The MeidasTouch Podcast - Neera Tanden on Beating Back Trump & MAGA

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump losing his base as his lies catch up to him and Meiselas speaks with CAP CEO Neera Tanden about she believes Democrats should do. Learn more about the Center for American Progress: https://www.americanprogress.org/ 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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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. Trump voters continue to take to social media posting that they are regretting their vote. Let me share with you some of the recent posts and recent headlines that we're seeing. Posts like this one right here. Update, my MAGA neighbor who worked for USDA and was fired three weeks ago by Trump. His Trump flag just came down. His house is now up for sale. F around and find out at its finest. There are posts like this by the thousands of people reaching out to Donald Trump.

President, I voted for you, but since then you've cut many government jobs so fast. OPM has screwed up my wife's retirement money after 30 plus years of faithful service, and we haven't gotten her retirement for a month. What the hell is going on? The business community that was very outspoken in favor of Donald Trump. They don't seem to like the chaotic economy. That's putting it lightly. CEOs say they are losing faith in Donald Trump. They don't seem to like the chaotic economy. That's putting it lightly. CEOs say they are losing faith in Donald Trump. Quote, I don't trust that what's said today

will be true tomorrow. I mean, someone who was found civilly liable for fraud and convicted of 34 felony counts, you can't trust their word. Oh, that's surprising. That was from Fortune, by the way. Also, as the Trump regime guts FEMA and we're seeing horrific storms ravage the country and our hearts go out to everybody who's been affected. There was over 37 dead this past weekend while Donald Trump was bragging about winning his own golf tournament. The people in these states, a lot of them red states or purplish states, are saying, actually, we need FEMA. Yes, the states are involved, but believe it or not, FEMA's a helpful entity and it should not be abolished the way the Trump regime wants it to be. You hear stories like

this. North Dakota went big for Donald Trump. Now, many farmers say they face an uncertain future as the tariffs are kicking in because starting this week, American farmers are getting hit with the tariffs on the food they directly sell to China, including soybeans, corn, and wheat, as well as pork, chicken, and beef. Those levies are in retaliation for what Trump's putting on the Chinese goods coming into the United States and farm dependent states like North Dakota. All of this has renewed concerns about the trade war. You think I previously reported what's going on in Nebraska, for example, they've got a big budget shortfall there. And also with the gutting of the Department of Education and other services,

they're struggling there. And then you hear headlines like this. He voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center. It talks about this guy, Bradley Bartle and Camila Munoz. She's from Peru. They were in an airport. She got picked up and then she got deported. And they are shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Let's bring in, to make some sense of all this, but before doing, let me show this one more I got to show. This is a comment. Tell me this, if Trump is doing so good and saving so much money, why is gas still the same as what Biden had it fluctuating at between $2.99 and three something? And why is every bill that I received going up, electric bill, phone bill, water bill bill every single bill

you have trump boasting about how much he's doing but until he starts doing something for americans i'm off the trump train i know i wouldn't vote for a democrat though now i want to bring in near and a ceo for the center of american progress former senior advisor for domestic policy to former President Biden. Neera, you hear these types of comments, but you also hear people saying, I am pissed at Trump, but I can never vote Democrat. What do you make all of this? First, the regrets and then the Democrats part. Well, I think with the regrets with Donald Trump and his election, you see a thing we've seen in the past, which is there are groups of people. He puts together a coalition of people who take him seriously and people who take him kind of figuratively.

And there are people who vote for him who don't think he's going to raise prices because he said inflation was the number one problem and he's going to lower costs. And they kind of ignore the tariffs or don't really know what the tariffs will do. And then we live to today where he's raising costs and cutting services to people. And I think a lot of people are really surprised. And you see that in his numbers. People are actually more concerned about the cuts in the federal government to services. They see cutting veterans or firefighters or police or nurses or doctors who are caring for them or their neighbors or their family members as actually a terrible thing. But I think there's a big debate in the party. Your last point of, I don't like Trump, but I

also don't like the Democrats, I think really gets to this big debate in the party. Your last point of, I don't like Trump, but I also don't like the Democrats, I think really gets to this big debate in the party. And I think that debate is whether Democrats should roll over and play dead, as some have suggested, just wait, as others have suggested, just wait for Republicans to kind of implode, or do we need to fight back and fight back hard? And I really think the challenge here is that we need to provide an alternative, not just an opposition. And I think it's not that hard to develop ideas that capture the base of our party and the broad middle. Trump has an extreme agenda. Again, there are a bunch of people who,

he has a MAGA base who took him literally, but there are other voters who took him figuratively. And for those voters, we have to say, of course what he's doing is wrong, but we offer a better alternative. You can actually have a government that puts the consumer first, that improves services to people, that makes it easier, not harder to get social security, get the benefits you deserve.

Not have a government that's kind of run by a ketamine adult person who is essentially, you know, just firing people in charge of the nuclear stockpile, firing veterans willy nilly. You know, There's a choice between two visions of change. Democrats are offering a vision that improves your lives, not so chaotic. And then there's the Trump wrecking ball. You've recently been quoted as saying that Democrats should not be knee-jerk institution defenders. What do you mean by that? And what's your vision? What are you advocating for at the Center for American Progress in terms of what that vision should be?

