The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Brendan Boyle on Trump’s Big Disastrous Budget

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Republicans blowing up their own budget bill as infighting breaks out and Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle who is the Ranking Democratic Member of the House 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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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Is this MAGA Republican budget bill blowing up already? They're calling it a big, beautiful bill, but it looks like a big, beautiful disaster. MAGA Republican Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin was on right- propaganda media today and he was sending a message saying, we don't know what the hell these MAGA's are doing in the House of Representatives, but we ain't supporting what they're doing in the Senate. That was an interesting note. Let's play this clip. Arguing over, you know, additional tax provisions and getting down to a reasonable pre-pandemic spending level, but that's not the path we chose. So I think the sooner we acknowledge the fact that this current effort is doomed to fail.

I'm sorry. I've got to discreetly press on this. It's doomed to fail. I'm not going to vote for it. I know a number of senators who will not even come. We're not even contemplating. This is not a start. Right now, as it's being written, we would actually increase the deficit.

I don't think many people realize that we would actually increase the deficit. I don't think many people realize that we would actually increase the deficit. That's a complete non-starter. So no, we're not even close. It's not memorial. But if you were to listen to MAGA Mike Johnson and some of the reporting we did earlier in the day, you know, you would say it's all going well. It's one big, beautiful bill. The beautiful bill is so big. It's beautiful. It's going amazing. So the other tack that I guess this Trump regime is taking now is that when they send their people to even show up before committees that oversee budgets, whether that's in the House of Representatives or the Senate, like they don't even do their homework. And when I was watching this clip of

Kash Patel, who's somehow the FBI director showing up in front of the Senate without submitting the most basic outline of what the FBI budget is and seeing Senator Murray say, where's the budget? Can I look at it? And Kash Patel's like, it's not ready. It just reminds me of the kid who doesn't do his homework. At the most basic level, it's just like competence. Here, watch this., it's just like competency. Watch this. I have a timeline on that. It was due last week by law.

I understand. And your answer is you just understand you're not going to follow the law? My answer is that I am following the law, and I'm working with my interagency partners to do this and get you the budget that you are required to have. And you have no timeline? No. And you know, the MAGA Republicans, though, in the House were focused on all the most important pressing issues as our economy is shrinking, as Main Street, as regular folk, regular Americans are suffering.

As Donald Trump is saying, your little girls, give them one doll only, five pencils. That's what Trump regime central planning is saying. Here's what they were focused on in the House of Representatives. MAGA Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who launched her massive Doge hearing on USA fencing yesterday, followed up with a doozy. Here, play this clip. Honored to be here today in front of the American people as we debate the merits of the Gulf of America Act. This would rename the body of water formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This is such an important thing to do for the American people. It's about as much as I can handle of hearing her voice. Let's bring in Democratic Congress member, Brendan Boyle. Congress member Boyle, you're the ranking

member on the budget committee, but let's, I guess, first talk about the status of the budget, what's going on there. Then let's move in, talk about the economy and some other things. When you see all those clips, what the hell is going on here? When I see all those clips, I think, my God, why did I run for Congress? Why am I doing this? And calling someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene a colleague. So aside from rethinking my life's choices, I will say that in terms of the budget and the big, beautiful bill for billionaires that Donald Trump and Mike Johnson are pushing, I think at this moment, well, there are two things. First, Republicans have scheduled markups, basically voting committee meetings in a few very important committees, including Ways

and Means, on which I serve, and Budget Committee, also on which I serve as the lead Democrat or ranking member. Ways and Means has been scheduled for Tuesday of next week, and Budget has been scheduled for Friday. However, despite their scheduling those voting meetings, I have to say at this moment, I don't think they're anywhere close to having a final bill, and here's why. Ron Johnson, who's a very conservative senator from Wisconsin, a conspiracy theorist, he alluded to the fact, and quite accurately, they are badly internally divided on the other side. They're divided on Medicaid cuts. You have a group in the House led by the Freedom Caucus who continue to push the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history.

