Rep. Bynum Discusses Fighting Back Against Trump and MAGA

0:00Ben Meiselas:The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50 ,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals. Free samples. Zero pressure. Right now, get up to 40 % off site-wide. Plus, get a free professional measure at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. The World Cup champion will be crowned this week, and you can trade the tourney through the finals on Kalshi, America's number one prediction market platform.

0:38Ben Meiselas:Right now, Spain is trading at 58 % to beat Argentina, meaning 100 trade pays out$166 if they win. On Kalshi, you're trading against other people in a live market. No house, no odds makers. For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code HOOPS to get$10 when you trade$10. K-A-L-S-H-I. Koushi, trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Koushi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see Koushi.com slash regulatory.

1:16Ben Meiselas:MAGA Mike Johnson was just sabotaged on the House floor by his own party. MAGA Republicans would not even allow MAGA Mike Johnson to advance a procedural motion on a veterans bill. This was a big priority for MAGA Mike Johnson. He wanted to have MAGA Republicans run on the fact that, look, we helped the veterans heading into the midterms, but the MAGA Republicans revolted against the way MAGA Mike Johnson tried to package this veterans bill. So Maga Mike was like, all right, I guess we're going to have to recess again. So he shuts down the House of Representatives. It's supposed to get back into session next week.

1:57Ben Meiselas:Maga Mike's already talking about a continuing resolution because they can't pass a budget in order to try to keep the government from shutting down yet again. Yes, we're on the verge of another government shutdown if Maga Mike doesn't do a continuing resolution. And now Maga Mike is also being asked by Donald Trump to put forward this reconciliation package to give hundreds of billions of dollars to Donald Trump's catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran that no American other than the neocon war hawks want the Americans to actually be in. This is an absolutely despicable and catastrophic war. So you have Magamike flailing.

2:37Ben Meiselas:Magamike was literally standing there on the House floor. He's like, what do I do? We can't even get the procedural motion passed. The MAGA Republicans were like mocking him on the House floor. Democrats were not going to help MAGA Mike Johnson because the way MAGA Mike Johnson was also trying to package this veterans bill, it was hurting veterans who needed certain like critical care. And it was like taking from them. It was like a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. And then you had like MAGA Republican Lisa McClain go on state regime media, which calls itself Fox. And she was talking about the SAVE Act, and that's the Voter Suppression Act, and they want to try to stick the SAVE Act thing into a reconciliation bill and tie it to the military spending for the catastrophic and unlawful war.

3:25Ben Meiselas:And so then Lisa McClain, while MAGA Mike is frozen and shutting down the House of Representatives, you've got MAGA Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain goes on state regime media, and she's like, look, don't the American people want this? They call it the Save America Act, but it's a voter suppression bill. Don't the American people want it? What's the big deal? Why are women even complaining? Don't they want to go when they vote to show their BERT certificate and some social security information and then cross-reference it with their current information? If they have a different name, then they're made a name.

4:00Ben Meiselas:That's what all women want to do, right? That makes a ton of sense. It makes it easy for everybody. Watch what Congresswoman McClain had to say play this clip. Your thoughts there? Oh, I have so much to say on that, but let me sum it up on this is Alyssa have a little bit of faith in women. And let me remind you that when you go to get your marriage license, a, you have to have a driver's license. You have to have photo ID. Shocker. Are we against marriage? Well, the Democrats might be, but second in some States, You actually have to have a birth certificate. So she doesn't even know what she's talking about, but she is right on this.

4:40Ben Meiselas:If we don't pass the Save America, or I should say, if we do pass the Save America Act, the Democrats are shaken in their boots because they know that we're going to have much more fair elections. And that scares the bejesus out of them. You know, and then on the Senate, the tactic that they're just taking right now is just taking the cue from Donald Trump. And they're just like, you know what? There's a bunch of Democratic senators here who aren't even valid. They're just like unlawful senators. And so we should just kick them out of the Senate. I mean, it's just straight up fascism 101 right here.

