The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Auchincloss Responds to Trump’s Chaos

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s Cabinet Members like Attorney General Pam Bondi getting exposed at Congressional hearings under cross-examination by Democrats and Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss about his investigation into RFK Jr. 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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by Democratic Congress members? What they're doing now is just not answering the questions at all and answering different questions, literally giving the middle finger to Congress. But Mike Johnson is OK with it because Mike Johnson doesn't even really think the House of Representatives should exist at all. He believes it should just exist for whatever Donald Trump wants to do with it So much for co-equal branches of government. So let me show you some of this recent Democratic cross-examination of

Donald Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi So you have Democratic Congressmember Morrell and he's cross-examining Pam Bondi about a decision by the DOJ to construe Donald Trump's pardon for January 6th insurrectionists to also include all of their other criminal conduct in most cases. So if Donald Trump pardoned you for being an insurrectionist, any other kind of related conduct, if the FBI discovered that you were involved in other crimes, under the Trump DOJ, by and large, you get a pardon for the other crimes as well.

So a fair question to ask the attorney general. Watch what took place, let's play it. In addition to my role here, the committee that I serve on as an authorizer oversees capital security as well as federal elections. So I'm closely following the aftermath of January 6th. Recently, several defendants who received presidential pardons related to that day

are now arguing in court that the pardon covers crimes, like for instance, illegal firearm possession discovered in a search of an individual's home in California months after January 6th. What's your position on whether the pardons cover these separate offenses? Yeah, the pardon power rests with the president, not the Department of Justice, and some of that is pending litigation, and I cannot discuss pending litigation. Well, I'm not asking you about who has the right to a pardon. I think as the

Department of Justice in February wrote, the pardon is an act of grace which removes the punishment from a crime a person has committed. It further said, in its effect, the granting of a pardon is in no sense the overturning of a judgment of conviction. It is an executive action that mitigates or sets aside punishment. So as the chief law enforcement officer,

what's your opinion, not the president's power of whether he can offer a pardon, that's pretty clear in the Constitution. But for crimes committed, unrelated to January 6th, would you suggest that the pardons would cover activities or crimes potentially committed outside of that by the same person? Well, I don't know if you're referring to Joe Biden pardoning his son after he said he would

not pardon Hunter Biden or the commutation of all the sentences that the people that were on death row, I've met with those families and all of those sentences were commuted. I'm not going to comment on pardons on either side of the aisle. So, well, I'm not asking about either side. I'm asking, you're the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the United States. You have a responsibility directly, you swore no to the Constitution, not the President, want to know what your views are on the extent to which pardons cover potential crimes committed by individuals who have been pardoned but unrelated to January 6th. Do you mean the ones that were done by the auto pin? I'm not going to discuss anything that could or not be pending litigation.

Mr. Chairman, I respectfully, you know, Ms. DeLauro accused you of filibuster and I think that's the height of filibuster. This is a serious, serious topic and for you to suggest that you don't have an opinion or to divert to other things that had nothing to do with January 6 pardons, I think is frankly demeaning to your responsibilities and your job, but then I'll yield back Next you have Democratic Congresswoman Dean and she cross examines Donald Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi about her ties to the Qatari government and her taking huge amounts of money

from the Qatari government and not disclosing it during her confirmation hearing. Here play this clip. Attorney General, have you ever been registered as an agent of a foreign principal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? I assume you're talking about when I represented the country of Qatar for a very short time. Hold on. No, excuse me. No. For anti-human trafficking for the World Cup.

Anti-human trafficking for the World Cup. You can't put words in my mouth. You want to talk about incompetence. You're the one that said Joe Biden on PBS was competent. You had to retract those words. Mr. Chairman. So don't talk to me. Don't insult me publicly.

This is so discourteous. This is so outside the committee's guidelines. Taking a personal shot at me while swiping at Biden? Very strange and very unprofessional of you. The answer is yes or no. And the answer is yes. You were registered as a lobbyist for Qatar. Is that correct? Yes. Nevermind. Don't answer. Did you disclose that when you went before for the Senate for confirmation? Yes or no? No, it was not in your documents. The answer is no. President Trump.

This was discussed at my confirmation hearings in detail. Well, it was discussed, but you failed to bring up the conflict that you had. President Trump recently announced he'd accept that $400 million Qatar airplane because it was just prettier than the one he was flying around in.

Is it true that you gave advice that this was legally permissible? Yes or no? I will not discuss any advice that my Office of Legal Counsel gives to the President of the United States on any matter. When you spoke before the Senate, you said you would ask for ethical advice. Did you recuse yourself from that issue? And talking about unprofessional, you say the president wanted a jet because it's pretty? Excuse me.

Come on, this is a Senate, this is a congressional hearing. He said it himself. And then Congresswoman Deane is asking Pam Bondi if she has concerns about Donald Trump's conflicts of interest, to which Pam Bondi answers she has concerns about Donald Trump's conflicts of interest, to which Pam Bondi answers a different question, and as you'll see, she just keeps on bringing up Joe Biden over and over again. Play this clip. April the 2nd.

