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52, the nays are 47. The motion is agreed to. The joint resolution will be placed on the calendar by the end of Last week. Donald Trump was repeatedly rebuked in the Senate and the House by also many members of his own party. You know, Donald Trump trying to project strength and unlawfully invading Venezuela without authorization. And then Donald Trump again continuing to kind of beat his chest about being a predator in the Western Hemisphere. But what ultimately I saw was weakness and cracks developing with within the Republican Party and his MAGA base. There was also that weird story about Donald Trump calling like the Secret Service on Marjorie Taylor Green. I'll do a whole other video on that. But that vote right there was a war Powers resolution where the Senate voted basically to restrict Donald Trump's power to further invade Venezuela without the authority of Congress. Separately in the House of Representatives Representatives, the Affordable Care act resolution was also passed to extend the subsidies there. Seventeen Republicans joining with the Democrats there. That still has to go back to the Senate. We also saw the Senate in a unanimous consent vote agree to put the January 6th plaque up which Trump and MAGA, Mike and Trump's DOJ has been resisting. So you see those cracks developing. I want to Bring in Democratic Senator Andy Kim from the great state of New Jersey. Senator Kim, it's so great to see you. What are you seeing develop? Because, I mean, I think that those two votes, also the January 6th plaque vote, which is as Donald Trump was putting the disinformation on the White house website about J6among a number of things, seems to show actual weakness at the end of this week.
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C
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Donald Trump wanted to enter 2026 with a lot of strength. I mean, this is the midterm election year. This is the, that's going to shape the rest of his presidency. And with the start with the Venezuela strikes, I think he thought, you know, he is on top. But in fact, this week, what I saw here at the Capitol was a lot of cracks in his support, a lot of signs of the weakness. And for instance, you know, we had the, the briefing with Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth. You know, that was something that I actually think created greater concern amongst senators. I think that briefing was a reason why a number of Republicans voted against the Trump administration with the war powers. Because nobody wants to have this go on for years of America running Venezuela. And that's literally what Rubio told us in the briefing. He said it publicly since that this is going to be years. Rubio said that this will be the remainder of the Trump administration will be, you know, be running Venezuela. And nobody wants that. And I think we're starting to see those cracks. And I think that this is going to be the effort that hopefully will snowball as we get towards the midterm elections.
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Right. You look at Venezuela and it's like, well, what is the, what's the plan? And you know, there seems, based on what was said publicly, I know some of the briefing was classified, of course, but there doesn't really seem to be a plan. And then it's like, okay, so you're going to have basically Maduro's team, Dely Rodriguez Diaz, Dado Cabello, the enforcer, they're going to run things. And then what about Machado? And now she's going to Mar a Lago to give Donald Trump her Nobel Peace Prize. And maybe there's a trade for that this weekend. And people like, what are we even doing? We're going to war over Nobel Peace Prizes or because of Maduro's dancing. And, and by the way, it doesn't seem like China and Russia got the message that they're banned from Venezuela because if you look at what Lavrov saying and Dimitri, they seem to be still Pretty chummy with Del C. And she seems to be doing things, which is good, releasing some political prison. But there seems to be this same entrenchment of the regime that was there before.
- [05:25]
C
Yeah, look, I worked in both Afghanistan and Iraq before. I know that there are limitations to what America can control. But that is not a lesson that Donald Trump learned. He is entering this with so much hubris and arrogance. And honestly, what I've seen in the past is the people that suffer from that type of hubris of an American leader. It's often the service members, it's often the military families, it's often the regular American people who want a president and a government that's focused on them. Nobody wants, you know, a president that's running Venezuela. We want a government that's running America. I want to be a Congress that's focused on America, not on Venezuela. And I think that's exactly the kind of message that people are getting loud and clear right now. They want us to have less foreign entanglements and. And things that are tying us down and instead being able to focus on the affordability, the challenges that we play. And then they're seeing us spending billions of dollars of military equipment and personnel in Venezuela and outside of Venezuela, 20% of the naval fleet of America right now is. Is right outside of Venezuela. And like I said, potentially there for years to come.
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Right. So that brings us to the affordability issue. Cause then in the House of Representatives, they took a vote to extend the Affordable Care act subsidies by three years. You know, you had Donald Trump talking about subsidies, but subsidies for oil companies in Venezuela while the American people are saying, hello, we've lost our health care, we right now. Because the premiums have skyrocketed without the subsidy. So it was, what, 17 House members? It's not a small number. And I. And it would probably be more if they put income, if they did a few things. But 17 is still. Is still a lot. I support the bill in its kind of current form, whatever, but you have 17 supporting it, but that was another rebuke. So what happens next there? Because it seems that th's going to try to block that. And it seems that Trump wants the Senate to squash it. But when there's that type of support in the House, is this kind of like what we saw with the Epstein discharge petition, where there's so much momentum that it just starts to build? What happens in the Senate?
