Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi Discusses Trump’s Major Failures

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0:55Ben Meiselas:to that in a moment. And we're seeing Republicans speaking up against Donald Trump. I mean, we saw Republican Congress member Dan Bacon say, we will impeach you if you think you're going to invade Greenland, okay? And Republicans will impeach you. So let me just make that very clear as long as I'm here in Congress. And then the Republicans, Democrats, Independents, we all get this news heading into the weekend about Democratic Party momentum. Here, let's play this clip. The Democratic Party has some momentum this morning. The Cook Political report showing 18 House races shifting towards Democrats ahead of November's midterms, suggesting they are in a position at the moment to take back the House.

1:38Ben Meiselas:It cited President Trump's current unpopularity, as well as Democrats' success in the last special election cycle as reasons for the favorable environment. Let's talk about what Republican Congress member Dan Bacon just had to say about Trump continuing to threaten to invade Greenland. Let's play it. Threatening countries who oppose his strange talk on Greenland is also absurd. And I think a lot of the stuff about invading Greenland, he says, I believe it's really being done for negotiating effect. But he says it almost every day. So I feel like people like me and others, we got to speak up and say it's wrong.

2:18Ben Meiselas:You don't threaten a NATO ally. They've been a great ally. that we've had bases on there since World War II. Denmark has fought with us on our higher side in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I feel like it's incumbent on folks like me to speak up and say that these threats and bullying of an ally are wrong. And just out of the weird chance that he's serious about invading Greenland, I want to let him know it would probably be the end of his presidency. Most Republicans know this is immoral and wrong, and we're going to stand up against it. So what would happen if he decided to use military force to take over Greenland?

2:55Ben Meiselas:Well, I think one way or the other way, whether it's even Republican control or if it's Democrat control after November, I think it would lead to impeachment. I think invading an ally to me is a high crime and misdemeanor. And we have a treaty. We have the NATO agreement. And it would be basically suffering this whole agreement and invading an ally, a democracy. It's immoral. It's wrong. What did Donald Trump have to say about that during a press conference earlier in the day? He just wanted to emphasize that he sees himself as king, tariff king. He goes, me, tariff king, me, tariff king. Here, play this clip.

3:40I understood how to deal with him and I'm the tariff king and the tariff king has done a great job. And I hope we win the Supreme Court case, because if we don't be ashamed for our country, be ashamed.

3:52Ben Meiselas:We have me tariff king, tariff king do good job. Tariff king must win in Supreme Court. I mean, what are we even doing here, folks? That's my new line. What are we even doing here, folks? Let's bring in Democratic Congress member from Illinois, Raja Krishnamoorthy, who's also the Democratic Senate candidate there in Illinois. And so you want to learn more about that. We'll talk about that later as well. But Congressman, it's good to see you. And you see what's happening there. I mean, you've got bacon, you've got others. And it does feel that there's a change here as, you know, Trump's craziness and dangerousness, even what he's doing on immigration, is deeply unpopular within the Republican base right now.

4:36Ben Meiselas:What he's doing in Minneapolis in getting a lot of fans for it. What do you make of this moment? I think you're right. You know, you can see Republicans kind of peeling off from the president on a number of different fronts, whether it is 15 Republicans in the House joining with all Democrats to extend the ACA tax credits by three years, or whether it's on tariffs, or whether it's with regard to the War Powers Resolution in the Senate on Venezuela. And now, yeah, I think Greenland is one of those things that gets people basically saying enough is enough. Enough with the chaos at the same time that working families are confronting such high costs of living.

5:20They're not able to really flourish economically. And basically, he's doing the opposite of what people want him to do. They want him to focus on their economic problems. Instead, he's making those problems worse and he's potentially getting us into war. And we can talk about that later as well.

5:40Ben Meiselas:Yeah, let's do them in order. So the first thing, what the American people are feeling right now, you know, Trump's out there saying we have an economic miracle. We've never been hotter. All the data coming in is amazing, which it's not amazing. but also a broader question I have is even with the data, that's bad. The data is not good that's coming in. But how do we even, and I'm not trying to get into conspiratorial areas, how do you trust the data where 40 % of the inputs into the consumer price index are estimates? How do we know? I mean, look, 2.7 % year over year inflation is not good considering we would be back to 2 % right now and Trump just done nothing.

6:25Ben Meiselas:But I know what most people who watch this show say, whether it's their healthcare costs or electricity or the things that matter in their lives, it's far more than 2 % year over year. So how do we make sense of all of that? Look, I think that when Trump says that the affordability crisis is a hoax, I think that he is basically saying something that runs counter to what everyone is feeling and seeing. You go to the grocery store and it's not a hoax. Everything is more expensive now. It's hard to buy groceries for a family of four or five people when your paycheck is basically the same as it was last year.

