The MeidasTouch Podcast - GOP Leaders Stunned as Dems Go for Kill Shot on Live TV

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Democrats hitting the weekend shows ready to take on Trump and MAGA Mike, while Republicans flail during their live TV appearances. Thanks to Square! Get up to $200 OFF Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/meidas #squarepod 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 came to fight and finally they're going gloves off calling out these MAGA Republican leaders. Let me show you what went down on the weekend show so you can see the dynamic here. I want to see more of this from the Democratic leaders pushing back and punching back like here, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy. Here's how he described Donald Trump's trip of grift and bribes to three Middle East nations and what an absolute disgrace it was. Take it away, Senator Murphy. Let's play it. In which I asked him about that $400 million jet that Qatar is offering to the president

to the United States. President Trump said it would be, quote, stupid not to take it. What is your response to that argument that the U.S. deserves the biggest plane? And President Trump says it's actually going to ultimately save the U.S. money. So why did he choose these three countries to go to for his first major foreign trip? It's not because these are our most important allies or the most important countries in the world. It's because these are the three countries willing to pay him off. Every single one of these countries is giving Trump money.

The plane from Qatar, an investment in his cryptocurrency scam from the UAE, and they are asking for national security concessions in return. This is the definition of corruption. Foreign governments putting money in the president's pocket and then the United States giving them national security concessions that hurt our own security. By the way, the plane is not a gift to the American people, as the secretary said. It is going directly to Donald Trump. That library will take a decade to build. And so once he leaves the White House until the library is built, he gets to use that plane to fly around all of his billionaire friends while his policies result

in millions of Americans losing their health care and having to pay higher costs. That is the definition of corruption. And Senator Murphy makes it very clear as well that during Trump's first administration, he added more to the deficit than any president ever by a lot. 25 to 30% of our deficit was caused by Donald Trump. Now with their horrible budget bill where they're going to cut Medicaid, cut SNAP, a supplemental nutrition assistance program. They're going to cut assistance for low-income people to have homes so they can give tax cuts to the billionaires. We're talking about at least $6 trillion. I predict it'll be more like $15 to $20 trillion that are going to be added to the deficit.

Here, play this clip. I'm grading the nation's credit rating. And of course, they do cite the debt that the nation has accrued, of course, over decades in Democratic and Republican administrations. Why didn't Democrats do more to address the debt when you all were in power? Well, I think it's important to remember that some of the most important legislative achievements during Joe Biden's presidency were done in a way that reduced the deficit. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act, which made massive investments in renewable energy, reduced prescription drug costs, was done in a way that drove down the deficit, not driving the deficit up. Most of the deficit was added under Joe Biden's presidency. It was in those early days when we were still recovering from the pandemic. But there's just no doubt that it was Donald Trump

who added more to the deficit than any president in the history of the country. And he is on pace to do it for a second time. It's gonna crater the economy. And listen, it won't have an impact on his billionaire friends. His Mar-a-Lago crowd will come out all right, but it will impact the regular people I represent

in New Britain, Bristol, and Bridgeport. And then Senator Murphy, again, I like this is how you got to fight. Senator Murphy says, look, we're trying, the Democrats, to stop these MAGA Republicans from basically transferring the remainder of the money that low-income and middle-class Americans have so that the billionaires, the Mar-a-Lago billionaire class can literally steal your money. That's what's going on here. Play this clip. It's tax bill. Secretary Besson argues it will create hundreds of billions of dollars in economic growth. You obviously are one of the Democrats who opposes this bill.

Are Democrats standing in the way of the economic growth that Secretary Besson was just arguing? Well, what we're standing in the way of is the most massive transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich in the history of the country. This budget bill is an absolute disaster. It is going to kick over 10 million people off of their health care. Medicaid covers about a quarter of all Americans in order to pass along a new trillion dollar tax cut for the richest 1%. Nobody in this country is asking for that. And in addition, it's going to dramatically drive up the deficit. I heard the Treasury Secretary say that who cares about the downgrading of our credit rating for Moody's? That is a big deal. That means that we are likely headed for a recession. That probably means higher interest rates for anybody out there who is trying to start a business or to buy a home. These guys are running the economy recklessly

because all they care about is the health of the Mar-a-Lago billionaire class. They only care about their corporate friends. They are going to destroy this economy. They are going to throw millions of people off of health care just so that they can pass along a benefit to a small handful of very rich Americans. That is deeply unpopular. And my hope is, is that it won't pass, that enough Republicans see that nobody is asking for that massive investment in only a small handful of Americans that they'll vote against it. And it wasn't just Senator Murphy. You have Senator Van Hollen from Maryland. I thought he did a great job here. Let's play this clip. Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East, my view is the overall narrative here was selling out U.S. national interests for the private gain of his family business. He essentially gave away the

