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A
Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
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B
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.
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A
And breathe.
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B
Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
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C
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
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B
1-800-contacts.
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D
Good morning, everyone. A very busy morning today. I have an interview with Hakeem Jeffries at the end of this video. But I want you to know that there are several things happening in Washington, D.C. that deserve your attention. Namely, Donald Trump's address to the nation. Thursday night will be an attempt to begin the effort to undermine the November midterm elections. Based on what I understand, this election speech will be focused on voting irregularities, the 2020 election and more. But it will be done so in a way that will try to undermine America's free and fair elections. And I think everyone needs to know what's about to happen Thursday night. At the same time, the Trump administration fears possible war crimes investigations in front of the International Criminal Court. And they've launched a full scale effort to try to delegitimize it. We have images of the reflecting pool now that it's been drained. And, well, there are no 350 foot gashes like the President says. The blue paint has peeled off, but there are tire tracks and, well, the only person that drove a car over the reflecting pool was the president. And it all comes as Congress is set to vote on the ndaa, the National Defense Authorization act, which many of you have reached out to me about, including a section in there which some say could help merge the American military with the Israeli military. And I'm going to talk about it all right now. Make sure to, like, comment, share, and as always, if you can subscribe to my substack link below to support my work as we build independent media. I told you this week was gonna be a busy one and, well, yesterday was insane. Get ready for it to even be busier today and tomorrow. So I wanna begin by talking about Trump's speech Thursday night because I think people are really underestimating what Trump is going to say. He's gonna revive the 2020 election, claims he's gonna deliver a national address focused on, quote, newly declassified intelligence that his administration describes as vulnerabilities in US Voting machines. The speech will revisit his long standing claims that the 2020 election was compromised, that there was fraud. There was no evidence of any fraud, but that doesn't mean he won't say it. And the administration has now formed a White House task force to investigate aspects of the 2020 election and has authorized a declassification of the intelligence related to the vote. So what we're going to see is the first step, right? They need to figure out a way to start delegitimizing the upcoming November midterm elections given polling showing them down across the board. And so this is the first step to do so. If Trump wants to eventually declare a national emergency to try to seize the voting machine, seize ballots, this is the first step in doing so. And so he's going to deliver this primetime address to the nation. Thursday night there were some reports that he may try to claim that Georgia Senate elections in 2020. Ossoff and Warnock, the senators, are illegitimate senators. It appears as though they've since rolled that back. That won't be happening. But that doesn't mean that this claim that he's going to make Thursday night isn't a big one. And it's something everyone needs to monitor. And it comes as the Trump administration are now doing a full throttle push to delegitimize the International Criminal Court, arguing that the ICC could expose U.S. leaders, military personnel and allies to war crimes investigations. And the administration therefore wants to weaken the court. Marco Rubio, the secretary of State, says that the ICC threatens US Sovereignty and plans to pressure other countries to distance themselves from the tribunal. Diplomatic and economic measures. So Rubio's claims do not. I mean, listen, the ICC has no jurisdiction over American officials. But what Trump is fearful of here is that a arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the icc, war crimes in Iran, for example, for striking an all girls school in southern Iran. And Manamba would prevent him from traveling to many countries across the globe that recognize the ICC's jurisdiction. In addition, there's a major vote on the NDAA coming up this week, potentially even today. National Defense Authorization act is essentially supplemental funding for the United States military. And Thomas Massie is actively seeking to remove a Section 219 from the bill. It's a U.S. israeli defense integration section. The provision would expand U.S. israeli military technology cooperation in areas including AI, missile defense, cybersecurity, quantum technology and joint weapons developments. Massie argues it would integrate Israel too deeply in US Defense research and procurement, threatening America's sovereignty. The amendment was blocked but could return. There was previously so we'll see what happens. The House is going to vote on the ndaa. Ultimately, we're going to see if this
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C
is stripped or not.
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D
It'll head to the Senate where it could very well be stripped. So we'll have to see. But I wanted you to know that there is an update there. In addition, we have footage of the reflecting pool now coming out photographs. This is from Joe Flood, a photographer in D.C. and as you can see, there is no blue. It is drained. There is no gash like the president has claimed. And if you look at the left, there appear to be tire marks going up and down the reflecting pool. Now, the only person who drove a car over there was, well, the President of the United States. So as always, make sure to like Comment Share subscribe to my substack link below to support here. I spoke with Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, on all of these things and more. Take a listen, let me know what you think.
