The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi on Holding Trump Accountable

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on MAGA Mike Johnson getting trapped in his own cover up for Donald Trump as Ghislaine prepares for sweetheart deal and Meiselas speaks with Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi about his efforts to hold Trump and MAGA accountable. 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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Maga Mike Johnson just said he's canceling all votes. He's sending all the members of Congress home. There's gonna be a recess. And if you listen to what he said at this disastrous press conference that he held, Maga Mike Johnson says he needs to give Donald Trump some space to figure out everything about Epstein. He goes, we're just being transparent.

The DOJ and FBI is doing what they need to do. And I think it's our obligation here in Congress to give the Trump regime space to figure out how they're gonna deal with Epstein. So we're good. We're going to take a vacation right now. Peace out. We'll see you later. Watch them. This is what he said moments ago.

What I've said many times, there's no daylight between the White House and the House. You have to allow the legislation to ripen and you also have to allow the administration the space to do what it is doing. The president has said clearly and he has now ordered his DOJ to do what it is we've all needed DOJ to do for years now, and that is to get everything released. So they're in the process of that.

There's no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they're already doing. And so this is for political games. I'm very resolute on this. We can both call for full transparency and also protect victims. And if you run roughshod or you do it too quickly, that's not what happens.

But I'm convinced that the DOJ is gonna do their job, the administration is gonna do their job, and we'll do our job. And so we'll see to it. Yes, man. So you're gonna protect the victims, but Donald Trump is calling it a hoax and saying that the whole Epstein thing, as Trump refers to it, was created by Obama, James Comey,

Hillary Clinton and former President Biden to attack him. Trump called it a hoax. Also, of course, we know Donald Trump's past with Epstein. Here, Mike Johnson, though, from that same disastrous press conference, you know, he tries to invoke the moral authority. This is a godly issue, and this is about the morality of it. And we're just here to protect the victims. That's what we and Donald Trump are trying to protect the victims. Here, play this clip. No, no, but I, as you all know, I speak to the president multiple times a day on a typical day, often, always.

And what I know about the president's heart on this is that he agrees with everything I've said here today. He wants maximum transparency, but he's also very insistent that we do not subject people who have already been victims of unspeakable crimes to further public scrutiny. And it would be a very dangerous thing to put those people's names out or to do a release of information in a way that is haphazard where they could be easily unmasked. And so you have to be very careful about how you do that.

I think we have a moral responsibility to do that. We have a moral responsibility to expose the evil of Epstein and everybody was involved in that. Absolutely. And we're resolved to do it, but we also have an equal moral responsibility to protect the innocent. And that is a fine needle to thread.

That's what kind of bothers me the most about it. You're invoking the victims to try to cover up for the perpetrators and cover up for Donald Trump's involvement. And we know that Trump has ordered thousands, literally thousands of FBI agents to go through the files, not to help the victims, but to find if Donald Trump's name was in it, which we believe it was, to flag every time Donald Trump's name was in it in order to cover up for Donald Trump. Donald Trump has his own criminal defense lawyer in a case where Trump was convicted on 34 felonies as the number two in the DOJ right now and Trump is sending that guy Todd Blanch to now speak with Delaine Maxwell as she fears for her life what the FBI and DOJ are going to do.

I'm going to do a whole other video about that. Her brother Ian says she's fearful that she's going to get killed right now. Here's what Donald Trump said about his own criminal defense lawyer who he made the number two now going to interview Delaine Maxwell in prison here plate. Do you support the Justice Department seeking an interview with Delaine Maxwell? Or do you urge the Attorney General to see her? I don't know anything about it. They're gonna what? Meet her? They're gonna... Your Deputy Attorney General has reached out to to Elaine Maxwell's attorney asking for a

new attorney. Yeah, I don't know about it, but I think it's something that would be sounds appropriate to do you. Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Raja Krishnamurthy. Congress member Krishnamurthy showed you those clips. I guess, Maggie Mike Johnson is sending you all home in Congress right now. What do you make of all of this? Well, he wants to change the topic, my friend. Johnson is sending you all home in Congress right now. What do you make of all of this?

Well, he wants to change the topic, my friend. He doesn't want to talk anything about Jeffrey Epstein or the Epstein files. I don't know if you saw, but one of my colleagues today successfully, I guess, moved to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell to appear before the Oversight Committee. And this is a fellow Republican named Tim Burchett.