5:13Ben Meiselas:Like you've got a MAGA Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. He's like, we probably got four or five of these Democratic senators who aren't really even senators at this point because of all that voter fraud that we're just making up. what are you talking about? Donald Trump's deranged speech he gave on Thursday when he actually declassified documents. It's like documents from Russia and China that say that implicate Donald Trump, basically. Here's what Tommy Tumberbill has to say. Here play this clip. But if you look at what we have in terms of what happened in 2020, we know President Trump, they put the screws to him.

5:52Ben Meiselas:There's no doubt. I've seen the evidence. The same thing, with we probably have four or five senators that didn't legally win. They shouldn't be up here. And it's just unfortunate that that's happened. But again, slowly the information is coming out. I think you'll hear more tonight from President Trump. I don't know exactly what he's going to talk about. But the American people need to know how crooked these Democrats are. They lie to cheat. They steal. They've tried to kill the president three times. They killed Charlie Kirk. It's unbelievable. And we need to fight back. And thank goodness for President Trump.

6:29Ben Meiselas:And then you have Senator Loomis. Here's what she had to say. Let's play this clip. In your mind, are Senators Ossoff and Warnock duly chosen and sworn?

6:45I don't know.

6:47Ben Meiselas:And then you have MAGA Republican Senator Rick Scott. And his big idea on the Senate side is we should go to a minimum seven-day work week. That's what we should be doing, a seven-day work week. Here play this clip. So are Democrats going to come across the line and join some of you? And are they as clear-eyed on the mission? I hope so. You know, Americans work five days a week. You know, the minimum we ought to work is seven days a week. I'm a business guy. As business people, I have to work every day. We need to work every day to get this stuff done. I mean... By the way, Magamike was also getting trashed by Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.

7:24Ben Meiselas:The Wall Street Journal editorial board said that Magamike's plans are an utter disappointment. The big problem is Magamike's plans lack a pro-growth tax and spending reforms. I mean, by the way, the debt is out of control right now. In this past year alone, they've added, what, like$3.5 trillion in debt. It's approaching$40 trillion in total right now. I want to bring on Democratic Congresswoman Bynum right now. Here's an interview I just did with Congresswoman Bynum because I want to see what's going on on the Democratic side with all of this chaos coming from MAGA Mike Johnson, Donald Trump's catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran.

8:10Ben Meiselas:The American people are absolutely suffering right now. Gas prices are going back up. Inflation is rising. Gas prices were always up. They're just going back to the highest point ever right now. The price of crude right now is increased 20 percent this week. Let's bring in Congresswoman Bynum. Janelle Bynum, Congresswoman Bynum, great to see you again. So technically Congress is back after Magamike recessed for weeks. And I say technically back because, you know, unfortunately Magamike has to pass a rule and he sets the agenda, I suppose, because Republicans control the house. He says he doesn't control the weather.

8:53Correction.

8:54Ben Meiselas:Yeah, but I have no clue what they're doing other than he's saying we need hundreds of billions of dollars for Pete Hegseth to fight communists on our shore. What's going on? Um, nothing's going on. Yesterday we voted on like daylight savings time and not one constituent has ever asked me since I've been in office here about daylight savings time. Like that was, that was the thing we spent an hour on yesterday. I'm like, don't we need to be putting kids through school? Don't we need to be feeding kids? Don't we need to be taking care of our seniors? Don't we need to figure out how to get out of these wars?

9:29Like, don't we have other work we need to be doing? Right.

9:32Ben Meiselas:And, you know, just when you see a report yesterday about inflation because of the memorandum of understanding going, going, Trump was the arsonist. He created the fire, the horrible condition. Then it goes down a little bit from the problem he created. And then he goes and creates the problem again. And then he escalates. And now there's a never ending war with no defined anything and killing people overseas with taxpayer money. What do you want? No one wants this. No. What are you doing? No, no, but nobody, whatever you, no one wants any of that over there. Well, that's when the arsonist is the firefighter, right?