Yeah, so I think the real challenge for us is if we are just saying Trump is wrong, you know, we're not offering any alternatives. We're just saying this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. He can say to the country, at least I'm trying. The status quo is terrible, and at least I'm trying. They like the status quo. I think this is very dangerous. I think it's very dangerous for us to be in a posture where we are just criticizing what he's doing and not offering an alternative. So, you know, when he tries to destroy the Department of Education, we should be clear about why Department of Education is important for improving schools, improving your child's education and how we would, you know, we would take additional steps because your children's education is our top priority. When he's talking about,

you know, government reform, we should offer ideas like, for example, the place where the federal government spends the most money, $1.9 trillion annually is on tax expenditures. What is that? Like special tax giveaways we give to companies, sometimes special interests, others. You know, Elon Musk doesn't go up. He doesn't look at those because he's benefited from tax expenditures in the past. So I think we need to offer ideas across the board. We will be developing our own ideas and how to keep our borders safe, to have an immigration system that works, that fixes the broken immigration system, but doesn't say you can just pick up migrants off the street, people who are actually in the legal, who have legal status in the United States and deport them. You know, I think we need

to have our own alternative in order to best critique Trump. And CAP will be developing that across the board on every issue, the economy, immigration, education, crime, criminal justice. Like these are legitimate issues that the country has concerns about, and it's up to us to offer an alternative. But my view is like, he is so extreme that we can capture, as I said, the broad middle of the country as well as energize

our base by fighting, having a vision that really fights against Trump's extremism. What do you think about some of these Democrats who are heading into the red and purplish areas and holding these town halls and speaking with voters who may not agree with them in the absence of these Republicans who have canceled all of their town halls. You think that's a good strategy? Just go out. I think that's super smart. And I think I think what we need to recognize is that the right wing has, you know, a really honed message machine. So glad to be on Midas Touch because you are one of our most effective counters. They have, you know, a whole infrastructure devoted to getting the message out, not just their affirmative message. They have a whole infrastructure devoted to basically mocking, providing caricatures of Democrats as sort of the most extreme voices.

It will take a single person sort of saying a kind of crazy thing and make that seem like every Democrat supports that. So that's why it's really important for us to get out the message everywhere. You know, I think it's human nature. Someone says something extreme about you. Trump says something crazy about Democrats. People expect them to counter it. If you like, if someone says something crazy about me, people will believe it unless I say it's wrong. And that's why it's important to go out to red states, purple states, speak directly to voters, say, here's my vision. Here's his vision. You vision, you make the choice. But I think if we retreat into, you know, we worry about engaging voters who are different from, who have different views, you know, people will, you know, smell that.

And also, honestly, a two-way feedback loop is really important. If people are really concerned about particular issues, you know, crime, the cost of housing, we should address those issues. Like we should be unafraid to address those issues. When you are, when you believe in government solving problems, you have to solve everyone, you know, have to solve everyone's problems and the problems that they're raising to you. That is what democracy is. It is listening to people. They get to choose what path they want. And I think it's important for us to listen as well. You know, and I think when you listen, a lot of voters, I saw that word tree that you had

posted of how people think about Democrats and what they think in general about the way Democrats are fighting. And you hear the words like weak and handling it poorly. And, you know, I just think these past few weeks have been kind of a wake-up call. Like, listen to the people. Get out there. As Hugh said, deliver the message. The people, as I've always said, like I firmly believe the people are on your side. They don't want their Medicaid gutted.

They don't like billionaires calling their social security Ponzi scheme. They don't like seeing veterans get cruelly fired and treated like crap. Just go out and speak to people on those issues. Hear them. And make the case, like go and make the case. And, you know, I think, you know, I think people are really scared about what the president is doing. I think they're really scared that Donald Trump is not hemmed in by any institutions, that he is, you know, willy nilly breaking, you know, social contracts with seniors, social contracts with veterans. Like basically our responsibility to each other, the transatlantic relationship, is deporting people who have legal process. You know, he is acting and is an authoritarian bully. And, you know, people are scared. A lot of Democrats are scared. And when people are scared,

they look to leaders. And that is why I think it is crucial for our leaders to think about not just what they say, but what they do, how they fight against what is happening. Chris Murphy said yesterday, these are not normal times. They are not. And it is vital for our leaders to recognize that and think about strategies they can deploy to stop Trump. It may not always work, but at least when you're fighting, people see that you were trying. And it is impossible to win a fight if you do not actually have it. You actually have some possibility if you start the fight. So, you know, that's what I'd say to all leaders right now. It's important that we demonstrate that we are not scared, that we, unlike a lot of institutions that have started pre-obeying, that we do not pre-obey. That we recognize that our Constitution, our democracy, our country that is for all of us is at stake, and we fight like hell to protect it.

Neera Tanden, CEO, Center for American Progress, we appreciate you. And please come back, keep us posted on the work that you are doing, and we appreciate all you do. Thanks so much. Have a great day. Thank you. 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, Thank you, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers.