The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Dan Goldman is Fighting Back as Trump’s Plans Backfire

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s erratic behavior destroying America and Meiselas speaks with Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman about what he’s doing to fight back. 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

The end of last week, the University of Michigan reported the kind of worst data it had on inflation expectations since 1993. In addition, consumer sentiments, the worst since 2022. The big news from this data was not inflation expectations by itself, but also if you look at what people are saying about the jobs market, the expected change in unemployment is the worst since the 2008 recession. Donald Trump had his surrogates on at the end of last week. The first clip I'm going to show you, though, is from Howard Lutnick, Trump's Commerce Secretary. And here's what he has to say about the Federal Reserve's prediction of a 2.4 percent contraction. Let's play that one first.

We've seen worries about growth. I know you said you're not expecting a recession, but investors are on edge over the possibility of a recession this year after the Atlanta Federal Reserve said that it's predicting a 2.4 percent contraction in the first quarter. And, of course, President Trump would not. Wait, wait, wait. Say that again. A what? A what? The Atlanta Federal Reserve. Contraction. Correct. Correct. First quarter. Right here. Right here. Right now. Right here. Right now. That is ridiculous. Right here. Right now. I have Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman. What are you, what's your reaction to that? What are you hearing from your constituents, Congressman? Oh, look, everybody's very scared.

Not only is everybody scared, the uncertainty itself is actually better than one fears, the uncertainty drives companies to be conservative and either certainly not hire, maybe freeze, spend less money. And so what this whiplash with the tariffs has done is it's not only clearly driven up prices and is going to drive up prices, but it has spooked the American economy. And because there's no clear strategy here, it is purely Donald Trump's whims and latest gut feeling. And a lot of times just his, you know, tough guy routine where he, you know, needs to win the battle of wills. And so I think it's got everyone very scared. And I think that's why the Atlanta Federal Reserve is so noticeably anticipating and predicting that there's going to be a real constriction in the economy. We've seen it in the stock market, but we're going to start seeing it in the unemployment numbers as well.

And his whims and his kind of madness is often directed at the most vulnerable, right? I mean, attacking Social Security Administration, veterans, poor kids, getting rid of the Department of Education. I mean, it seems that this is also very cruelly tailored to attack the people who need help the most or the people who have sacrificed the most for our country. You know, Ben, whatever you want to say about the November election and the outcome and some mythical mandate that Donald Trump claims. The exit polling was very clear that the number one issue on voters' minds was the economy and affordability. And Donald Trump promised to make the cost of living much more affordable for lower and middle class Americans. And what he has done since January 20th is the exact opposite. He not only is making it less affordable, as you just said, inflation is going up, the cost of eggs and groceries are going up, all costs are increasing, but he is also whacking and slashing critical, vital services and funding

that middle and lower income Americans rely on. And so, you know, Elon Musk might think that the federal government is the same thing as Twitter, but the downside to cutting 75% of costs on Twitter is that you have a crappy social media platform. The downside of cutting half of the United States government is that tens of millions of Americans who rely on that funding don't get it. And it's going to harm a lot of people. It is going to hurt our healthcare. It is going to hurt our housing. It is going to hurt our food insecurity. I mean, the list goes on and on and on, seniors, veterans. And then to make matters worse, they're going after Medicaid. With 72 million Americans receive their health care through Medicaid, about 40% of children, almost two thirds of seniors in nursing homes get their health care through Medicaid. And there's no way

to meet the House budget without absolutely slashing Medicaid. And Elon Musk has said, as you pointed out, Social Security and Medicare are also on the chopping block. So this was a complete bait and switch by Donald Trump, who blatantly lied to the American people in the lead up to the election and now is betraying every single one of his campaign promises. You know, I think this headline deserves more attention as well, despite everything that Doge has done, the cruelty, shutting down the government buildings, firing all of the veterans, getting rid of 70,000 people who work at the VA, shutting down the Social Security Administration buildings and all of that. Last month, there was more federal spending than any prior month in the history of the United States of America, $603 billion last month. And so as they're cruelly cutting those salaries, I mean, they're doing these ridiculous PR stunts where they send these military planes to Guantanamo Bay to bring 180 people there to the cost of tens of millions of

dollars. And then they bring the people back because they actually don't have the facilities at Guantanamo Bay. And they realize also they can't do that. And Trump flies Air Force One in circles around NASCAR tracks, who knows how much that costs and all the other waste that they're actually are spending. So don't forget all his golf. And golf all the time. Are you seeing, you know, a change, a vibe shift, though, out there? I mean, not just in your district, but as you speak to other members of Congress. I mean, are we reaching a different point right now in the kind of resistance and opposition to Trump?

