Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (10:05)

Here, play this clip.

Kevin Hassett (10:06)

All of that is happening because of optimism that President Trump not only will resolve this in the short term, but in the long term, his policies are going to create a golden age. And so I began the year with the guess that we'd probably be in the 4 to 5 range for economic growth because of all this. And I'll stick by those numbers. I think this is a temporary distraction that will very, very quickly go away. You saw that when you saw the market celebrate yesterday when they thought that this would be over.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (10:34)

I want to bring in Democratic Congressmember Raja Krishnamoorthy. Congressman Krishnamoorthy. I mean, we're seeing this Ponzi scheme play out in real time. It's right around the corner. Don't worry, it's all gonna be amazing. And meanwhile, they get us into these catastrophic and unlawful wars. That compound things and make it worse. But always in a crisis mode, creates a distraction, whether it's a distraction from the horrific economy, the distraction from the Epstein files, the distraction from a myriad of other things that Donald Trump is doing to destroy the country. And that's what Ponzi schemers do, distract.

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (11:11)

There's always an emergency. Look this, let it look this way.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (11:14)

And meanwhile you see what's going on. What do you make of this moment though, as this catastrophic war is following the same kind of Trump playbook, which is now he does the fraud deal, now we're in.

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (11:26)

And all it does is it weakens

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (11:27)

us in the end because everyone looks at us like, what the hell's going on with the United States of America, man?

Ben (Host/Interviewer) (11:32)

Look this, as you said, this illegal, unconstitutional war has been disastrous not only for our national security, but for our economy. I mean, you don't have to go further than the gas pump where you're starting to see, you know, $4 gas go to $5 and it's going to be six to seven dollars in places like California pretty soon. So when I hear Howard Lutnick say this economy is going to be humming, I think he's referring to humming the blues. And at this point, you're right. I think that they're trying to distract from all their domestic problems having started this foreign adventure. But now Kevin Hassett is saying this distraction is a distraction itself. I mean, it's become a disaster. And I think that we are kind of in this situation where it's a complete man made disaster. And it is not what the American people signed up for in the least. They are complaining about their gas, they're complaining about not being able to buy a home, which by the way, is becoming more unaffordable by the day because of inflation. And as the Fed hikes interest rates or considering hiking interest rates, it's going to become even more unaffordable. So this is just a catastrophe.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (12:49)

Right now, the most important currency, I think, of governance and international policy is trust. And when trust and good faith is lost, the system disassembles. And what we've always been seeing with Trump's fake deals that he announces he's doing that right now with Iran. I mean, Trump makes his social media posts, We've agreed, this is what he said. We've agreed to the 10 point framework put forward by Iran. Then he reposts the Iranian foreign minister Iraq cheese message about a 10 point plan.

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (13:30)

And then the day later, J.D.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (13:32)

vance, while leaving, of all places, Hungary, where he's propping up. Viktor Orban, a Putin puppet, says, you know what?

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (13:40)

MB Golubov, the parliament leader of Iran, doesn't really speak English well. And so there was reasonable misunderstandings here.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (13:49)

Like they thought Lebanon was included in the ceasefire.

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (13:53)

We never. It's in English. They don't understand English well. And so they actually adopted our 15 point plan, and it was just the language barrier. I mean, I kid you not, that's

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (14:04)

actually what they're saying and what they're pulling right now. Congressman.

Ben (Host/Interviewer) (14:08)

Yeah, and you see, Wall Street's not buying it. They don't believe that this war has necessarily even gone into ceasefire, let alone that it's going to end. And so you see these oil futures trading higher and higher and higher. I think the one big thing that has emerged is we may be winning militarily in certain regards, but we are losing economically. I mean, you can see that the Iranians have basically recognized their control of the Strait of Hormuz, and they are using that leverage to the hilt. And we are kind of in a situation where we basically exposed a huge weakness of ours, and the Iranians are now going to use that leverage to get all kinds of other things that we would otherwise not in any way agree to. And that's what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned yet again that this illustrious group of negotiators, Jared Kushner and Witkoff and Vance, are going to Pakistan and are going to basically negotiate something that, again, seeds our foreign policy interests and national security interests, just as they have with regard to Ukraine and Russia. And we're just becoming less safe as a result.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (15:32)

So where do we go from here? I mean, obviously this is how Trump wants this to play out for the next three years.

