Rep. Chris Pappas on Trump’s economy and his New Hampshire Senate Run

0:00Ben Meiselas:So at first blush, there was a good inflation report this morning. But when you dig deeper, it turns out the Trump regime has changed the formula to try to cover up the devastating impact arising out of the catastrophic war in Iran. So here's what we learned this morning. Out of nowhere, it was like disinflation. That was the headline. U.S. core PCE revisions reveal sharper disinflation. Downward revisions concentrated in 2026 have pushed annual core PCE to 3 % with July revised from 3.34 % to 2.98 % on this news. The markets reacted and started rising. And then I was like, this makes no sense at all.

0:42Ben Meiselas:And it didn't because what was going on is the Trump regime changed the formula for how they calculate PCE, the main bureau responsible for this economic analysis said, here's how we're going to recalculate legal services, computer software accessories, portfolio management. And at first, when this announcement was made, you saw the treasury yield start to go down a little bit, which was like, are we seeing some relief? Because treasury yields, the 10-year, the 30-year, were hitting record highs. And then once it became clear what was going on right here, boom, the 10-year starts to surge again, the 30-year starts to surge again.

1:24Ben Meiselas:And as I've said before, it looks like we're heading right now to like 8 % 30-year fixed mortgages if it keeps going this way, because the treasury yields and where the interest rate hikes keep going, that weighs heavily on what banks can loan consumers. And it really makes the affordability crisis that much worse. And so what we're actually seeing right now is US consumer sentiment at record lows. And despite the Trump regime saying, What's their latest line? We're bringing out more oil from the Strait of Hormuz than before the war. It's actually way better right now. I mean, even the most optimistic accounts of what's going on is it's still not where it was before the war started.

2:08Ben Meiselas:But if that's the case, then why are we drawing down another 40 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Why is our strategic petroleum reserve inventories likely about to fall below 250 million barrels? Why is diesel surging and gas surging? And I just think the American people have all caught on to this hustle and people are absolutely pissed off and livid that all the Trump regime does. Oh, we have a big AI problem. What do we do? Let's name it SI, massive data center issue. What do we do? Don't call them data centers, call them SI centers. And it's just like enough of this crap actually deal with the problems that people are confronting.

2:54Ben Meiselas:I want to bring in Democratic Congress member from New Hampshire, Chris Pappas. Congressman Pappas is running for that really important Senate seat in New Hampshire, the open seat against MAGA Republican extremist John Sununu. I think the American people, Congress member Papas, is clearly aware that this catastrophic war is having wide ranging consequences. The person you're running against has been a major supporter of this war and basically everything that Donald Trump does. And I think that people here are just pissed off also with people like Sununu and Trump saying things are great. Golden age.

3:30Ben Meiselas:We did a deal. We did a deal. Look at the numbers. They're great. And people like the numbers are fake. you're making all this stuff up and we're seeing what you're doing how do you feel about all of this congressman well people know what they're paying they know they're paying four and a half bucks a gallon for gas they know that diesel's about 650 on average across the country in new hampshire we're heading into the winter months and it's getting colder and so people are filling up their oil tanks for the winter that can cost someone a thousand dollars to fill up their tank it's estimated to be 30 to 50 percent more expensive than it was last year so these are real costs that Americans are bearing right now.

4:06And, you know, the administration can hide behind the numbers or manipulate the numbers, but that doesn't change the reality that people are living through right now. And that's why I'm hearing from folks across the board, whether it's Republican business owners, whether it's independent voters, they do not trust Donald Trump's leadership. They do not support this war. They know that it's raising costs for Americans in real time. and whether it's the war and the gas prices, the tariffs, the cuts to health care that are driving premiums higher. My opponent in this race, John Sununu, supports this agenda and will be another vote to champion Trump's policies and to enable this agenda in Washington.

4:43And we'll also help Donald Trump just continue his control on the Article I branch of our government, the House and Senate. The fact is, Congress isn't standing up and doing its job right now. I can count on one hand the number of Republicans that have questioned this administration strategy on the war or on these reckless tariffs, just on the mismanagement of our economy. And that's why we need change in November. We need to flip the majorities in the House and Senate. Things are looking good out there in terms of the response of voters, but we've got to work hard over the next five weeks to deliver the kind of checks and balances our founders intended and to work on behalf of the American people to unwind these disastrous policies and to make life better.

5:22Ben Meiselas:You know, I think what people are seeing is that there's no strategy at all, right? I mean, it's Donald Trump wakes up one morning, he's, I'm going to name it this, Epic Fury, or I'm going to name it that, Midnight Hammer, and that's what we're going to do. And people are like, what are you even doing? Like, a lot of it's evil, almost all of it, malicious. And then it's not even carried out with even the evil and maliciousness, which should not exist. It's then carried out with a level of recklessness and carelessness, which amplifies the evilness and the maliciousness. But it also just makes us look stupid.

6:04Ben Meiselas:Like on the world stage, like it's really sad to see the captain of your team, even if you don't like, even if the captain of your team is the biggest jerk, the worst person, you're still part of the team. But when there's this loser behavior and saying, oh, we control it, it's ours. Look at the new meme I did. It says Trump straight. Ha ha ha. Watch me attack Canada. They're going to be begging for a deal. It just makes us look pathetic. And I don't like feeling this way. And I think so many voters, Republicans, independents, Democrats just wake up and go, yuck, this is gross, and this is just weak loser behavior.

