Mike Johnson gets the Epstein update he FEARED

I'm joined now by the representative elect from Arizona's 7th congressional district, Adelita Grijalva. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Thanks for having me.

So we are 44 days since you've been elected and yet haven't been sworn in. Right off the bat, why is it that you haven't yet been sworn in after 44 days?

You know, you'd have to ask Speaker Johnson specifically the reason. I mean, I can tell you all the excuses he's given. One, my race wasn't certified. And then it was, you know, we need to wait until the government reopens because now we're in a shutdown. We can't swear someone in during pro forma. But we know that all of those excuses have already been debunked. And really, at this point, the only thing that distinguishes me from Representative Walkinshaw, who was sworn in on September 10th, is that he was signer 217 and I'll be 218 in the discharge

petition for the Epstein files.

Has there been any opportunity that you've had to actually confront Mike Johnson in person or has he ducked you thus far?

He has ducked. So we, I called twice, sent a letter and then our attorney general sent a letter, a demand letter. By that time it had already been four weeks and he has not contacted me, has never communicated with me. And I thought it was interesting when he said that, you know, one of the Republican, the two Republican now representatives that were sworn in in

a special on April 2nd, that they scheduled an appointment because I'm like, well, how did they get you on the phone? Because I would love that option.

Yeah.

Yeah. Is there a part of you that wants to go to DC and try and confront him face to face?

I just, at this point, we've already filed suit, so I don't want to have any, I don't want to be able to add to any of the misrepresentation that he's already, you know, sort of thrown out there about me. And I think that everything at this point, from this point on until it's resolved legally,

I don't want to have any face-to-face conversations with him. And so why do you think that it's so important for Mike Johnson, assuming that that's the reason? I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but I don't know what else it could possibly be that he's okay swearing people in during pro forma sessions if they're Republicans, swearing other people in if they would be the 217th vote for a discharge petition, which doesn't force a vote, but suddenly bristles at the notion of being able to swear in the 218th vote.

So why do you think it is that Mike Johnson is so hell-bent on making sure that this doesn't come to the floor?

You know, I think that he's had some pretty clear direction from the White House. So like, we don't want to see this. when Trump was running for office, releasing the Epstein files was a really big deal. I mean that was something he was gonna do on day one. Right. And here we are and I think what happened is they got a little gander what was really in the files and thought maybe that's not a good idea. And if we notice you know Speaker Johnson ended votes a week early, sent everyone home a week early to

avoid a vote on the Epstein files. So that seems to be the common denominator. I, like you, I'm like, I didn't want to assume. I really didn't know him. But it has been fairly surprising how easily, with a straight face, he can just lie and manipulate facts. It's been really fascinating to watch.

I think the most striking part of all of this, and I'd like your thoughts on this, but he presents himself as this pious guy. And yet it would seem that the last thing that somebody who predicates so much of his identity on his adherence to Christianity and his love of religion is to then put himself front and center and make himself the front guy who is running cover for Donald Trump so that he's not exposed in a pedophile ring.

Do you not see the innate conflict in those things?

I do. I don't know how he doesn't. I mean, to me, you know, one of the things that he said early on was that the reason why he swore in the two Republicans in a pro-forma session, which they never do, and he would never do now, is because they brought their families and scheduled an appointment.

I'm like, how do I schedule an appointment? I'm happy to do it.

Yeah, you're like, my family's waiting right here. They'll be happy to come watch me.

I have three kids, a husband. We're ready to go. Just let me know when. And at this point, it's every day of this delay that this delay continues. Constituents are not only denied representation in Congress, but they're also denied access to critical services. And so more and more, I keep talking about, this is annoying to me.

It's frustrating to me, mostly because I can't serve the constituents that sent me to D.C.

