Rep. Subramanyam Responds to Trump Shutdown Madness

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1:06Ben Meiselas:Couchy products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see cowsy.com slash regulatory. During these very serious times, while Donald Trump has forced the government into a shutdown, we expect leadership at the White House. In fact, I think Donald Trump said that back in 2011 and 2013, the president must bring people together to avoid shutdowns. Well, here's what's being posted from the official White House account, which looks like a 4chan meme machine at this point. That's not a good thing. And they're posting photos like this of Chuck Schumer in a hot dog costume.

1:44Ben Meiselas:We're all trying to find the guy who did this. They're saying Dems right now. And when you read the comments from a lot of these posts that the White House is making rapid fire, it's like how embarrassing for our country that this is our official social media account. Don't the Republicans control all branches of government? There's another post where Donald Trump does a video where he says transgender for everybody. And I don't even know what that means with a transgender flag and says this shutdown is about transgender for everybody. You look at the comments and they say, I literally follow this account just to see the current administration get roasted in the comments.

2:21Ben Meiselas:MAGA, how are y 'all really believing this stuff? Your mom took Tylenol if you believe this. Pro tip, if you really want anyone outside of MAGA to believe incorrectly that this is the Democrats' fault, you may not want to post clips and memes every 10 minutes saying that this is the Democrats' fault. Seems desperate. And then someone else wrote, I love my government propaganda machine White House. Another post they made, Democrats have shut down the government. A quote from Donald Trump in 2013 from one of the commenters, a shutdown means the president is weak. Another person commented, Dave the Pirate writes, don't the Republicans run the House, the Senate and the presidency?

3:01Ben Meiselas:I guess Trump is just powerless against those big bad Democrats. Democrats. Another person responded, good to see the comments filled with people who understand how government works. Another comment, Republicans control both houses and the presidency. This lie don't fly. Then someone goes, who holds the majority in the House? Who holds the majority in the Senate? Sounds to me like a few Republicans flopped on you. That's a Republican problem. And again, we're just taking some anecdotal data of the White House account, but those are the most popular comments on all of the recent posts. I want to bring in a Democratic Congress member from Virginia, Congress member Subramanian.

3:39Ben Meiselas:We've had him on the show before. Congressman, it's great to see you here. These are very serious times. I mean, they are. And look, I like humor on my show. I like to pretend that I'm funny sometimes. But I also like to know when I direct that humor and how to address these issues, especially, you know, you represent a district in Virginia that has a lot of government workers, people who are either have been laid off or are going to be laid off. People are scared. They're living paycheck to paycheck right now. In Trump's economy, things are bad unless you're a billionaire. And to me, this behavior of like posting, you know, AI memes of Leader Jeffries and sombreros like it's not the time and like right now we need a leader not not whatever the hell this is what what do you make of it all congressman you know as all of this unfolds it seems more and more clear to me that this was the republicans plan all along to shut down the government i mean they put uh you know this terrible proposal before us again and we didn't vote for it last time we're not going to vote for it this time.

4:48They knew that. And Russ Vogt is at the OMB is looking at how he can fire more federal workers, even though that's illegal during the shutdown. And now they're putting out these tweets that they think is funny and these AI generated videos. And it just seems to me like they're enjoying this shutdown and that they think this is funny. And it's not funny. The reality is this is going to hurt a lot of people, including my friends and neighbors in Virginia. It's going to hurt a lot of contractors who go completely without pay. And most of all, it's going to hurt the American people. And I think the American people are sick of this.

5:28They're sick of these shutdown fights. They're sick of Congress acting like this. And these seem to only happen when Republicans are in charge, these shutdown fights. It seems like when President Trump especially is in office, you better believe that shutdown is going to happen. And I talked to one federal worker who said in January, Trump's in office. I better start saving because there's probably going to be a shutdown. And I was like, even with the Republican majority, and they're like, especially with the Republican majority. And so they were right. And I think these, you know, mean tweets and, you know, these, you know, weird AI videos seem to lend more credence to the fact that they wanted this all along.

