What the Democrats need to do to win, With Virginia Congressman Don Beyer.

Good day, good friends. Good to see you again here on the Bill Press pod. Thank you for joining us. You know, there may be no more frustrating job in America today than to be a Democratic member of the House of Representatives with Republicans in control. Because as we've seen led by Mike Johnson, the worst speaker ever, House Republicans don't even pretend to govern anymore. All they do is rubber stamp whatever Donald Trump asks him for. Even stuff they don't agree with. Even stuff they know is probably unconstitutional. So, what can Democratic members do? Two things. One, fight like hell to block Trump's agenda now, and two, work like hell to take back control of the House in 2026. That's what keeps Democratic hopes alive, and that's what drives progressive members of Congress like Virginia's Don Byer. Now serving his fifth term in Congress as a member of the joint economic committee and the ways of needs committee, buyers in the middle of the battle over some of the major issues facing American families. Congressman Byer joins us today with his ideas on what Democrats need to do to get back on top. Congressman Byer, it's an honor to welcome you back to the Bill PressPod. Thanks for joining us. Bill, I'm flattered to be invited to be with you again. I'm really looking forward to it. You're very kind. I'm sure one thing you haven't been looking forward to. We're not looking forward to is Donald Trump's impact on the federal workforce congressman. I want to start there because so many tens of thousands of federal employees have lost their jobs. Many more have had to take buyouts. A lot of them live in your district. What's the impact of the cuts of the federal workforce been in northern Virginia? It's been awful. To be fair, because we've been part of the Greater Metro DC area, we haven't had a real recession in a long time. When the rest of the country would suffer, we would have the defense industries and the federal government to lock us up. Conversely, now with Donald Trump, it's hitting really hard. You're seeing it in past due rents and restaurant business and just the human sacrifice of tens of thousands of people had to work. Although Bill, from the beginning, my greater concern is not just been the individuals from the federal government losing their jobs. It's all the people they serve across the country and around the world who are suffering because they're no longer doing their job. Just think about the floods in Texas or people dying in sub-Saharan Africa because people from FEMA or USAID have been late let go. Yeah, I was going to say a lot of these people were doing very critical work that many, all of us, really, depend on in one way or another. Just now, the stuff the last couple days about the air traffic controllers. Sean Duffy came in and immediately fired a whole bunch of them and put her freeze on the rest. And so now, for you're getting instances of close calls day after day at airports around the country. Boy, yeah, the last week, a couple of weeks have been, it's been scary, all the reports of problems at airports. Yeah, really. The hard job, it's hard to recruit. The last thing I want to do is be getting rid of the people who've been keeping us safe and productive. And of course, the president brags about having the best economy ever the first time he was in office, which was not true. And now he brags about having an even stronger economy. And yet, last Friday congressman, we saw maybe some reality set in only 73,000 jobs, new jobs created in July. And yet, at the same time, they rolled back the number department of labor of the jobs that they claimed to have increased in June from 133,000 down to 14,000. And in May, from 144,000 down to 19,000, the worst job records in December of 2020 congressman. And we remember who was in office in December of 2020. It's been an average of 35,000 jobs per month for the last three months. And as you saw, half an hour ago, he fired that the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because she's not generating enough jobs for him. He wants somebody in there who can pad the numbers and lie to make his economy look good. Just like you sued Rupert Murdoch for telling the truth. Exactly. It's just, almost she can't make this up. This has been an Republic type stuff. And we've been saying all year, you just can't do this wacko tariffs up, down, up, down, the destruction of our scientific enterprises, insulting all of our allies and threatening them. And expect that there's going to be any kind of business climate where people want to hire people who want to make investments. So Congressman, on the House Economic Committee, you're on the subcommittee on trade. And I want to ask you for things about these tariffs. I don't know, first of all, anybody who can follow whether they're up or down or in or out or for real or delayed or whatever. But, but certainly last week again, August one was his deadline. And he slaps about 39% on Switzerland and then gives Mexico 90-day relief. What is the