Would absolutely devastate the program. You have some moderate to push the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history, would absolutely devastate the program. You have some moderate Republicans who want no cuts to Medicaid or very small cuts. You also have the SALT issue, the ability to deduct state and local income taxes. When that cap came into place by Donald Trump and Republicans eight years ago, it basically became a middle-class tax increase in places like Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Virginia, and some other states. So those are two of the big issues for internal disagreements between House Republicans and Senate Republicans, also within the House Republican Conference. So I, at this moment, I have to say,

unless real progress is made over the next 48 hours, I do not believe the happy talk from Mike Johnson. And I'll believe that we really have a vote next week when I say it. I want to share this next clip with you as we talk about the overall state of our economy right now. the Trump propaganda machine before the election, you know, they would have these MAGA parents dress up their little girls in the MAGA shirts, and they would talk about how Trump was going to make their Barbies cheaper. This was actually part of the campaign that Trump was running here. Let me show you this clip, for example. What do you want him to do? What do you want him to say today? I want him to lower prices and lower the taxes and make Barbies cheaper.

Make Barbies cheaper? Yeah. Tell me more about that. Have they gotten expensive? Yeah, and Polly Pockets. All my favorite toys are so expensive. And now you got this guy. You got Trump up there literally saying, you know,

while he's doing deals with the Abu Dhabi fund for his crypto and Trump resorts in Qatar, I saw a report, the Trump family's net worth increased by $2.6 billion just over the past 100 days. He says, little girls, you get, I can't believe I'm actually quoting the guy. He's like, you get two dolls and five pencils and they'll cost more and you shouldn't complain about it. What do you make about all that? But more seriously, just the state of the economy right now and how Main Street's feeling.

Yeah, I mean, I have an 11-year-old daughter. Good luck telling my daughter that she will get two dolls and five pencils. By the way, I think she'll happily trade the pencils for more dolls, is my impression, at least based on one 11-year-old girl. You know, the reality is that Donald Trump is probably the greatest con man in American history. And he was able to convince a lot of people, especially in my state of Pennsylvania, that he would actually bring down costs and make their lives better. And just the last three months, the exact opposite has happened. And this isn't my opinion. We don't have to take my word for it or any Democrats' word for it, just last week, Trump's own labor department

released the receipts. The first quarter, contrary to everyone's prediction a few months ago, the economy actually contracted. We are right now in a recession. No one was predicting that, no conservative economist, no liberal economist, no one was predicting that. We're in a recession. We are in a contracting economy. And at the same time, prices are going up. Inflation jumped from the low 2% range to the mid threes. That's the biggest jump we've seen since the COVID pandemic. So this economy is in a bad place. And it is entirely because of Trump's tariffs. And everyone knows that. No amount, even the greatest con man in the history of America, Donald Trump,

can't get people to believe things that are so contrary to their own lives and their own experiences. So there's a reason why Trump's approval rating has actually dropped faster than any new president in the history of polling. And I think it's going to continue to get worse because in all likelihood,

the quarter that we're in right now, the data will actually come out and show that things are far worse than even it was in the first quarter, because we're just now starting to see the full impact of the Trump massive tariffs. You know, I've called this Trump regime, the Ponzi scheme presidency or the rug pull presidency. And it seems rather than unlocking actually how to benefit the people in his own mind, he's like, oh, I can unlock a new Ponzi scheme and a new scam. And the new one that he seems to do is that he's realized with his tariff war against the world, that if he makes certain statements about a new deal, it impacts the markets and the markets get

manipulated based on his statements. And there's incredible volatility, but people can make a lot of money on it. So he'll say something like, I did a trade deal with the UK. He didn't do a trade deal with the UK. He talked about doing something with Range Rovers and that the price of a Range Rover goes from 20% to tariffs, 25% to 10% when they were 0% a while ago. He's like, we're talking to China. When he was not talking to China and then he'll attack China. And to me, then you have this market volatility, which also abstracts the GDP contraction and all these other systemic issues that you're seeing. So what do you think along those lines around the kind of what's going on in the markets and what's

