe he should go to one of those Somali therapy centers and get some, uh, uh, some type of therapy for his disdain for me. If he, if he's accusing me of any wrongdoing, then he should file a complaint. And then MAGA tried to distract with everything else. So you have MAGA Mike Johnson who said, you know, look, the, the, the thing when Donald Trump talks about capping interest rates at 10 % for credit cards. Donald Trump's like a thought guy. He's the one who comes up with ideas, but that doesn't mean that they're real ideas. Listen to what Maga Mike says, play this clip. The president is the ideas guy and what he's doggedly determined to do and laser focused upon doing is the same thing that we are, and that is reducing the cost of living, bringing down prices for the American people.

8:22And he's looking at every idea under the sun to do that. It's one of a long, large menu of ideas that have been proposed as something we ought to think about and investigate. Since I had the conversation with him, I've talked to a number of colleagues about that and what that would mean, and are there unintended consequences of that, and it's a complicated area. So I don't know. Like everything else, you would need legislation to do something like that, and we'd have a lot of work to build consensus around it, but you've got to be very careful if you go forward in that. In our zeal to bring down costs, you don't want to have negative secondary effects of that.

8:59So, for example, one of the things that the president probably had not thought through and others, at first glance, it sounds great. We should bring down interest rates of 10%. It would help everybody, all borrowers. There's a lot of Americans who have a lot of credit card debt. But then what some of the experts have said as well, But the problem is, if you if you do that, then the credit card companies, the negative secondary effect is that is that they would just stop lending money and maybe they cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount. And then that would have a negative effect on a lot of people who who work on revolving credit.

9:35So it's something that we've got to be very deliberate about. The president understands that he wants us to do the right thing by America.

9:41Ben Meiselas:Then you have Maga Mike speaking about invading Greenland. And he goes, ah, this is just a media narrative. Nobody's out there really talking about acquiring Greenland or invading or that all options are on the table. This is just a narrative invented by the media, by you all. OK, we can hear what Donald Trump and Caroline Levitt and Stephen Miller and all the people in the Trump regime say every day. Play this clip. I don't think anybody is is considering that. I mean, it's it's not been in any briefing I've been in and I go to all of them. OK, it's not this is not a I think this is a media narrative that's been created.

10:21I do. We've been very clear. I mean, the Article one branch is clear. There's no declaration of war pending for Greenland. It's not just not a thing. I don't anticipate any boots on the ground anywhere anytime soon. And I look there are.

10:35Ben Meiselas:And then Steve Scalise goes, well, what's going on with Biden? Why are the prices so high under Joe Biden? I kid you not. That's what he said here. Play this clip. To address some of the rules and regulations that added so much to the cost of things. When you go buy things all across the spectrum, why are prices so high under Joe Biden? But it's really interesting when you hear Democrats yelling and screaming about the cost of things. My question is, where were those Democrats when they were jacking up all those costs on families for four years under Joe Biden? Did Democrats forget? And do they think voters are going to forget that under Joe Biden for four years, gas prices doubled?

11:19Ben Meiselas:Yes, doubled. Did they more for more from MAGA Mike right here when he's asked about Donald Trump launching a criminal investigation into the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell? Maga Mike Johnson says Powell's not the Fed. Powell's just a person. He's an individual. It's not like he's actually the Federal Reserve. So what are we worried about here? Here play this clip. Chairman Powell's an individual. He is not the Fed. He's the chair of the Fed, okay? And it's a serious allegation. If he was not truthful and testimony to Congress, that is not a congressional investigation. That's a DOJ investigation.

11:55We have to let that play out. I mean, we don't play favorites or favoritism here. The DOJ can't. If there's a credible allegation or concern someone's lied to Congress, then the DOJ should investigate. I mean, across the board, no matter who it is, no one is immune from that. If he's innocent, as he says, then that will come out in the investigation. And all of us need to reserve judgment and wait for that to happen. Meanwhile, the Fed is continuing to do its work.