overall 50% on Brazil? Yeah, because he doesn't like them going after Bolsonaro. And then Canada forget what it is. What's the overall impact on these tariffs? Is this a way to do business? Absolutely not. It's really foolish. And historians are going to look back on this period and just shake their head on the stupidity coming out of this president and this administration. He'll be able to, I served in Switzerland for four years as ambassador. Switzerland overall, the last decade and a half has been the number seven direct investor in the American economy. The tiny little Switzerland with eight million people is putting tons of money into our economy and he hits him with the 39% tariff. You know what we buy from them? We buy gold and we buy pharmaceuticals because they make the most sophisticated medicines in the world. We can't buy those from anybody else and we're also going to get gold. We're putting a tax on a very basic commodity. A lot of people has a lot of value. It's very stupid. Although my favorite example is he put these huge tariffs on Madagascar where we buy vanilla. They're the number one producers of the vanilla that we buy because it grows well there. And they don't buy very much from us because they don't have any money. They're one of those desperately poor nations in the world. So you hit them with a crazy 37% tariff. It just makes no sense whatsoever. Let's talk about then who pays the price for these tariffs. Well, ultimately, ultimately every economist I know agrees that it is the consumers who pay the tariff. I asked I looked and said why did Philippines agree to a deal where they pay 19% 19% tariff on goods we import from Philippines and they're doing zero on what they import from us. And it's because they don't want their Filipinos to suffer from the extra tax. They taxed us 19% it just goes right to their people. So he's basically he talks about how he's cut taxes on overtime and on tips but he is hammering the American public with the tariffs on the goods that they buy. Consent you not only have a great record of public service but a great record as a very successful and very well known business man in northern Virginia in the car business car dealership. What do you see happening to the price of cars right and again what impact is that going to have a consumer what is going to do for the average price of a car. Well, we've already seen that general motors in American domestic manufacturer lost one billion dollars in the second quarter because of the tariffs. And it's going to affect a Volkswagen who has huge American plants Tennessee and elsewhere lost a billion dollars in the second quarter even if the cars are assembled here the parts are coming from all over the world. Because the world's extraordinary wealth is built on the theory of comparative advantage you build it where it makes the most sense where labor and materials cost are less and then all the rest of us get to take advantage of that my family and I've been selling imported cars so long time and most of them are going to go up 10 15 20%. Wow, which means either people can't afford to buy them or I don't know it's just going to be really hard. By the way one of my fast fast and throw away statistics is most of the international name plate have also many of you built plants in the United States of all the ones health care line. We export more international name plate cars made in the United States than we do domestic cars made in the United States. So we live in this global economy and Trump in his America first is really America alone he's trying to cut us off. When you take macro economics built in the first week they tell you cannot grow from within. You can only grow by taking in things from outside and that's true for us personally it's certainly true for economists. I guess Donald Trump didn't take that course. He did go to Wharton but we won't let us see his report card. So you're on the subcommittee on trade and also the subcommittee on taxes and recently Congress with all Republican votes did exactly what Donald Trump asked them to do and passed this as they called it the one big beautiful bill. The main thrust of which was to continue the Trump tax cuts from when he was in the office the first time. He says that these are tax cuts for all Americans. Who benefits from the tax the Trump tax cuts. Bill I'm sure you've seen those wonderful bar charts that are broken into the court the quintiles the top 20% the lowest 20%. And almost all that is going to the top 20% and most of that's going to the top 5%. And then it's a joke the whole no tax on tips which only affects about a quarter of the tips that people get and the no tax on overtime. You still got to pay taxes on everything up to that just not the extra. And what you end up with when they take away their Medicaid and when you hit them with tariffs on goods which is what people with the lower end overwhelmingly spend their money by. They're way behind where they were before. In the meantime the rich have just gotten richer and it's true offset. This is the greatest transfer of wealth from normal Americans to rich Americans in the history of mankind. Wow. Yeah. And of course to pay for those tax cuts right. One of the parts of the OBBB was to cut what 10 million people. 