- [07:44]
C
Yeah, what you're seeing is in real time, Speaker Johnson's power collapsing. You know, his ability to control is falling apart. And that's because people are just tired of that, frankly, on both sides of the aisle. You know, just the other day, I slipped and I called him Secretary Johnson because I was saying that he is acting more like a cabinet official in the Trump administration rather than a leader of a separate and equal branch of government. And that's true. And people are sick and tired of that, including on the Republican side. You should hear the things that they tell me behind the scenes. So I think these are manifestations of that. You're seeing that with the Epstein files. You're seeing it now with health care. You're going to see it continue to grow, and that just chips away at it. But what I will say is, look at what Trump's response was when it came to, for instance, the War Powers Resolution. You know, five Republicans voted alongside the Democrats, and then Trump immediately said they should not be reelected. You know, he was immediately attacking them by name. And, look, it included Susan Collins, who is critically important for the Republicans if they want to try to maintain majority in the Senate. So, look, if Trump doesn't want Susan Collins to go back to the Senate after this term, I think a lot of Democrats in Maine, you know, are happy to try to work in that direction. But it just shows you, like, how Trump wants not just loyalty anymore. He wants fealty. He wants complete control, and that's where things are really coming apart. But look, in terms of what comes next, we had this vote in the Senate already. We saw the Republicans vote against an effort to extend these subsidies. We will continue to push because, look, people are really struggling. The calls we're getting from people who are talking about the increases that they're gonna be experiencing now, this is not theoretical anymore. This is real. So we'll keep pushing, but if the Republicans continue to block it, this has to be at the top of the list of what we're pressing and hammering when it comes to the midterm elections, especially since the majority of people will benefit from. From the ACA subsidies, live in states that Trump won before. So, you know, these are people that may have very well supported Trump, or at least at the state level, their governments did. This is a perfect example to show why Trumpism and Trump's policies are failing America.
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You refer to MAGA Mike Johnson as being, like, a secretary because he's functioning as a. Like a Cabinet member for Donald Trump. In that New York Times article that came out, they observed that Donald Trump would refer to his Cabinet members as his children and he would call Rubio his kid and Vance's kid. And he would buy them shoes and he would say to the reporter, hey, can you show them the shoes that I bought you? And Rubio and Vance would show the shoes to them. And in that same interview, the New York Times asked, well, so I guess my point is that maybe Magnum Mike Johnson is viewed as one of Donald Trump's children based on that bizarre cult over there.
- [10:58]
C
Yeah, it's crazy to think about. I mean, like, just he's literally humiliating them in public to force them to show just how much control he has over them. One thing I've been saying on this is I've been calling it mob boss tactics. I've seen this. I'm from Jersey. Unfortunately, we're called the Soprano State for a reason, but we're familiar with these types of tactics that are about just total domination, utilizing every and all tool to just pressure and coerce. I mean, essentially what you saw in Venezuela is now this moving to the foreign policy level of what I call an extortion foreign policy. And this is all happening again because Trump is just subjugating his own leadership. This is all just coming down to him. And. And that's where the breakdown of the government is. You know, like, we do not. I hate to say this, but we do not have three functioning branches of government anymore. You know, we have one branch of government that is literally trying to dominate the other two. And that's part of these mob boss tactics that you were just showcasing in terms of how he's handling his own administration.
- [12:11]
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But here's what, here's what I don't get. Like, about your Republican colleagues who share this stuff with you privately but don't have the courage to publicly resist or stand up, like, being a senator. Think about the jobs out there. Like, you know, it's a pretty big. It's a pretty good one. Like, in terms of, like, there's two in a state, it should be a powerful gig. Like, it's hard to become one. You have to go through a lot of process. So you become a United States senator, and these are smart people. Look, why would you want to do that? And then have this guy treat like it just doesn't make sense? How do you describe the dynamic? Because, you know, these senators on the Republican side, these are smart, tough people in private, but they give up all of their agency to this mania. Help me make some sense. Like, I don't get it.
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C
Yeah, you know, I say, like, look like it's a good job, but it's not that good. You Know, it's not that good of a job that I'm going to betray my own morals and values, that I'm going to, you know, humiliate myself publicly by basically subjugating myself to another person. I mean, he is a bully, and you're allowing a bully to just dominate you. Like, why would you go through this? You know, So I just find it to be.
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Do you guys, like, make fun of him, but, like, like, behind the scenes, when you're there with the Republicans, like, when you're talking to them, you don't have to give the exact dialogue, but do you look at them and are you, like, really, like, real? And they're like, I know, yeah.
