The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Jayapal Discusses MAGA Mike Destroying the GOP

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Republican Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson being such a terrible leader that he may be responsible for bringing down the entire party that is now face a massive reckoning as Trump plummets as well, and Meiselas speaks with Democratic Congresswoman Primila Jayapal about the collapse of the GOP. 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: ⁠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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Checking in on Maga Mike, Republican Speaker of the House. What's going on, Maga Mike? There you are. You look sad, Maga Mike. You look confused, Maga Mike. Well, now one of the things that Maga Mike is doing after the discharge petition led to the release of the Epstein files, having at least a law that something signed into law. We'll see ultimately what the Department of Justice does.

I think they're going to obstruct further the release of these files. And I think they're gearing up for some disgusting and despicable behavior. But now what Maga Mike's doing in response to the fact that there likely may be some other discharge petitions on the way because Maga Mike's just following whatever Donald Trump tells him and it's going to destroy the Maga Republicans in the midterms. And so they're trying to figure something out. But now Maga Mike Johnson told Axios that he's going to try to figure out ways to basically kill the concept of discharge petitions. He's going to try to make the threshold higher and change the rules so there could be no deal. discharge petitions at this point, so there can't be people making end run around him by changing

the rules. He goes, they've just become too common. What do you mean they've become too common? It's like there's one so far, and it related to the Epstein files that actually made its way through Congress. And I just think he sees that there's an avalanche of these things coming based on his behavior. I mean, you're seeing a lot of Maga Republican Congress members kind of speak out against what Mag and Mike's doing. People especially in vulnerable congressional districts who are likely going to lose based on the trajectory of things. Maga Republican Congress member Mike Lawler saying, but the discharge petition is a tool of every member to ensure important issues that have the support of the majority of the House. See the light of day. And he goes, I oppose this. Or then

in California, Maga Republican Congress member Kylie is so pissed at the fact that Maga Mike didn't stand up against Donald Trump's gerrymandering of the entire map. This is what Kylie says. To the extent there was any point to begin with, which I don't think there was, I don't even think you've got a partisan advantage on this. And in any way, shape, or form justifies it. But that's not going to happen, it looks like. And with this court decision out of Texas saying that the Texas gerrymandering was unlawful

in race, it's even more in doubt. It's just so utterly foolish. So, Meg and Mike, they're calling you utterly foolish in your own party right now. but he is. I mean, look at him. So what Maga Mike was saying why he didn't support the discharge petition to release the Epstein files, even though he then had to vote for it because he knew that he was going to lose. He goes, it's going to create new victims, new victims. And by that, I know it's disgusting, but by that he means that the rich and powerful men who were talking to Epstein and who were in these files, that they're the new victims, according to Maga Mike and

Donald Trump. Your play this clip. The discharge petition could create new victims, okay? Because it requires the DOJ to release information even in cases where the DOJ or the FBI has already reviewed it and determined it is not credible. It is false information. Doing this and requiring this to come out could ruin the reputations of completely innocent people, such as those who may just have known Epstein. Ah, just people like they knew him. We hung out with him. We chatted with him.

hung out of Mar-a-Lago. His name's maybe Donald Trump. Then he said this at an earlier press conference. He goes, remember like Brady Buncher, Marsha, Marsha. He's like, Epstein, Epstein. Why is everything about Epstein? Here, play this clip. President Trump has nothing to do with it. He has said himself. He has nothing to hide. And that's clearly what they've been trying to do. They're trying to attack President Trump. This is what they've done. They weaponized the justice system over the last several years to go after him. And this is their latest attempt. And they don't have a platform or a principle to defend on the Democrat Party side. So they put all their eggs in this basket.

That's Maga Mike. And Maga Mike running through the halls of the Capitol. Here, play this clip. Speaker, how you doing? The president posted that Democrats who urge service members to not follow illegal orders, should be, it should be seditious conspiracy and punishable by death. Give me your response to that. Look, I know.

I know the DOJ and the Pentagon are looking into the legality of all that, but what I can address is what everybody knows that was wildly inappropriate. It is very dangerous. He attacks the Democratic Congress members. It doesn't respond to Donald Trump saying that he wants to have these Democratic Congress members and senators killed. Help us make sense of this. To help us make sense of this, let's bring in Congresswoman, Jaya Paul, Congresswoman. It's great to see.

I don't even know where we start with Mag and Mike. I guess we start, though, at the, where all stories begin, at the beginning. So you and Maga Mike were actually in the same, like, congressional class back, what, in 2016 and 2017? Could you have projected that Maga Mike was going to take this course and then just be a stooge for authoritarianism? No, and actually, when we came in, you know how they ask you, like, which member of Congress on the other side would you like to work with? And Megamike and I both set each other, and we actually did one good thing, which was we expanded this program that addressed opioids. And it was a pilot program that started in Seattle, and we worked together to get money for it to make it across the country. But then it was all downhill.

And, you know, actually a couple of days before he became speaker, I was in the halls late at night one night. We were waiting. You know, the house was in complete chaos. They had gone through like 12 or 15 people who hadn't been able to get the votes on their side. And I was like, hey, Mike, what's going to happen here? You got somebody who's eventually going to be a speaker. And he leaned over and said, I think it's going to be me. And sure enough, a couple days later, it was him.

