What do you think that you can do do about that when when democrats take control because you still have the president in office so they're still divided government what do you think democrats can do to bring those prices down now that you will have control in the house

yeah i would highlight immediately three things you know as the lead democrat currently not chair of a ranking member of the budget committee I was leading the fight against Trump's so-called big beautiful bill, which at its heart was tax cuts for billionaires paid for by the biggest cuts in healthcare in American history.

It's projected that 16 million Americans are about to lose their healthcare coverage as a result of those cuts.

So for me, my top priority is absolutely passing a bill early when we take over in January, reversing those cuts.

Because let's not forget, the biggest bulk of those cuts are scheduled to begin this December, next month, to Medicaid.

That's going to have an impact, especially here locally.

I think of Philadelphia, I represent about half of the city, 44% of my constituents are on Medicaid.

What do you think about that? And do you think that it will happen?

Has the White House given you or any of your colleagues any indication that they might work with you on reform of the debt ceiling if Democrats take back the House? And do you think they would?

Yeah, so first, one of the reasons why I like talking to you is you're one of the few people who shares my passion for the debt ceiling issue.

Nancy Pelosi, former speaker, can tell you literally the first conversation I had with her a dozen years ago when I got to Congress was about the need to either scrap or dramatically reform the debt ceiling.

Because coming out of the 2011 experience, when we almost, and I say we, I wasn't in Congress at the time, but we collectively almost saw Congress completely tank not only the national economy, but the worldwide economy.

And I quickly surmised the odds that we were going to have a similar standoff Those odds were pretty high, and sure enough, we would have one again just a few years ago when McCarthy was Speaker and Joe Biden was President.

Basically, we're guaranteed any time in the future, as long as this continues, that we have a Democrat in the White House and Republicans controlling at least one body within Congress, we will see this sort of dangerous standoff, which has now already led to three different credit downgrades for the United States.

I'm the author of a bill called the Debt Ceiling Reform Act.

And I'm wondering, are you at all concerned that there may be some Democrats who don't play ball, with something like the Debt Ceiling Reform Act and who do see this as an opportunity to fight fire with fire, to behave basically as badly as some of the Republicans have over the debt ceiling, to hold it hostage in pursuit of some policy goal that is held near and dear to at least parts of the Democratic Party.

What's the disconnect between what Trump says about the economy and what people are actually telling you?

Well, I have to give the president credit.

He inadvertently said something that's accurate.

We have never seen an economy like this, at least in my lifetime.

Consumer sentiment is at the lowest level ever recorded for a poll that dates back almost 80 years in terms of inflation, which was largely back under control when Donald Trump took over about a year and a half ago.

Ever since his tariff taxes, they've been moving in the opposite direction.

And then especially Once he launched his Iran war on February 28th, it has been out of control, as you showed from those figures.

Is the problem that the economy isn't growing enough or that too much of the growth is going to corporations while working people fall further behind? The

People might say you should be running away with this, but you're not.

Well, I'm sorry, but you're just flat out wrong.

And don't take my word for it.

Cook Political Report, Insider Elections, a lot of the nonpartisan agencies that cover elections are all pointing to a substantial Democratic victory in the House.

What you're conflating there is the fact that unlike the House, where most of the battleground districts are really 50-50 kind of districts – In the Senate, only one third of the Senate seats are up every two years.

It just so happens that most of the Senate seats that are up this cycle are all states that Donald Trump won by double digits last election.

So Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Kansas, literally every one of the states I just mentioned, Trump won by more than 10 points last election.

If Democrats do win back control of, well, as we say, all the polls are anticipating a win in the House, but also if you pull that off in the Senate as well, what will be the priorities?

Yes

... anyone who's been alive for the last 10 years of the Trump era.

Uh, I was thinking when you asked the question, though, if I were in my shoes that the governor was in, what would I do if I was put in charge of FEMA? I would immediately resign, not because I'm an incompetent or unintelligent person, but because this should be run by someone who's a career professional, who works in emergency preparedness and management.

That's what FEMA has always been about.

I mean, with the exception of heck of a job Brownie from Hurricane Katrina fame 20 years ago, we have generally had professionals who work specifically in this area.

The, the fact that Donald Trump just politicizes everything- And bases it on who is his friend, who is his foe, who has said something even mildly critical.

I- unfortunately, it's part and parcel of the era in which we've now lived.

... who's a chief negotiator in a number of high-stakes situations overseas, is calling Putin a humanitarian.

How do you think about the task of both instituting new democratic reforms and just simply rolling back things Trump has done?

Yeah, well, first, my reaction to your list is yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Okay.

But obviously you have to prioritize these things.

So let me remind people, because it has been a year and a half since Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill passed, in that piece of legislation is the biggest loss of health care in American people.