6:09Ben Meiselas:You know, when you look at a lot of major crises that have taken place out here in California, horrible fires last January, I go back to Biden's administration where, you know, maybe there would be a train derailment in the Palestine area in the Ohio, whatever it would be. it would actually see to me that that's when these Republicans would like get giddy. Like they were like, all right, now is the time where we put our kind of right wing disinformation machine and let's come up with the craziest crap to flood the zone. I mean, during the fires, it was, there was a magical faucet that is on the border of California and Canada.

6:55Ben Meiselas:Of course, it doesn't border Canada. And this faucet that Governor Newsom didn't turn on the faucet, And he was too focused on saving the smelt fish that he didn't care about the fires. And, you know, seeing Governor Newsom's progression the first two days, he was like, why would I respond to these stupid things? But then he realizes that if you don't deal with it, it has a way of bending reality. So you actually have to address these things. And now here, as we're dealing with the shutdown, you know, you saw some of the posts that I showed you. I mean, they're saying what this shutdown is about is the Democrats demanded trillions of dollars for transgender surgeries in Peru.

7:35Ben Meiselas:And they also are demanding trillions of dollars for illegal immigrants to go on Medicaid and to get the Affordable Care Act tax credits to the illegal immigrants. And it's so far out there that it's hard to, in a symmetrical way, address something that's such a lie, which is why I think they make the lie so big and outrageous. But, you know, what's what's your take on how you deal with with that? And do you think the people in Virginia in your district are buying what's being sold right now to them? Yeah. You know, if you want to raise your blood pressure, check out their news conference from earlier today.

8:17where Mike Johnson and John Thune were there. And basically they said that Democrats want to shut down because we want to provide health care to illegal aliens, which is not true because these programs we're trying to protect are not, illegal immigrants are not eligible for them. But even more so, they went on to say, I kid you not, that we're out here as Republicans to protect federal workers and protect veterans' benefits and food access. Well, you know what? the last nine months, they've been doing nothing but the opposite. They've been firing federal workers. They've been taking away veterans benefits, firing veterans as well, and taking away food access programs like SNAP.

8:58And so you look at all those things they've done and the things they're saying, it's classic gaslighting, really. And so the other thing to note about this is they weren't even here yesterday. The day that we're supposed to have potentially a vote again to avert a shutdown or try to figure out a way forward. It's not like we could negotiate with Republicans. They were told to stay home and not to even come in this week. And so how are they? They had six months to avert a shutdown. And yet here we are yesterday and they don't even show up to work. I mean, you know, in most jobs, if you don't show up to work and you don't do your job, you get fired.

9:38And I hope they all get fired over this because the American people deserve much better. Now, in my district, I have a very smart district with a lot of people who serve our government. They protect us. They keep us safe, keep us healthy. And they're either federal workers or contractors in many cases. And they're wise to this. They understand that shutdowns really only happen because of far right wing Republicans. And remember, this speaker got to power because the previous Republican speaker was negotiating with Democrats too much. Right. And so the Freedom Caucus staged a revolt last time. And so that's the makeup of this current Republican House membership is that they don't want to work with us.

10:22They just want to force us to vote for their crap. And in the end, we're not going to be for it anymore. We're not going to do this. I'm glad some Democrats from this past spring who voted for that last time see that you can't trust Republicans on these issues and that you need to get them to the table. and figure out a bipartisan solution rather than going along and being dragged along with this takeover of the federal government and these cuts to health benefits for every American. So, you know, I think my constituents understand this and they're fed up, really.

10:58Ben Meiselas:You sit on the House Oversight Committee. It's now being led on the Democratic side by ranking member Robert Garcia. You were elected in 2024, part of a new wave, if you will, of kind of younger Democrats. Well, you and I are the same age, younger Democrats who are, you know, making sure to use the opposition role right now, though, to still conduct robust oversight, which I think a lot of people see with the stick-to-itiveness regarding the Epstein files. An issue that I'm wondering, your perspective as someone who sits on the House Oversight Committee is, Donald Trump keeps saying that he brought in$17 trillion.

