The MeidasTouch Podcast - Dem County Legislator Beth Davidson on Flipping NY-17

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the powerful message from a 102 year old on Medicaid who rips Trump to shreds and Meiselas speaks with democratic Rockland County legislator from that same congressional district who is running for Congress against MAGA Republican Mike Lawler. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Her perspective on things really touched me, and I wanted to share this with everyone. So she lives within New York's 17th congressional district in that area. Let's just take a look at this interview. Here, play this clip. Dionne Volz, I'm 102 years old. I taught for more than 20 years, taught journalism, and worked for various papers, and have been always a great believer in American independence and good taste. We have a president who has no dignity and no sense of the dignity of a human being, especially one who is old and expects to die any minute. When I say that Medicaid was a tremendous blessing, they paid my son to care for me and it was a dream come true. He knew so well how to do it. He was so

wise and so kind. It was lovely and I still feel grateful for Medicaid. He seems to to be insensitive, completely unaware of the issues, which are to lose, either to lose FDR's principles, which were concern for everybody, no matter what their income. And he has abandoned the people. So she lives in New York's 17th Congressional District. She talked about MAGA Republican Mike Lawler. When I see Dionne Volz there, spoke to me, tell her story. And then I see Mike Lawler, who's around my age, and I see him going and doing these interviews and the way he talks about Medicaid and Social Security as though it's just, eh, we're going to,

yeah, we're going to deal with it here. Just watch an interview that he did recently. Let's play this. Basically, defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, that's about 90 percent of it right there. You can't cut from the rest of the budget to balance things. This this this has been the whole challenge, right? Because we're blocking off roughly 87, 90 percent of federal spending and saying we can't touch that, can't touch it. So we're arguing over roughly 13 percent of federal spending, you know, in terms of trying to find savings. And it's just not realistic. So the issue long term that we all have to grapple with, Republicans and Democrats, and we have to get serious about is how to tackle our national debt.

Most of our debt is accrued by mandatory spending. There are savings to be had in the Defense Department, no question about it. There are savings to be had across every agency and department in the federal government. I wanted to show you those clips back to back, because when you hear Dionne Volz, 102, talk about what Medicaid meant to her, and then you see MAGA Republican Mike Lawler representing the district. I think it just brings the point home. Let's bring in Beth Davidson. She's a Rockland County legislature running for the congressional seat there against Mike Lawler, still in the

primary stage, so running in the Democratic primaries there in New York's 17th. Beth, I want to ask you, from your perspective as a Rockland County legislator in that district, of course, when you see those videos and you see what Mike Lawler says, what's your response to that? Well, we here in the 17th district know that Mike Lawler was a devotee of the late Michael Jackson, but it was another prophet of my generation, Generation X, M.C. Hammer, who said, you can't touch this. And that is what Mike Lawler seems to be implying, except I really thank Joe Scarborough for teeing that up for him to say, for he, Mike Lawler, to say it's not realistic not to cut, not just Medicaid, which we already, you know, had concerns about for 230,000 people in the 17th

congressional district, but he implies that Medicare and Social Security are also on the chopping block. And I'll tell you that I have constituents in Rockland County. I represent the 10th legislative district who are already reaching out to me, very concerned that our Social Security office in White Plains, the appeals office, is going to be shuttered as of May 29th. And for those watching at home, Mike Lawler tried to blame that closure on the Biden administration, but whoops, the Doge memo of the week outlining all of their savings put that Social Security office on their docket. So we know who's to blame for this. We know who funded Mike Lawler's campaign hugely, $1.7 million. And that was one Elon Musk who, you know, you stole my line about the wrecking ball. That is what it feels like.

And we're going to start feeling the impacts of that wrecking ball right here on CD17. You know, I think about just these human stories and I try to take the games out of politics in my reporting. I think corporate news for too long made this like a horse race when this is about people's lives. So I think about Katie Sanchez, a 37-year-old disability rights advocate and Medicaid recipient in Pearly River who spoke with me. Let me just share her story, and then I want to hear just generally about your communications with constituents there, but let's play this one. My name is Katie Sanchez, and I am 37 years old, and I live in Pearl River, New York. The Medicaid cuts would affect us, people like me, deeply with our programs.

