During Tuesday's press briefing, Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) discussed President Trump's first 100 days.
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00:00Good afternoon.
00:02Can you guys hear me okay, the audio work?
00:05Great.
00:07I'm Greg Cassar.
00:09I'm proud to represent the heart of Texas in Congress
00:11and be chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
00:15Today marks 100 days since Donald Trump took the oath of office
00:20surrounded by the richest men on earth.
00:23The most important story of Trump's 100 days is crystal clear.
00:30Trump, Musk, and the billionaire class are using the government
00:34to rip off working people every single day for 100 days.
00:39For 100 days, they have cut your services.
00:43For 100 days, they've raised your prices.
00:45For 100 days, they have fired veterans and stolen their salaries.
00:49For 100 days, Trump, Musk, and the billionaire class
00:53have gotten richer off of you while our country has gotten screwed.
00:58They're not even trying to hide it.
01:00Anymore.
01:01For his entire career, Trump has stolen from working people
01:04while claiming to be, quote, anti-establishment.
01:08But in the last 100 days, Trump has finally ripped that anti-establishment mask off,
01:14starting with the row of billionaires sitting right behind him
01:17at his inauguration and continuing every day since
01:20Trump has created a government by and for the billionaires.
01:25And if anyone ever doubted that Trump and Musk and Bezos and the billionaires are all at
01:31one team, just look at what happened at Amazon today.
01:34Bezos immediately caved and walked back a plan to tell Americans how much Trump's tariffs are
01:41costing them.
01:42Bezos, who spent $40 million on Melania Trump's documentary, wants big tax cuts and sweetheart deals much more than he wants to represent the American people.
01:55The message to our communities and to people watching at home is crystal clear.
02:00These billionaires and Trump are on one team and stick together.
02:04And it is the responsibility of Democrats to bring people across the country together that are everybody else, besides the billionaires.
02:11Today, Americans don't need a dictionary to know what oligarchy is.
02:16All they have to do is turn on the news.
02:18Musk cutting Social Security services and firing veterans to pay for bigger government contracts for himself.
02:25House Republicans pushing the biggest cuts to Medicaid in American history to pay for tax cuts for their billionaire donors.
02:32And Trump jacking up prices on working families by $4,000 a month in order to have corporations and billionaires come sit at his feet and pay him extortion money in order to get exceptions to his tariffs.
02:47I don't care what word we use for it.
02:49Democrats need to make confronting the billionaire takeover of our government our top priority.
02:55Now, I do see some hope amidst the darkness.
02:57A hundred days ago, there were many Democrats who were grieving or unsure of where to go from here.
03:04A hundred days ago, there was debate within our party about whether to play footsie with Elon Musk or go to toe with him.
03:11But today, the Democratic Party is shaping up.
03:14Millions of Americans have protested and marched and called and demanded that Republican politicians stop acting like puppets.
03:21And we know now that we cannot just be the anti-Trump party, but progressives, especially, are organizing Democrats to build a vision for America where the world actually gets better after this.
03:34This week, the Progressive Caucus has begun discussions about a policy discussion, about a policy agenda that will end the billionaire takeover of our government and make sure our government really works for working people.
03:46In the short term, before we take back the House, our priority is to stop the bleeding and stop the corruption.
03:53In markups this week, Republicans will be forced by our CPC members to confront again and again whether these Republican members of Congress want to act like representatives of their constituents or representatives of their billionaire donors.
04:07And together, alongside the entire Democratic caucus, I believe, we can pressure just the three House Republicans we need to flip their votes and we can save Medicaid as we know it.
04:20We can stop the billionaire takeover of our government.
04:22And in the coming month, we can remind the entire country that we can fire Elon Musk by May 30th, the day that he legally must exit his role at the White House.
04:33If we do these things, then I believe that 100 days from now, Democrats can say we have found our way out of the wilderness and back to our roots of fighting for all working people.
04:43And with that, we will pass it along to a number of our leaders in the Progressive Caucus to discuss all the important issues that faced us the last 100 days and how we'll take them on over the next 100 days.
04:56So I'm handing over the podium to our deputy chair, Elhan Omar.