Rep. Jayapal: Democrats Need a Bold Agenda, Starting With Medicare for All

The Intercept Briefing

The Intercept

Politics, Daily News, History, News

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

This week, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., joined forces with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., to introduce ambitious Medicare for All legislation that would provide comprehensive coverage to every American without premiums, co-payments, or deductibles. The move comes at a striking moment — with Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, the bill's passage remains unlikely.

In this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, Jayapal delivers a candid assessment of Democratic strategy in the Trump era. "You can't just be an opposition party. You do have to also be a proposition party.” It's why Medicare for All was so important, she explains. “We have to show people that we are willing to un-rig the system.”

Jayapal acknowledges critical missteps by her party. "A lot of my colleagues may have gotten scared off and somehow thought that what the American people wanted was for us to play footsie with Donald Trump instead of go toe to toe with him," she says. "And I think it is very clear now, after the first three months of destruction and chaos and cruelty, that that is not the way to go. This is not an administration that you want to try and get in bed with. This is an administration that we have to fight if we want to preserve our democracy."

She has been particularly frustrated by her colleagues in the Senate. "The Senate had the ability to confirm Trump's Cabinet, and you saw many Democrats going along with those confirmations as if somehow this was OK to put these people who are completely incompetent and have no understanding whatsoever, and even worse have lots of things in their backgrounds that never should have allowed them to be confirmed as Cabinet members." The Senate, she adds, had “a certain power to stand up early that they didn't use."

Now is the time, says Jayapal, to offer a clear roadmap for resistance. "My job now is to use the platform I have and the relationships I have to build the resistance movement on the outside and on the inside. And that is really on every level from Congress to the courts to the public."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Intercept Briefing. I'm Akala Lacey.
0:07.4	Here's the thing. We have never suffered from scarcity in America. Never. We suffer from greed.
0:15.5	And more and more people are losing health care because of these profiteering corporations.
0:22.0	That's Democratic Congresswoman Pramilla Jaya Paul.
0:24.4	On Tuesday, which marked the 100th day of President Donald Trump's return to the White House,
0:29.5	Jayapal, a representative for Washington State, joined Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
0:34.4	and others to unveil the latest Medicare for All Act.
0:38.9	For the fact that health care is a human right, for the fact that we waste enormous amounts
0:45.2	of money on administration and on profiteering and on advertising.
0:50.9	Their proposal would give Medicare coverage to every American with no premiums, no co-payments, and no deductibles.
0:59.1	The fight to overhaul American health care to create a government-funded system is older than you might think.
1:05.4	Reform efforts date back to the late 1800s, but have never passed.
1:09.8	Today, the U.S. spends far more on health care per person
1:13.8	than other wealthy countries. That spending eats up a large share of our economy, but Americans still
1:18.6	experience worse outcomes, lower life expectancy, and higher maternal mortality, especially among
1:24.3	black women. There's no question the system is broken.
1:32.0	But with Donald Trump back in the White House and Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress,
1:35.2	why revive the push for Medicare for all now?
1:42.3	Joining me to answer that question and to talk about how Democrats are responding to Trump's first 100 days is Representative Pramilla Jaya Paul. Welcome to the Intercept
1:45.8	Briefing, Representative Jaya Paul. Thank you for having me with you. We're speaking on Wednesday morning.
1:51.4	So yesterday, you and your colleagues introduced a new Medicare for All Act. Why did you want to
1:56.9	introduce this now, given the political limits facing Democrats with Trump and the White
	...

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