They have the housing, like the community residential, supportive employment. I get all those, and I get Medicaid, I get Medicare. We cannot have those cuts. We really cannot or else. What are we going to do? My message, please do not cut Medicaid. We need it. We need it. Please do not cut. Please save it and do not cut it like this is who lawler is picking on and trump and and musk that this is who they're targeting while they hang out in mar-a-lago and party with the what the last party had was the pink birkin bag mar-a-lago party bragging about $400,000 handbags that they were displaying, or Trump talks about his

meme coins that he's whatever. This is who they're attacking, Beth? Katie Sanchez is a friend. She is such an inspiration to me. She is a long distance runner. She's also running for president of her supportive house through ARC. So really proud of her. And look, she's speaking truth to power. I was at an event with the disability rights community a few weeks ago called Rally in the Valley. And when Mike Lawler got up to speak and talked about how he was going to protect Medicaid, he got booed. So, you know, he can say over and over again that he's not touching Medicaid,

but we know what he's doing. He's now voted twice to put those entitlement programs on the chopping block that people have worked their whole lives for, including Social Security and including Medicaid, which, you know, we don't, not everyone understands that Medicaid helps, you know, people with disabilities, of course, seniors, children, half of all babies and moms in this country. And to think that anyone would put those programs up for grabs is just really despicable. And again, I'm hearing from it from my constituents. They're really concerned. And that's why you're seeing these huge rallies of three, four, five hundred, a thousand people pushing back against these cuts and specifically against Mike Lawler, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Beth, are you seeing a shift in the district because the people still elected this guy in 2024?

Actually, CD17 narrowly went for Kamala Harris. It's one of only three districts in the entire country that voted for Kamala Harris, but did not elect a congressional Democrat. Kamala, but Lawler. And so they still picked to realize, though, that Lawler is an agent of Trump, that this is not someone who's pretending to be something else? Do you think that's getting through right now? I think that we're seeing exactly who Mike Lawler is through his voting record, through his false promises, you know, along with cutting Medicaid, that continuing resolution also clawed back $33 million in community project funding that he claimed he had secured conveniently right before the 2024 election. for clean water in Putnam County, for sidewalk improvements in the town of Ramapo to protect pedestrians and improve pedestrian safety.

So people are finding out again in their real lives, day-to-day lives, what these cuts have meant and what Mike Lawler's promises mean, which is, as it turns out, nothing. And what does he have to say about these cuts to Medicaid? What does he have to say about cuts to SNAP benefits? There was a huge report in our local paper this morning about how food insecurity and feeding programs are getting totally hit, as are the farms that supply them by these massive cuts to the Department of Agriculture and the worried, the worrisome coming cuts to SNAP programs. Our people to people food pantry director Diane Sarator said, people thank us for doing God's work. And I say, we don't do God's work. We do what the government is supposed to be doing. And so I joined her in calling on Mike Lawler to do his job and make sure that even more people here in District 17 and Rockland County, where I live, don't go hungry. It's wrong. As you're talking about, they're having $400,000 Birkin bag parties and people are going hungry in this district.

It's disgusting. And I think people are going to see it and you're going to see a huge turnout next November. And Beth, people in Rockland County, of course, know who you are. But to the broader Midas Touch network here who may be seeing you for the first time, tell us a little bit about yourself. And obviously, this is still in the primary stage for this congressional seat. So as you kind of tell us about yourself and what you're fighting for, how are you going to differentiate yourself in this primary? Sure. Well, I've lived in Rockland County for 20 years. I've spent about almost half of that in public service. I served two terms on my school board here in Nyack and then was elected to the Rockland County Legislature.

I won a purple seat with 57% of the vote. Just got out, knocked 4,000 doors, ran with a slate of candidates actually to, with the express intention of winning a Democratic supermajority on the Rockland County Legislature. And three of us won. And we did win the first ever Democratic supermajority in Rockland County history on our county legislature.

And so what that means is I'm probably one of the only Democrats in the country right now that can say I've cut taxes and passed my own common sense gun safety legislation and preserved hundreds of acres of open space and not cut, but boosted funding for our nonprofits by 20%. So that's a record I'm really proud to run on. I'm currently the only elected official in this race and I'm ready to go toe to toe in real time on the issues that matter. Where Mike Lawler is falling short, I will be working very hard to make sure my constituents have what they need in terms of, again, enough to eat, better sidewalks, better roads. And then the security that if they vote for me, they'll have someone who wakes up every day, just as I do now, ready to go to fight for them this time in Washington, D.C. I'm also a mom of two kids.

One's going off to college and one's in eighth grade. So I'm doing this for them, too. It's my family also. Amazing. And where can people find out more information about you? Sure. Beth Davidson for congress.com. All right, everybody. I'm on all the platforms. That's good. Beth Davidson. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. We hope you'll come back. Thanks so much for having me. Have a great day. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports,

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