10:08That's when he comes in and tries to look like the hero when he set the fire himself. And nobody's asking for that. What we are asking for is a president that comes to the American people through Congress and makes his case, asks for permission and has a strategy and a strategy going in and a strategy to get out. Like, that's how normal people would expect a government to work. He's just out there doing his own thing. And, you know, I think it's probably time to change his diaper. Yeah.

10:35Ben Meiselas:And we should talk about that, you know, in the sense of, you know, as the American people are struggling, looking for steady leadership and predictability, he's out there behaving. Just the behavior is a scary thing to observe, especially if you had someone in your family who has Alzheimer's, who's of that age, and you see it happening and it's impacting policy. They're going to do a 20 % fee and I'm the guardian of Hormuz. I've decided I am here by not doing, I'm no longer the guardian of Hormuz. And then when it was at the NATO summit, the Islamic Republic of Japan. He's all over the place.

11:19Ben Meiselas:And referring to Zelensky as Putin and then saying, ask me questions, pretend I am Putin, And I will role play. I'm like, what is going on? Well, it's a colossal embarrassment. You know, we used to be the leaders of the free world and now everybody's like. And so for me, it's about, you know, how do we reestablish American leadership in the world? How do we stop being the world's police because we've invested in diplomacy, soft diplomacy, hard diplomacy? And, you know, what are we leaving our children? Those are the questions I'm asking. And what are my taxpayers going towards? My tax dollars going towards?

11:58Is it just to fund his exploits? Is it to enrich his family? Is it to make his billionaire friends trillionaires? Is that what we're paying for? I'm not here for that.

12:08Ben Meiselas:Right, because too frequently the way media covers politics is the day-to-day game. So they set it up as this side versus that side, and everyone's yelling it. But to me, I always say with this network, we got to step back and ask the broader question. Like what is the point of government? What is the point of all of this? It is not to have some dystopian reality game show where we're all non-consensual extras. It is to actually deliver things for us. And that's what we should be focusing on. And when we focus so much on the game, which is how the media wants to push this, whether it's for ratings or just their old way of thinking, because I'm not sure people like to watch this shit anymore, to be honest.

12:50Ben Meiselas:It's not funny. It's not funny. It's not. Well, here's here's what's happening. So over the weekend, you know, we passed the housing bill and the president didn't sign it. It was veto proof. And, you know, not a lot of people reported on that. This was a huge deal. Huge. You know, when you're talking about Americans not having to compete like they did before, is it perfect? No. But not having to compete with private equity to buy their first home. When we're talking about bringing down the first time homebuyer age from 40 back down to 25, 26, like those are big deals. But instead, you know, they're focusing on the president's antics or we're focusing now on daylight savings time or the Strait of Hormuz.

13:39I mean, we're focusing on other things rather than the things that Americans are telling us are on their mind, which is housing.

13:46Ben Meiselas:And I always say, just listen to what people are saying, because I'm sure, as you know, in your district, people are telling you very clearly. And it's only people who think that they are smarter or know better than what the people are saying. They're the people out there saying, you know, we could try to move these people 0.2 % to the right and 0.2 % to the left. They're not numbers. They're human beings. We're people. I mean, I listened to yesterday, it was Mr. Warsh, who's now the head of the Fed. And it was really interesting as he came in. It was the drama of it all. When he came in, there was all of this, you know, cameras flashing and people crowding around his desk as if he was, you know, the soothsayer of the world.

14:33He has a lot of control. But what he has to remember is that behind every mortgage is a family. And that is something that is immutable. behind every home is a family, behind every carton of milk is a kid that's drinking it, behind everything that we see in our world is a person, is a human, is a family. And I think as lawmakers, we should never forget that. It is very easy to get so far away from the truth that you start drinking your own tea.