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C
Excited as always, to be back with Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
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D
Now, Leader Jeffries, I got to ask
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C
you, a lot of folks are worried about the SAVE act and this reconciliation package that's happening in the House of Representatives. Just give us the latest. What is happening right now.
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E
Well, Donald Trump continues to make clear that he has zero interest in actually lowering the high cost of living in the United States of America or doing something about the affordability crisis. And at the same time is spending all of his efforts to try to jam this voter suppression bill, the SAVE act, down the throats of the American people. And we're going to continue to strongly and forcefully oppose it. I believe that every single Democrat is a hard no on the SAVE act, no matter what legislative vehicle Donald Trump uses to try to advance it through the House. And I believe that our colleagues in the Senate will also firmly and uniformly oppose the SAVE act to stop it from becoming law.
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C
Do you think that through the reconciliation process, because reconciliation is for budgetary items, the SAVE act doesn't really seem to me like a budgetary item. Is that something they could even use for this?
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E
You know, they've tried to do this multiple times and the Senate parliamentarian has rejected this effort multiple times. And so Chuck Schumer, Senate Democrats, I'm confident, will strongly oppose any effort to attach the so called SAVE act to this latest budget reconciliation bill. And by the way, Aaron, there are other reasons to oppose it, which is that Operation Epic Failure in Iran has been a disaster. It's a reckless, costly war of choice that has actually resulted in Iran becoming stronger than they were prior to the war. And the American people put in a financially weaker position, particularly as it relates to out of control gas prices. So they're going to try to get 70 or $75 billion, it appears to, for this war that Donald Trump recklessly started in the Middle East. And we're going to oppose the budget reconciliation effort for that reason, of course. But at the same period of time, if they try to attach the SAVE act to it, work to stop it in the House and certainly strip it from the bill in the Senate.
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C
I want to ask you about the war in Iran, because today the Trump administration, we found out that they sent you all letters saying that they're restarting the war. It's essentially a new war. What's your response to the fact that your colleagues on the other side aren't holding him in check here? They're not enforcing any war powers resolutions. They're not actually asking him to seek congressional authorization at all for this war.
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E
Yeah, it's incredible to me that House Republicans continue to function like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump cartel. I mean, these people should be ashamed of themselves. They have run away from any pretense that House Republicans are part of a separate and co equal branch of government. When Donald Trump says jump, they say, how high? No matter if they're leading the American people over the ledge. And that's what they've done. So from our standpoint, we're going to continue to use every legislative tool available, including through additional war powers resolutions, to stop this reckless war of choice. And we just need a handful of Republicans to join us, and we can actually move something out of the House and the Senate that we send to Donald Trump's desk and force him potentially to veto our efforts to end this war. And we just saw, for instance, that if you put Donald Trump in this kind of position, as was the case with our housing affordability legislation that was led by Maxine Waters in the House and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, they both did a tremendous job. Every single House Democrat supported this effort to try to build more housing that the American people can afford. Even though Donald Trump was against it, he didn't veto it because he knew that would be political poison. And he had to let the bill sit on his desk for 10 days, and then it became law. And I believe if we can advance war powers resolutions that Donald Trump is required to confront, he will be very reluctant to veto it. And we have a shot to finally end this war of choice in Iran. And we're Gonna do everything we can to bring that result about.
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C
My question is how? Because the Pentagon this week said it's essentially running out of money. A Pentagon budget, billions and billions of dollars. How does the Pentagon just run out
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D
of money like this?
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E
Yeah, it's a really important question. And it's also why? Because Republicans have effectively given the so called Department of War, the Pentagon about a trillion plus dollars over the last fiscal year and a half. And the question as you've asked, is a very reasonable one. What have you been doing with the money? What we know that a lot of it is being wasted. And of course the decision to go into this war is completely and totally inconsistent with what Donald Trump promised to the American people. But this guy continues to lie and he lied about lowering the high cost of living on day one. Costs haven't gone down, they've gone up. The Trump tariffs increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year. He lied to about ICE's enforcement activity, said that ICE was going to target the worst of the worst. No, that's not true. You've unleashed the worst of the worst on the American people by spending billions of dollars to brutalize and kill American citizens and also violently target law abiding immigrants, as was done in Maine earlier today. So he lied about affordability, lied about immigration enforcement. And of course Donald Trump has lied about the war when he said he was going to stop wars, not start them, turned around and did the exact opposite. So you know, we're going to continue to press the case as it relates to these Republican flunkies in the House who are doing the bidding for the American, for Donald Trump, adverse to the interests of the American people. And we also are prepared as House Democrats, when we get the gambles back, to actually uncover the waste, fraud and abuse that exists in Pete Hegseth's so called Department of War as opposed to what Republicans have been doing, which is to falsely claim that there's rampant waste, fraud and abuse with respect to the health care of the American people.
