Watch the Rep. Raskin Interview That Inspired Trump’s Furious Post Calling Him ‘Ugly’
At 9.22 pm ET Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump wrote a post on his Truth Social account attacking Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) as a “third rate Democrat politician,” “DOPE,” and “TOTAL LOSER!” who has an “ugly face.” Raskin “just so happened” to be on All In with Chris Hayes a few minutes beforehand, as Hayes pluckily noted.
The president’s post targeted Raskin for his criticism of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act. Trump is loudly urging Congress to pass the bill but it has drawn sharp criticism not just from Democrats but from Republicans as well (not to mention sparking a bitter feud between Trump and Elon Musk) and required herculean efforts from GOP leaders in the House and Senate to push it through a series of procedural hurdles.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a third rate Democrat politician, has no idea what is in our fantastic Tax Cut Bill, nor would he understand it if he did. This DOPE has been consistently losing to me for YEARS, and I love watching his ugly face as he is forced to consistently concede DEFEAT TO TRUMP — And tonight should be another of those nights. Raskin is a bad politician, and a TOTAL LOSER!
Exactly one hour later, Hayes tweeted a screenshot of Trump’s digital diatribe along with a YouTube link to the segment with Raskin.
“Watch our interview with [Raskin] that just so happened to air right before Trump posted this,” wrote Hayes.
The video clip begins with Raskin speaking from the House floor about the bill, reading a satirical reinterpretation of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
“Mr. Speaker,” said Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and a former constitutional law professor, “I found the preamble to this big ugly bill. We, the billionaires and our king, in order to deform and sicken our union, establish injustice, insure domestic servility, weaken our people’s defenses, undermine the general welfare, and preserve to ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity, do hereby instruct the Republicans in Congress to strip 17 million people of their health care, increase co-pays, deductibles, and premiums for everyone else.”
Hayes introduced Raskin and the two discussed the bill, which at that point was still slowly trudging its way through multiple rounds of votes in the House, as GOP leadership and the president worked to herd enough cats to get the required votes. (It would finally pass on Thursday.)
Raskin elaborated on his critiques of the legislation, notably the trillions added to the national debt, the 17 million people removed from Medicaid, and 42 million people who would lose their SNAP food assistance benefits.
This bill “will be absolutely life changing for basically everybody in America,” Raskin said, but Republicans had sharply limited any debate or discussion on the provisions in its hundreds of pages.
One particular segment of the interview that might have piqued Trump’s temper is when Hayes asked the congressman about a report from NOTUS that Trump had told Republicans that if they want to win elections, Congress shouldn’t touch Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security, but this bill does substantially hit Medicaid benefits.
Raskin replied that there had been “a lot of discussion on the floor about whether or not Trump really understands what’s in this bill or not, and whether he’s out of it.”
Thursday afternoon, Raskin fired back at Trump with his own tweet knocking him for being a bully, plus some pointed criticism of the bill.
“Mr. President, you love playing the schoolyard bully but, at age 79, it’s time to cut it out,” wrote Raskin. “It’s one thing to steal one kid’s lunch money, but your bill STEALS LUNCH MONEY FROM MILLIONS OF KIDS. Now, that’s real ugly.”
David Dayen, author and executive editor of the Prospect who was on All In before Raskin, shared Hayes’ tweet along with a joke about missing the chance at his own moment in the social media spotlight.
“Dammit I was on right before this, where’s my Truth Mr. President,” he tweeted.
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.