10 million people from Medicaid. 10 million. Yeah. And that could be right now it's likely to go to 17 or 18 million by the end of the year because they have. Have said that they're not going to renew the premium tax credits for the affordable care act. That's another 7 to 8 million people that won't be able to afford the affordable care act. The interesting statistics today coming out from two of the big university laboratories about the number of people that are going to die per year because of these cuts. I think the number was around 45,000 per year additional Americans will die as a result of this. And that's not one time that's every year. So, Congressman, the cuts in Medicaid, according to the law, what's now the law of the land. Don't kick in until after the midterms. Are the American people going to know how bad this is going to be and maybe react accordingly or will they be unaware of what's headed their way? Yeah. Bill, it seems that it's a drip. There's no one cataclysmic event that's changing everybody's mind. But from, it came into office with the lowest approval rating of any president of modern times. And there's now down to 38, 39%. He's down in the high 20s among independents. People are realizing that the destruction that he's wreaking, the stupid and competent people he's put in place, Hegseth, and Bondy, and Patel, and Kennedy, all that's adding up. And people are seeing a chaos on a level of incompetence that we've never seen in American government. Whether the Medicaid stuff kicks in by the next midterm, I don't know. But people do know it was coming. And they do know that, for example, you have the work reporting environment. You've got to work twice a year. For many people, you can't just go online. You've got to show up someplace and show that you've done your work. You have your employment check or your paycheck stub. People are not going to do it or they're not going to do it. And then they're going to be denied the care that they need. Despite the fact that they're, when you throw 10 million people off a Medicaid, they keep saying it's waste fraud and abuse. There aren't 10 million 28 year old young men playing video games at home and avoiding going to work. These are people in nursing homes and people taking care of disabled children. And people that are just poor and sick. And in fact, aren't many of them people who are working maybe in fast food restaurants or something. But they don't make enough money to buy health care on their own. And therefore, they qualify for Medicaid. And as the only health care, they actually get anyway. Exactly. And if you know, so most of those folks work with car business. A lot of people that were at the lower level, the washing cars and moving cars, would just automatically assume they had to have a second and a third job. We would always go out on our way to make sure that they can make at least 10 or 12 hours of overtime every week so that they didn't have to get that second job. But when you have two and three jobs, when do you have time to go find some government office and prove that you're still working? Is this an opportunity do you believe, Congressman, for Democrats to make the case about how bad the Trump economy is or the Trump? What damage would Republicans or Congress are doing and maybe lead to a little better success in 2026? We sure hope so. We picked up a bunch of seats the last time. But for the immoral redistricting in North Carolina, Hockey and Jeffries would be speaker today. And now it looks like we're going to have to overcome the Texas redistricting, which is going to be really unfortunate. Yeah, it's an opportunity. Trump, I believe there are many factors in his election from the late entry to Kamala Harris to a little bit of racism and massage and he mixed in. But overall, the one big thing is people were upset with the cost of living. And yet Trump hasn't done a single damn thing in these six months to lower people's costs. And I think we're going to come back to that again and again. I want to get into more of the politics of the day and just a second, Congressman. But before I'm going to the other big bill after the one big beautiful bill so called was the decisions bill, which really struck me for you as unusual because this was Congress going back and unapproving money that they had already approved for many very important projects. Have you seen anything like this before? I haven't bill and it's just a couple of days ago public broadcasting system. Have the 60 years just shut down because of that. And in the meantime, it cut $8 billion from USAID, which was keeping children alive overseas. And we just burned tons and tons of food and vaccines meant for those children as rotting in warehouse of the United States because of these cuts. But the most fundamentally unfair thing bill is that our budgets are worked out in a bipartisan way. You need 60 votes in the Senate to pass one of these budgets. But you only need 50 votes to rescind it. So you can have Democrats and Republicans working together in good faith to pass a budget, sent president signs it. And then they turn around a week later. In this case was a couple of months later because it changed the president's and do a resistance bill and claw it back without getting the 60 votes. You pass in a bipartisan way and cut it in a nonpartisan way. And it's in a very heavily partisan way. It's just, it's not fair. And I think it's going to present a great problem as the people negotiating the next budget just don't trust Donald Trump to keep the word as he signs an appropriations bill. I was going to say it must so a lot of distrust even also among members of Congress. Absolutely, especially when the members of the House and Senate, the Republican members, many of them are my friends. I think many of them are good people. And yet they have shown absolutely no respect for the separation of Congress from the president. They've not been willing to fight not just for the institutional prerogatives, but no one's afraid to speak truth to power. And no one's willing to stand up to Donald Trump. That's very sad. You've never seen, I've never seen a speaker before, certainly not a Nancy Pelosi, shy away from confronting a president, Democrat or Republican when he was wrong. But especially as you indicate there, when the president is in a sense, you're serving powers that belong to the Congress. And the Congress just lets them get away with it. Yeah, just look the other way. Nowhere is that more obvious than with these tariffs, where the Constitution is very clear that tariffs and trade policy belong to Congress, not to the president. It does a budgetary authority as well. You can escape to politics of the day and we're not going to a congressman. We'll take a quick break. When we come back, start a software with what's going on in Virginia and what lessons we learn there for the rest of the country. Hold on, we'll be after a quick break. We'll be right back. We know, friends, for the last few weeks, I've been recommending organizations that I think deserve all of our support. And today, I want to come back to one that's very, very important. Act blue. I mean, if you share Congressman Buyers Drive as well as mine to take back the House in 2026, act blue is so important. They're the major fundraising juggernaut for Democrats. And you know they're damn good because Donald Trump has sued them or asked the Justice Department rather to investigate them for fraud. Of course, there's no fraud what they're doing. They're just collecting money and distributing it to Democratic candidates for every office possible around the country. And Donald Trump has not slowed them down one bit. Act blue actually raised $400 million for Democratic candidates in the first quarter of this year. And in the second quarter, after Donald Trump tried to sick the Justice Department on them, act blue raised $393 million. So go to actblue.com. Any Democrat you want to support for Congress, for Senate, for governor, for state legislature, for city council. Act blue will send the money directly to those candidates on your behalf. Actblue.com. Check it out. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Granger offers millions of products and fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call one 800 Granger, click ranger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. We're back on today's podcast. Delighted to welcome to the podcast. A good friend, Congressman Don, by representing Virginia's eighth congressional district that's North Virginia right across the Potomac. Congressman, welcome back. Big governors race in Virginia this year. The off year is always Virginia and New Jersey. And we always look for signs of what they might tell us about the mood of the American electorate. How do you see the race in Virginia? I'm really optimistic about it, Bill. Abigail Spanberger. I served with for six years in the house. Great background. She was a law enforcement officer for the Postal Service. She was an undercover CIA agent in Europe. She's a Virginia board and bread from Richmond. And she's won a lot of elections in Trumpy type places. We're in Virginia, called Pepper County. And I think she's going to do great. She also has a very damaged Republican opponent that the party seems to have abandoned. I think she's going to do terrific. By the way, Virginia has a tradition going back all the way to Lyndon Johnson with only one exception that we elected governor of the opposite party. The president we just elected. Donald Trump in office, Abigail Spanberger immediately cheered up. So I think we can sweep. And we have a narrow margin in the Virginia house, 5149. And yet we have, I think, eight or nine seats that Kamala Harris won, currently held by Republicans. So we're going to do our damage to try to make that a 60-40 house. So our mutual good friend, Terry McCullough, former governor, told me he thinks Spanberger is going to win by 15 points. Do