going on in people's kitchen tables? Well, again, here are the numbers. I mean, the Dow Jones down since the Trump presidency began, S&P 500 down since the Trump presidency began, NASDAQ down since the Trump presidency began. All ofQ down since the Trump presidency began. All of those were up just a few months ago. There's a tremendous amount of volatility. And we're actually seeing, you know, at the beginning of the year, again, just a few months ago, everyone was projecting there would be three Fed cuts of about 75 basis points. So that would have a dramatic impact in lowering people's mortgages and lowering people's auto loans. Now, the likelihood is we won't have any Fed cuts.

Why? Because of the Trump inflation that he caused as a result of his tariffs. As far as trade deals, I mentioned before I serve on Ways and Means Committee. I'm on the Trade Subcommittee. We have jurisdiction over that. So I will have the opportunity to review this so-called US-UK trade deal. Look, I would welcome a trade deal with the European Union, which is a market of almost 500 million people, a trade deal with the UK, a trade deal with Canada, trade deal with Mexico. But Donald Trump announcing that he has a trade agreement is a little like the arsonist claiming credit for putting out one of the fires he started.

After all, Donald Trump is the person who came in and slapped tariffs on all these countries. We already had a trade deal with Canada in operation. It was one actually Donald Trump negotiated along with Democrats in Congress in 2019. So I go back to what I said before. Donald Trump is the ultimate con man. This is just one big reality show for him. He loves the attention. He loves having the media into the Oval Office.

He loves doing those bogus signings of executive orders, many of which aren't even real executive orders. They're essentially press releases. He just loves the show. And it's just sad to me. And I have to admit, I'll never quite understand it, how many people have actually been suckered by him and believe his tremendous amount of BS. And on that last point, getting suckered by the BS while their Medicaid, while their health care is on the line. And while Trump makes billions off it, while he makes billions, people will be poor as a result of it. You know, we saw the CBO nonpartisan scoring of what would

actually happen with people losing health care, millions of people losing health care, you know, off of what these MAGA Republicans are doing. Can you speak to the attack on Medicaid, though, and what that really means for Americans? I know MAGA Republicans were talking about shifting all of the kind of Medicaid cost share to states, which would basically, in many states that have trigger laws, mean no Medicaid at all, or even if they didn't have trigger laws, they're not able to fund it. So what's going on there? Yeah. I mean, so first the House passed, the House Republicans passed the bill, their first part of reconciliation that we talked about earlier, $880 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid, by far the biggest in American history. There's some Senate Republicans who want to chop

that figure down to about $500 billion. Well, okay. They would still be the biggest in American history. There's some Senate Republicans who want to chop that figure down to about $500 billion. Well, okay, they would still be the biggest Medicaid cuts in American history and still have a devastating impact. Now, some of them will attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people and say, oh no, they're not taking away Medicaid. We're shifting the costs of the states. Yeah, you're shifting the cost of the states

who don't have the money to do it. Yeah, you're shifting the cost to states who don't have the money to do it. Keep in mind that I'll just use my state as an example, Pennsylvania. Medicaid represents more money to the state of Pennsylvania than all of the other federal dollars we give Pennsylvania combined. And that's pretty representative, actually, of the way the financing works. So the reality is for the 44% of people in my district who are on Medicaid, for the other tens of millions of people on Medicaid nationwide, they will lose Medicaid coverage. Or if they don't lose Medicaid coverage entirely, depending on their state, they will see a drop in what that coverage actually covers. This will have a devastating impact. And why?

In order to help subsidize tax cuts for the top 1% of Americans. It's truly immoral. It's bad economics. It really shows you that Trump's economic policy is a rich man's war, poor man's fight. Congressman Brendan Boyle, thanks for joining us as always. I'm sure you're going to be coming back here as we go through whatever the next steps are of this big, beautiful disaster called the MAGA Republican budget bill. Thank you so much. 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, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now

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