crown jewels of American A.I. and semiconductor technology to the Gulf in exchange. In exchange, it looks like for a $2 billion investment in the Trump family stablecoin venture. Now, contrast that to MAGA Mike Johnson. Here's MAGA Mike Johnson addressing the fact that Moody's, the credit agency that's been around since 1917, for the first time in its history, downgraded the United States credit score. But even though MAGA Mike and his bill with Trump is going to add $6 trillion to the deficit, which is why Moody's downgraded America's credit, he goes, we're doing what Moody's wants us to do. That's why these people are malignant, narcissistic sociopaths here playing this clip. All right, quickly, I want to

ask you about Moody's on Friday. For the first time in a century, they downgraded the U.S. government's AAA rating. They say an increase in government debt and interest payment ratios, quote, that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says it should be a wake up call to your party. He says you-bent on a multi-trillion dollar tax cut for the ultra-wealthy. Your response? It's just utter nonsense. It's just like Chuck Schumer to create a crisis and then point fingers of blame. This is the Biden spending spree that got us in this mess. Moody's is not incorrect, but that's why that emphasizes the very need for the legislation we're talking about, historic spending cuts. I mean, this will help to change the trajectory

for the U.S. economy and send that message of stability to our allies and even our enemies around the world. America is back. President Trump's one big, beautiful bill will be passed, and that will be the key to turning this thing around. We have to get this done, and it just shows more of the urgency of why we're doing exactly what we're doing with the legislation. Now going to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant. He talks about how he tried to shake down the Walmart CEO and tell him to eat the tariffs. But I thought that China was going to eat the tariffs. Oh, so China's not eating the tariffs. So now the Trump regime is imposing price controls on businesses. That's what Republicans are doing now to try to temporarily cover up the damage that they've

done. Play this clip. Ask you about Walmart, this big news from Walmart. It says it will start raising prices on its consumers, Mr. Secretary, as early as this month due to the tariffs. Now, President Trump out with a very stern warning on social media saying Walmart, quote, should eat the tariffs, adding the company made far more than expected last year. Is the president asking American companies to be less profitable? I was on the phone with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart, yesterday. And Walmart is, in fact, going to, as you described it, eat some of the tariffs. That just as they did in 18, 19 and 20.

The other thing, though, that we are seeing that Doug passed along to me, that with their consumer already destroyed a lot of small businesses throughout the country to temporarily do certain things with your Trump regime, fascistic central planning. medium and small size businesses. It's exactly what they did during COVID, except here they've manufactured it themselves now, where it's like if you don't test, then there's no issues, right? How do you know if there's cases if you don't test? They're just covering up the problem. You ever been stuck in a checkout line that felt like it belonged in a time warp? One time I tried buying a coffee and the register froze, then the card reader went down. Then they told me it was cash only. And guess who didn't have any cash? Yep, me. Had to sprint to an ATM across the street, pay those ATM fees. It was total chaos. That's why I love businesses that use Square. I feel like every restaurant and store by me in Los Angeles uses Square now, and checkout is always

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Kristen Welker, meet the press, asks Treasury Secretary Besant about Trump accepting bribes. And he goes, no, they're not. He said they're gifts to Americans. Americans want Donald Trump to have a $400 million gold plate of jet. No, we don't. No, we don't. What are you talking about? Play this clip. To keep that plane in his presidential library after. But what do you say to some Republicans who argue it sends a message that the United States can be bought or that other countries can curry favor if they offer gifts? I say that the gifts are to the American people. There's trillions of dollars of investments that are going to create jobs in the U.S., whether it's the UAE building this gigantic aluminum plant in Oklahoma, whether it's these data centers that Qatar is

going to do, is $600 billion on its way to a trillion from Saudi. It all accrues to the American people. In another absurd clip, I don't even need to play it, Besson's like, this is just like the Statue of Liberty. When France gave us the Statue of Liberty in 1877, it's just like Qatar giving us a 400, it's not us, he's giving Donald Trump a foreign, Qatar, who funds Hamas, is giving Donald Trump a $400 million gold-plated jet, which then goes to his library, which isn't built, which means Trump's getting a private gold-plated jet with the maintenance paid for by the United States taxpayers. That's what this is.

It's not the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was also accepted as a gift via a formal congressional resolution, and the United States helped in the funding. If you don't see the difference between the Statue of Liberty and Trump getting a gold-plated jet from a country that helped fund Hamas. And if you're cool with Trump getting that, you need to, I think, reflect on it a little bit more deeply. Here you have Besson talking about how they haven't been able to do any deals with any countries, so they're just going to go and make up tariffs again against the countries like they did on April 2nd, which was the initial disaster that they paused for 90 days.

Here, play this clip. President Trump, while he was on the foreign trip, said that countries should expect letters from you, from Secretary Letnick, saying this is what the tariff rate is going to be. Mr. Secretary, does that effectively mean that these negotiations with other countries are over? And how high should they expect tariffs to go? Above 10 percent? This means that they're not negotiating in good faith. They are going to get a letter saying here is the rate. So I would expect that everyone would come and negotiate in good faith.

