Congressional Democrats are under fire from the right and even some on the left for their behavior during Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress on Tuesday, which included a member being escorted out of the chamber for repeatedly interrupting the president, refusal to clap or acknowledge even the most feel-good moments of the evening (see: the reaction to 13-year-old cancer patient DJ Daniel), and protesting with signs that read “False,” “Save Medicare,” and “Musk Steals” to name a few.
To add insult to injury, the Dems have also had a series of social media faux pas this week ranging from embarrassingly getting caught with the same talking points to awkwardly trying (and failing) to capitalize on a TikTok trend.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by comedian Andrew Schulz to discuss why the left seems to be flailing as Trump dominates the cultural landscape.
Copy Cats
Top Democrats on Capitol Hill were left red in the face earlier this week when – count ’em – 22 of them were caught reading the exact same script in a video meant to oppose Trump’s address. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) all posted to social media on Tuesday with, word-for-word, the same message and b-roll.
Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk shared a side by side on X, where all could be seen beginning with an identical clip of the president vowing to “bring prices down” followed by an expletive-laden response from each senator saying, “Sh-t that ain’t true.”
But it didn’t end there. Social media sleuths discovered nearly two dozen Democrats had regurgitated the script and clips. That led Elon Musk to offer up a Tesla Cybertruck to the first person who could identify “who wrote this particular piece of propaganda.”
The culprit, Booker, turned himself in – but seemed to find no fault with the stunt. “Clearly you are triggered by the truth,” he tweeted in reply. “It was me. Keep your truck.”
Fighting Chance
Not to be outdone, Democratic congresswomen in the House of Representatives tried to have their own social media moment by playing into a viral TikTok trend. Influencer Jessica Woo (@sulheejessica on TikTok) posted a video on Wednesday that has since racked up some 500,000 views in which she appears alongside Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Lauren Underwood (D-IL), Katherine Clark (D-MA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and Susie Lee (D-NV) at the Capitol.
@sulheejessica Chose your fighter 🥊🇺🇸 #womenshistorymonth #womenwhofight #fighter #savedemocracy #speakup #girls #girlpower ♬ original sound – Jvtan
In the clip, Woo and the lawmakers imitated the character selection process in a video game by posing like boxers as text on the screen lists their attributes. Crockett highlighted “public defender” and “attorney” as her strengths and “not a morning person” as a weakness, while AOC boasted about being the “youngest woman + Latina to be elected to the House.” Her flaw? Being a “Trekkie.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) replied to the video with an application for clown school, as CNN commentator Scott Jennings questioned its validity. Fellow CNN’er Jake Tapper summed it up with his tweet. “The best part about this is presumably this is precisely to reassure their voters that they’ve figured out how to be an effective opposition party,” he quipped on X.
Failure to Launch
As Megyn discussed on Wednesday’s show with 2Way’s Mark Halperin, the failed social media moments illustrate the Democrats’ authenticity problem. But they also demonstrate the party’s inability to successfully counter Trump.
“The problem they’re dealing with right now is they don’t know how to handle Trump,” Megyn said. “They don’t know how to behave properly… They’re debating whether you should stand when the 13-year-old brain cancer-stricken boy gets honored. They didn’t do it.”
In Schulz’s view, the Democrats’ antics at the Trump speech played right into the GOP’s hands. “The Republicans know that they are going to sit down, so they are putting out circumstances… [where] if they sit for this, they are gonna look [bad],” he said. “They are falling for the trap, and this is why you need a little bit more, like, boots on the ground. You’ve got to understand what people think of you.”
Rather than be on the favorable side of the 80/20 issues Trump was talking about Tuesday night, the Democrats have seemingly planted themselves firmly in the minority while hoping the tactics that worked eight years ago still have legs.
Schulz said the problem for the left is that their strategy isn’t working anymore. “What Dems are doing is saying, ‘You’re a bad guy,'” he concluded. “That worked when people thought Trump was a bad guy, but they don’t anymore.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Schulz by tuning in to episode 1,020 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.