You're a part of this, you know, the president has dabbled in meme coin. He had you, the DOJ,band the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. His son recently launched the Executive Branch Club, a private club with $500,000 memberships here in DC. Any of this seem like it might be a problem, might be profiteering from the office, and maybe you and your ethics team might be concerned about these conflicts of interest, your own and the president and his family. Yes or no? Any concerns? What I would be concerned about in Pennsylvania are all the child sex cases that we prosecuted,

all the CSAM cases that we prosecuted in Pennsylvania. Did you hear my question? That's what I would be concerned about. I asked the witness to actually answer questions that are asked. Congresswoman Deane. all the CSAM cases that we prosecuted in Pennsylvania. Did you hear my question? That's what I would be concerned about. I asked the witness to actually answer questions that are asked. Please let the witness answer the question. She didn't. And I would like to ask you one more question.

You're not just complicit in this. You're actively helping and profiting. Isn't it true that on April the 2nd, the same day that Trump announced his chaotic tariff regime that plummeted the stock market, you sold more than one million dollars worth of your shares in Trump Media stock. Trump Media stock fell 13 percent in the following days. Seems you avoided that loss. Well done. I yield back. May I answer that chairman? I complied with my ethics and yeah, I would take a class in financial literacy if you think I profited from that because I lost a tremendous amount of money. Congresswoman and also on page 25 of my SJ2

it lists my involvement with Qatar for anti-human trafficking for the World Cup. Thank you. And here you have Democratic Congresswoman DeLauro cross-examining Pam Bondi. And Pam Bondi basically says, oh, I don't like the way you're asking me that question. I will answer it very calmly, unlike you. You're playing this clip. I did. And you haven't answered my question. So they're going

to be out on the streets working hand in hand with the DEA to violate. Mr. Chairman, I'd like an answer to my question. And the question is not being answered. How many ATF law enforcement officers and industry operations investigators you anticipate will be lost to attrition as a result of the funding reduction you are proposing. You are proposing a 26% cut to ATF for fiscal year 2026 as well as a 4.4% cut to DEA. So you're going to merge the two agencies together and then you're going to shortchange their resources so neither one of them will be able to do the job that they have been designed to do. You've got a 34% cut to the high intensity drug trafficking areas program, no dedicated money at all for the organized crime drug enforcement task force. proposal short changes federal efforts to stop illegal gun trafficking and federal efforts to stop the flow of dangerous illegal drugs like fentanyl

as I was attempting to answer your question very calmly unlike you well excuse me what the excuse me Madam Attorney General. Answer yes or no. Tell me what the numbers are. I don't want to hear all of your filibuster about this. Go ahead, please tell us the numbers. So we are reorganizing ATF agents want to be out on the street. Okay, let me answer the question for you. I'm going to answer it for you.

Page. You know, Mr. Chairman, you give me a certain amount of time and I have a high respect for you, but I don't have to listen nor do my colleagues have to listen to a filibuster when it's a simple question. But I have an answer to your question. It's what page 146 of the department's fiscal year 2026 budget and the performance summary explicitly says, and let me quote, ATF will eliminate 541 industry operation investigators, reducing ATF's capacity to regulate the firearms and explosive industries by approximately 40% in fiscal year 2026.

ATF will perform fewer regulatory inspections. And the department summary goes on to say, and let me quote, ATF anticipates a reduction of approximately 284 support personnel and 186 agents based on historical attrition patterns. And these personnel cuts will impact ATF across various functions." Unquote. If the capacity to regulate firearms industry is reduced by 40%,

if you are losing 186 ATF law enforcement agents on top of that, it is clear the direction you are headed with this budget. Now let's bring in Democratic Congress member Jake Alkencloss. Congress member, I was just showing these clips of Pam Bondi's testimony yesterday, where she was being cross-examined by Democratic Congress members. And her answer to everything was basically, Joe Biden, auto pen Joe Biden, and not actually answering the questions, you know, or giving some kind of snarky remark, and then not answering the questions and filibuster. Look, we saw this with Pete Hegseth, who wouldn't answer the questions and he would be just outright like just rude to senators and congress members. Your time is up. You don't get to ask me questions anymore. So I just got to ask you, you know,

as a member of Congress, when these Trump, you know, regime cabinet members show up, they don't bring the budget with them, they're unprepared, they're not answering questions. How are you dealing with this? How are you, how do you plan for this? I'm planning for it right now

because Secretary Kennedy of Health and Human Services is coming to my committee tomorrow morning and we're going to have to address exactly this. It's a confluence of two factors. The first is that the president has appointed people based on loyalty, not based on either professionalism or competence. And so you're getting witnesses who just don't know their own portfolio, right? RFK doesn't know the first thing about Medicare or Medicaid. Pambandi doesn't understand due process and down on the line.

