← The Briefing with Jen Psaki
The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Backlash: Republicans head home to face constituent wrath over rich-get-richer budget bill
00:41:19
The Republican budget bill still has a lot of time and processing to undergo before it heads to Donald Trump's desk for his signature. And now Republicans face their worst fear and biggest obstacle, their own constituents, who are quickly finding out what their elected representatives have voted for and aren't going to be happy about it. Jen Psaki shows that there is still time for American voters to make themselves heard in the budget process.
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- [00:00]
Jen Psaki
Republicans finally passed Donald Trump's, what I'm going to call a big old nasty bill to give tax breaks to millionaires while kicking millions off their health insurance. Great work, everyone. I mean, congrats to all involved. I guess this is your signature accomplishment. But if you're the President, and he was definitely involved in this one quite a bit, how do you celebrate the first step in your signature legislative agenda? Well, we were just talking about this, too, but basically, he ended tonight with a big fancy dinner, one where rich people all coughed up money to make his family richer, all for the privilege of getting access to him, the sitting President of the United States. Now, I'm referencing, of course, the fact that tonight, Donald Trump spent the evening wining and dining with the top investors in his family's meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency. Of course, Trump's family business basically auctioned off access to the President by promising the top 220 purchasers of his coin a a seat at his crypto gala, the one that was held in the last couple of hours, just tonight at his golf club, of course, in Washington, D.C. now, the top 25 coin purchasers of that 220 got even more access to Trump. They were invited to an exclusive VIP cocktail reception before the dinner. So, just to be clear here, I mean, these crypto investors literally bought access to Donald Trump by enriching his family, and the more money they paid, the more access they got. It's basically the definition of an in your face, blatant, brazen, whatever you want to call it, pay to play scheme. But the White House says, don't worry, because Trump isn't doing any of this as President.
- [01:42]
Jack Lew
This question has been raised with the President. I have also addressed the dinner tonight. The President is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner. It's not taking place here at the White House.
- [01:55]
Jen Psaki
Oh, I see. So this dinner was scheduled during Trump's personal time. His shift must end at 5pm I guess. So anything after that doesn't count in terms of abiding by rules and laws and such things. That obviously is not how any of this works. I mean, when you're president, you're the President from the moment you are sworn in to the moment you leave office, whatever you're doing, sleeping, dining, vacationing, no matter what you're doing. And the people who paid the Trump family huge sums of money by investing in this meme coin that again, will benefit him and his adult sons financially, they got special access to the President and We will probably never know who most of them are. And these donors, by the way, gave a lot. I mean, NBC News estimates that the average attendee to this dinner spent more than $1 million on Trump's cryptocurrency in order to just attend this dinner. And CNBC at the same time reports that about 764,000 people, most of whom bought much smaller amounts, Trump's Meme Coin, have all lost money on their investment. So small investors, the overwhelming majority, got screwed, while rich investors got a private dinner with the sitting president. And for the people who invest a lot, it's worth a lot. I mean, the person who bought more of Trump's Meme Coin than anyone else was this guy. His name is Justin sun and he's a Chinese born crypto mogul. You can see him right there on the screen. Who until recently was being prosecuted by the SEC for his own alleged crypto scams. That was until Justin sun invested $75 million in Trump's family crypto business. And then suddenly, Trump's SEC decided to pause the case against son. Gee, I wonder why. We're going to have a lot more on Trump's number one crypto fan later in the hour. There's a lot to say, including what a $6 million banana has to do with all of this. And I promise you, it has something to do with all of this. But other than Justin sun and a handful of other crypto investors, we don't actually know who the vast majority of these attendees were. All we know is that they bought access to Trump. And in an administration as corrupt as this one, that kind of access is worth a lot. We've seen time and time again how being close to this president can make people richer or at least allow them to avoid financial pain. I mean, today ProPublica also reported that more than a dozen high ranking Trump officials and congressional aides are sold stock right before Trump crashed the stock market with his big tariff announcement last week. Once again, the people around Trump seem to benefit a lot, while basically everyone else gets screwed. It's a dynamic we see playing out over and over and over again in this administration. And there's basically perhaps no better example of it than Trump's big, beautiful, nasty bill, whatever you want