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C
That does happen. What I will often find is that, you know, like, my Republican colleagues, they will, you know, they will note that, like, look like he, he Trump is. Is clearly someone that's, that's able to connect with a huge swath of the, you know, Republican base, and that gives him power. But in terms of just where his ideas are, the way that they talk about him, like, I remember I was having a conversation with actually someone within his administration, and we were talking about something that we were disagreeing with the President on, and they were just like, like, let's just, like, not talk about this and, and keep this quiet and maybe he'll forget about it. Like, maybe we can just. Literally, someone in his. His own team is saying this. Like, they're just, like, treating him like, like, maybe we'll just forget about it and we can like, actually go ahead and do this thing. And I just, like, find that to be crazy, you know, that, that, like, everyone around him is just recognizing how, how reckless things are, how chaotic things are. And, and they just think, well, this is just what they have to deal with. If they have to. If they want to continue to be centered, they just have to deal with this rather than thinking about, maybe we should actually try to fix this and get something that resembles a government that is described in the Constitution back on the ground.
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And they continue to cover up the Epstein files. I saw as a Democratic Senator who, in a previous unanimous consent where people agreed to tell the doj, don't delete the Epstein files, they wanted to put it in one of the upcoming appropriations bills, and that was voted down by some of the Republicans in the Senate. And it's just. It's a wild thing that here we are two weeks, three weeks after the Epstein Transparency act was a, Was a law. Maybe even more at this point. Maybe. Yeah. And we haven't Even heard. And they're just going dark. Like, they're just going, like, like they're just going silent with it. They're not doing the redaction reports. I, I, it's, it's also a wild concept that, that they're covering that up in plain view.
- [16:02]
C
Yeah, you point, you know, you pointed out the, the January 6th plaque. Right. I mean, and for those who might not have been following this story, you know, we pass, by law a requirement to, to showcase a plaque that's dedicated to those that saved our lives that day, the Capitol Police and other law enforcement. And Speaker Johnson is just, like, refusing to put this forward. And, like, we don't even know where it is. I was, like, telling my colleagues it's like, probably like in that warehouse where from Raiders of the Lost Ark, that they put things in that no one ever sees again. And I just find, like, just the fact that the speaker of the House is so scared of Trump that he refuses even put forward a plaque that is about, like, lifting up law enforcement. And what they did for us is crazy. And, like, look, my colleagues in the Senate I thought were really admirable the other day when, in a bipartisan way, some of my colleagues went forward and called for unanimous consent, which really just puts it the spot, you know, is any senator actually going to come to the floor and try to stop the unanimous consent about, you know, supporting our law enforcement? And that's why it got passed. So we're going to, you know, we're trying to figure out where Speaker Johnson's hiding this plaque. Now, literally, all day, we're trying to figure out where it is, and we're going to put it up in the Capitol finally, to be able to honor our law enforcement that saved our lives, but also to mark the memory of January 6, which was such a dark day for our capital and our democracy.
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Before we go, anything, you think that there's a blind spot on that as we head into this weekend? You want to address or just let the people know? You know, just. It's, it's been a weird, it's been a weird start. It's been a bizarre start to 2026, and they've thrown a lot at us so far.
- [17:54]
C
Yeah, well, just two things I'll say. One is, you know, as we move forward on this War Powers Resolution, you know, that vote allows us to move towards the final. So we're actually going to have, you know, hours of public debate about Venezuela on the floor. This is exactly the kind of dialogue and debate that should have been happening. We have so far since even the boat strike started, had zero public hearings about what's happening in Venezuela, zero in the Armed Services Committee, zero in the Foreign Relations, zero in the Intelligence Committee. And this is what the administration's been kind of hiding behind. Even when they do briefings, they refuse to do them unclassified because they want to hide behind the classification, because they know that the American people disagree with what they're doing, that they don't want us bogged down for years in Venezuela. So this is going to be the first week. Next week's going to be the first time where we can really have a substantive debate on the floor about Venezuela. We're going to be bringing forward ones about Greenland and others, because it's important for the American people to see that Trump is now threatening a NATO ally of ours. And I worked in Afghanistan. I lived on a NATO military base that had, you know, soldiers from Denmark there working alongside ours to protect us. You know, it's important to shine a light on that. The other thing I'll just say is it's so clearly in the election season. I can feel it with my colleagues here that are on the ballot, especially my Republican colleagues. They're terrified. They know the trajectory of where things are going. And, you know, that's something I think the people need to pay attention to, is just how that's going to change the dynamic with legislation. But we have to keep the pressure on when it comes to the elections. That's ultimately how we're going to stop this.
- [19:40]
A
Senator Andy Kim, we appreciate you. Thanks for joining us.
- [19:44]
C
Thanks so much, everybody.
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