The MeidasTouch Podcast - Exposing Musk's Corrupt Power Grab with Congressman Dan Goldman

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman on his fight for our democracy against Trump and Musk. 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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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Democrats are fighting back against Donald Trump and Elon Musk's corruption. Leading the way is Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman from New York. He's been outspoken in the halls of Congress, on the floor of Congress, outside of Congress, and on social media. he posted the following. At Elon Musk gave Trump $250 million, so Trump handed him control of America's checkbook. Musk and his 20-something Doge cadre can now access your social security number, home address, and more. Elon Musk then tried to attack Congress member Goldman by saying,

corrupt politician says what, to which Congress member Dan Goldman, a former top federal prosecutor says, actually former federal prosecutor says, you are breaking the law on a daily basis. So you can use our government's checkbook and Americans personal information for your own corrupt grifting. He went back and forth with Elon Musk. Elon Musk then said, we don't have any personal data of Americans. You corrupt moron, to which Congress member Dan Goldman says, tell it to the judge under oath. We've got Congress member Dan Goldman here right now. Congressman, welcome. What do you make of all of this? Look, I think it's kind of the typical Donald Trump playbook at this point, which is childish insults,

all sorts of allegations which are designed to distract from the dismantling of our federal government that Elon Musk is trying to do. It's somewhat laughable for him to refer to all Democrats as corrupt when this is a guy who has taken over control of government contracts when he himself receives billions of dollars of government contracts. But because he's not an official government employee, he can evade the standard conflicts of interest rules that apply to all other government employees. And so it is the ultimate corruption where he is essentially getting access to the federal budget and getting to make recommendations or even decisions about what contracts should continue and what contracts should not. Do you think he's going to say, you know what?

My contract is a little excessive. It's wasteful. Let's cancel that. Of course not. It's absurd. There's part of that distraction effort where they try to do the kind of comical trolling, but they're saying very kind of dark and problematic things. He changed his name on

Twitter or X now. He calls himself Harry Balls. And he goes, you know, he's a billionaire oligarch who's going around and has access to all this information. His screen name is Harry Balls. That's where we've become as a country, apparently, under the Trump administration and goes, democracy in America is being destroyed by a judicial coup. An activist judge is not a real judge. And we've been seeing Musk and Trump and J.D. Vance and all of them attacking these judicial rulings, even judicial rulings from Trump appointed judges, Republican judges, Democrat judges, as all of these lawsuits have been filed, what seems to be the case is these judges have ruled against Trump and Musk and others for violating the Constitution, that they're

gearing up to defy the orders. And it seems they may be already defying the orders and just ignoring them and ignoring the orders that block their government funding freeze and the freeze on funding to NIH. What are you seeing and what do we do about that? And what's your response to that? There's no question they're laying the foundation to defy or ignore court orders. And just to be clear, our rule of law, which is the basic foundation of our democracy and our economy and our criminal justice system. I mean, if you do not have the rule of law in control, you are no longer a democracy. And our rule of law depends on the respect for judicial orders, dating back to Marbury versus Madison, when our separation of powers was

clarified to mean that we're co-equal branches of government and the judiciary determines whether or not the laws are being complied with. It's like, for example, you were playing basketball or in any sport. Why do you have a referee? Why do you have an umpire? Right. You you want someone who is neutral, experienced, educated, qualified because they've all been confirmed by the Senate to make the determination. Should Elon Musk make the determination as to whether what he is doing is lawful or breaks the law? Of course not. That's why you have referees and umpires to call those balls and strikes. And so it's an absurd allegation that J.D. Vance and Elon Musk are starting to set up. But the reason they're doing it is to build the case to defy court orders. And among all of the terrible things that have been going on

during the first three weeks, Ben, that would be a true constitutional crisis that we have never faced before. What can Democrats do about it? I'm sure you get asked all the time. I mean, Democrats don't control the House. They don asked all the time. I mean, Democrats don't control the House. They don't control the Senate. They don't control the executive branch. Since you don't control the House, you can't set the agenda on what happens in the committees. You don't lead the budget. You don't really have any role at all, quite frankly, other than potentially withholding your votes when a corrupt budget is passed. You don't have subpoena power. So what can you and the Democrats do to fight back?

Well, there are a number of different things that we are trying to do. Really, all of them are directed at putting pressure on the Republicans. I understand everyone's frustration. Certainly, we are incredibly frustrated. That doesn't even begin to describe the emotions that I feel about what's going on. And we are out there holding press conferences, gaining attention, amplifying the lawlessness that's going on, the true effort by Elon Musk and Donald Trump to dismantle and overtake our government, undermine Congress and our power of the purse. You know, ultimately, Donald Trump doesn't have another election. Elon Musk is not an elected official. They care far less about public outcry than a Republican senator or a Republican member of Congress who does have an election coming up. And ultimately, a lot of what we're doing in the courts is to stop or at least slow down everything that's going on so that we can figure out what is going on.

