CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)

Interview

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Well, Victor, it's great to be with you. I think people just need to hear from the president. They need to hear him brag about the tremendous accomplishments, and the fact that he has under just this last two years created almost 11 million new jobs, brought unemployment down in this country to the lowest level in over half a century. We're building things in America again.

Now some of these things haven't happened across the country yet because legislation takes a while to actually show up in districts, but, you know, I do know that seniors across the country are already feeling the effects of having $35 cap on insulin. These are all the things that I think the president will talk about tonight. And he will make sure that people understand this is a new era where this Democratic Party, this president care about working people, not about the wealthiest, you know, corporations and individuals that got big tax breaks under Donald Trump, but actually about working people, raising taxes on the wealthiest in order to fund things that really make life better for people every day.

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Yes. I mean, look. It's true that we are coming out of one of the worst economic crises of -- in the history of this country. COVID combined with the economic crisis, that was a tremendous amount of pain that people went through under the last administration, under the last president. This president is the president that actually got shots in arms, that kept small businesses going. I don't expect that people will feel like everything is great because the reality is we've got a lot more work to do. And Victor, I think we're going to hear the president tonight talk

about the biggest inflationary cost that families are facing, things like child care and housing. Those are the things that are still to do in the president's agenda that he laid out that we got very close to accomplishing last session, but that we are going to get done once we have majorities again.

So I think you'll hear, of course, what we've done, but absolutely recognizing that Americans are still feeling pain, and that this president is going to use executive action, things like raising the overtime threshold to give workers -- 30 million workers across the country --

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Well, I think he's already done a lot by executive action. As you know, he raised, you know, federal contractors' minimum wages to $15. He fixed the ACA glitch to get millions more health care. There's more health care -- more Americans covered under the Affordable Care Act than ever before. So, he has been doing that. He will continue to do that. But I think the key message here, Victor, is this is a president who understands how to get things done. This is a Democratic Party that has delivered a lot for people. We have a lot more to do, and we will take that opportunity over the next two years, and hopefully when we get the majorities back again in 2024.

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Yes.

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I don't think he needs to. I think he's already spoken about this. I think he did what he needed to do, which was prioritize the safety of the American people first and foremost, and then shoot it down so that he could collect -- so that this administration could collect whatever equipment was on that drone, and assess, you know, what exactly happened here. But I think he handled it the right way.

This is the moment to talk about his big vision, about all of the ways he's built diplomatic relations across the world in a way that frankly the last president destroyed. It was on this president to build back the credibility of the United States on the global stage, and Victor, I think he's done that.

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Thank you, Victor.

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