Ben (Host/Interviewer) (15:42)

Oh, yeah, by the way, before I get to that, I am still very concerned about the insider trading that's happening at the White House and in the executive branch, the people in the know with regard to the ups and downs of what's going on with the Iranian war, I think there's a lot of insider trading going on and people are making money off of the markets gyrating the way they have and the oil prices going up. Getting to your point, where do we go from here? We bind with our friends, partners and allies once again to try to get a diplomatic solution to all of this. Look, the Iranians must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. But I'm concerned that everything that we've done has caused them to accelerate that program. We need to have free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. And again, our actions are causing the opposite. They are strengthening their control over the Strait of Hormuz. And then finally, we need to reduce their nefarious activities and their ballistic missile program. And I think right now those are unfortunately entrenched even more than before. So, you know, we are just in a world of hurt right now. We gotta get to a better place asap, you know?

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (17:03)

And how do Democrats, though, make it clear? Or set aside Democrats? Just the media, everybody, just make it clear what's happening, because this is the cycle. You know, Trump will do this for the next few years. He will break it, but, you know, he'll keep the Ponzi scheme afloat, kind of just enough by robbing Peter to pay Paul, as they say. And then whether it's a Democratic president or whoever, Democratic president takes over, whoever that's gonna be, and then they gotta look at this and they go, it's a Biden moment. Holy crap. Like, I gotta fix this, that, and the other thing. And for me to fix it, I've got to do surgery. And for me to do the surgery, I got to open up the body. And to open up the body, it's

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (17:51)

going to look ugly, but that's the

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (17:53)

responsible thing to do. And the moment you start opening up the body, then your colleagues on the other side, they go, I'm a fiscal hawk, and I'm this and I'm that.

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (18:03)

How dare you. And then Fox starts blasting.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (18:06)

Could you believe this?

Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (18:07)

That and the other, the fixing. It's not easy to fix things, but then you get blamed as being the arsonist by the arsonist when you're putting out the fire. So how do we. How do we break this cycle?

Ben (Host/Interviewer) (18:19)

Well, first we have to. We have to point out what's going on right now. We have to do it in a unified fashion. I think that people already realize it in their gut. I think there's tremendous buyer's remorse, Ben, among people who voted for Trump. I think they see that I talked to farmers, for instance, and they are going through hell right now because their fertilizer costs are through the roof due to fuel prices going up, which is an essential component in making fertilizer. At the same time, their counter tariffs are hitting them in the pocketbook as well. And so these are squarely Trump voters. And so these are folks who are having second thoughts about Trump. And it'll be very interesting to see what happens in places like Iowa, for instance, with their. With their upcoming gubernatorial races and other statewide races that they consider. Do they want to go the same course or do they want to go a different course? So we have to point out what voters actually voted for and got from Donald Trump. That's step one. Step two, we have to talk about, okay, what do we want to do? Right? And I think what we want to do is we want to focus back on people's pocketbook issues. We got to end the tariff chaos. We got to stop these crazy military adventures, and we have to kind of focus back on restoring some of these cuts that have decimated people's health care, whether it's in Medicaid or their food stamps or, for instance, even in the ira, the Inflation Reduction Act. Remember, one of the reasons why we are so in soup right now because of this Iran war is because of our reliance on fossil fuels and oil, okay? And the Inflation Reduction act was in part a way to incentivize the growth of our solar, wind and renewable energy industries to basically wean us off dependence on those fossil fuels and that oil, which Iran is now taking very strong advantage of. And so if we really want to get out of the grips of being dependent on the beneficence of the rulers of Iran or in the Middle east, we've got to get our act together with renewable energy. So those are the types of messages I think that we need to continue with and of course, holding the Trump administration accountable for all the horrible stuff they've done, whether it's with regard to the Epstein files, whether it's the economy, whether it's ICE or anything else.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (20:48)

Congressman Krishnamoorthy, appreciate you coming on. As always, appreciate your leadership in Congress and fighting back in these crazy times.

Ben (Host/Interviewer) (20:58)

Thank you so much, Ben.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy (20:59)

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Ron Filipkowski (Narrator/Commentator) (21:04)

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