12:19Ben Meiselas:And, you know, I mentioned there. Then MAGA Mike further defames Renee Good. Let's play this clip. I saw the angle that I saw was this this woman was taunting ICE officers. She was impeding law enforcement. She was violating a number of laws in doing so. They were very patient and asked her multiple times to remove her vehicle and stop impeding their operation. And she refused. Her partner, whoever that was, was taunting the officer. It was a it was a crazy second set of circumstances. And from the angle I saw, this is my view. I'm not the investigator and I'm not the judge and jury. But I'll tell you what I saw is that the vehicle she revved, she hit the accelerator and hit the ICE officer and he reacted in a split second.

13:02And it will it will be up to the investigators and everyone else to determine the outcome.

13:08Ben Meiselas:And then Maga Mike attacks former President Biden and says that right now under Donald Trump, everybody is buying big trucks again. Everybody's rich and everybody's buying big trucks again under Donald Trump. Who's buying big trucks again under Donald Trump? Who is this everybody who has all of this disposable income buying big trucks right now? What do you even mean by that? Here, play this clip. It's under$3. And under the Biden years, it cost Americans more than$60 just to fill up a Honda Civic or a Toyota Camry. And now everybody's buying the big trucks again. You know, thanks to sound economic and energy policy that has restored American energy dominance.

13:50Those days of the Biden years are over and we're going into overdrive and we're not going backwards.

13:56Ben Meiselas:This is. And so that brings us to the Department of Justice launching that criminal investigation into the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. I want to bring in Congressmember Brendan Boyle for this, ranking member of the House Budget Committee. Congressman, it's great to see you. You know, one of the things that I reflect on, though, is in a normal time, if a president of the United States ordered his DOJ to criminally investigate the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the markets and everything would 100 % absolutely collapse because you would take it seriously. I think that we should be taking the action seriously of what Trump's doing, but still with his tariffs against the world, or he posts the other day, if you do business with Iran, I hereby tariff you 25%, which what does that mean?

14:52Ben Meiselas:United Arab of Emirates, China, additional 25 % tariffs there. How are you going? What does that even mean? People and the markets don't take it seriously. And so the market's like, yeah, that's just, this is noise. Trump says these things, the investigation will go away. He'll taco or chicken out. He just needs to get this off his chest. But I say, you need to take this stuff very seriously because at some point this stuff hits the wall and then we all get screwed. So what do you make of that? Because obviously, you know, there's this, the markets just don't, his words don't matter the way they did back in April, let's say when he had that liberation day thing, the liquidation day.

15:39You know, it's so funny that you're saying this because not even about 20 minutes ago, a Democratic colleague and I were both having this conversation and we were both perplexed at how the markets are just completely shrugging their shoulders at this point. Yesterday, they were up slightly. Today, they're down slightly. They obviously do not take Donald Trump seriously, as you've said. I also think it's a reflection of the fact they have a great deal of confidence in our criminal justice system that this pathetic and dangerous gambit legally just won't work and that Mr. Powell is not really under any serious legal problem.

16:22What I would say to them is, you know, boy, I hope your confidence isn't overconfidence and I hope it isn't misplaced because we could become, we could be in store for a very rude awakening if this pressure, this unprecedented illegal criminal pressure from Donald Trump actually succeeds. I give Jay Powell a lot of credit. He's a traditional old school country club Republican, served in Republican administrations going back to George Herbert Walker Bush in the late 80s and early 90s. He's a lot of integrity to stand up to this pressure. I fear, though, that it will ultimately have some sort of effect.

17:04And that would be bad, even though I would love to see, I think we would all love to see lower rates and to pay less for our mortgage and auto loans. The reality, though, is if these decisions are being driven by politics and political pressure and not the data, they could end up sparking an inflation crisis that we will have to live through and suffer through for years and years to come.

17:30Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about where inflation is. today. Obviously, this is top of mind to you and many Americans, but specifically on the budget committee. I think it was core inflation came in at like 2.7, which was basically what it was in December. One of the things I always think is important when we have the inflation discussion is that the consumer price index used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to help derive these inflation numbers is now based on the last time I checked, I think the number was 40 % of the data inputs are estimates because there's not enough people gathering the data and sending out the surveys to the businesses anymore.

18:15Ben Meiselas:So 40 % of this is whatever, it's a very high number, is estimates. Help us make sense of this because we know that Trump fired the last Bureau of Labor statistics cheap when he didn't like the data. So are we getting even accurate data? And assuming we are getting accurate data, how do you contextualize 2.7 % inflation where we are right now? You know, it's funny. I think people, even if they're not paying attention to CPI data, they just kind of know from their own personal experience that America just simply is too expensive right now in order to get by in the united states of america today things cost too much and the cost is going up rather than down donald trump won the presidency just over a year ago because he promised he would bring prices down and what has he done he's only driven prices up because of his ridiculous tariff policies which basically is an added national sales tax that the American people have to pay on any imported good.

19:24And most of the goods we buy tend to be imported. So, oh, and by the way, if you're a billionaire, you got the biggest tax cut in American history. If you're on Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, you got screwed because he is cutting your health care. If you get your health care through your employer, your costs will now go up because providers and hospitals need to make up the costs that they're going to pay because of all of the cuts they're suffering. So the reality is inflation was headed in the right direction about a year and a half ago. We were almost back after many years, after the whole post-pandemic crisis, we were almost back to 2%, almost back to normal.

20:10Donald Trump comes in and it's been chaos ever since, costs going up with really no sign of them coming down anytime soon?

20:20Ben Meiselas:I think that's why when most Americans hear 2.7%, first off, it's year over year. So, you know, they need to understand what that number actually means. 2.7 % more than the previous year where prices were already high. But I think intuitively, and I don't want to always take our own life experiences and supplant them for a broader data set out there. But I think you speak to most Americans and they don't feel it's a little bit higher. They feel it's significantly higher. And they're right. I mean, they are right, especially when you compare inflation month over month, year over year, this year compared to two, three years ago.

21:06I always find that actually you We need both the quantitative data and the qualitative data. And in this case, one set confirms the other. And that is inflation is the biggest problem today. Affordability that Donald Trump has called a hoax, that is by far the biggest issue for the American people today. And we have a president who couldn't care less. He just cares about playing interior decorator and building his ballrooms and delivering big tax cuts for billionaires like himself. Yeah.

21:39Ben Meiselas:And that's the thing, you know, so he went, he did a little bit of, of, of a pivot. So he went from hoax, hoax, hoax to now he doesn't, he'll go back to it because that's his nature. But now he does the Trump fraud routine for the midterms where he announces he did something which he did not do and then hasn't thought through the implications. So for example, I'm going to cap credit card interest at 10%, but his announcement says, I hereby order that it will be said on January 20th that I will order that this take place. And for a lot of Americans on the surface, that's a good, you know, interest rates being too high, you know, not, you know, not a, not a, people don't like paying, you know, away more money.

22:29Ben Meiselas:But also it needs to go through a law. He's not doing anything the same way when he claims that he's brought health care costs down 1600 percent, but 350 drugs are more expensive and health care prices are significantly higher year over year. But he decrees he's now capped credit card interest. He has not capped credit card interest. And then he also hasn't thought through what's the impact this going to have on other types of borrowers and just what's going happen. Like these things aren't thought out with hearings and how are we going to address all of these concerns at once? And then you should do a law if we want to do that and get a law and then we're good.

23:09Ben Meiselas:And then he does that with, you know, he knows that people hate some of these data centers that are going up that are making energy prices rise. So he does a social media post and says, I hereby have ordered Microsoft to do X, Y, but it's just, it's meaningless. And he takes credit for things that he's not doing. And the American people, meanwhile, still suffer. And by the way, Congressman, where's our doge dividend checks? Where are our tariff rebate checks that he promised? Where's all that money he said he was going to send to the American people? Well, you know, when we've talked before, I've said this.