And that's what I want to dig into here, because I think from a national perspective, it's easy, and by the way, virtuous, to home in on the fact that Mike Johnson is really making himself a big part of this cover-up for the Epstein files. But the reality is that your constituents, what, 700,000, 800,000 constituents— Almost 813,000 people. 813,000 people deprived of any representation in Congress, and of course that's notwithstanding the fact that Mike Johnson won't let anybody represent their constituents right now because

he and Republicans refused to extend the ACA subsidies that would be required to make sure that they get Democratic votes to open the government back up. But can you just give some indication of your situation in that you have, again, more than 800,000 people who have no representation?

Well, it's also coupled by the fact that my dad represented this district for 22 years and was known for amazing constituent services. So they go to his old office that has a sign on the door and actually a black ribbon on it that says you know this office is closed and so that is so upsetting to me that people are going to get help from Grijalva and the Grijalva that can help them is unable to.

And I think that when you look at the overall and the people that need help with their VA benefits, with immigration issues, we have the three ports of entry with Mexico and Arizona in CD7. We have people that live in poverty. One of the states that utilizes SNAP the most of any. I mean we we need help here in Arizona and for me not to be able to be able to stand up for them, not be able to sign a lease to open up an office, not be able to get

like the phones turned on, that I cannot tell you like how much it hurts me because I see the people every day that said, mi hijita, fui a la oficina de tu papa pero no estabas. Like, I went to your dad's office and you weren't there. They don't understand that they did their job. They elected me. Now they want me to do mine.

And try to explain to someone who needs help, what, like, well, I really can't because I don't have a budget. They don't care. They just want the help. And I want to be able to do my job. And I cannot do it because he's not letting me.

You know, that really is a small part of a larger whole, not just from Mike Johnson but the broader Republican Party and the Trump administration, where there are all these people who are begging for help. And in fact, Trump and Republicans gained power by exploiting that weakness. They said that they understood the pain that people were going through, they understood that people needed help affording rent and housing and groceries and eggs.

They went so granular that they were talking about the price of eggs, only for them to get power by manipulating people, and with that power, not focus on any of those things, instead engage in a trade war that actually exacerbated high prices, not only not protect health care but strip Medicaid away from 17 million Americans, put, um, put 24 million Americans worth of ACA subsidies, double, triple, quadruple the price, not only, um, keep Americans secure in terms of their, their, their food assistance, but strip it away to the tune of $350 billion, but then on top of all that,

to watch Donald Trump, uh, redo the Lincoln bathroom in marble and post 25 pictures online, uh, tear down the East Spring of the White House so he can build himself a $350 million ballroom, buy himself and Kristi Noem $172 million worth of Gulfstream jets, get a Qatari jet that's going to be retrofitted that's going to cost a billion dollars paid for by taxpayers, adorn the Oval Office in gold. And so we have example after example after example topped off just a few days ago by

a Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago. And so what does it say to you when you see these people in your district who need help. And you can't get it not only because the government is shut down, but because Mike Johnson thinks it's more important to defend Trump from pedophilia accusations and pedophile ring accusations than to actually allow you to become a member of Congress who's fully sworn in only to, you know, to see them basically just just immersed fully in their decadent ornate life that they built for themselves.

It is definitely like a let them eat cake moment, right? When people are literally starving. And I was at a distribution with community food bank here locally, giving out food boxes to federal workers. These are people that are gainfully employed, working every day, never thinking that they would need food

assistance to make sure that their families can eat. These people have not gone into a grocery store in I don't even know how long. They are so far removed from the average American and when you look at the state of our economy and the promises that were made by this administration, you would think that by deporting so many people that our economy would get stronger. Those of us that know better can literally see what's happening. Nobody thinks our economy is stronger and Trump and his

cronies are enriching themselves billions of dollars. I just don't understand why more people are not talking about their crypto money and you know that literally there should be a sign at the White House that says justice for sale, se vende, you give me enough money and I'll take you out I'll take your friend out of prison I'll I'll get rid of that of that pesky little criminal record that you

have.

