The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Janelle Bynum Discusses Impact of Trump’s Disastrous Shutdown

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Republican Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson holding his most disastrous press conference yet this morning and Meiselas interviews Oregon Congresswoman Janelle Bynum on her reaction to the Trump government shutdown and how her constituents in Oregon are responding to the constant attacks by Trump and MAGA Republicans. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself talking to someone who understands can really help but who is that person how do you find them where do you even start talk space talk space makes it easy to get the support you need with talk space you can go online answer a few questions about your preferences and be matched with a therapist and because you'll meet

your therapist online you don't have to take time off work or arrange child care you'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease if you're depressed stressed struggling with the relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner, or just need a little extra one-on-one support. Talkspace is here for you. Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers, and most insured members have a zero-dollar copay. No insurance, no problem. Now, get $80 off of your first month with promo code space 80 when you go to talkspace.com. Match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space 80 at talkspace.com. A new week and more Maga Mike humiliating himself.

He goes through this humiliation ritual every morning now. Donald Trump puts him up to it. He goes and does these horrific press conferences where he makes things worse for the MAGA Republicans as they're on vacation during this disastrous government shutdown. So Maga Mike goes on to say that the reality is, is that the Republicans don't control government. It's the Democrats who control government right now. that's why this is taking place. Democrats are running government.

Here, play this clue. The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of government. We aren't, not in the Senate. 60 votes control the Senate, not a bare majority. Oh, so you don't run. Wow, wow, all this time Donald Trump ruling like a dictator. But the MAGA Republicans claiming they control everything now during the shutdown,

Democrats are the ones, I mean, you can't make this stuff up. Then Maga Mike Johnson says that, he's asked by Manu Raju, so why not just bring the Republicans back to the House? Why not just bring them there? So there could at least be discussions or you can at least pretend to be working in Washington, D.C. You know, these members are getting paid. How about you just show up to your job in D.C.? Here's what Maga Mike says. Let's play it. Yeah. So we're evaluating this day by day. The House did its work. I've said it over and over and over and over. And the most important thing is to get the government open. It's the number one priority and number one responsibility of Congress, and the Senate Democrats

have chosen not to do it. We think that is paramount and a paramount importance to everything else. There is plenty of time in the remainder of the calendar year to do all the things that are the must-pass pieces of legislation and all the negotiations that I referenced earlier today. And we are anxious to get everybody back to regular legislative session. But there cannot be a regular legislative session so long as the government has closed in Americans are feeling so much pain. We won't do that. Now, in the meantime, Republicans, I don't know what the Democrats are doing other than publicity stunts, but I can tell you, the House Republicans, they're doing some of the most meaningful work of their careers. They're in their districts,

working around the clock. We're at their constituents. They're doing the most meaningful work on their vacation. They're negotiating the crisis with their constituents. What? They're negotiating with their constituent. And by the way, they are able to show up to work in Washington, D.C., at least the Republicans in the Senate. I'm not trying to give them credit for at least. At least they showed up to Washington, D.C., and there have been some hearings taking place. Like, at least I see them in Washington, D.C. And then Maga Mike goes on to say, but here's the deal. Republicans, we are the party of health care. We alone are the ones who can fix it. On vacation and not coming up with the plan? Let's just play it.

What we're doing right now, what we have been doing, what we were already doing, because we knew we were coming up to the end of the year, and we know that health care is a major burden for the American people. We've been working on it since day one of this Congress. We worked on it in the years prior. And we've already demonstrated. This is not talking points for us. When we say the Republican Party is the only party that has any chance at fixing health care for the American people, we've demonstrated it. We put it into the one big beautiful bill, the working family's tax cut. Oh, everybody knows that disastrous budget bill was what delivered health care to the American people.

That's why the Affordable Care Act subsidies are about to expire, and the price of health care is about to go up like $20,000 a year for Americans. I want to bring in Democratic Congresswoman, Janelle Bynum, to talk about that and more. Congresswoman, you see Maga Mike doing that shtick every morning, and it's an SNL skit. if it wasn't Saturday Live, if it wasn't so serious and they weren't ripping away health care from tens of millions of Americans while doing that weird Soviet-style propaganda routine. What do you make of it, the Congresswoman? Reminds me of Bojangles. He just tap dancing his little heart out.

I don't understand why they're attacking Democrats when they control the House, they control the Senate, and they control the White House. So, you know, garbage in, garbage out. And they know that their backs are up against the wall. They don't have a plan other than to rip away. I'd be interested in what I mean. To me, there's different buckets. You can go universal health care, make it free for everybody, tax the rich more,

figure out that. You could try to make the Affordable Care Act better, more subsidies, figure out a way to bolster it and strengthen the existing program, do what Biden did with kind of single-payer negotiations for older people. Or you go back to pre-Oabomacare, which was 20 million Americans uninsured die. And insurance companies can discriminate on the basis of pre-existing. It's not a complicated one, but like we need to, they don't have anything other than they cite the budget bill as their plan. There's nothing in there about.

We've heard Mike Johnson say with his own mouth that, they don't have a strategy. And we also know that Republicans have been trying to gut health care and strip health care from the American public ever since we had the Affordable Care Act. We know that as well. For me, it's about how do we get to the table and agree on the what, meaning every American should have access to health care when they need it at an affordable price and however they need it. So we get to the what, and then we may disagree on the how, but you've got to be. at the table. And the fact that he hasn't brought the house back into session to even have these table conversations, that's the problem. They're not willing to negotiate and they're not willing

to take health care for the American people seriously. You know, supplemental nutrition assistance program, which 42 million Americans rely on, you know, lots of people in Oregon and throughout the world, I mean, throughout the country, rely on it. It's about to expire on November 1st. So Maga Mike was asked, What are you doing when it comes to SNAP? You've seemed to have figured out ways to break every law to destroy the east wing of the White House or to send ICE agents to disappear human beings into concentration camps and to literally go to war with American City. So can you figure out how to address SNAP? I mean, you know, there's an emergency fund for it.

