Rep. Jamie Raskin: Congressional Republicans are bowing down to ‘one billionaire sugar daddy’

Welcome back to the weekend Donald Trump returned to the real crime scene this week heading to the Capitol for the first time since his former extremist supporters violently stormed the building6 in 2021 and, of course, Congressional Republicans rolled out the red carpet for the man whose elections live in a world of deceit endangers his constitutional duty and his very lives, joining us now Democrat and Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, he is the ranking member on the oversight and accountability committee of accounts of the House of Representatives, welcome congressman, it is good to have you back, thanks for to summarize, he is coming to the Capitol on the heels of a guilty verdict in what I would call the election interference case in New York pending federal charges for conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, some of which culminated in that building and returns in Bolden to a party without critics, what does that mean for this moment?

What does that mean for democracy? Well, he returned to the scene of his crime. He did not apologize to 150 officers from the capital, Montgomery County MPD. police officers who were injured and wounded by the mob that was unleashed on us that day. There were Republicans who had at least tried to cry at that moment and now they have completely swallowed all their doubts and Chief Mitch McConnell among them, yes, they are. trying to pretend like nothing big happened and, um, Donald Trump may be proud that he consolidated a cult's control and power over the Republican Party, but it's a scandal and an embarrassment to the country.

I mean, Hakim Jeff said this in those same lines about this meeting at the Capitol and the return of Donald Trump, listen folks, it was embarrassing and downright embarrassing that my extreme magga Republican colleagues decided to welcome the insurrectionist and boss back to the capital as a conquering hero, not as someone who lied about the 2020 presidential election and incited a violent mob to attack the capital to stop the peaceful transfer of power. What we saw this week is actually a preview of what's to come if, in fact, he is elected president in November and it's a man whose party, whether it's state leaders across the country or elected members of Congress, um, who they are sent there to represent the people in their districts they are willing to bend the knee and bend or go forward depending on what they think to do what this man asked them to do for what reason, well we are seeing a complete corruption of the institutions public and individuals. officials from the federal branch of government on the legislative side and on the judicial side um and you know, that's what unifies what's happening at the Supreme Court what's happening in the Republican Party what's happening with Republicans in the Congress um an absolute corruption of their duty, I mean We swore and swear to defend the Constitution of the United States, not to defend a guy or a party or the interests of a

billionaire

sugar

daddy

and yet that's what's happening now and yesterday they bowed down to the gun manufacturers, gave them exactly what they wanted throw away the rule of law, I mean it was very clear that when you add the butt and stock to the semi-automatic weapon, you get the functional equivalent of a machine gun, everyone understands that we saw what that meant in the Las Vegas Massacre, our deadliest massacre in American history, 58 lives annihilated, 500 people, wounded families still recovering from that disaster and yet they make fun of it all with Supreme Court decisions that have small pictorial illustrations, small drawings. to explain why you don't think it's really running like a machine gun when everyone understands it's the congressman, President Johnson, yesterday he had a different view of the visit, a lot of us looked at him and said, you know, why?

Is this happening? Here's what President Johnson had to say about his meeting with Donald Trump. We talked about how to grow this majority in the House and how he will help to do that and then how we will help him too and this is a unified effort on the part of the party we felt good when we left the room today one of our colleagues approached me , who has been in Congress for a long, long time, said: I feel better, I feel more confident, more energy U. more enthusiasm right now than I've felt in probably 40 years in politics, that for me, you know , I can't speak to what that member you know saw over 40 years, but I know what we've seen over the last eight and in the direction.

This country is under the leadership of Donald Trump and the Republicans, how can you, as a member of the current minority in the house, reposition the argument before the American people on issues like the one you just talked about about emergency actions and economy, aren't we talking? On the economic news this week, I mean, the Dow Jones continued to go up, inflation went down, there are so many good elements and yet we seem to be stuck in this rut ​​of talking about the same old grand old party madness. um that kind of furthers their narrative you know oh yeah things are great and we need Donald Trump back because otherwise things are really bad yeah look I think that was a very sincere statement and honest about President Johnson, the only thing they talked about was politics. how they were going to try to get more people elected to give more power to Donald Trump.

Were they talking about climate change that is going to create this terrible heat wave across the country? We'll feel it this week, I mean there. People going to Trump rallies are fainting while he denies climate change. They are taking people to ambulances. At his rallies, are they talking about armed violence? No, that's a big joke for them. You know, they put the American flag upside down. Izan. I raise the flag of the NRA because that really is the flag of his party. You know, the Republican Party follows the NRA, which follows the gun manufacturers right now, so I take him at his word when he said, oh yeah, we went back there and I just talked about trying to win and say and do everything we can. to win so we can come back and Donald Trump can resume his money-making operation.

I mean, everyone understands that that's what this is about, that he doesn't have any plan for the United States that he's going to go to. making money for himself, his hotels and his family, just like Jared Kushner who brought in $2 billion from the murderous Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, so let me ask you when you see Don Jr, uh, taking photos with Victor Orbon . I think we all read it. How do you read it? That the type of corruption they want to bring back to the government with Donald Trump is intertwined with authoritarianism. I mean, corruption is the basic point of authoritarianism.

We are not going to worry about social security, Medicare and Medicaid. and infrastructure, the things that we're trying to do in the Democratic Party, what they're going to be concerned about is making certain people rich so that everyone gets a piece of the action and so that people have to understand that we will have a government. like Orban and Hungary or Putin in Russia or Kim Jong-un in North Korea or her in China or you know Marcos in the Philippines or LCC uh in Egypt, that's where we're headed if we allow these people to come back and it's not just Donald Trump is now all the people who have not gotten off the bus.

They're doubling down on corruption and Liz Cheney and Adam Kinser and Mitt Romney and the other people and Michael toughening people up. They're saying no we're not a part of this anymore, more power to them because those are the Republicans we need to hear from in this election, we're talking about moving to a completely different type of government under these people, uh, we're going to do the point is like, oh, when I saw there were political reports about Donald Trump calling Mike Johnson after his conviction saying you've got to do something about this and then I saw this week.

I think this feels like the opposite of what happens in a democracy, but Reverend Barbera said this earlier this week and I think it definitely set me back, maybe it will set you back too, listen, but I declare that in this moment the problem is not the will. We save democracy because democracies can elect desperate people and demagogues and dictators. Democracies can do that. The most important question is what kind of democracy we will say what kind of democracy we want. I'm totally with Reverend Barbara on this, I mean. When we say we want to save democracy, it sounds like democracy is just a collection of institutions, but it is static and remains in place.

No democracy is always in motion, it is an unfinished project, so look at the failures of democracy we have right. now we have gerrymandering of our districts we have voter suppression we have 700,000 people here in Washington DC who are not represented in Congress we have three and a half million people in Puerto Rico who are not represented in Congress We have to bring democracy back to move, that's something Toille said in Democracy in America. She observed that democracy is either shrinking or expanding and growing and we have to get back on the path of growth.