Charges you have, yeah. Let's just get rid of all of that. And also, let's go after public media. Let's go after the arts. Let's go after public education. Let's go after anybody that is not agreeing with me and drinking the Kool-Aid and pledging

allegiance to Trump. If you don't pledge allegiance to Trump you're the anti. And when you listen to Speaker Johnson and some of these other Republicans talk about the wins that happened on Tuesday it's like well we knew they're Marxist, they're communist, they're this and that. I'm like their agenda is all about working people, Affordable housing, feeding, early childhood education. Those are enriching programs.

But they're not moneymakers that Trump wants. So he's not going to push that agenda. He'd rather give away $40 billion with a B dollars to Argentina than give it to the people in this community that need it.

But something, something America first. On that point of the election.

Especially if it's made in another country.

Right.

It's fine.

Go ahead and slap that on there.

On that point of the election just a few days ago, do you buy this talking point that they're trotting out now? And I've seen this from Republican officials. I've seen this on Fox News. This idea that, you know what, it's actually not that surprising because these are just a couple

of blue states or blue cities. And so this is really what we expected. We don't have to change course. Everything that we're doing is perfectly fine.

I would love them to do exactly what they're doing. Just keep doing it. Do it, do it, because what we're going to continue to do is organize. We're going to continue to talk to voters. We're going to continue to talk to people. And the Democratic Party needs to look at what is resonating. It's a working people agenda. It's talking about what is making it more difficult for the next generation to advance.

I mean, every generation, especially in our family, my tata was a bracero, came from Mexico with a promise of a job and an opportunity for a better life. And my dad was a member of Congress in one generation. Like, those stories are not that rare when you look at the advances that people in our community,

people that I live with all around us, look at that, look at, like, it's an immigrant story

because everything in this nation is built with all around us. Look at that. Look at the, it's an immigrant story because

everything in this nation is built on immigrant labor, immigrant input, immigrant smarts. I mean that's what makes us, it's supposed to be this melting pot. But for Trump's America, if you look like me, if you speak Spanish, if you're from a different country, if your parents were from a different country, let me try to figure out a way to stop you. Let me try to figure out a way to halt you because what I want to be able to do, if I'm

a Trump and supporters like him, I want to step on my back to be able to get up higher. That's what they've been able to do. They want us to, they want to roll us back to a time when America was great. It was great for white men. It wasn't great for the rest of us. And it wasn't great for working people.

It wasn't great for people living in poverty. And so what we need to do is look at how many people are utilizing these ACA subsidies. How many people, like almost a million people, just in my community that need SNAP benefits, that are working people. That's a problem that we need to address as the Democratic Party and get a platform together on how we're going to address the working poor.

Do you think that the way that Donald Trump has sicked his ICE agents on communities of color, do you think that same disrespect that he's showing to those communities lends itself to why he and Mike Johnson and the rest of the Republican conference are so easily preventing you from being able to get your seat?

Oh, completely. Completely. Because what I think is happening is that there are a lot of people with buyer's remorse right now. People are very upset. They're like, well, you know, especially people that are now reaching out to me saying, well, I voted for you because I voted for Trump last

time and I don't know what I was thinking. I'm like, yeah, I don't either. But thank you for like seeing what's happening here. I mean, here in our community, just like you see them masked up and in plainclothes in New York and Chicago, they're targeting immigrant communities so they can make them afraid. I can't tell you how many people reached out to me and said, I have to vote at home. I don't want to go into the polls.

Yeah. By design.

I'm scared. Right. I mean, this suppression, you can feel it here in my community, especially in every other immigrant community. And it is for those of us that have the privilege of being able to stand up and with full chest say this is not OK. We have to do it more and more for those people that cannot.

Well, I appreciate your voice. And I know that I speak for countless, countless, countless people out there who do the exact same. Thank you for being so vocal about this. And thanks for bringing the fight to Mike Johnson and these other Republicans.

Adelita Grojowa, I hope to see you in Congress at some point, but until then we'll continue to shout from the rooftops about exactly why it is that Republicans are trying to prevent you from having a voice there. you from having a voice there.

Thank you so much for having me.