The MeidasTouch Podcast - DNC Chair Ken Martin Reacts to Trump’s Disaster Shutdown

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Republican Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson’s terrible press conference this morning and Meiselas speaks with DNC Chair Ken Martin about his reaction to the government shutdown. 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

Now streaming on Paramount Plus is the epic return of Mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner Edie Falco. You're an ex-con who ran this place for years. And now, now you can't do that. And BAFTA award winner Lenny James.

You're about to have a plague of outsiders descend on your town. Let me tell you this. It's going to be consequences. Mayor of Kingstown, new season now streaming on Paramount Plus. Maga Mike had another meltdown during his morning press conferences. He continues this morning humiliation ritual. Donald Trump sends him out. He just talks about how tired he is.

And then it just becomes this bizarre like projection where he's really like, I think, venting his frustration with Trump, but he's not communicating it that way with his words, but with his body language, he clearly is, let me just show you. He goes, people keep coming to me and saying, why are you so tired? Why are you so tired? Here, play this clip. And here in Washington, the work has gone on in earnest as well. People keep commenting to me, you look so tired on TV.

I am so tired because we're not sleeping a lot. We're working overtime. Here in Washington, our House committees have continued a conference together. You're literally not working. You've literally sent your members to go home on vacation. So then Maga Mike goes, but let me tell you what we're really tired about. We're tired of making. history. Yeah, the longest government shutdown, the highest prices, the worst presidency,

the lowest approval in history. Here's what he says. Let's play it. We're in uncharted waters as a nation. As we say up here all the time, we're so tired of making history. I just want normal times, normal Congress again. But the Biden administration, those normal times, you know, like when the Biden administration tore down the east wing of the White House. Remember that? Remember how wacky that was? And then Biden would wake up and he would post videos of himself taking diarrhea on peaceful protesters. Y'all remember those? Those were the crazy.

I just want to get, what in the world is happening here? But then Maga Mike has asked a very important question. If you're able to find money to, I don't know, do other projects, why can't you find any types of money to help people who are about to lose SNAP? 42 million Americans are about to lose

supplemental nutrition assistance program. You can't figure that one out, Maga Mike. Let's play it. The White House is able to find money for military, for weight for farmers. Should the White House now be able to find some money for the staff program if they've done it wrong with the other ones? They certainly tried. I mean, one of the reasons that this shutdown has not yet been as painful as it might otherwise have been is because the president is bent over backwards, the administration.

Think of it this way. The White House, the executive branch in a shutdown, has a large control panel full of dials. Under the Obama administration, they turn those dials, the pain dials to 10 immediately. You remember it was so egregious to us. Bring up Obama? And by the way, if you go back and just rewind the body language and the faces of like Congresswoman Harriet Higman over there, she's the one who walks around the Capitol building with the lasso and the other people that face, it's like, I swear to you, it would be a Saturday night

live skit if they weren't causing people so much pain. You couldn't script this thing this way. And then Maga Mike in the ultimate projection says, you just can't allow a president to go around having unchecked power to be unaccountable because I think that the big thing that Magas wanted to roll out today is we need to focus on the auto pen. And Biden uses auto pens. What are you even talking about? Here, play this clip. To set the president, you can't allow a president to check out and have unelected, unaccountable, faceless people making massive decisions for the country. Or this one right here where he starts attacking Biden again. Let's play it. But the Biden administration was unprecedented in so many ways. And the president was checked out of his job for quite some time and everybody knows it.

And there was a cover up. The people around him who were using, they would give him scripts to follow. They would point him literally in the direction. Stand here, sir. Wave like this. Okay. Enough of that. Midas touch has to make a quick video on that.

Can we just play the video that we made? He just served us up a layup. Let's play it. The president was checked out of his job for quite some time, and everybody knows it. And there was a cover-up with people around him who were using, they would give him scripts to follow. They would point him literally in the direction, stand here, sir, wave like this. And he didn't know what he was signing. So this is an executive order on flag burning.