you want to place your bet right now? It's looking like 15 to 17 points. So they racist and the narrow at the end. I'll be thrilled with 50.1. And the last thing I think Abigail is very aware that she doesn't want to take this race for granted and doesn't want any of us to either. That you need to run through the tape. Yeah. Which she is doing, right? Yeah. She's doing very well. It wasn't that long ago, Congressman, that we consider everybody considered Virginia a purple state. Is it still, or do you think it's now classified as blue? Now, it's still pretty purple. Our house is 6 to 5 in the US house representatives. We do have more clients in Cain who are terrific US senators. But they're, again, they're purple senators too. They're not Bernie Sanders. They're sensible. Mark Warner has always described himself as a raging moderate. It could go back and forth. The only way we can win is to put up really good people. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we saw it go back, if you will, with Glenn Youngkin, when we thought Terry would get reelected. So what isn't about Democrats in Virginia knowing how to win in some of these reddish or purple districts, that Democrats nationwide ought to look to, do you think, Congressman? Every state is different. We, the long history, at least my adult history with Virginia Democratic leaders, Chuck Rob, Jerry Bilalos, Doug Wilder, Terry McAuliffe, Mark Warner, Tim Cain. There was always a sense that you had to have a really strong economy. This spent a lot of, Jerry Bilalos used to tell me, this is back 1980s. He was spent 80% of his time trying to develop Virginia business, staying close to the business community, working for economic opportunities everywhere. So they had the money to do the other 20% to do all the stuff for families with children with disabilities for investing in our education system. We have a very strong educational system that we put a lot of money in too. But you can only do that because we also have a great employment base and lots of strong, healthy companies. And sometimes Democrats forget that we need to be Democratic capitalists in order for things to work. It's also a fairly lean government, which I think is helpful. I'm proud to be a Virginia. I love the way we govern. But it's looking at the polls nationwide while some Democrats are very highly regarded. The Democratic brand, Congressman, rates pretty low right now. So do you agree that Democrats have to maybe not reinvent themselves but message do the better job of messaging? And what do you think that message has to be? If I go back, so I'm now a young 75, right? And if you asked me 50 years ago, I was a Democrat. I'd say the same thing I say today is because I've always felt that we were the party that represented the little guy. We're the ones who cared about everybody and the people left behind. I think Franklin Roosevelt, for example, are Lyndon Johnson. And yet right now, the little guy votes for Republicans. The blue collar workers, the even many of Latino and African-American men voting for Trump. So somehow we've lost the position where I think our hearts and our minds really are. And so that's the messaging, James. I would like to see is reaffirming that we're for the people versus the powerful. And we want to represent the people. And maybe that was another one of the factors that led to the disaster of 2024. The Democrats were not articulating that message to people who were left left behind and left out. Yeah, and it's not just there's not just like the people on minimum wage. There's all kinds of people making $50,000 a year or $70,000 a year. Who feel left behind? Because they can't afford the college education. They can't afford to buy a house. They're struggling to make ends meet. As we look at the American economy, our upper middle class has blossomed. And we have more than 1,000 billionaires. But there's an awful lot of Americans who don't feel any better than they did in the mid 1970s. And don't have much hope for their prospects in the years to come. Those are the people that we need to represent. How about, again, the Congressman, you and I are of a certain generation, right? Which has done great things and we're proud of who we are. But does the party need to do a better job maybe of putting up some new voices, younger voices, more energetic voices? Yeah, and I think we are. I mean, we just have, for example, Robert Garcia, a young youngster who is 47, but young coming from California, taking over the oversight committee, if Jasmine Crockett who's young and fiery out there, there are a whole crop, at least I see it mostly through the house because that's where I go every day. But we have a bunch of people in their 30s and 40s right now who are smart and caring and articulate. And the number that are my age are dwindling quickly as we should. Yeah. And there are younger pressure voices among those who are looking at 2028 as Congressman mainly among our governors. If you look at Wes Moore, Josh Birol, writer, Andy Bussier, Jamie Pritzker, Gavin Newsom. Do you have a favorite