Heart & Soul Conversation #35……Fun Friday Movin’ Right Along

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) was accused of embarrassing himself after causing chaos in a congressional hallway by confronting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

Instead of meeting with Jeffries in private on Wednesday, Lawler stopped the Democratic leader in front of a crowd of people to ask him to sign on to a temporary extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Democrats have said that they would not accept only one year of subsidies for the health care program.

"Did your boss, Donald Trump, give you permission?" Jeffries asked.

"He's not my boss!" Lawler insisted. "And by the way, why did you vote to shut the government?"

"You're making a show of this to make yourself relevant," Jeffries charged. "You're embarrassing yourself right now. You're chasing a crowd."

"You have to sign on to the bill," Lawler demanded.

"Let me ask you a question," Jeffries said. "You voted for the 'One Big Ugly Bill,' correct?"

"I voted for a tax cut bill that gave the largest tax cut to Americans in history," Lawler countered. "Are you against that?"

"You're embarrassing yourself right now," Jeffries noted as Lawler talked over him.

"You're not going to talk to me and talk over me because you don't want to hear what I have to say," the Democrat said. "So why don't you just keep your mouth shut?"

"And so you voted for this 'One Big Ugly Bill, a permanent extension of massive tax breaks for your billionaire donors," he added.

The public is rejecting President Donald Trump's "make-believe" approach to the current economy — and he's "going to be disappointed," according to a new report.

Americans are not convinced by the president's claims of an "economic renaissance," Steve Benen, producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show" writes on the MaddowBlog Friday.

In his post, Benen points to the results from the CBS News/YouGov poll released this week that reports 60% of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump’s handling of the economy, as 51% say the president's economic agenda has left them worse off. Other polls and surveys indicate a similar tone, he adds.

"And yet, he acts as if he can bully Americans’ economic attitudes into submission through constant, reality-defying repetition," Benen writes.

During his White House cabinet meeting this week, Trump said "we have the best economy we've ever had."

Benen argues that things are not good — and 22 states could be heading to recession and economic downturn following the Trump tariff policies and aggressive immigration tactics, according to a new report this week from Axios.

"The idea that Trump, during his first term, delivered the greatest economy ever seen by human eyes is demonstrably absurd," Benen writes. "But the idea that our current economy has reached heights without precedent in the history of the United States is every bit as ridiculous."

The White House might not want to hear it, he adds, but Americans aren't happy.

"I don’t know whether Trump has genuinely convinced himself that Americans now have 'the best economy we’ve ever had,' or whether he was just peddling the latest in a series of lies. Either way, if he thinks such nonsense is persuading a frustrated public, he’s going to be disappointed," he writes.