to call it, that House Republicans just passed. By now, you've probably heard some of the top lines about this bill. We talked about them last night. We'll talk about it more in the show. How it will cut taxes for the wealthy and slash things like health care and food assistance for Anyone else. But when you really look under the hood, and we did a little bit of that today, you start to see that the closer you are to Trump, the more this bill does for you. I mean, for instance, the bill allocates a whopping $25 billion for a new US missile defense system, unironically called the Golden Dome for America. Yes, they called it that, everyone. Well, last month, Reuters reported that one of the leading contractors being considered for that big, expensive project is SpaceX, which is, of course, one of the companies run by Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk. That's not even all. The bill also includes some other giveaways for the MAGA faithful, like a tax break for gun silencers. And the only people who benefit from that one are secret assassins, I guess, and, well, gun store owners, the people who make money selling dangerous weapons. People like MAGA Representative Andrew Clyde, who even took credit for getting the gun silence or tax break in the bill. Congratulations. I guess the next time a gun goes off and you don't hear it, I guess you should thank Georgia Congressman Andrew Clyde for his work there. Don't forget to stop by his gun store, of course, because according to his latest financial disclosures, it's worth anywhere between 5 and $25 million. And that's before the big, beautiful gun silencer tax break kicks in, which, of course, he's working to ensure. And remember, the whole theme of this bill, from top to bottom, is that it will make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I mean, 13.7 million Americans would lose their health care if this bill becomes law. 13.7 million, that is 1 in every 25Americans. Some from losing Medicaid, some from losing ACA tax cuts. The bill would also add so much to the national debt that it would automatically trigger $500 billion to cuts to Medicaid, Medicare. The bill gets really creative. I will give it that. I guess when it comes to taking health care away from people, it does it in lots of different ways. And it would mean the biggest cut to food stamps since the invention of food stamps. Just to put it in perspective, this is all a tax on the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Congressional Budget Office estimated the overall impact of this bill on the finances of the top 10% wealthiest households in America and on the bottom 10% poorest households. By 2027, the top 10% is set to become 4% wealthier at the expense of the bottom 10% getting 2% poorer. And I know Republicans in the House are out there celebrating the bill they passed this morning like it's a done deal. But that is also far from the reality here. And this process. And process isn't the most important one, but it's important to understand and know because there is still time here. I mean, this big beautiful bill heads the Senate next. And if the Senate makes even a single change to the text of this bill before passing it, that new bill will have to go back to the House for them to pass and so on and so forth. They basically, the two chambers have to come to an agreement on the text of the bill. The reality here is that the average budget reconciliation process takes five months. So when Senate Republicans are claiming they are going to get everything done by July 4th, that seems pretty challenging because no matter how you slice it, there is still a long way to go in this process. Now, up to this point, Republicans in the House jammed this bill through the first step of the process as quickly as they could literally hold hearings overnight, pulling all nighters to pass their first draft of the bill as soon as possible. Some people fell asleep during that. That meant there was no way for members of Congress, for journalists, for the public, anyone, to go through what was actually in the bill. That was very much by design. That also meant there was very little time for citizens around the country to voice their concerns, to peacefully protest, to push their representatives to vote against it if they're against it. But now this whole process slows down and there's time to dig into it, to ask questions, to peacefully protest. If you choose to write and call representatives. And remember, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes in the Senate, then there are a lot of ways they could lose those votes. I mean, the Hill reports today that they have a count of five to seven Republican senators who could be a no because of the bill's Medicaid cuts. People like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Senator John Hustedt from Ohio, who are all up for reelection next year, did they really want to run out of campaign of having cut Medicaid, health care and food stamps, all to ensure the wealthiest get more tax breaks? Because there are a whole lot of campaign ads I can think of that can be run just around their vote. On this particular bill, one Republican senator told the Hill, quote, there's probably five, six, seven of us who, if you do anything that cuts into benefits, you're going to have a real problem. Wait till that person reads the text of the House bill. Now, as Politico put it today, Senate Republicans are Prepping for one big, beautiful rewrite. Then there's Republican senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, who says he is a hard no on the bill. He says it would add too much to the deficit. Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin says the country can't afford the bill as written. They're basically on different sides of their concerns. But those are two more potential no votes. So a bunch of Republican senators think the bill cuts too much. Couple think it doesn't cut enough. I'm not a mathematician here, but I think a bunch plus a couple is pretty much more votes than Republicans can lose. That means getting this bill rewritten and through the Senate is not going to be a cakewalk. And it could take time. That means time for constituents of those senators to show up at their offices. That means time for protests and peaceful ones, of course, and phone calls and journalists digging through the more than 1,000 pages in this bill to find everything Republicans tried to hide in it. And we tried to do that and talk about some of it tonight. I mean, there is time for Americans to apply pressure, not just in the Senate, because again, once the Senate eventually passes their version of the bill, it will head back to the House and they will have to pass that version of it all over again. Today, Republicans only manage to pass this bill by a one vote margin. 215 votes for the bill, 214 votes against the bill. But after voting on that today, most members went home, as in back to their home districts away from D.C. the house is actually in recess until early June. That means that the constituents of every Republican that voted for this bill have a real opportunity to make their voices heard. In fact, it's 215 Republicans, some of them in very tough swing districts who are up for reelection next year, just voted to take Medicaid away from millions of Americans, including all these Republicans.
- [11:38]
Jack Lew
Democrats will tell you it's going to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and take.
- [11:43]
Dan Goldman
Away your health care.
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Andrew Clyde
They're lying.
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Jack Lew
And nothing can be further from the truth.
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Jen Psaki
We are not going to be touching Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
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Andrew Clyde
I also will stand with President Trump.
- [11:53]
Jen Psaki
In opposing gutting Medicaid. My position on this has not and it will not change.
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Andrew Clyde
Siskamani says he supports both programs, writing a letter to Republican leadership saying he will not vote for any legislation that lowers Medicaid coverage.
- [12:07]
Jen Psaki
Let me tell you again, as a nurse practitioner and a person who understands and cares about health care, I can reassure you that health care, that Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, not places where we're looking to cut services, a budget bill that does not protect vital Medicaid services and address the cap on state and local tax or salt these deductions. If they are not there, it will not receive my vote.
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Andrew Clyde
Would you vote to have that potential of those benefits being taken away?
- [12:37]
Jen Psaki
No.
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Andrew Clyde
I mean, obviously my goal is to not do anything that damages Medicaid.
- [12:43]
Jen Psaki
Every single one of those Republicans just voted to damage and dramatically cut Medicaid. Every single one. The margins in the House are razor thin and there is a lot of time left before the Houses will almost definitely have to take this bill back up. A lot of time in which any swing district Republican member of Congress could face a lot of pressure from their constituents. So as we enter the next stage of the budget reconciliation process, what are the impacts of this bill? Everyone should understand what could happen in the process that could throw sand in the gears to keep some of these horrible things in the big bad bill from actually becoming law. Well, I have just the person to ask, Jack Lewis, the former White House chief of staff, former Treasury Secretary, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, any person who knows his way around this process and basically any job in Washington, D.C. better than almost anyone else. He joins me in just 90 seconds. Joining me now is someone with a more impressive resume than most than almost anyone I know. Jack Lew is a former White House chief of staff, former Treasury Secretary, former OMB director, former ambassador to Israel, and now a professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. It's great to see you. There's so much, you know, that I think a lot of people are trying to understand out there. So I'm so grateful to be talking to you tonight. I just wanted to start with the impact of this bill that's now passed, the first step here in the House. You know, we've been talking a lot about the impact on Medicaid, additional, the cuts to additional health care benefits to SNAP benefits programs that have been lifting up millions of Americans. What should you see as you look at what you've seen and reported in the bill and the details, what do you see as the short and long term impact of this bill?