16 million Americans are projected to lose their health care coverage by the Congressional Budget Office.

The bulk of that will be the Medicaid cuts that actually start to take effect next month.

What can Democrats do about that?

How deeply troubling are these indicators and what would a rational administration be doing right now?

Yeah, you know, put simply, this economy stinks.

And you just cited some of the reasons why gas up to $5 a gallon, close to $7 a gallon for diesel.

Mortgage rates on a 30-year mortgage now about 7.25%.

You look at the cost of food.

Obviously, also much higher than it was just a couple years ago, the cost of all sorts of imported goods because of Trump's tariffs.

The way to begin to repair this damage is to, first and foremost, end all of the tariffs once and for all that this president placed on 90-some-odd countries.

If Democrats regain the House and perhaps the Senate, What can they do to restore the power of the purse to Congress, which is where the Constitution says the budget-making authority should lie in the first place?

What do you think Democrats can do right off the bat if they get the gavel to show Americans that they hear their concerns and are ready to put them into action?

Well, first and foremost, we must absolutely put front and center the affordability agenda, and the good news is there are a couple things that we could do on day one and pass out of the House of Representatives.

First and foremost, reclaim the inherent authority given to Congress by the Constitution to control our tariffs and taxes.

Eliminate every single one of these tariffs that has been in place ever since so-called Liberation Day a year and a half ago.

You can look at the charts.

Inflation was coming down every single month of 2024 and the first three months of 2025, then once Trump announced this so-called absurd Liberation Day, well, what it did was it liberated inflation, and ever since then, April of 2025, we have seen inflation on the rise to the point where it is now, which was almost pre-pandemic levels.

So, uh, that would be number one, and then number two, absolutely cut off any resources for this stupid Iran war, which has been the cause of gas prices and diesel prices spiking by more than 50%.

This is on that guy." Can that message go forward?

What justifications do you think the government's going to give to support the White House ban, and do you think there is any way it actually works?

Yeah, so they'll certainly use the national security justification.

The problem is their argument is undermined by their client because Donald Trump keeps saying, this isn't about national security.

It's not about national security.

In fact, it's about, as Tim was just saying, quote unquote, fake news.

So they are undercut by the president essentially saying, no, the argument you're making in court is wrong.

The other more technical argument that the government's going to make is that the administration has any right, has the ability to exclude any media organization from the press pool and from the press room in the White House.

Brendan, you heard Senator Booker there, a chance to set the record straight, your sense of what that's going to look like.

What are you hearing from Pennsylvanians who might be impacted by this federal, what they're doing, throwing people off their ACA health care plan, but also this rate increase that I just mentioned in penny?

Yeah, well, first, it's nice spending my weekend with you, Jonathan, at least virtually.

You know, let's take a step back and remember the so-called big, beautiful bill that Trump and Republicans were saying over a year ago is what they would be running on this election.

Notice they haven't been running on it in this election because it's so deeply unpopular.

And the reason why is in that bill, Projected by the Congressional Budget Office, you have 16 million people who will lose their health care in order to fund or at least partially fund tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires.

That was essentially the tradeoff of their big tax bill last summer.

So what we are seeing today is basically downstream from that bill.

The president has been to there wanting to be reelected because over and over again, we have seen them try to back up just a little bit from the president, even people in the Senate who aren't actually up for reelection.

[laughs]

...

meanwhile, has gone up and gone through the roof.

And I wanna draw a distinction between the recent run-up, record run-up in inflation and previous spikes in costs.

You know, we've, we suffered through the Great Recession in '08.

We suffered through a, a deep recession in '01 brought about by 9/11.

We suffered the recession caused by the COVID pandemic.

Hmm

If we are assessed not just by the pageantry, but also by the way in which the rule of law holds or folds, what are our friends, what are our adversaries thinking?

Well, I think it's a terrible sign for America's reputation that the president seems to be at war with not just the press, but with the judiciary in this sort of case.

You know, what you're seeing right now is the judge issued an order early this morning directing the White House to grant what are called hard passes, those credentials to get back into the White House for the news organizations.

And yet, according to the plaintiffs, that didn't happen or it didn't happen right away.

And so I think what's going on here is the Department of Justice and the White House is dragging its feet to try to make sure that it takes as long as possible and is as hard as possible for the judiciary to get the government to follow the law here.

And I'll just say in terms of broader picture on the rule of law here.

I think what the White House is trying to do, to the extent that there's anything strategic in this litigation, and there may be nothing strategic, but to the extent that there is, I think what they want to do is get a favorable ruling on appeal, either at the DC Circuit or at the Supreme Court, that really there are lesser protections for the First Amendment when it comes to the White House grounds.

As someone who has done this type of painstaking work, what does that tell you about the process behind the scenes?