among that gang? Yeah, my favorite is always going to be Pete Buttigieg. Really? Yeah. I should have mentioned him. He's great. I love. I think Pete, no one is as articulate as Pete. No, no one can better express what's going on in America and the Democratic Party and solutions. I also, he's just a very good person. I know he has the hurdle of being a married gay man in a country that is much more accepting of same-sex marriage and of people's sexual orientation. Then they were 10 or 20 years ago. I'm hoping that they're ready for Pete. But, but we'll see. Right. That's interesting. You believe Americans are more ready for a married gay man than a black woman to be president of the United States or any woman to be president of the United States. Yeah. I hate to tell you this, but yes, I do. We look at Trump put Scott Bessent in his Treasury Secretary and I haven't heard anybody. Any Republican, not even Laura Lumer say he should go because he's gay. Yeah. If he escaped Laura Lumer, right? There are many other gay men and women in better Trump appointees. That's fine. I want. I want there to be greater social acceptance. I wish there were greater social acceptance of the notion of a woman as president. One of the interesting thoughts, comments that came out of the 2024 election was the same percentage of Americans voted against having Hillary as president as voted against having Kamala as president. That was the burden maybe. Speaking of Kamala Harris congressman, we know what decision she made last week. Not to run for governor of California. And you've indicated your preference for 2028 would be Pete. But what's your advice to Kamala Harris? Should she go for it again? Is that good for the party? Well, I don't think. Yeah. I think competition is great for the party. We're a democracy. We need to hear from everybody. What happened to her wasn't really fair. She got eight or nine weeks to try to put together president or campaign after years of being left in the closet by herself. She did. And she was lost by 1.4%. Imagine if she had a whole year to run. I say, my of all these people, I'll be working hard for whoever gets the nomination in the meantime. I'm for Pete, but I wish Kamala really well. I like her. I think she did a great job for us. And by the way, Pete, if you look back again through our lives, no vice president, even former vice president, who's ever sought his or her party's nomination for president has been denied it. Whether Lyndon Johnson or Walter Mondale or Al Gore or anybody else. So history is certainly on her side. I can't let you go without. It's not my favorite story, but it has been dominating the news. The question, Jeffrey Epstein, the speaker sent you all home without dealing with this issue. When the house comes back, will you be voting on whether or not to release all the Epstein files? Will there be such a vote? And will it pass? I think there will be a vote. And I think it'll pass with two thirds, maybe three quarters of the house voting yes on that. Yeah, it's teed up. It was a bipartisan row con or Democrat. Tom Massey or Republican put it in put it under special rules. They had to have enough signatures more than a majority. Yeah, and I think most Americans want to see it come out. And by the way, with Donald Trump was like, I want it released. No, I don't want to release. No, if there's anything in there, Joe Biden and Barack Obama put it there. And he just seems so guilty. And he tells everybody to stop talking about Epstein. And yet he can't stop talking about it. In the meantime, he says the reason he banned Epstein is because he stole one of his Spam masseuses rather than that he was having sex with children. I know. Is the thinnest possible reasons why he didn't like him? Indeed. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for your great work over the years and being a good friend of the Bill Pressbot. I love the Bill Pressbot. And Bill, thanks for being such a good friend and an articulate leader. And there we go for today's podcast with Congressman Don Byer, a big thank you to the Congressman. And the thanks to all of you for joining us. Well, the House has been out on their enforced august vacation. Now the send us out of time out of town too. But that doesn't mean it won't be another lively week here in Washington. So we'll keep an eye on what's happening in the nation's capital. Take a look at the blowback for Donald Trump firing the woman who put out the job numbers because he didn't like last week's job numbers. We'll follow Donald Trump's attempt to basically redo the entire White House by building a mammoth ballroom alongside of the White House. And we'll keep track of those Texas legislators who are showing up all over the country to bribe to prevent Governor Abbott from redrawing district lines in Texas. Good for them. That's the subject, all of those subject of our roundtable, this Friday with three top political reporters. So have a great week, everybody. Stay cool. Come back and see us on Friday for the next edition of the Bill Cross Bond, our reporters, roundtable.