- [14:37]
Jack Lew
It's good to be with you, Jen. It's good to see you. And I have to say that this is a big bill, but it's hardly beautiful if you look at it at a macro level. It takes a budget deficit and projections of debt that are already a significant enough problem that Last week, the third of the major US rating agencies downgraded US credit rating and it took that to a much worse place. It adds at a minimum $3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. And that's assuming tax cuts sunset. And we know that the sun rarely sets on tax cuts. If the full tax cuts stay in effect, it adds five to six trillion dollars, that's trillion with a T to the national debt over the next 10 years. You know, I've always believed that we have to pay attention to things like are we running a fiscal policy that's sustainable? That's just not sustainable. So that's at the large level. I think that's part of the reason it was so difficult to get a majority in the House and the one vote majority passed the bill. But it really showed that for those in the Republican side who really care about the deficit and the debt, this bill doesn't solve that problem, it makes it worse. Then you drill into it as you did in your introduction, and it's upside down. I mean, it takes benefits away from the people who need them the most and it gives tax cuts to the people who are already in the best position. The average family $50,000 and below would get about $300 a year of benefits. They'd lose more than that from the tariffs. Families a million and above get about $90,000 of tax cuts. It's completely upside down.
- [16:28]
Jen Psaki
I know you are a policy wonk in your heart and have long been, but you've also led a lot of these processes. I tried to do my best to explain to people what happens from here. So what could happen between now and this bill getting to Donald Trump's desk, in your experience, that could make it less awful?
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Jack Lew
Well, look, you can take policies and change them, but it's very hard to make the bill better in terms of hurting fewer people, unless you're willing to take away some of the tax cuts or have a bigger deficit. So there's a price for everything. I think the reality is that for those who care about Medicaid, it's one thing to say you're not going to cut Medicaid. This bill cuts Medicaid very deeply, more deeply than I've ever seen it cut. And it will mean that millions of people lose their health benefits. And you can put a label on things that make it sound benign, but then when you look behind it, you understand why it really is not benign. So you say able bodied people, adults, should work, and most people agree with that. This bill would take families where you have children with one parent at home and say they have to work and prove that they work or they lose their Medicaid and they still have to be home because they can't afford child care after school for their seven year old. So there are choices that are built in here that they know will mean a loss of health care coverage. And you know, there are ways of dealing with these things. But everything you do to address the problems means you lose savings. I think this is the opposite of what you do. If you really want to reduce the deficit. If you really want to reduce the deficit, you have a bipartisan conversation about the difficult choices. It doesn't mean cutting taxes, it means raising taxes. It does mean taking careful steps to reduce entitlement spending, but these are not careful steps on entitlement spending and they're big tax cuts.
- [18:27]
Jen Psaki
Let me ask you to put your former White House chief of staff hat on for a moment since you've worn many hats. I mean, after the House passed this bill we've been talking about, that will have dramatic impact, negative one on working people. Donald Trump tonight hosted a dinner with the top 220 buyers of his meme coin. And the White House says he's doing this on his own personal time, so it's okay. That is not how I remember it working, working for two presidents I'm trying to envision. If that was something that you came across your desk as White House chief of staff, what would you say but help people understand how there isn't really personal time for a president.
- [19:08]
Jack Lew
It was a struggle to get the president upstairs to eat dinner. The president is on 247 and the.
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Jen Psaki
Laws apply to him at all times, which is important, I think, for people to know.
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Jack Lew
And you know, my experience is crises and the need for contact with the president doesn't end at 5 or 6 o' clock at night. You know, it's often at very inconvenient hours.
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Jen Psaki
No question about it. I mean, while he was doing this, you know, I think a lot of people in addition to the impacts of this bill are worrying about the impacts of tariffs, of course, causing prices to go up. You've talked about this. You've been the Treasury Secretary, OMB Director, so many jobs. You've had many of the seats at the policy table deciding all of this. Let me just ask you about how abnormal it is to see a president threaten a retailer like Walmart if it doesn't quote, eat the tariffs, meaning refuse to raise prices given the impact of the tariffs. That's not something I've seen happen before. I would gather you've probably never seen that happen before either.