15:01Ben Meiselas:You know, one of the, there's so many, but I know one of the great betrayals that you're focused on is Trump just throwing young people under the bus and, you know, younger people maybe hadn't seen the Trump fraud show from the seventies and the eighties. I mean, reality is, is that, you know, older generations still fell for it again and again and again, which is a whole conversation we can get into the human psyche, but younger people were being promised affordability and better jobs. And this is the way, and I'm going to make you so rich and things are going to be amazing. And Trump went on the podcast that at first were not political and were, you know, for reasons that are whatever, appealing to, you know, these younger people.

15:44Ben Meiselas:And then at the very end, you know, they basically sold the young people the oligarchy, you know, that was going to take from them. And I know you have the K30, you know, program that you do, but you've been very focused on, you know, this Trump regime and politicians in general are not focusing enough on kids. Well, yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, people really want something for the future. I have a lot of older people in my district. I have a lot of younger people. The consistent story is I want a future. I want a future for my kids, my grandkids, for myself. And when you have things like, I have a 20, almost 25-year-old daughter.

16:22And she told me the other day, it costs$75 for her to pay her rent. When did that become normal? I should be able to pay my rent for free. And no sooner than she said that, when I went to pay my gas bill, that was$31, it cost me$2.75. Why is it costing almost 10 % for me to pay a bill? That's crazy. Or when you think about what a pound of ground beef costs, a gallon of gas, the fact that she comes over to our house every weekend, and I'm an enabler, but she comes over every weekend and packs up toilet paper, paper towels, because why? Groceries are expensive, and they're not coming down. This is the great fraud that we're putting on our young people, and it's not fair.

17:09And that's why we should be fighting.

17:10Ben Meiselas:You know, but then what Trump does is he rolls out his gimmicks. Gas prices are going up again. I'm going to roll out Freedom Centers, 15 gas stations in Pennsylvania that nobody even knows who's funding these things. I'll make you$3.47. And I will try to extrapolate 150, thousand gas stations based on these 15 and nobody knows who's funding and subsidizing these 15 stations. You know, groceries are going up. Everything's going up. What do you do? You, you basically co-opt a Walmart sale, which is what he did. And basically said, I took a Walmart coupon, which said, I don't know, 10, 15 % off ground beef.

17:52Ben Meiselas:And Trump says, look, that's demonstrating that ground beef prices are down 10 to 15 % because his view is you just give somebody something. And there's so many numbers out there that he can say 19.2 trillion, bajillion, gajillion, and people just get lost in it. This is a big ego trip because here's the thing. When you make people eat out of your hand, you force them to become dependent on you. And you make it seem like you're providing them some great benefit when all you are is making them dependent. And I think that is the opposite of freedom. That is the opposite of what people signed up for when they thought they were getting a president that was going to be interested in them.

18:33I mean, many of us knew he was going to be trash as he has turned out to be. But freedom is when you have the opportunity to make your own choices, what you buy, when you buy them. You can live where you want to live. You can love who you want to love. You can go where you want to go. You don't have to be restricted by somebody else's rules. And what he is doing is trying to make Americans eat out of his hand based on what he allows us to have.

18:58Ben Meiselas:You know, one of the biggest tells when he gives speeches now, one of the lines he uses is he goes, I would be the best communist, he said, because all I would do is promise people, I'll give you this, I'll give you that, I'll make it great. And I would be the greatest communist, he goes, since Lenin, because again, he makes it even extra weird by calling Lenin Lenin. How do you hear this much stuff? because I had to tune him out and just focus on keeping the main thing, the main thing for the people that I represent for black people in this country and for Americans abroad. Like I don't understand how you can take in that much Trump and not have your stomach sick every day.

19:39Ben Meiselas:You know, I do it so I can then bring people like you on the network to speak the truth to the people and show that there is a contrast out there. Anything you want to say before we head out? Well, you know, we got to love our kids harder than we love the chaos that Donald Trump is delivering to America. We have to stand up and fight for them. We have to make sure that they have a better future than what we had. And I'm unapologetic about that. And forget Trump. We got to just work on the things that that they need right now. Congresswoman Bynum, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Everybody hit subscribe.

20:13Ben Meiselas:Let's get to 7 million subscribers.

20:20Ben Meiselas:Get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.