So Mike was asked about it. Let me show you what he said. Then I'll have you respond to it. Let's play the clip of what Mike said on SNAP. And the SNAP benefits is a unique situation. I got a summary of the whole legal analysis, and it certainly looks legitimate to me. The contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now. The reason is because it's a finite source of funds.

It was appropriated by Congress. And if they transfer funds from these other sources, it pulls it away immediately from school mills and infant formula. So it's a trade-off. There it's a trade-off. It's a trade-off, Congress, when we see it pulls it away. The guy's just the liar, huh? I wonder, I've often wondered how you can dig so deep into your faith and then look yourself in the mirror and say you're okay with not feeding children. You're okay with not feeding seniors. Like that, I have a problem with that as a person of faith. You know, I'll go toe to toe with Mike Johnson on that. And I think that that is. is that's what gets me like in my, in the deepest parts of my heart. The other challenge for us is that we have to make sure that the American people are being served. If you can find money

to send $40 billion to Argentina, but you can't find money for food for kids and seniors, I have a problem with that. You can find money for an airplane, for two airplanes, for Christy Knoam, then you can find money to feed American children and seniors. It doesn't math. So I got to ask you, you hold the congressional seat. that was previously held by the Labor Secretary now, Laurie Chavez-Dreamer, you beat her in the election. She pretended that she was pro-union when she was there and that she supported workers.

And then during her confirmation hearing, she wouldn't even agree that she supported the pro act like she was like it was a total mask off. And now this Department of Labor, I mean, they were the first to put the weird, like massive propaganda post. of Donald Trump's face on the bill. Dear leader.

Mm-hmm. Dear leader. And then they, if you've looked at their social media account, they post these weird, like, 1950s photos of, like, white families together and, like, white, you know, and, like, you're Lori Chavez, Doremer, you know, and this is. No, no, no. She's Lori Dereemar around here. We didn't find out the Chavez until I started running against her. And just to be very clear, I beat her not once, not twice, but three times.

So let's just be very clear. She's Lori DeRamer. And you look at these photos that they post. The American Dream belongs to the American people. And they post this one. There's another one. Restoring the American Dream with the, you knew exactly who she was when you ran against her. I knew her up and down, in and out.

I know her better than she knows herself. And I don't think she knows herself other than whatever Donald Trump tells her to do. So what do you make of what the Department? Department of Labor is doing right now? Yeah, it's signaling, right? It's signaling a return to the good old days. And I would say this. Everyone in America is entitled to the American dream. The people of this country invest in it. We are enriched by the immigrant story, the immigrant grit, the immigrant contributions to this country. And we are also enriched by the contributions of the African-American community, where we're enriched by the contributions of a whole variety of

people. And so to bring back this idea of going back to the 50s, when we know things we're not right in this country and to not try to move us further along, I think is just a dog whistle for white supremacy. I'll call it just like I see it. And talk to us before we go about what you're seeing right now in your state, in Oregon, with the, you know, ICE obviously targeting the state. We've seen the agents terrorized Portland, but, you know, the whole state's being affected. What do you see in there? And what's the reaction amongst your constituents? So to be clear, we didn't ask for the National Guard to come. We don't need the National Guard to come. Nobody is excited about any prospect of that. What we see is Portland and Oregon.

Oregon fighting back in its very own way, inspiring people, you know, around the nation to meet frivolity with frivolity, inspiring people to tell the truth. I mean, I even have a constituent, Frank Miranda, who was detained at work. U.S. citizen held for hours, released with no explanation. And so we're not accepting that as normal. That's what I've been telling my constituents, do not accept this status quo that we have right now as normal, continue to fight back and continue to stand up for the people of Oregon and for the people of this country. How are your constituents handling everything right now? I mean, whether it's snap being cut off, whether it is health care, premiums about to reach a level where people could be going medically

bankrupt and losing their insurance. On top of that, a military invasion by, Donald Trump war crimes, chemical warfare. I mean, they're throwing gas canisters and people choking, sending people to camps. How do people hold up when your state and your constituents have been targeted? I mean, it's hard to say, are they targeted more than everyone's suffering in their own ways? But particularly, you know, serious stuff going on in your district. So everybody knows there's really heavy times right now. And even one of my Republican state representatives that's in my district reached out to me and said, hey, can we do something about SNAP? And I was like, oh, okay. So you all recognize that this is an American program that is

intended to help people. It's not, you know, something that we give out at our own whim. It's something that we do to provide the American safety net. So people are feeling anxious about that. Again, I've said, do not normalize this chaos. And it feels very heavy. But people are very very, very motivated to stand up to this president who is acting as if he's a tyrant. And, oh, by the way, all of the people who are supporting him and bending at his knee. That is the issue that we're facing here. We need more people to stand up, more people to speak out, including Republicans. Well, Congresswoman, we're glad that you're standing up speaking out for democracy and for everything you do. We appreciate you, Congresswoman, Janelle Biden, Oregon's fifth congressional

district. Thanks. Good seeing you. You too. Everybody hit subscribe. let's get to 6 million subscribers want to stay plugged in become a subscriber to our substack at midasplus com you'll get daily recaps from ron philipkowski add free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at midasplus dot com