I will say, I just had a hearing with secretary of energy, Chris Wright, and it was refreshing because he actually understands energy portfolio. And I just remark upon that because it's the exception, not the rule with this cabinet to actually have a cabinet member who knows what they're talking about. The second factor at play here is that congressional Republicans don't take themselves seriously. They don't hold this administration to account. They don't think they're members of a separate and co-equal branch of a government. They think they're courtiers to Mar-a-Lago. They act

like it. But here's the question for Democrats. Can we go out to the public and make the case that says, including to reluctant Trump voters of 2024, hey, listen, we know you don't agree with us on everything. But do you want this guy's worst impulses to be checked by Congress? Like, do you just want him to have to have a little bit of oversight and accountability

for these next two years? Because if you do vote Democrat for House and Senate, and we will put a check on his worst ideas, I think that that can win over some of these reluctant Trump voters who swung to him in 2004. Well, if you think about all of the things that he promised, lower prices on day one, that didn't happen. that there would be an end to all wars, that didn't happen, that housing would become affordable, that hasn't happened, that he would stop inflation, that hasn't happened, you can go on and on and on. And then there's just the kind of daily betrayals,

which in all of the distractions sometimes fade. Remember when he said, the Doge rebate that Doge was going to be so successful. We're going to give every one of you by every American gets $5,000 from Doge. Remember he said that and, uh, you know, there he's going to go through Fort Knox and find all of this gold and we're all going to get rich. He's going to eliminate the IRS because the tariffs are going to be so successful that all we'll need is an external revenue service. So it's just a barrage of lies.

You think it's registering with the American people? Yes, but we have to connect the dots because the American people over the last decade have been trained and have acclimatized to his post-truth politics. And so what you have to do is be able to connect the dots between his chaos and corruption and the higher costs of daily life.

And that is what campaigns are built around. I think we also have to connect the dots between the chaos and incompetence of his administration and the lawlessness that people are feeling pervade ever more parts of the economy and society. Even though Americans actually still broadly agree with President Trump instead of Democrats on immigration, for example, they don't like the way he's going about it.

They don't want to see unmarked vans with mass officers harass 25-year-old graduate students on the streets of Somerville. And that disconnect between a policy that he promised people and the images that they are seeing that feel viscerally wrong to them, that can register. We saw it with the No Kings Day protests, which were some of the most successful demonstrations in modern American history. But now it's on Democrats to build that public pressure into

a winning midterm strategy. Finally, let's talk about RFK and RFK Jr. and his disastrous, I think it's everything everybody feared, frankly, and worse. And the promises that he even made to senators to secure the needed votes to get confirmed. You know, he lied about getting rid of the, you know, the board that deals with vaccination review and things like that. So how I know this is an area too, that you're that you've always been focused on a lot of areas, but this is an area too near and dear to your heart.

So speak to our audience here about just how bad it is when it comes to this guy. The corruption conspiracy in Quackery is eye watering. RFK has spent the last two decades peddling in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, one to enrich himself and two to sow distrust that has directly led to children dying of preventable infectious diseases. And what we have to do is take out the knees of their self-righteousness.

The Maha movement has come to Washington, D.C., and it has claimed this mantle of an anti-corruption crusade. All of these scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, they're all on the take, or all of these CDC or Advisory Commission on Immunization Practice professionals, they're just grifting. The fact of the matter is, it is in fact RFK and his henchmen who are engaged in corruption. And once we can point that out squarely to the American public, I think it undercuts many of their pseudoscience claims because people will see them for what they are, which is self-serving. So, for example, Cali Means, RFK's chief of staff, functionally chief of staff, he owns and controls his own business on the side, which has tripled in value in the last year, and people's supplements and saunas to people using tax or pre-tax dollars.

And he's changing federal policy to help his own company. And that's just one example. There are many others of the lieutenants around RFK abusing the public trust. Before we go, anything you think that's not getting the attention it deserves that while we have this huge audience here, you want the American people to know. I always like to ask that question when I speak to members of Congress because you often

get asked the questions by the interviewer, but I'm sure there's things on your mind that I wish I could just talk about that one. There's lots of things, but anything in particular? The media's attention has moved from Los Angeles to the Middle East, understandably. I still though, am thinking about those 700 Marines deployed to Los Angeles. They're deployed from 29 Palms, which is a training base in Inland Empire, California. It's where I trained for two years

as a platoon commander of infantry. I know these Marines, not personally, but I know who they are. I trained with these kinds of young men and women. And these are war fighters who have signed an oath to obey the Constitution and to fight America's enemies. They are not sweating and bleeding in the desert heat of 29 palms to be used as a political prop for the president

in Los Angeles in a grossly unnecessary and illegal deployment of Marines for law enforcement purposes. They're not trained for it. They're not equipped for it. It's gonna be terrible for their morale. And we, as Americans, have to understand that his abuse of the military for his own political ends, it's not just bad for the citizens of the United States.

It's bad for those service members as well. Most of them are kids. They're under the age of 25. What's your message to them now or their family members who may and probably are watching the Midas Touch Network and you know, know that you were a leader of them when you know, when you were there? The United States military is the most lethal warfighting force in the history of the world, but that's not its most exceptional quality. Its most exceptional quality is that service members and officers swear an oath not to an individual, not to a party, but to the constitution, and they need to remember that

oath. Congress member, Jake Alka-Kloss, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.mitustouch.com. Let's get to 6 million subscribers.