All right, Brendan, what do you know about these documents? And why did the judge disagree with Blanche's assertion that they were improper, that they were properly withheld?

Yeah, so these are handwritten notes by FBI agents concerning allegations against Jeffrey Epstein and that mentioned Donald Trump.

We've gotten the type versions of these, what are called FD 302 interview notes before, but the actual raw information has never been produced and the Department of Justice has fought tooth and nail to avoid producing them.

So, you know, it was just enormously gratifying to see Judge Sullivan see that the argument has made no sense and that they now need to produce these documents into what's called in-camera review.

So the judge now gets to review them, determine whether there's any victim information, other things that need to be withheld, and then potentially produced.

I'll just add, however, though, this is just the beginning.

This is a preliminary injunction motion and follow-up briefing.

Can you give me a sense of how long you think it takes to actually get to the merits of this?

I worked at Channel 5.

oh i didn't i i had forgotten that yeah no this was uh after they won the super bowl in 2017 but anyway um no i i wear a few different hats primarily as the representative from the second congressional district of pennsylvania which is entirely within the city of philadelphia but the other hat that i wear is i'm the ranking member or top democrat on the budget committee So I have the ability to request certain information from the Congressional Budget Office, which is the official authority, Congress's independent agency that assesses basically how much legislation costs.

These are filled with about 270 nonpartisan, just good government folks who just tell you basically the balls and strikes, what the dollars and cents are.

And it's a lot more than the government is letting on.

Have they not let on really at all? So we now have something official for the first time ever that the Iran war has cost, in direct costs, at least $40 billion.

And I say at least because the Department of Defense, which it legally- Wait,

We know for a fact that Republicans are not, most of them are not meeting with their constituents.

I mean, it depends on the member.

Can you just sort of underline for our viewers how extraordinary it is to not have these numbers transparently available?

Well, I requested, uh, this analysis from the Congressional Budget Office way back on March 5th, just five days into the war.

I did that in my capacity as the ranking member of the budget committee.

If not for the independent Congressional Budget Office, that is to say an agency that is independent of the White House, we wouldn't have official data at all because this White House refuses to release that.

Although, it is telling that when they last asked Congress for more money for the defense department, they were requesting almost $90 billion for the DOD with north of 60 billion of that earmarked for Iran.

So that kind of gives away the game of at least how much this is costing, again, directly, not even including the indirect costs of higher energy prices, higher gas prices, et cetera.

in the way of healthcare or SNAP benefits that is instead being spent on a war of choice?

Yeah, I'm happy to, and I think that's the best way to think about it, right? Because these numbers get so big, eyes begin to glaze over.

Mm-hmm.

If this is winning, Mr.

President, we are officially tired.

Please stop your version of winning, because all we are seeing are increased prices everywhere.

Gas prices, diesel prices, food prices, all sorts of costs have gone up.

And this is not unlike any other, um, thing that's happened, economic downturn in my lifetime.

Those were because of, you know, kind of the market cycle recessions, a once in a century pandemic or the Great Recession.

Is the bigger Democratic message that Americans shouldn't have to wait for a $5,000 check after an election? They need an economy where they can afford basic necessities.

What do you think of him this morning?

morning?Well, I, I don't think my opinion has changed much from, uh, that tweet that, that I posted a few days ago.

The Wall Street Journal report was shocking, refusing to meet with those who are veterans or meet with those, uh, who are researchers and doctors from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, with whom I have met, uh, to advocate for their research grants and the, uh, just remarkable work that they do.

Obviously, there are all sorts of concerns about Senator Fetterman.

I, I think that that's probably gonna continue.

I mean, he has always been, throughout his career, a guy who will do the performative stuff, the things that will get him the most attention.

In the end of the day, though, what matters most is how he votes, and so I do hope and pray that he will stay true to his word and remain a member of the Senate Democratic caucus.

Have you had any private conversations? Have you spoken to him amid all of this?

What are you guys doing there, uh, on the ground to protect voters, mail-in ballots, et cetera?

Yeah, I mean, this is very timely because literally just a, a couple hours ago, I was in my district standing outside one of the offices of the Philadelphia City Commissioners.

The City Commissioners here in Philly is, it's a three-person e- elected official panel that runs our elections, and happens to be two Democrats, one Republican.

The Republican who used to do it, a gentleman named Al Schmidt, kind of became famous in 2020, you might remember, because he was a Republican with tremendous integrity who was taking a lot of personal risks to stand up to what Trump was doing to attempt to, uh, steal the 2020 election.

He's been succeeded by a, another Republican who is also equally, uh, courageous and, and committed to doing the right thing.

So the Republican member, in addition to the two Democratic members, have just really been phenomenal, and we have really been center...

I mean, as the biggest city of the biggest swing state in the nation over the last decade, we've really been front and center here.