- [20:22]
Jack Lew
You know, in the administrations I worked in, we were always very careful not to do things that would look inappropriate. And you would feel free to share your views and your thoughts with CEOs. But I don't remember ever threatening a CEO or working for a president who threatened a CEO. You know, I think the tariffs are going to increase prices now that there are 90 day delays on them taking effect in negotiations, there's some chance that there'll be agreements. We don't know what will happen at the end of the 90 days, but we know there are going to be higher tariffs, higher tariffs than we've had in my lifetime. And that means that prices are going to go up. Not all retailers can eat the extra cost of the tariff and the only other place for it to come from is the price. So I think we are going to see some pressure on prices here, not just at Walmart, but at other places as well. That's what tariffs do.
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Jen Psaki
Jack Lew, thank you so much for bringing all of your expertise to us. I really appreciate you joining us tonight. And coming up, what do a crypto billionaire, I teased this a little bit in the beginning. So you knew it was coming. A crypto billionaire and a $6 million banana have to do with Donald Trump. This is one you're just going to have to hear to believe. Also, Congressman Dan Goldman is standing by and he's going to join me after a very quick break. Okay, I'm about to ask a bit of an odd question. Do you recognize this banana that you can see on the screen? It's okay if you don't. I don't blame you. But believe it or not, back in 2019, that banana duct taped to a wall was sold as a piece of art for $120,000. What's even more absurd is that five years later, another edition of that same banana Art, as I guess they called it, was sold again for more than 50 times that amount, for a whopping $6.2 million. Now, the man who bought it, we've already mentioned this evening, it was none other than Chinese born crypto mogul Justin Sun. Yes, the very same guy who won a private dinner with President Donald Trump along with more than 200 other top buyers of Trump's meme coin. Now, even if you consider it modern art, I guess good for you. A single banana doesn't have a whole lot of inherent value, obviously. I mean, it's certainly not worth millions of dollars. And Mr. Sun even proved that point himself when he ate that $6 million banana shortly after buying it what was valuable to Mr. Sun, it seems, was the publicity he got, the shock and awe of it all. And now the Chinese born billionaire is back in the spotlight for dumping his money into something else with no real face value. Trump's Meme coin. Think of meme coins kind of like that banana. I mean, the value isn't in the coin itself. The value is in what the purchaser gets out of it. And that may explain why Justin sun reportedly purchased what is now $18.6 million worth of Trump tokens to become a guest of honor at tonight's dinner. Can't make it up sometimes. Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman. Before getting to Congress, he was an Assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. Okay, Congressman, I just have to start. There's so many ways to go at this. I just have to start with the White House explanation that he was on his private personal time. And there's no such thing as personal time as a president. But from a legal perspective, there's no personal time. There's no such thing as personal time for a president, right?
- [24:01]
Dan Goldman
Well, absolutely. Certainly not if you're dining with somebody and you're selling a seat at that dinner to the highest bidder. And I believe that if Justin sun is the top Trump coin holder, that he is one of the 25 people who gets a private tour of the White House. The White House is, of course, public property. It belongs to the American taxpayer, not Donald Trump. There are all sorts of restrictions under the Hatch act on using that for campaign purposes. I don't even think there are. I'm not unaware of the restrictions, using them for personal financial purposes, because that's such egregious corruption that no other president has ever done it. Justin sun, remember, also was being investigated by the SEC. And after he gave 75 million or invested 75 million in Donald Trump's crypto firm, all of a sudden those SEC charges were dropped. So you're just seeing the corruption in plain sight.
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Jen Psaki
Clearly, it's right in the middle of plain sight. Now, obviously, I don't expect Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate this. Obviously. But if it were any other Justice Department, wouldn't they investigate this?
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Dan Goldman
Well, look, I think we have to stop saying, obviously she's not going to investigate it.
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Jack Lew
Okay.
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Dan Goldman
In the first Trump administration. Well, whether she, I mean, do I think she will? No. But she should not be let off the hook because this is such obvious corruption, as is Donald Trump accepting the $400 million plane from Qatar, as is the $2 billion deal stablecoin Binance, another company that's come in the crosshairs of law enforcement. And in any other administration, of course, there would be a special counsel, as there was in Donald Trump's first administration when Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, and as Joe Biden's administration did several times with various people, including Donald Trump, including Joe Biden himself. So it is incumbent upon the Attorney General of the United States, not the Attorney General of the President of the United States, to enforce our laws and to prevent obvious and egregious public corruption that Donald Trump is now doing so brazenly and so aggressively that he's literally selling tours of the White House to the highest bidder from any country. And no one has any idea who they are, what their background is, whether they're with foreign intelligence, what kind of relationship they have. I mean, the problems here just spiral as you go further down the line.