Part of the reason why all these judges are ruling against the Trump administration is no one has any idea what Musk is doing with his, you know, teenage minions behind the scenes. And we get little bits and pieces of, oh, it's only, you know, their access to our entire federal government pay system is only access only. But we have no idea whether that's true and what that means. We don't know what the national security implications are here. We don't know whether personal information data is going to be used by Musk, you know, for his X to his algorithm through AI to target Americans with specific ways. I mean, there's so many different things that could happen and we don't know. But ultimately, it is incumbent upon the congressional Republicans to make a decision as to whether or not they want Congress to continue as a legitimate branch of the federal government? Are they willing to neutralize, to eliminate their own power in fealty to Donald Trump? And so a lot of what we are doing is, you know,

working with all those on the outside, building opposition, making our voices heard, because that will have an impact on Republicans in Congress, even if it doesn't have as much of an impact on Donald Trump. And at some point, these Republicans are going to see the poll numbers going down for Trump, going down for their party, going down for themselves. And they're going to have to make a decision. Am I going to continue to be a spineless wimp and just do whatever Donald Trump says to me, even though that's against, you know, the authority that I have right now, it undermines that authority, or do I want to get reelected? And for a lot of my colleagues, re-election is a big motivator.

And so that's really where our efforts are geared, to make them stand up. And Speaker Johnson referenced yesterday that, you know, we have a process, we have a court, there's an appeal process that they can go through. But that we do need to make sure that the rule of law continues. And that's by respecting court opinions. Finally, talk about national security risks. It was announced yesterday that from Donald Trump that he would be halting all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by the Justice Department. And he goes on in this executive order to say that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is this horrible thing that has harmed businesses since it was enacted in the late 1970s. You're a former federal prosecutor. What did you make of that decision? And apparently the Department of Justice is no longer going to view violations of the FCPRA as a crime.

It's shocking. I think it's important for your viewers to understand that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act targets effectively bribery of international governments by businesses that do business as well in the United States. complete lawlessness, and it would allow the larger corporations to have an advantage economically over smaller businesses, both here and elsewhere in countries around the world. It would completely eviscerate the sort of equality, our economy is founded on, that business is founded on. It is a very, very important statute that levels the playing field, that stops corruption. And it should be no surprise to any of us now that Donald Trump is trying to dismantle all forms of accountability against corruption. Taking out the FCPA is one. Firing all the inspectors general is another. He fired yesterday the director of the Office of Government Ethics.

He has consistently been, he's fired all sorts of prosecutors and FBI agents who have tried to hold him accountable. He actually said yesterday that the January 6 defendants were victims of an attack by law enforcement, that they were not the ones who actually assaulted law enforcement. He is literally trying to whitewash history and to convince Americans that what they see with their own eyes is not what they're really seeing.

And of course, we all know what that's for, Ben, and why he's doing that. As he is installing Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, people who have made already representations and sworn to do his dirty work, he does not want there to be any accountability for their efforts at revenge and retribution to allow him to effectively take full control of the federal government. That is what this process is setting up. And it is very clear that's where he's going. Congress member, Dan Goldman,

any hope that you see right now as we are heading into February, March, April? Any signs of hope? Yeah, there are actual signs of hope. And I don't want everybody to be too discouraged. Your voice matters. Our voices matter. You look at what happened with the freeze of the Office of Management and Budget and all federal funding being frozen.

There was an uproar from everyday Americans all across the spectrum when their Social Security payments were stopped, when their SNAP food benefits were stopped, when the Medicare and Medicaid portals were not available, when every single nonprofit organization that depends on already promised government funding was stopped receiving it. And they rescinded that memo. So that is yet another example of how our voices can matter. The courts so far are encouraging, and I hope they hold. And then, you know, we have a budget coming up. We have government funding is expiring March 14th. And traditionally, the Republicans have been unable to pass a budget themselves, even though they're in the majority. And so if they do come to us to seek our help to fund, you know, to get this budget across, they're going to have to be open to putting some of our priorities in there. And so at that point, we we get to have some leverage to take some corrective action against all of this, all of these lawless efforts.

Congress member Dan Goldman, thanks for joining us. Please come back. We're about to hit 4 million subscribers here. This network's growing rapidly. People want to hear the truth. They want to know how they can fight back. And it's great to see you leading in that way as well. Well, thanks for having me, Ben. It's always great to be with you. And thanks to all your subscribers for being engaged. How we save our democracy is everybody leaning in a little bit more. Don't put your head under the pillow as tempting as it is. We got to fight back and we got to fight back hard. Congress member Dan Goldman, everybody hit subscribe right now. Let's get to that 4 million subscriber mark. Love this video? Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram at Midas Touch and help us blow past 750,000 followers.