So you went from being in the same class as Mag and Mike and saying, we want to work with each other and then trying to figure out bipartisan things to do. And then you fast forward to 2025, and you've got Maga Mike covering up a child sex trafficking ring while holding up the Bible. And so that's where we are right now. And even though this, thanks to the discharge petition, which Magamike and Trump opposed at all points, has been now signed into law, the reality is Trump had the authority to release these before. And I'm sure what Bondi and everybody told them is, like, just sign the thing. It's no different than we would have done before.

let's just delay it this way, give the people the signature, and now we obstruct. So what do you think happens now? Well, I think that they are going to find all kinds of ways to obstruct still, right? Because that's what they've been doing this whole time. The only reason Trump changed, and this is what I think everybody has to understand. If you stand up to Trump for long enough, he will cave because if you've got things on the right side, right? And in this case, we have the survivors, we had the whole country, the mega movement, itself was saying like, hey, what's going on? Why are you not releasing these? It looks like you're

guilty. And so he knew he was going to lose. And so he had to, you know, flip and suddenly say he was supportive of it when he's had a subpoena in front of him this entire time. And he hasn't released the files. So now we have to be on the lookout for all the ways that they try to obfuscate. They're going to say that there's open investigations. They can't share information. They're on this thing of like, we don't, you know, we don't want these new victims, which is so insulting to the women who were abused in this whole unbelievably grotesque scandal. But those are the kinds of things that they're going to say, I have a feeling they might redact a lot more than they are actually supposed to. There are very specific things in the bill about what you cannot redact, including

that you can't redact something because you're afraid of shaming somebody. That is not an appropriate reason to redact. It's really only for the victims of the Epstein abuse scandal. So we'll see. But certainly this puts a lot more pressure on the DOJ. And they're trying to make it seem like, oh, yeah, now we're going to comply without ever mentioning that they had a subpoena that they've disregarded for all this time. Now, look, technically the government is no longer shut down. And technically, Congress is supposed to be back in session. But I look at what went down this past week or even on Friday and I think the one thing that Maga Mike put up is some resolution about socialism or something like that and basically there's nothing like there's nothing happening

like the work of the people isn't being done and it seems that the Maga Republicans since the election frankly a few weeks back are just totally you know infighting and lost and trying to understand like what what their Oracle authoritarian Donald Trump's going to drive for them to talk about and it's just very strange to observe that's right and i think one thing is really important you know the epstein files and our victory on that really exposed a lot of cracks and now you're starting to see it even on something like stock trading right this is a bipartisan issue that i've been part of the leadership on working with chip roy with set magazineer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Tim Burchett, and we forced a hearing this week in the House

Administration Committee because they're afraid of a discharge petition that Anna Paulina Luna has said she's going to file on our bill. And so I do think that when people see somebody standing up, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Green, whoever it is, whether it's this group of bipartisan legislators saying, we are going to ban stock trading for members of Congress and get that corruption out of the way, it just gives courage to other things to break. And so not only are they not doing anything good, but they are breaking and perhaps allowing us some room to actually move some things forward that are very important. Yeah, you know, and speaking about breaking Donald Trump with a wrecking ball, not just of the east wing of the White House, but of our country.

And as people head into Thanksgiving right now and they're looking at Congress, what are you going to do with those Affordable Care Act subsidies? Didn't you say Republicans, you were going to come up with a plan right away in two weeks, two weeks, two weeks? And Donald, he said that things are more going to be more affordable. And you're saying right now, Thanksgiving's 25% cheaper? No, it's not. We're going out to stores. We know it's more expensive. We saw consumer confidence from the University of Michigan report the lowest in the 70-year history that this very credible report has been taken. It does feel like at least for a lot of the country right now, except for maybe Trump and

his billionaire friends, they're suffering going on. And Trump and the MAGAs are just out there saying, we don't care about you. That's absolutely right. And not only that, you know, not only have they done things actively to raise prices, right, like the tariffs. But they have also been taking away a lot of the things that we had put into place to lower prices. So one example is the airline requirements that we had put in place that if your flight is delayed, you know, beyond a certain number of hours, you get a refund.

You get rebooked at the same price, all of those things. They took that away. There are settlements that were agreed to with big banks that had fleeced consumers. And these were settlements that were already reached with those big. banks, they are quietly getting rid of them. The companies are coming in and they're saying, okay, you know what? We're just going to dismiss that. And then I wouldn't be surprised if those companies are also tied to people who are contributing to the destruction of the East Wing or to the Trump meme coin. And so this pay-to-play scheme all to benefit Trump and his billionaire buddies

at the cost of American taxpayers is really stunning. And I don't think that what whatever they say over and over again, your life is great, your life is great. Everybody's going to go to the store and get milk and eggs and beef and groceries and school supplies and all of those things. And the health care premiums collapsing, this is a whole new thing because, you know, my constituents are all telling me, I have so many people who have called me and said, I am not going to get health insurance because I have to pay rent. and my premium doubled or tripled.

And so I do think that the, you know, what's the phrase that, you know, chickens are coming home to roost because you can't fool people when it comes to their budget, right? They know what they're paying. And you can't just tell them that they don't. Right, especially when the chicken and the roosting is unaffordable and people can do either. Congresswoman Jaya Paul, we appreciate you so much. Thank you for having me.

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