11:41Ben Meiselas:He repeats it over and over again. And in connection with the shutdown talks, which is kind of counterintuitive to me, because, look, I think we all know that he's lying about the number, but just assume that he's telling the truth and he actually brought in$17 trillion. Well, no one on the House Appropriations seen the money. No one in the Treasury Department seen the money. No one on the Budget Committee seen the money. So that means$17 trillion is missing. I think about the Bernie Madoff scandal, one of the biggest Ponzi schemers in history. There,$45 billion went missing. And of course, we know what happened there.

12:21Ben Meiselas:So if$17 trillion, as he keeps on saying, exists, what account is it in? Did he steal the 17 trillion? He's promised dividend checks and rebate checks over and over again. Shouldn't the American people who are struggling get this money right now? And why isn't anybody asking, well, which account is it in? Show us where it is. Seems like a big deal. Or is the number just so big that it's like, ah, it's Donald being Donald? Yeah. Now show your mouth, right? And show us the proof. That's the thing. I mean, the reality is I think a lot of people, they're just so numb now to all of his lies and his misdirection.

12:58And so he can throw out something like that. It's not news anymore. For any other president, it would have been big news. Oh,$17 trillion. That's not even possible. That must be a lie. But with this president, people are so used to him not telling the truth that, you know, we are where we are. But yeah, I'd love to see his math on that. I'd love to know why it's not being returned to the American people, if that's the case. What I do know is, you know, we have all the accounting on how he's enriching himself and his family. That's billions of dollars, certainly. I mean, they're using all these grips now and they're using our foreign policy to enrich themselves and people in the administration are enriching themselves.

13:36And so, you know, I've sent many letters asking about that, haven't gotten much of a response. And anytime I speak up about it on the House floor, Republicans tell me that that's not decorum. I should I should be nicer to the president, not be mean to the president. And so that's an actual policy that they have on the House floor now. So I think we have to continue asking the questions, at least asking for the proof. Knowing that most people, I think, have resigned themselves to the fact that the president doesn't tell the truth.

14:03Ben Meiselas:You know, and then to me, finally, you know, before we go, I mean, there's just such a contrast right there between him bragging about the gold in the Oval Office and golden ballrooms. And he was in the UK and golden carriages. And he's talking about turning. He turned the Rose Garden into club Rose Garden, a club for rich Republicans only. He posts these videos of what the UFC fights on the White House lawn are going to look like. And so, I mean, you see that. And then you see, by the way, every day, what's the$50 billion Jared Kushner deal with the Saudis to buy EA? Barely gets reported to begin with as well, where he's funded by the Saudis and his affinity company.

14:47Ben Meiselas:And then Saudis PIF bought it. But like, that's like a blip. Like, oh, yeah, that's just makes a bunch of sense. Trump Plaza in Saudi Arabia, billion dollar project announced this week as well. But you have that. Then you have what the American people are going through. farmageddon farmers on the verge of bankruptcy if not already bankrupt construction and manufacturing workers essentially in a recession worst housing market since like 1995 it just seems that contrast right there is so stark right now so before we go i want you to comment on that because it seems that you know it's one of these eat your cake moments if you will yeah that's the policy of this administration, let them eat cake, right?

15:26Let's cut benefits, Medicaid benefits to people who need it most so that we can fund tax cuts for the richest corporations and people, right? But we have to still be talking about this. We can't ignore this. We can't ignore the policies of this administration. However frustrating it is that it's not covered, we still have to bring up these issues. In the end, you know, they rely a lot on indifference and they rely a lot on fear and the projection of power, but they're really not as strong as people think. And I think what we have to do is push back and really, whether it's, you know, someone who's affected by Medicaid cuts or a federal worker who's furloughed right now, everyone speaking up makes a huge difference.

16:16And I've seen it over and over again. When you speak up, when you fight back and you don't acquiesce to this administration, you see results and you see them shift and you see them retreat and get scared away. And so I think that continues to be our plan for how to push back. And it has to continue. And, you know, we have elections in Virginia coming up. Early voting's already started and it's in November. And we can send a huge message in Virginia, New Jersey and all across the country to people and to members of Congress on the Republican side included that the people are not accepting these policies.

16:53And so but it starts with actually speaking up about it and not being afraid.

16:59Ben Meiselas:Congressman Subramaniam, appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six 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, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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