6:46It's not leadership. And Donald Trump puts himself at the center of the universe, and every day is thinking about how can he help himself? How can he just sort of continue to embellish his own bottom line? How can he grow his ego even more? Every day, it's a shakedown for himself and his family. And yeah, it's a golden age if you're getting a no-bid contract or if you're Don Jr. getting a Russian oligarch to pay for your wedding reception. But for the rest of us, it doesn't feel like that. And so they can put out whatever numbers they want. The American people know that this is a totally incompetent president who is estranged from reality, who is blowing through all the guardrails, who's running roughshod over the law and the Constitution every day.

7:30He's a dangerous president who must be checked. We can't allow him to continue to have unchecked power in Washington. And the only way we fight back as citizens and get our country on a better path for the future is to flip the majorities. Just electing people who are going to be rubber stamps for this, who are going to greenlight this, who are going to enable it at every turn, it's going to continue to move our economy in a dangerous direction where it's just totally unaffordable. So I think Americans are speaking out. We're seeing strong turnout in state primaries, special election victories for Democrats, good polling numbers.

8:05But obviously the only vote that matters is the one on November 3rd. And we're waging a tough race in New Hampshire. We've got the winning message. The only challenge to us is we've got a lot of outside money from Trump, Elon Musk and corporate special interests that are flooding the zone right now. And we're seeing that across the country. So now's the time to step up and to get that message out about change, about a focus on economic fairness, about reestablishing the constitutional balance of power in Washington.

8:31Ben Meiselas:I think about on the issue of affordability and the ability of people to afford homes. I mean, a year ago, everybody was expecting that the Fed was going to cut interest rates about three times this year. And now we've seen an interest rate hike when Donald Trump previously threatened the old chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, and literally tried to criminally prosecute the old guy who is known as a dove, who is known as someone who cuts. He brings in the new guy who starts, Walsh, who starts hiking the rates right away. And now we're expecting potentially three or four rate hikes.

9:13Ben Meiselas:It's a shift of like 225 basis points. And that's going to weigh on people and make things more unaffordable, you know, in the future as well. And it seems that what Trump and these MAGAs are setting up for right now is the blame that we were this. And if you hear what they're saying over and over again, and this is what bothers me so much because we see where these trends are heading. I mean, you can see where it's going to be next year based on what I just described. And the way they say you hear Maga Mike Johnson and others, you know, 2025 was the appetizer and then 2026 was the banquet. And then 2027, it was going to roar.

9:52Ben Meiselas:And then they're going to be like, we were so close. We did everything right. It was going to be amazing. And then the arsonists are going to blame the people who are trying to fix it. So how do you just deal? How do you deal with that aspect of it when their whole party is not based on helping people? It's based on power, entrenching power and blame. And they don't care if Americans are collateral damage. You know they're going to do that. Well, I do just fundamentally think that the country is on to it. I was visiting with a small business owner a few days ago, and he observed that during the tough years through the pandemic, he felt like the federal government had his back.

10:32And right now, he says the government is working against him with high fuel costs, high tariffs that have made this the toughest year he's ever been in business. So I'm hearing that across the board, and it's not just coming from the usual corners of the Democratic base. The sort of economic genius that some believe Donald Trump possessed has really been unmasked here. The emperor has no clothes. He's focused on himself every day. He's corrupting government for his own purposes, and at every turn it's nothing but gross incompetence. The people he's selecting for critical positions are selected based on their loyalty to him.

11:11And he thinks he can bend the will of civil society, of media firms, of law firms, of the entire federal government to his every whim. And that's why we need to say something about that this November. But it feels different out there on the campaign trail than it did back in 2017 or even just back a few months ago, because folks are hurting. It's cutting across the normal party coalitions. And this is an opportunity that Democrats have to really expand the coalition, build trust with voters that haven't voted Democratic in recent elections, and talk about the issues that they're living through.

11:46We have it in our capacity to solve challenges, to get our country on a better path for the future. Trump's just going to continue to do what he does. I think the housing bill is a great example of that. A few months ago, we put together what was a pretty sensible, good first start at a major housing package. He couldn't even bring himself to sign it because he wanted to rig the next election instead. So we got to keep pushing in that direction on housing, on health care, on lowering energy prices, on child care, the things that people are struggling with right now, and they deserve some help.

12:18Ben Meiselas:Congressman, this is a big race. All eyes are on New Hampshire. It's an open seat. The path for Democrats to take control of the Senate in many ways runs through New Hampshire. It runs through your race, and that may be one of the deciding factors. And there's a lot of other important races. I don't want to downplay any of the other important races, but I think people need to know how important a race is. Where can people learn more about the campaign and anything else you want to say to our nearly 7 million subscribers? No, this is a key race. It's rated as a toss-up, and we've got to hold New Hampshire's Senate seat, so then we can pick up the four seats we need in all those exciting pickup opportunities across the country.

13:01But I've got an opponent with a big family name that goes back decades and decades in New Hampshire politics. John Sununu was a U.S. senator before. His brother was just our governor. And he's got Donald Trump's complete and total endorsement. And they're pumping in tens of millions of dollars, outspending us three to one on television. So we urge people to go to chrispappas.org, chip in what you can, help us hold this seat and flip the Senate majority. We can absolutely get that done on November 3rd and then begin to unwind the damage that's being cause to our democracy and right the ship in a way where we can translate the will of the people into some positive progress that the country is counting on right now big race congressmember

13:40Ben Meiselas:papas appreciate you for joining us come back on before the election everybody hit subscribe let's get to 7 million subscribers before you go our book wtf america is available for pre-order now it's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back to pre-order scan the qr code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.