Transcript
Jen Psaki (0:00)
My favorite part about having US Cellular.
Hakeem Jeffries (0:02)
Home Internet is all the things it lets me do.
Jen Psaki (0:04)
Its quick connection lets me enjoy things.
Hakeem Jeffries (0:06)
Like streaming my shows, keeping up with my friends online, taking work calls without lagging, and not having to stress about cost.
Jen Psaki (0:12)
Switch to US Cellular and do the things you love with the Internet. You love just $39.99 a month when bundled with a wireless plan. And if you don't love it, you have 15 days to let us know. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details.
Richie Torres (0:27)
Get first day ready the right way, whether the waterworks are theirs or yours. From home to school and back, Stock up with Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues because back to school also means back to sniffles and sneezes. Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues are soft and absorbent to stand up against runny noses to keep you and your family clean and comforted. As the school year starts this back to school season, be prepared with Kleenex tissues, the classroom essential that teachers and students can rely on for whatever happens next. Grab kleenex. Visit kleenex.com to learn more.
Jen Psaki (0:58)
So every president has a big legislative priority that they want to get done in their first year. The first year is always the pivotal time where you can push big pieces of legislation forward. And regardless of party or ideology or the merits of the ideas, the basic question that drives it for every single one of them is typically pretty simple. What's the problem you want to solve? Maybe it was a problem you inherited. Maybe it's making good on a campaign promise. Maybe it's a crisis nobody saw coming that's now sitting in your lap because you're the president. I mean, I worked for two presidents and that's how it went for them. But that's how it goes has gone for pretty much every president for decades. Obama's first 18 months were focused around getting the Recovery act passed because his priority at the time was digging the country out of the huge economic hole, the massive unemployment rate rate crisis that was created by the 2008 financial meltdown. He also fought to pass Dodd Frank, a Wall street reform package to address the problems that had led to the financial crisis. And of course he pushed very, very, very hard for the Affordable Care act because far too many Americans lacked health insurance. He was solving clear pulling the country out of an economic hole, trying to prevent it from happening again, trying to give people health insurance who didn't have it. Fast forward to when Joe Biden took office. That was the height of a global pandemic and his focus was of course on delivering a rescue plan to help address the economic damage it was causing and to help get all sorts of equipment out to people, whether it was tests or masks or things, to help people address and prevent them from getting Covid. That was his focus. He also signed a giant bill into law that addressed the country's infrastructure needs, something way overdue. Remember the infrastructure Week that was in Trump's first term? Seemingly every week? Well, Joe Biden actually did it, and then he passed another law that tackled inflation and the climate crisis. He was trying to answer questions, trying to address the COVID crisis, but also address problems he had long wanted to solve. Outdated infrastructure in our country, the need to do more for the climate. Those were clear questions. That's what they were trying to do in every case. And more cases than those. Presidents identified problems that were impacting huge, broad swathes of the country. And then they worked with Congress to try to solve them. Which brings me to a big unanswered question about Donald Trump's big, ugly bill, which now heads to his desk after passing by the narrowest of margins this afternoon. What exactly is the problem this legislation is trying to solve? What exactly did Donald Trump and his team sit in a room and think, you know what? We have two houses of Congress, we have the White House. We're going to try to solve this big problem? Republicans have never even tried to answer that question, not coherently, at least. But looking what is in the bill, it's pretty clear to me that the problem they were seeking to address is, I guess, that the wealthy in this country have too little and they pay too much in taxes and the poor have too much. It's the only thing that makes sense. And, yeah, that question and focusing your big legislative priorities on answering that question is completely at odds with the often repeated theory that Donald Trump is somehow a champion of working people. I mean, we have all, probably everybody watching right now. I definitely do have all long known that this is a farce. But now, with his signature legislation headed to his desk, there should be no doubt Trump is no populist. A populist doesn't kick 17 million people off their health care coverage. Populist doesn't take food stamps away from millions of people. Populist doesn't fund a massive immigration enforcement army with a budget bigger than many of the world's militaries. And a populist definitely doesn't do all of that, while also giving over $4 trillion in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest people in the entire country. This is Donald Trump's signature piece of legislation. It's the chance he had as president to solve a problem in this country at a time when, by the way, real problems need a lot of solving. Many people who voted for him were betting he was going to do something to help them. And yet those are the people who voted for him, who sent him to the Oval Office, many of whom will be hit the hardest by this legislation. I mean, Trump made huge electoral gains in counties with lots of voters on Medicaid, probably in part because he explicitly pledged never to cut Medicaid. Well, he just broke that promise to all those voters, and some of them don't even know it yet. Some of them still have no idea what Trump and Republicans in Congress have just done. Polling shows that many Americans have not even heard about this giant bill at all. And of those who have, only a sliver know it includes Medicaid cuts. And that is definitely a challenge for Democrats. And we're going to talk about that with a few of my guests tonight, because it kind of is the question now. But here's the thing. The more people learn about what is in this bill, the less they like the bill and all the components of it. And the people who do know what is in the bill are pissed. In Danville today, people voice their frustration with President Donald Trump's one big, beautiful bill, say Medicaid loud and clear. Clear. Across the street from their congressman's office, dozens gathered outside Representative David Valadao's office. Their message to the congressman, vote no on what the protesters call deadly cuts to health care.