The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Boyle Responds to Trump Destroying Economy

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump getting hit with the devastating news from the Atlanta Federal Reserve and Meiselas interviews Congressman Brendan Boyle, Ranking Member of the Budget Committee. 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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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. We are now a day away from Donald Trump doing what he's calling Liberation Day, which means more devastation to our economy. I'm not really sure. Other than tariffing the world, whatever that even means. I'm not sure people in Trump's own regime knows what he's even talking about, but we just got these numbers earlier today from the Atlanta Federal Reserve.

Their new model is projecting that there will be a negative 3.7% GDP in the first quarter of 2025, so a 3.7% contraction. So for those following along eight weeks ago, we were expecting from the same projection, mind you, we were expecting a 3.9% growth. If literally Donald Trump did nothing and just kept the economy on autopilot, if he just went to Mar-a-Lago golf and did nothing four weeks ago, it was 2.3%. Last week, it was was 2.3%. Last week, it was negative 2.8%. Today, it stands at negative 3.7%. Trump and Musk and Doge are driving us into really difficult, difficult times. And this is how it's now being messaged on Fox. This is Harris Faulkner from earlier in the day. Let's play it.

And those 401k people who are depending, those retirees, all of that, just talking plain speak with them. Look, when this nation used to go to war, people in this country would support the war effort with their materials at home and making things for weaponry and all of that. We got to do 100% buy-in over this bumpy period. Just communicate. Kayleigh. Then they bring in Eric Trump,

who starts selling his Bitcoins. Play this clip. Well, we just launched a stable coin. On the other side, you know, American Bitcoin. I think it's going to be one of the great companies out there. So I truly believe. I don't even need to show that anymore. Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Brendan Boyle.

Congressman, I showed you those stats. I showed you those clips right there of what's going on on Fox. What do you make of all of this, Congressman? You know, it's pretty striking that literally Donald Trump, all he had to do was do nothing. He could sit there, watch Fox News all day, sit with the remote control, occasionally tweet, and then on weekends go down to Mar-a-Lago and play golf. But he just had to purposely go about ruining this economy. With the exception of COVID and perhaps the Great Recession in the fall of 2008 when it began, I don't remember any other period in which you've had a Federal Reserve so quickly revise their projections from about 4% growth expected to now 4% decline. That is an eight-point swing in the economy in just two months. I have, again, with the exception of COVID and the beginning of the Great Recession, I have never seen anything like it.

And this is not because of the normal economic cycle. This is not because of a pandemic. This is literally all man-made, made by one man, Donald Trump. You've been holding events in your district in the Philadelphia area. One of the events focusing on social security is Donald Trump cuts social security offices and gets rid of these offices and services. Tell us about that, but just tell us in general,

what are you hearing from your constituents at these events? Well, you know, I held this press conference about social security on Monday morning, but I actually want to go back 48 hours earlier to another event I held in my district. And this was a community event on Saturday morning, interacted and spoke to several hundred constituents who came. I have never heard the level of anger as well as fear about what's going on right now, but specifically to Social Security. There are a ton of seniors who are deathly afraid that they're not going to get their Social Security checks.

You know, Social Security has existed for almost exactly 90 years, has never missed a paycheck. We are now in real danger of seeing paychecks screwed with because of the gross incompetence and the malicious intent of what Elon Musk and the Doge Bros are doing. Let's not forget, Elon Musk has already publicly said social security is next. He said that a few weeks ago. He's also said that social security is a Ponzi scheme. Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, said that, well, people could afford to go one month without a paycheck. He cited his own mother saying that she could miss a month. Well, yeah, no kidding. Her son's a billionaire. Most people on social Security are like my father who rely on that paycheck, that check that they earned over a lifetime of work. So I'm doing everything I can to fight back against a malicious administration that is purposely going after the things that people care most about.

Tell us also, you know, this various countries now have travel advisories warning people about coming into the United States. They're saying if you show up, you may end up in detention centers or even even worse. I mean, you have Canada because of Donald Trump's threats of annexation, viewing what's transpired as not just a trade war, but like a real declaration of war. Trump keeps saying he wants to take Canada and steal the land. The last stats I saw, 75 to 80% of Canadians are boycotting any types of luxury travel unless it's a necessity, boycotting American goods. Are you seeing that in the Commonwealth? Are you seeing that elsewhere? We are seeing evidence of those boycotts having an impact. I think the Atlanta Fed's figures that are somewhat reflective of the damage from both tariffs as well as the Canadian boycott.