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Jen Psaki
We've learned some of them, but to your point, we don't know the majority of them, which is incredibly alarming. Well, while I have you here, I want to ask, I mean, because you've raised this about this piece of the Republican budget that was in there, it's the specific Rule 65. It would, quote, restrict the authority of federal courts to hold government officials in contempt when they violate court orders. Without that power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. Basically, I sort of summed it up there. But this is something you've been sounding the alarm on. So what should people understand about that particular piece that is in the bill that the House just passed.
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Dan Goldman
Yeah, the entire Judiciary bill of this reconciliation bill, when it came through our markup in Judiciary Committee, this is what I focused on, because House, the House Republicans, at Donald Trump's direction, presumably are making it more difficult for courts to enforce their orders against Donald Trump and the Trump administration. So rather than be their own, check on the administration's lawlessness, its unconstitutional conduct, its illegal conduct, which judge after judge after judge is now finding to be the case, they are taking Donald Trump's side against the court and trying to gang up with Donald Trump and prevent the courts from enforcing their orders. So Donald Trump has already taken full control of congressional Republicans. He's now trying to take over the only other branch of government, which is the courts. And the way to do that is to defy court orders. And the Republicans in Congress are helping him do it. It's not enough to just sit silently while he does this lawless stuff. They are actually accomplices with him in defying court orders.
- [28:52]
Jen Psaki
No question about it. I wonder why they want to be able to defy court orders. I think we all know Congressman Dan Goldman. Thank you as always. Thank you for joining me tonight. And coming up, Caroline Levitt out of hell to press briefing today. We already played a clip of it and as usual, her answers could use some work. So I'm gonna step in and field some of the questions she got after a very quick break. Well, there was another White House briefing today, so I figured, why not? It's like riding a bike. I'm gonna go try to answer as many of the questions as I can, but with the actual truth. Okay, we're going to start with NBC's Garrett Hake on the President's dinner tonight. Will the White House commit to making a list of the attendees public so people can see who's paying for that kind of access to the President? Garrett, we would all love to see that list. Of course, the White House isn't going to release it, though, the list of who's attending the dinner because they don't want anyone to know who's paying for access to the President and paying to make Trump and his sons richer. We do know a few things and I've talked about a little bit of it. Like people like $6 million banana guy, Justin sun and a packer named Ogle were reportedly on the guest list, if that gives you a sense of the clientele there. We also know that a majority of the attendees who are getting VIP access, by the way, are likely individuals operating from outside the United States. So we know some. We'll learn more. But yeah, I wouldn't be hitting refresh for that list. Okay, Mary Bruce from ABC News, following up on the dinner tonight. You mentioned this is not a White House dinner, but the President is always the President, and the Trump family is making money off of this. So can you just explain how is this not the president using the office to enrich himself? Mary, I can't explain it because that's exactly what this is. I mean, just imagine for a second that Joe Biden or Barack Obama said, you know what? I'm going to go have dinner with 200 donors, many of them from other countries, and they are going to pay millions of dollars to an outside business that makes me and my family a whole lot richer. And by the way, not even going to tell you who they are. But don't worry, it's fine because I'm not on the clock. Imagine the field day Republicans would have with that one. Okay, next up, Yamiche Alcindor from NBC News. The president showed a video that he said showed more than 1,000 burial sites of white South Africans that he said were murder. We know that that was not true and that the video wasn't showing that. So I wonder, why did the president choose to show that? What's not true, Yamiche? It's not true that the video was showing a burial site. It is unsubstantiated that that's the case. Well, first of all, Yamiche, you're right. That was not true. I mean, according to local news reports, the video was a compilation of protests against the violence that all farmers face, regardless of skin color. But Trump became, we think, obsessed with this false narrative of white genocide after seeing a Fox News segment on it back in 2018. And then that obsession only grew once his best buddy and huge donor, Elon Musk, basically moved into the White House. Musk is also obsessed with this completely disproven and totally offensive claim. So to go back to your question, I guess, I mean, why did Trump show it? Because it's a white supremacist dog whistle and because his friend Elon Musk probably asked him to. Okay, next, how about Mike Carter from Newsmax?