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C
You mentioned the shooting in Maine. That's the second ICE involved shooting in a matter of weeks. You had Houston and now you have Maine as well. I guess the question is, is it time to consider abolishing ice?
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E
Well, listen, I think that we've been of the view, and I think this is the unifying position of House Democrats, progressives, New Dems and Blue Dogs is that ICE has to be dramatically reformed. Immigration enforcement in this country should be fair, just and humane. ICE is currently out of control and perhaps most Importantly, we're not giving a dime, a dime to Donald Trump's violent mass deportation machine. And that was the position that House Democrats took in January, immediately subsequent to the brutal killings of Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Preddy. And we've maintained that position all the way up until this point, which is why we forced Republicans to have to try to fund ICE separately through the budget reconciliation process. That's a bad vote that all of them have taken. And I think we're on the right side of the American people by refusing to fund ICE's violent mass deportation machine and refusing to give ICE a dime to continue to brutalize and kill American citizens or violently target law abiding immigrants.
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C
So I guess my question is, right now you have Mark Wayne Mullen leading the Department of Homeland Security. You have Trump, Stephen Miller kind of giving them carte blanche. Republicans were able to pass the funding regardless of whether or not you had opposition. If you take over next year, are you willing to keep the government shut down if these reforms aren't put in place?
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E
Well, without speaking for all of us as House Democrats, because we'll have to have that conversation. But I don't think anything has changed. So until there are dramatic reforms that actually require ICE to, to conduct themselves like every other law enforcement officer, police officer or cop in America, that we can't continue to fund and will not provide a dime to Donald Trump's violent mass deportation machine, period, full stop. And we've laid out what those dramatic and bold and transformational reforms need to be. Of course, the masks have to come off, body cameras have to go on. We've got to make sure that warrants, judicial warrants are required before ICE can rip the American people out of their cars and or their homes in ways that are totally inconsistent with what we believe the Fourth Amendment should require. We've got to prohibit ICE from engaging in any enforcement activity in sensitive locations. That includes houses of worship, hospitals, schools, nursing homes and polling sites. We believe that there must be an end to the roving patrols and perhaps most importantly, that there should be independent state and local investigations so that when ICE officers violate the law, they can be criminally investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and held accountable in ways that would not allow Donald Trump to swoop in and pardon officers who kill American citizens or brutalize law abiding immigrant families.
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C
Now, one last question before I let you go about the general state of the House and the state of play around the country right now. Polling shows Democrats above Republicans right now. But on A district by district level.
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D
It really is.
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C
I mean, it depends. Right. What is the current state of play? Do you believe that if the election were held today, you would have enough votes to be speaker of the House?
- [16:48]
E
Yeah. Well, listen, if the election is held today, I believe Democrats are taking back control of the House in terms of who's in a position to lead the House moving forward. I put that in the hands of my colleagues. The. That's a January 3rd issue. We're working on the November 3rd issue and certainly appreciate all of your advocacy, engagement and coverage about the importance of us taking back the House. Now, it certainly is the case that Republicans have engaged in all manner of shenanigans to try to alter the landscape. But even after all of their redistricting efforts, because Democrats have fought back in different ways and because we believe many of our incumbents who they tried to gerrymander out of existence, for instance, in places like Texas and Florida, we're going to make sure they hold their seats, that we probably have to flip about six seats in order to take back control of the house. Now in 2018, we had to flip 24, and of course, we flipped 40 on election night. So we only have to flip a fraction of the seats that we did during Donald Trump's first midterm elections. We've got great candidates all across the country. We've got doctors, we've got nurses, we've got military combat veterans, Marine drill sergeants, Navy helicopter pilots, We've got smoke jumpers, firefighters, dairy farmers, and of course, even a Tejano music superstar running in South Texas. These are everyday Americans who are in it for all the right reasons. They know we have to dramatically lower the high cost of living. We have to fix our broken health care system. And of course, we got to clean up the corruption in this town that's totally out of control and make sure that these wrongdoers are held accountable for the crime wave that the Trump administration has unleashed on the American people.
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C
Leader Jeffries, thanks for the time.
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E
Thank you.
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F
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