But I can tell you one area, we're certainly going to see it in my area is come summertime we have a ton of canadians who come and vacation at the jersey shore you can see the canadian flags and quebec flags in a lot of places i have already heard from business owners saying that they are being impacted by the boycott because their expected bookings are are down and down considerably. You know, the first early indication, I happen to be a sports fan, and I was watching hockey when the U.S. was playing Canada as part of that tournament that was played last month. And to hear the American national anthem loudly and resoundingly booed at the beginning of that game that was played in Montreal. I never thought that I would see the day. It's truly sad. And what is so bewildering about this is I still have not yet to hear one sentence, at least, from Donald Trump on why suddenly Canada

is the enemy. What exactly is the pretense for going after them? I mean, I can understand, you know, if you're concerned about, say, steel dumping that comes from China, or if you have tariffs that are industry specific and country specific. Tariffs are a tool in our toolbox when it comes to trade and national security. That's not what's happening here. I mean, we might be seeing us actually imposing an incredibly high tariff on every single one of our nation's allies beginning tomorrow. It's just insane. Let's talk about, you said on the House Budget Committee, I want to hear about the kind of process that's now taking place where, you know, it's, it's, it's a little confusing

because they passed an outline of a budget, the MAGA Republicans. And now, I mean, and it was projected then it would cause trillions of dollars to be added to our deficit. And so like what now happens, we see things happening in a rules committee, just like what, I don't want to get too wonky, but how bad is this? What's coming down the pipeline? What should we be worried about? What are you focused on? Yeah. You know, it's a, as ranking member of budget, this is basically what I spend most of my time on. And as you can imagine, when we're talking about, I mean, even the name of the process, reconciliation, to try to explain this and not get too much into the weeds and to speak

plain English is a challenge. So let's see how I do here. Bottom line is House Republicans have an incredibly austere plan that they already voted for and approved a few weeks ago, which includes one and a half trillion dollars worth of cuts, mostly coming from Medicaid. These would be by far the biggest cuts to Medicaid in American history, all to help partially pay for the biggest tax cuts for billionaires in American history. So that the beginning of that plan passed already in the House. It sits over in the Senate. That's where it sits right now. Senate Republicans are trying to figure out what they want to do with it, if they want to come up with their own plan. That right now is kind of an internal Republican squabble that is playing out as we speak. At some point,

they're going to have to internally resolve that. The Senate will pass something. At this point, it doesn't, believe it or not, it doesn't exactly have to match at this point what the House Republicans have done. And then that would allow the next step of the process to play out. So it's a bizarre Byzantine multi-step process. One important step has already been taken, has already taken place with the House Republicans passed, but we still have a few more steps to go. And I'm hopeful that there will be an opportunity for just one or two House Republicans to grow a backbone, or at least get very afraid of their own voters and stand up to Donald Trump and actually vote with House Democrats so we can kill this once

and for all. We're going to have you back throughout that process because that was a great explanation of a Byzantine process. And I was asking because it's confusing to me and the way you described it's helpful. I know a question I want to ask you about here. Then you have the debt ceiling issue because people are like, are we going to have to raise the debt ceiling soon? How does that fit into what you just said? Just so people, just so I can know. It's a very good question because we don't know something that's called the X date, which is basically the drop dead date. It means this is absolutely the date by which you have to raise the debt ceiling or you've gone into default as a nation, which would have disastrous

consequences. Remember, this is what Republicans, the Tea Party Republicans were threatening Barack Obama with in the summer of 2011. This is what they were threatening President Biden with just a few years ago. Well, now the shoe is a bit on the other foot, where House Republicans and Senate Republicans in the White House need to raise the debt ceiling. We don't know, though, that X date. The Treasury Secretary will announce when that is, probably the end of this month. And a lot of it is determined and shaped by where tax collections are on April 15th. It could be as late as August or September, but it could be as early as May or June. You might remember two years

ago, we were in a very similar situation. Most analysts were projecting that the X date would be in August or September, but then tax revenues came in really soft and suddenly the X date would be in August or September, but then tax revenues came in really soft and suddenly the X date got revised to June 1st and suddenly Congress really needed to act very quickly. So we might see that play out again. At the moment, as part of the House Republicans plan, reconciliation plan that they voted out a few weeks ago, they have included in there an increase in the debt ceiling. From what I hear, Senate Republicans are pushing back on that. So it still remains to be determined. Yeah, well, somewhat terrifying that that's going to be the hands of Scott Besant. I mean, I remember when Janet Yellen was Treasury Secretary and well in advance, very transparently, she was sending those letters.

We knew there was constant transparency. And on the other hand, you've got Scott Besant. I won't do my Scott Besant going on CNBC and lying routine. I have a whole shtick there. But I'll just thank you, Congressmember Brendan Boyle, for joining us. And we need to have you back soon to really work us through that budget process. Thanks for educating me on what's going on as well. I appreciate it.

No, listen, happy to do it. Like I said, the biggest challenge is explaining this bizarre process in plain English. So hopefully I at least did a good enough job and happy to come back anytime. We appreciate it because a lot of the bad things that are happening hide in the obscurity and the Byzantine nature of it, which allows Fox to do what it did, which we were talking about at the beginning of the show. Thank you very much, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack

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