So if that's true, are you worried about Mike Johnson not ceding the Democrats? Because there's a scenario where Democrats win, they flip the House, and then Mike Johnson, who is the Speaker of the House until those votes are ceded.

What do you make of that?

Yeah, not surprised, I have to say.

I mean, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 when it came to this matter just a few months ago.

Frankly, I originally thought that was going to be a 9-0 decision because birthright citizenship is something that we have long accepted, really going back to the 1800s.

So it is disturbing on the right, unlike maybe the Republican viewpoints of the Reagan-Bush era in which, you know, it was kind of practiced and preached as gospel that anyone can become an American if you work hard, you play by the rules, you believe in the Declaration of Independence, you believe in our founding ideals.

What we have today is a Republican Party under Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

It's very different.

But when you concurrently have remarkable levels of tax cuts for for the wealthiest companies and earners in this country, kind of doesn't sit right.

What should Americans make of Trump's broken promises?

Well, let's see.

He's zero for everything, which is a pretty bad batting average when you talk about housing or gas prices or food prices.

Whatever the measure, not only has Trump failed to bring down costs from where they were in November 2024, each of the areas I just mentioned have shown costs double digit increase versus where they were two years ago.

What's more, The president has made clear that he doesn't even think in his own words, as he admitted, he doesn't think about the average American's financial situation at all.

A week after he made those comments, he said, I love the inflation.

He really just cares about the grifts and the grudges, not actually about lowering costs for the American people.

As the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Congressman, what does this tell you about how serious this administration is taking our deficit?

Do you think that the Democratic nominee for president will have more success if they're affiliated with the DSA, or will it be harder for them to succeed in a general election with an affiliation like that?

You know, as I look at it, I really think this is the most wide open Democratic field since 1992.

Um, if you think about in 1991, 1992, there was no heir apparent whatsoever.

It was completely wide open.

Bill Clinton emerges out of Arkansas to seize the nomination, and actually goes from third to first in the summer of, of '92 and didn't look back and won by a solid majority, so, or solid plurality since it was a three-person race.

I hope history repeats itself, but I think for our party, having this discussion and this great debate, uh, in the end I think it'll be healthy, just as long as we remain united after that nomination fight.

Because in order to fly you need two wings of a plane.

Uh, how strongly are you considering challenging Fetterman? Are you-

This is a level of madness that we could never have guessed at.

Well, if the president is watching your program tonight, I have good news for him.

I will only be speaking English, as I do not, uh, speak French.

Um, uh, so he will, he won't be, uh, triggered by anything I...

Well, he'll probably be triggered by the rest of what I say, only he'll be l- understanding it in, uh, our American dialect of English.

The Wall Street Journal opinion page, I can't believe I'm saying this, is right yet again.

This is the dumbest trade war that we have ever fought, and, you know, this is so absurd.

That's how he's trying to get the price of beef down, by cutting the federal sales tax imposed as a tariff on imported beef that we all pay.

Do you think this is an opportunity for Democrats to take those folks who have been upset, maybe some of them who have voted for Donald Trump and Republicans in the past, and take that ire and make them vote for Democrats? What are the policies that could make that happen?

You know, it's, it's an opportunity for Democrats.

But also, it is, on the other hand, a, a threat that this administration could get even worse in terms of its anti-immigration rhetoric and actions.

Uh, so in terms of, uh, an opportunity for us, we need to be laser-focused on bringing down costs for the American people.

I, I'm the lead Democrat, as you know, on the Budget Committee.

This is entirely what I've been working on, uh, for the last several years now.

That is going to be my top priority if I get that gavel after November and become chairman of the committee.

I, I just want to get into the, a little bit of more of the nitty-gritty about what do Democrats support in the interim before the war can come to an end to actually lower these US, US average gas prices, which t- as of today, are at $4.10 a gallon.

Do, do the voters feel like this is the, the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world? Are they telling you that?

Well, those are the words of a man who I have given him his due.

I believe Donald Trump is actually the most successful con man in American history.

This is a guy who once was on Larry King Live.

He had opened the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, and it was a disaster.

All of the slot machines were breaking down.

Without missing a beat, he said, "Larry, it's unbelievable.

Yeah

Congressman, is it your understanding that this is a question of national security or fancy parties?

No, it's absolutely absurd.

And don't take my word for it.

When President Trump initially announced this project, he said not one word about national security, not one word about his own personal security.

It was all about having a big, beautiful ballroom because he just wants to be able to throw fancy parties for the billionaire class that he hangs out with at Mar-a-Lago.

Essentially, it would be Mar-a-Lago, a thousand miles north.

Then after months go by, mind you, we have the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner at the Hilton.

And the fact that instead of, you know, focusing on policies that would address those challenges, the president is focused on his ballroom.