So there's all sorts of just incredible implications. It sounds like a terrible novel or something, but this is reality. He pardoned categories of violent criminals and turned them loose on the streets. He is pardoning some 1,500 January 6 rioters who have been convicted for participating in the attack in the Capitol four years ago. A January 6 rioter who was pardoned by President Trump has been arrested in charge with making a credible death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. You can't allow a president to check out and have unelected, unaccountable, faceless people making massive decisions for the country. I want to bring in the chair of the DNC, Ken Martin. It's good to see.

You saw the Midas Touch video, but the DNC social media accounts are getting in. I've noticed a big push on the digital side before asking you to comment. I just want to show here's one of the videos that you all put up on TikTok about Maga Mike. Let's play this. The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of government. We aren't. Not in the Senate.

As I've been doing. such great rapid response but what do you make of this moment well look i mean obviously they're giving us a lot to to work with uh between trump and uh mike johnson the rest of these clowns in the republican party uh they keep serving it up and you know to your point uh here at the dnc we've got a great mobilization team who's hitting it out of the park and then folks like you uh all of these folks in these different spaces uh pushing back the right way and making sure we're doing it in real time uh you know i i love the video you just showed that you guys put together. It's exactly right. I mean, these guys are just full of bullshit. They're a bunch of

hypocrites. And every time we can and should, we need to be out there actually calling them out on this. And in real time, like I said, make sure the American people know exactly what's happening here. You know, they hope that no one's paying attention. We're now on 28 days of this shutdown. You know, 17 million people have already lost health insurance in this country. 22 million families that are starving in this country are going to lose their nutrition assistance. We've got rural economies that are being completely destroyed as a result of these terrorists and these bad economic policies that Trump and his administration have pushed. And, you know, Maga, Mike and the rest of these House Republicans, instead of being here trying

to figure out how we actually solve this government shutdown, they're all on vacation. They're not even out in their districts talking to their constituents. I don't know where the hell they are because they're hiding from their constituents. They're not here in Washington, D.C. They're doing nothing to actually solve this government shutdown. And I think we all know why, right? The reality is, is they don't want to release the Epstein files, and they'd rather just selectively decide what parts of government they're going to actually keep open.

And I thought the point you made earlier, by the way, was really important here, which is they can find money for everything else, $200 million for a gaudy ballroom that they're built. you know, $130 million, some, you know, mysterious donor, some melon that no one's ever heard of who can pay the military. They've got $400 million for jets that they're finding, but they cannot find any money for starving families in this country. They cannot find money for the seniors who are going to be kicked out of the quarter of nursing homes that are going to close. I mean, this is how deprave these guys are. And, you know, look, it's really painful for, right now in this country but mark my words all of this is going to come back to haunt them let's talk

about that i mean you see a lot of these uh candidates across the country uh you know to me a lot of these issues are not democratic or republican you know issues or independent issues i mean this we're talking about supplemental nutrition assistance program we're talking about health care for 42 million we're talking about health care for 20 million americans snap which is for 42 million Americans. I mean, this is red states, blue state issues. And then, you know, the thing is with these Republicans, they refuse to do town halls. They refuse to actually speak to their constituents. And to me, that says at all. I mean, I've seen Democrats proudly holding town halls, standing with the people and Republicans, there's a handful of people that do it. They usually get booed and then they gaslight

their audience. But to me, that dynamic kind of says it all. Who's literally with the people showing up, taking tough questions and who's in hiding right now? Well, that's exactly right. And, you know, as you remember earlier this year, when Mike Johnson decided to be a coward, as is prone to his character, and say that we were going to, he was going to cancel those town halls, I said, well, you know what, if they're going to be cowardly and refuse to meet with their constituents and actually be held accountable to what's happening in this country, we'll do their job for them.