- [32:21]
Jack Lew
You had two Republicans last night that voted against Massie and Davidson.
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Andrew Clyde
Does the president think that they should be primari.
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Jen Psaki
I mean, what do you think, Mike? Of course he does. They opposed him. I'm sure it's being communicated, or already has been communicated to them that they have a chance to make it up to him by supporting the final bill. And if not, then Trump, probably Musk, and the rest of the MAGA machine will all do their best to support primary opponents to make a point, though. I would say, though, Mike, since you asked me a political question, the politics is probably harder for vulnerable members who actually voted for it and are not even trying to explain their vote. I'm looking at you, Mike Lawler and a couple others. Okay, I'm told the next question is from Jillian Michaels, of all people, from the Biggest Loser fame. Jillian, as a maha mom yourself, how do you interpret the significance of this report in terms of delivering measurable health improvements for Americans and their kids?
- [33:21]
Andrew Clyde
And what specific actions does the administration.
- [33:25]
Dan Goldman
Plan to take in response to it?
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Jen Psaki
Well, Gillian, that one was definitely made for Caroline and not me. But since you gave me the opportunity, that was a 72 page report put together by the Baja Commission, which includes such distinguished health experts as, wait for it, RFK Jr. Linda McMahon and Stephen Miller. And while they do identify a real problem with Children's health. Their proposed solutions are deeply devoid of things that matter, like, say, science and data and facts. Meanwhile, they are defunding and getting rid of the very programs that would actually help. There's a whole lot more to say on this one, and we're going to say a lot more about it when we come back.
- [34:11]
Jack Lew
President Trump, I'm honored to present you the MAHA report and work with this.
- [34:16]
Jen Psaki
Incredible cabinet that you have brought together.
- [34:19]
Jack Lew
To make our children healthy again.
- [34:26]
Jen Psaki
So today the Trump administration released its report on making America Healthy Again. It's lengthy and it tries to diagnose the main causes of chronic disease in America. It paints a pretty bleak picture of children's health, focusing largely on ultra processed foods, chemical exposures, lack of physical activity, stress and excessive use of prescription drugs. And look, health and chronic disease are serious issues. But I think we should all be pretty skeptical that this commission, headed by a crank conspiracy theorist will come up with the proper prescriptions for these problems. And that's, that's the important part here. Right? Because if the Trump administration really cared about making America healthy again, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. They wouldn't have closed the CDC's office on smoking and health or halted funding for the diabetes prevention program, or made plans to roll back regulations on forever chemicals and drinking water, or censored leading nutrition scientists or cut billions of dollars in research funding at the nih, the largest funder of cancer research. And they definitely wouldn't have supported a bill that will strip health care and food access from millions of Americans. Joining me now is Dr. Ashish Jha. He is dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and the former White House COVID 19 response coordinator. I wanted to Chronic health is obviously a big issue, a serious issue. We all care about our kids health, but what have you. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at this report, what it outlines and what some of the conclusions are. What do you make of it?
- [35:53]
Andrew Clyde
Well, first of all, Jen, thanks for having me back. Look, starts off by saying our kids are the sickest they've ever been. I think it's worth remembering childhood mortality is the lowest it's ever been in the US History, and that's because of vaccines. We've gotten much better at preventing a lot of infectious illnesses. Now the report, what It Gets Right, let's start there. It identifies chronic illness as a problem. It is. It's great to see the secretary join the public health movement. We've been talking about obesity We've been talking about access to better food. We've been talking about exercise. Those are important things, no question. The problem is then when he gets into prescriptions of what to do, there's really just not much there. And most of his ideas are not based in science. And so he identifies the problem that all of us have been talking about, but without anything that even remotely resembles.