7:08And so in terms of what the government is putting out in statistics and so forth. I think that what really matters is people's lived experience and they are living a hellacious experience right now, whether it's affording their groceries, affording their rent, buying a home, affording their childcare, their healthcare premiums are skyrocketing right now, in part because the ACA tax credits were not extended. Education costs are going up. So given all that, people are like, you know, focus on my problems, not on your fantasies.

7:51Ben Meiselas:Talk about Donald Trump getting us into the wars, as you've said. I mean, we've already been involved now in military actions across the globe. I mean, it seems every other week there's almost a military action, if you think about it. And we can't forget there was recently a bombing in Nigeria, right? And then Venezuela. And then on January 2nd, Donald Trump tells the protesters in Iran, he says, I've got your back. He goes, go out there and fight. Because if Iran kills one protester, Trump's language, we will go in there. We, the United States, guns a blazing. We've got your back. Well, from all the reporting now, Iran has killed thousands, whether that's low thousands or 20 ,000.

8:46Ben Meiselas:No one really has a number, but we know it's a huge number. And what Trump's been talking about today is I stopped Iran from hanging 800 more people. I greatly respect them for doing that. You greatly respect them for not. I mean, that's a good thing. that they're not hanging 800, but we've went from, we're going in there, guns a-blazing, we've got your back, to we stopped them from hanging 800 more protesters. What do I mean? When you send a message like that, you're going it, America's words must matter and mean something if you're going to say it. Donald Trump's words mean nothing. And we know that now.

9:34I don't think anybody should put a lot of stock in what he promises, whether it's an election promise to reduce prices or whether it's a promise to back people up if they go protest in the streets. It's just so tragic that so many people were murdered, killed, gunned down by the Iranian regime. But at the end of the day, we got to avoid these foreign entanglements, okay? That's why I introduced the NOVA Act. I think I talked about this with you last week, the No Occupation of Venezuela Act, which would basically block taxpayer funds from being used to quote unquote run Venezuela or occupy Venezuela or being used to help oil companies here exploit oil resources in Venezuela.

10:26That's not what taxpayers want. And they don't want to be entangled in an endless war in Iran or Cuba or Greenland or anywhere else. And I think at this point, we got to put our foot down. And I hope my Republican colleagues, you don't need a lot of them. You need some profiles and courage to stand up for what's right and basically say no more wars, no more of these Iraq and Afghanistan, endless wars.

10:57Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about briefly your Senate run. I'll be honest, a lot of people, when they look at the Senate, particularly right now, have felt a little bit betrayed at some of the things that have happened in the Senate. And I understand it's more in theory, you know, we try to work together and all of these things. But then people feel like, okay, well, that's great. But then look what Mitch McConnell did in order to screw over Obama from getting a Supreme Court justice. So like, yeah, but in the biggest issues, Republicans have not done what they were supposed to do. And so, and Democrats have heeded in the Senate, particularly to this, you know, unwritten codes and things like that.

11:46Ben Meiselas:So like, Like, running for Senate, how can you assure the people? You've obviously been a fighter as a member of Congress, and people have been following you here and the way you fight, the way you cross-examine people during the hearings and all the legislation you brought forward. Tell me about the move to the Senate, though, and how you envision your role. Because the prime, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but it's a blue state. The primaries are a really important part. You're still going to have a race after the primaries. But like, what do you do if you get past the primaries and how are you framing your Senate run?

12:21So basically, I frame it around my life story. I think I've told you this before, but, you know, when I was, I came to this country when I was three months old from India. And when we first got here, unfortunately, my father fell on hard times. He lost his income. But thanks to the generosity of the American people, we were allowed to move into public housing and food stamps, spent a good portion of my childhood in those programs. eventually my father got a break, got a great job in Peoria, Illinois, and that's where we made it into the middle class. And pretty much every night he'd say, think of the greatness of this country and whatever you do, make sure it's there for the next families who need it.

12:56And that's become the mission statement of my life. That's my why. And I believe that right now that American dream, if you will, is under mortal assault by Donald J. Trump. And so it's my duty to do everything I can to fight to ensure that others have a shot at their dreams, at their American dream, regardless of whether they're working poor, middle class, or growing a business. And I feel like they think that that dream is, and it is, slipping out of grasp during the chaos of Donald Trump for all the reasons that we just talked about, not addressing the affordability crisis, entangling us in foreign adventures that oftentimes cost us treasure, but also lives.

13:42And we've got to kind of move back to where working families and people want us to devote our attention, which is their economic uplift. And that's kind of the central focus of my campaign.

13:57Ben Meiselas:Where can people find out more about it, Congressman? Uh, www.R-A-J-A-F-O-R-I-L.com. Check it out. Thanks Congressman for joining us. Thank you, sir. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers.

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