And we had Democrats all throughout the country, not just do town halls in their districts, But we went out and held 150 town halls in Republican districts to make sure that constituents could be heard. Why weren't they holding those town halls? It's very important to realize that the reason they weren't holding those town halls was not just that they didn't want to be held accountable. But they did not want those stories of Americans whose lives are being destroyed and whose communities were being shattered to actually be amplified in any way, to actually get the attention that it deserves. right? They wanted to bury those stories of everyday Americans who are suffering under this administration and the reckless policies that Trump and Republicans continue to push. So I said to hell with it. We're going to do their job for them. We're going to go out there and hold those

town halls and we continue to do that. Look, you know what? I am absolutely convinced. We've got momentum on our side. You know, the reality is since Trump was inaugurated, there's been 45 elections on the ballot and the Democrats have actually overperformed. to the tune of about 16 percentage points on average, which is a historic overperformance. There is huge wind at our back right now for sure. You have one of the most unpopular presidents ever in this country's history with the least popular piece of legislation in over a half a century that they just passed. I mean, for God's sake, this is the first time in our country's history we're actually

taking health care away from people. First time ever. Usually we're expanding health care access. Usually we're bringing people more into those social safety nets. Instead, we're kicking people out. And as I mentioned, it's not just the insurance that's being taken away. It's the nutrition benefit programs. And it's also the fact that 300 hospitals are going to close across this country.

A quarter of nursing homes are going to close. And we know, just in a matter of days, every American is going to get their health care renewal notices for next year, their insurance renewal notices. and almost everyone is going to see, on average, around a 30% premium increase. That's all a result of this maniac in the White House and his complicit general in Mike Johnson, who's doing nothing but kissing this guy's ass because he's a sycophant.

You know, we're seeing Democrats also fighting back against the unlawful gerrymandering in Trump's efforts to rig the midterms. We've seen Leader Jeffries go to Illinois. We've seen potentially, you know, Virginia, finding a loophole based on Yonkin, not adjoining a special session and focusing there. And so I think this is, like, I'm sure what you've heard a lot as you went into this job is people are saying, we want Democrats to fight or you're not fighting

hard enough, fight harder for me. Because as you know, when people are going to lose their health care or their snap, this is, this is life or death stuff. And so I think people are beginning to see, okay, you know, are they starting to fight for me now? So before we go, what can you give our audience confidence, though, that, you know, that you, the Democrats in general, are going to be there for them to fight for them, because you understand what their concerns are. It is life or death for them, and they want fighters. Yeah, well, that's exactly right.

And I'm proud of the Democrats in Congress for actually, both in the Senate and the House or understanding right now, particularly with health care on the line for so many Americans, that we need to stand up and fight right now. And, you know, make no mistake about this. This is the Republicans who've decided to shut government down because they want to make it harder for people to actually have the health care that they need and deserve in this country. And so I've always said, if you're not willing to fight like hell for the things you believe in, then do you really believe in them at all?

And, you know, what we're finally seeing out of Democrats throughout this country is people willing to stand up and fight for what they believe in. And let me say on the redistricting front, you know, I was the first person on the ground in Texas the day after Greg Abbott decided to do this redistricting. And what I've been really buoyed about is the response from Democratic elected officials around the country who understand the assignment, right? Which is, of course, this mid-cycle redistricting is unconstitutional. It's a craven power grab by Republicans who know they're likely to lose in 2026.

And so what are they doing? They're trying to cheat. They're trying to change the rules midstream and rig the maps so that they can stay in power. Well, we're not going to have any of that, right? At the end of the day, this is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather when we brought a pencil to a knife fight. We are bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. If you want to showdown Republicans, we're going to give you a showdown.

And what's happening in California in just one week is the first step for us, which is this is our counterpunch to what happened in Texas. It will level the playing field. And hopefully it has a chilling effect on Republicans. If they try to do this in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Florida, or any other damn state, we're going to respond in kind in Virginia, in Illinois, and other Democratic states. And that's exactly what we'll do. And not because it's the right thing to do.

It's the right thing to do to actually restore some balance in our democracy and save our goddamn constitution, which is under assault every single day by this administration. Ken, I want to thank you for joining us and share in the plan. We appreciate you as always. Yeah. Let me just say one thing. If anyone wants to join us in this fight, by the way, it's really critical. We've got one week left.

Critical elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, all over the country. We need your help getting out the vote right now. You can text GOTV to 43367 right now, GOTV to 43367 to join us in our organizing efforts to turn out every single vote. Help us build power and restore our democracy and save our Constitution. Thank you for joining us. Ken Martin, chair of the DNC. Appreciate you. Thank you, man. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack at Midasplus.com.

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