You expect that rate, though, that you would slap on any country that you think is not negotiating in good faith to be above 10 percent? Well, I think that it would be the April 2nd level. Some countries were at 10 percent. Some were substantially higher. And the negotiating leverage that President Trump is talking about here is if you don't want to negotiate, then it will spring back to the April 2nd level. Then Scott Besson says that his whole strategy is actually to create strategic uncertainty. So if small businesses and medium sized businesses are getting screwed, Besson says this is the point. Strategic uncertainty is their goal. Play this clip.

And every day, pretty much, we interview a small business owner. Some of them are Trump supporters. Some of them are not. Some of them are tariff supporters. Some of them are not. The one thing I hear from from almost every one of them is the uncertainty. They don't know how to plan for the future because they have no idea what's going to come. The other thing I hear is that their margins, these are small, small business, their margins are so thin, 5 to 10 percent max, and they say that these tariffs are just taking away all of their profit margin. So I guess my question is, what do you say to people concerned about the uncertainty, And what do you say to people who say small business owners who say we need relief?

Because as they say, like, I'd love to buy lithium batteries in the United States, but you can't. They're only available for small businesses from China. Well, a couple of things to unpack there, Jake. One is that we didn't get her overnight in terms of this terrible trade situation we have with China, but also with the rest of the world. And President Trump is renegotiating these. And strategic uncertainty is a negotiating tactic. So if we were to give too much certainty to the other countries, then they would play us in the negotiations. I am confident that at the ends of these negotiations,

both the retailers, the American people and the American workers will be better off. OK, well, let's just assume strategic uncertainty is is your goal what what are you doing then when you totally capitulated to china what's the what's the strategic uncertainty where you impose 145 tariffs only to then take it to 30 and get nothing in return what what's the strategic what's the value that, no, what value there? No, what's going on is that Donald Trump wakes up. What should I post today?

Oh, I'm gonna post 37 million percent tariffs. Okay, what else am I gonna post? Oh, I'm gonna post a photo of myself holding a sword. Okay, now 30 percent tariffs and 75 quadrillion percent tariffs. It's just stupid. It's just stupid. It's just stupid stuff. And that's why the rest of the world sees this as utter weakness and recklessness. And they go, why would we do a deal with the United States? They don't know what the hell they're doing.

Trump, Besant, these clowns, these goons don't know what they're doing. They're like, we'll wait. We'll wait. Why even do a deal with them that you can't do a deal with these people i want to share with this share you that with this is share this with you as well uh bridget brink who recently quit her post as the united states ambassador to ukraine shared with face the nation what really went down here play this this clip. You served this country for so many decades. What happened that made you say, I can't take it? Well, maybe let me give you a little context. What I saw in Ukraine

was horrifying. For three years, Russia launched missiles and drones at men, women and children sleeping in their homes, tried to take down the energy grid for millions of Ukrainians to take out the power, heat and light in the middle of winter and committed war crimes and atrocities at a level we haven't seen since World War Two. I resigned from Ukraine and also from the Foreign Service because the policy since the beginning of the administration was to put pressure on the victim Ukraine rather than on the aggressor Russia. I fully agree that the war needs to end, but I believe that peace at any price is not peace at all. It's appeasement. And as we know from history, appeasement only leads to more war. And to be clear, you are a career diplomat. So that means you serve regardless of

who is the president of the United States and what party they come from. And in fact, when you tried to leave post in January, Secretary Rubio asked you to stay on in Kiev, as I understand it. You were there for a number of months until April. What specifically with this policy is a problem for you? Because you worked at post under the Trump administration. Was there a trigger that made you say we're getting it so wrong? Well, I would say it wasn't a hasty, rash decision. It was one that I took over the first three months of the administration. But the first sign was the Oval Office meeting. In February, between President Trump and President Zelensky, where I saw that our approach is to put pressure on Ukraine and not pressure on Russia.

So I want you to judge for yourself after watching those clips what you think. And I think it's good to see Democrats fighting back. But you've seen what these MAGA Republicans saying. They're like Bernie Madoff, worse than Bernie Madoff. These are the biggest con artists, the biggest hucksters, the fraudsters, but they work for a felon. This shouldn't be a shock. They work for a felon. Trump should be in prison for the rest of his life right now.

Okay, he should. He's found guilty of 34 counts of fraud. He's been found for business record fraud. He's been found civilly liable, criminally liable. He's been found to be civilly liable for sexual abuse. He bankrupted Atlantic City and bankrupted multiple because he was bankrupted like six or seven of his businesses. 10 or 12 other businesses have gone out of business. He's the worst. None of this is shocking. This is who he is. He's a loser. He's a criminal. He's a sexual abuser. He's a vile piece

of trash. That's what it is. Just call it out. The rest of the world sees it. What are we scared about with this idiot? Anyway, hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. New Midas merch drop. Check out the latest pro-democracy sticker packs, t-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, and more all at store.midastouch.com.