The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Polls show Americans aren't buying Trump team's ignorance ploy
Thu, 15 May 2025
Jen Psaki shares examples of Republicans, from Donald Trump to House Speaker Mike Johnson to members of Trump's Cabinet avoiding questions and claiming not to be familiar with major national news stories and other data directly related to their areas of responsibility. And while the ignorance tactic may help them avoid answering questions, new polls show Americans already understand what's really going on.
Chapter 1: What are the recent protests against Medicaid cuts about?
I wanted to start tonight by showing you these incredible images again of members of the disability community protesting House Republican cuts to Medicaid, with at least 26 of them getting arrested in the process. Now, we talked about this yesterday. It's important to keep talking about. But what we didn't show you is what you're seeing here.
And that's Senator Cory Booker and other Democratic lawmakers who went over to the House, joined them, and thanked those protesters. He also told them to keep fighting and to stay strong. A very important message because this is a long battle when you are trying to prevent bad policy from happening.
Now, Senator Booker is going to join me here live to talk about all of that and more in just a few minutes. Now, today, more protesters were back on Capitol Hill, this time right outside Speaker Mike Johnson's office. And they had some of the same message, no cuts to Medicaid. And we should tell you that these protests are also not limited to Washington, D.C.
There were protests all across the country. There were health care workers in Oakland, California, yesterday, rallying around that same message. You can see it there with this message on their signs, hands off Medicaid, hands off Medicaid, a lot of their signs are saying. In Bakersfield and Folsom, California, more health care workers turned out to protest these cuts.
In the small town of Dunkirk, New York, you can see them right there, health care workers at Brooks Memorial Hospital called on their Republican representative to vote no on these cuts. Again, hands off Medicaid. Handmade signs there, too.
And while ordinary people and health care workers on the front lines were out in force protesting these big cuts to life-saving care, can you guess where the President of the United States was? I bet you already know. Well, Donald Trump was back in yet another gilded palace, 7,000 miles away, accepting more lavish gifts. This time, from the Emir of Qatar.
That's right, today was the day that Trump met with the government that wants to gift him his very own Sky Palace. You can see some of the footage there of what that might look like. A luxury $400 million plane for him to use as Air Force One and then keep after leaving office, which is probably the pivotal part. There's been a lot of attention on that plane deal, for good reason.
I mean, I know my two guests tonight, Senator Booker and Senator Ossoff, are both probably going to have some thoughts, and we'll talk about it. But somehow, in the age of Trump, the plane might actually be just the second most corrupt deal he has cooking with the Gulf nations. I mean, you may remember that one of the Trump family's new money-making schemes is a Trump-branded cryptocurrency.
Earlier this month, an investment fund backed by the government of the UAE announced that it would be using the Trump family's cryptocurrency for a $2 billion investment, propping up Trump's cryptocurrency and essentially channeling millions into Trump's family business. And then today, on the current Air Force One that Trump is somehow coping with, he was asked about that scheme, understandably.
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Chapter 2: What is the controversy surrounding Trump's gifts from Middle Eastern countries?
But I will be the number one target for MAGA and national Republicans because, as you mentioned, I'm the only Democrat running in a state that Donald Trump won. They will probably spend something like half a billion dollars to try to defeat me.
And so since you brought it up, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind your viewers that if they want to support my efforts in Georgia and help power us to a landslide victory in 2026, they can do that at electjohn.com or electjohn.com.
That was very smooth. We covered a lot of things. Senator John Ossoff, thank you so much for joining me. A pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Coming up, we're going to have to take a quick break. But when we come back, Senator Cory Booker and some of his colleagues took it upon themselves to literally march personal stories. You can see them in the video right there from constituents who rely on Medicaid into the congressional record. We were just talking about the impact of Medicaid cuts. People are feeling it across the country.
He's standing by. He's going to join me live here at the table when we come right back. Okay, you probably remember this moment as well as I do. Arizona Senator John McCain putting his thumb down, saving the Affordable Care Act in 2017. Now, we tend to think about it as one iconic moment, just that moment where he went and put his thumb down. But the backstory is pretty incredible.
I mean, Republicans had control of the House, the Senate, and the White House at the time. For years, Republicans had been obsessed with killing the Affordable Care Act, obsessed. But even with full control of the government, they couldn't get it done. We now find ourselves in a very similar spot. Republicans have control of the House, Senate and the White House.
Their new budget proposal would mean millions of Americans could lose their health care. We've been here before. So it's worth remembering how that thumbs down moment came to be. Now, the original argument around the benefits of the Affordable Care Act was basically all about math. A big part of the messaging was that the bill would bend the cost curve. Doesn't that roll off your tongue?
We had many, many graphs and charts that showed how much money the bill would save, the enormous bill, the Americans on Health Care. Now, the bill passed while Democrats had control of Congress and the White House. But that messaging, messaging about the numbers around a huge bill, didn't totally work.
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Chapter 3: Why is Trump’s cryptocurrency deal raising questions among lawmakers?
Who is this president accountable to? The people of the United States of America or those people who are giving him millions and millions of dollars of gifts and inducements?
I started the show talking about how the plane is very much in our faces, but it's hard to know. I mean, he also has these meme coins. It's hard to know what the most—the sketchiest deal with a Middle Eastern country is happening right now. You do—you have called for the Senate to vote to condemn Trump's plan to accept the plane. What have you— Have you had any?
I mean, there's been a lot of Republicans who have spoken out about this, but I'm not a naive cat. Neither are you.
No.
Do you expect any of them to join you in condemning this?
It has been over 110 days. As Trump walked in, he created this meme coin, which in and of itself, to me, is an impeachable offense to have a president that basically says, anybody anywhere can dump money into my pocket. That should have been a loan. But then he attacks all the people that could hold him accountable, inspector generals after inspector general.
In fact, the very agencies that are investigating Elon Musk this most wealthy man in the world, unaccountable billionaire. He was now undermining their ability to investigate him. This administration from day one has been showing staggering levels of corruption.
And in many ways, this has been fueled by a Supreme Court that says, hey, you cannot, anything you do while you're president, we cannot hold you criminally liable for. We are with a president that is being unchecked
by the Supreme Court or by the Congress, and now it feels like he's unchecked whatsoever to fill his pockets and the pockets of his family out broad daylight at things that no senator, no senator would ever justify this unless they were being intimidated by a president into silence.
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