I think so. And the worst of it has yet to come, because the reason they're trying to cut all of this government spending is not what you might think, based on all of the rhetoric the Republicans usually use, which is to reduce the deficit. No, it is to pave the way for more tax cuts for Elon Musk, Donald Trump, billionaires, the largest corporations, the ultra wealthy. And so they are actually cutting all of these essential programs for the vast majority of American people in order to cut taxes on the wealthy. So that part of it is starting to get out there, but it has not come through Congress yet, as, for example, Medicaid did. And so it's going to get worse and worse and worse as we move forward. And with the slashing, the indiscriminate, I mean, this is really what really burns me up, Ben, is this Musk slashing has nothing whatsoever to do with waste, fraud, and abuse.

That is complete bogus. I support getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. That is complete bogus. I support getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. I support streamlining and making our government more efficient. I certainly would love to use technology to do that, and we should. But Elon Musk is literally using keywords and getting rid of programs that have names that he doesn't like. He has no idea whether it's waste or fraud. And not only that, the stuff that he is representing as what he's doing is pretty much all lies. I mean, one line item he had mistakenly put billions of dollars instead of millions, eight billion versus eight million. He triple counted another cost-cutting measure and

doubled the amount. He's been floating and promoting cutting programs that ended in George W. Bush's presidency. I mean, this guy is just arbitrarily slashing. But you know what he's not slashing then? He is not slashing any of the $13 billion of government contracts that he receives. Instead, he's trying to use his power and his influence to take over an FAA contract for his Starlink company at the tune of 2.4 billion dollars and it's an egregious conflict of interest it's corruption at its worst and it uh it really is not only harmful to the american people but it's a fundamental attack on our democracy you know it's it's cartoonish villain stuff manifested in the real world right now. And you talk about that, too.

And like when they fired all of these people from the federal government, they like defamed them, too. And they would say that these people were fired for cause and for performance, which also had implications. Also, depending on what state they are in their unemployment, their ability to be rehired if they're fired for cause. And a federal judge in California, Northern District, Judge Alsup, I used to appear in front of when I was practicing back in the day, he looked at these, no nonsense judge, you know, this federal judge, you know, like you were a federal prosecutor. I mean, these Trump sending these DOJ people who don't have the facts, don't know who runs the agencies, who are staring at these judges.

And these judges are like, well, who runs that? Who's doing that? And these DOJ lawyers for Trump are like, we're understaffed. We don't know. And these judges are issuing scathing rulings. So the federal judge is like, you know what? Rehire them all in various departments. Bring them back. And I may have them all be rehired, but I'm going to focus on certain departments now. So today, on Friday rather, the Trump administration, they're out there whining. They're whining. Let me show you. They're going, it's unconstitutional. It's unfair. Here, play this clip. Judge has ruled that tens of thousands of fired federal workers must be reinstated immediately.

OK, Karen, how are you going to fight that? Well, let's talk about the absurdity of this, Stu. You have a single lower district court judge who ruled that all of these individuals need to be rehired, just usurping the executive authority of President Trump to fire federal workers. This cannot be allowed to happen. This ruling was unconstitutional. The White House and the Trump administration are prepared to fight back. What's your response to that? My response is she would benefit from going to law school before she starts spouting off about what's unconstitutional or not. She might also want to look down in the Fifth Circuit for how many nationwide injunctions a district court judge down in Texas has issued in favor of Republicans. But the bottom line is they don't have any good arguments other than Donald Trump is king.

And we know Donald Trump is not king. That's not how this country works. The courts are analyzing what the rationale is for these complete cuts, just slashing without any real individualized attention or focus. And they're doing it in violation of the employee's rights. As you point out, the disdain and the demeaning way that they speak about federal government employees who, by the way, I mean, I was one for 10 years as a prosecutor, but so many of the others that I have come across are real American patriots. I mean, these are people who are sacrificing,

making a lot more money in the private sector to anonymously serve the United States government. And they are experts in many, many respects. And this type of purging is just gutting our civil service. It will make our government far less efficient, far less effective, and it's really going to jeopardize our national security. And so, you know, Caroline Leavitt can talk all she wants about the constitutionality of this ruling, but take it up with the appeals court. That's how our system works. Yeah. And also send Elon Musk to go in front of you in Congress. Send him in front of the Senate so y'all can ask him questions, right? Oversight. Anyway, I want to have you back on soon. I appreciate you. I appreciate the stand you took against that CR, the horrible CR.

Really appreciate everything you're doing. So please come back. Thank you, Congressman. Anytime, Ben. Good to see you. 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 for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.