- [36:40]
Jen Psaki
A solution, then the solutions are kind of pivotal here, I would say. He said in his recent hearings, he said on multiple occasions that he did not know if a program had been cut or not, which seems. Seems like a pretty pivotal thing for the HHS Secretary to know. What do you make of that? That he seems to be unaware of the decisions that are going on in his own agency?
- [37:05]
Andrew Clyde
Yeah, well, that's the other part of this.
- [37:07]
Jen Psaki
Right.
- [37:08]
Andrew Clyde
And you allude to this both in your opening statement and now, that, look, he identifies chronic disease as a serious problem. We all agree with that totally. Right. But if he actually believed that, he would not be eliminating the Office of Chronic Disease Prevention at the CDC, as you said, he would not be eliminating massive amounts of research on how to prevent obesity and chronic disease in children. Like, there is a huge mismatch between the slogan, the tagline that says chronic disease is a problem, and then gutting all the programs that are actually going to do anything about it. So it's really not clear what the Secretary intends because his words don't seem to match his actions.
- [37:44]
Jen Psaki
While you're here, I wanted to ask you about vaccines. I mean, you mentioned them as well, and you were the COVID 19 coordinator for the Biden administration. This administration has limited approval for seasonal COVID 19 shots to seniors and high risk individuals. And the FDA advisory panel split on whether the agency should require updates of COVID vaccines, which opens the door, of course, to the possibility that we won't have updated shots for the fall. Well, first of all, I hope I summarized it correctly, but help us understand what the impact of that could be on people's access for the vaccine and health.
- [38:16]
Andrew Clyde
Yeah, well, first and foremost, Jen, when we made decisions about this when I was at the White House, first of all, people at the White House didn't make the decisions. The scientists at the FDA made those decisions, and they based it on data. There is no data on which they are making these decisions. Second, the Secretary said he was never going to limit people's access to vaccines. He has just limited people's access to vaccines. If you're under 65, you're not going to be eligible. My view is people over 65 absolutely need to get Covid vaccines. People under 65 should have the option, especially if they have chronic diseases. He is really taking away people's choices. And I really do worry about where this is going. Annual updates of COVID vaccines, like annual updates of flu vaccines is essential, especially for high risk people. And whether he's going to continue doing that or not really is unclear at this moment.
- [39:02]
Jen Psaki
Thank you, Dr. Ashisha. I always enjoy talking to you. Helps provide a lot of clarity to people out there. Really appreciate it. Coming up, we're going to talk about a follow up, follow up to a story we brought you last week. The White House has now scrubbed its website of Donald Trump's public remarks. Gee, I wonder why. We'll be right back. Okay, so we have a quick follow up on a story brought to you. Last week, HuffPost first reported that the White House had been slacking on the routine practice of releasing transcripts of what the president says in public appearances. Now, these transcripts are an important part of what it means for an administration to be transparent. Obviously, you know, that thing this administration loves to claim it is. And we surmise that the reason they were pulling back from providing an official record of remarks from the leader of the free world is because the leader of the free world likes to say stuff like this. I'm surprised that it wasn't, you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine.
- [40:04]
Dan Goldman
That'S a long time.
- [40:05]
Jen Psaki
That's Monroe from the Monroe document. You know, I don't want to be a wise guy, but when Hitler made his speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn't exactly ideal. Just a quick little fact check here. Cancer only goes up to stage four. It's the Monroe Doctrine, not document. If you were a wise guy, you'd be wise to know that Hitler never gave a speech at the Eiffel Tower. So it's not hard to see why this administration would decide there's no need for a written record of all of that. Right. Well, now NBC News has learned that the White House is taking things a step further, scrubbing basically every transcript and making only video and audio of his remarks available. So if you're a journalist, of which there are many out there looking to cross reference with an official transcript, to quote the President of the United States accurately, too bad for you there's nothing there. The self proclaimed most transparent administration in history wants to hide that from you. And again, not hard to see why that does it for me today. You can catch the show Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC. And don't forget to follow the show on Bluesky, Instagram and TikTok for now. Goodbye from Washington and we'll see you next week.