There's tremendous infighting within the Republican conference right now. And I think that Democrats are united. Let's just release the files. Let there be sunshine and transparency on what's happening here. What happens next here? I mean, he thinks it's going to go, he thinks it's gonna go away?

Is it gonna go away or, I mean, do you think Americans are just gonna forget about everything that's happened because it's the summer and go, all right. I mean, Trump, you see Trump trying to change the topic on everything. It was actually the biggest scandal is Russia, Russia. I didn't, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.

He just repeats the thing over and over again. It ain't working anymore for him, huh? I don't think so. I mean, like when you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massey, Scott Perry, I mean, these are the people that are kind of the most vocal among others within the Freedom Caucus, repeatedly bringing it up every single day

to the point where they've basically frozen the rules committee. The rules committee for your viewers is essentially the committee that enables votes to happen for legislation to come to the floor. And basically people like Thomas Massey and others have essentially frozen that process such that we can't take any votes at this point.

And so that's in part another disaster that is awaiting us. But I just wanna say one last thing, which is I gotta tell you, my constituents and others that I talked to are so frustrated about this whole situation. They're like, okay, release the files, have full transparency, and then fix the darn economy, which is tanking for them. I'm on the phone with people and they're getting laid off, man. There's

tremendous chaos in the economy, uncertainty prevails with small businesses. And, you know, people can't afford to buy a home because their home mortgage rates are like 6.75 percent, which is super high for most people. And so I think that everything is compounding to create tremendous frustration with Donald Trump right now. And I think that's the best point, which is obviously, I mean, Donald Trump was the one saying he was going to release these files, then he covered it up and everyone's like, what are you doing? And now it's a mess.

And now we're embroiled in this cover up where everyone's like, just, just, you know, we know the FBI has it. Stop with this. We're going to speak with Elaine and get her to write a statement, or we're going to release the grand jury testimony, which is just you have 300 gigabytes of stuff, redact the victims names. Nobody at all is saying release the victim. No one's saying that.

Release the file and then move on to the stuff that you said you were going to do. Because as you point out in Chicago and Illinois and across the country, people are suffering. We have this disastrous budget bill and all Donald Trump wants to do is enrich himself. And I think finally people are seeing it. What are you seeing out there? I think that's absolutely right. I think that, look, I mean, his disapproval rating on the economy is 60%.

So 60% of Americans now disapprove of his handling of the economy. And by the way, roughly 60% disapprove of his handling of the economy, and by the way, roughly 60% disapprove of his handling of immigration. And now a majority of Republicans even have come to the view that they believe in a legal pathway for people who might be here undocumented because they've seen ICE act out of control.

My theory about this, by the way, is I think that the Jeffrey Epstein stuff contributes to people's distrust of the administration, such that they're starting to open their eyes a little bit to the other problems that beset them. And now as the pink slips are starting to go out for layoffs, as small businesses are suffering, as people learn about the large lousy law, which he calls the big beautiful bill, I think they're just getting frustrated and upset. And I think that does include Republicans as well and in unlikely places.

Right. Because you have them with the Epstein files saying we've been transparent. We've given you everything great. And people are like, no, but then move that to every other. He goes, inflation is gone. I fixed it. And people are like, no, he's like, this is now the golden age. No, I've brought back 17..2 trillion from my trip to the Middle East and business is booming. No, I'm going to create something called Stargate and we're going to invest $500 billion into AI factories across the country. Now they're talking it's going to be one small data center, maybe, you know, and so every

lie, lie, lie, lie. And people, how about how about the 90 deals in 90 days, with regard to the the tariffs, so that the tariffs would go away, or at least go down? I don't know if there are nine deals. I don't know if there's even one deal in 90 days at this point. I think his credibility is eroding in part because of all these different dumpster fires. And now you see the Jeffrey Epstein situation. And I think that just is like the,

you know, the coup de grace, that's the top of the cake, whatever you wanna call it, which is, you know, this guy can't be trusted. Now, I'm not saying that the mega base has flipped on him or anything like that. I just think that there are some cracks and maybe they'll start listening to other voices and that's where we have a chance to maybe appeal to them

on certain issues so that we can kind of get back to some rationality around here. No or to appeal to people who just didn't vote, who sat it out, who thinks that they're impervious to politics and everybody's basically the same and everything is bad and they're going, wait a minute, your point, you're saying 90 deals in 90 days, so you do none, then you send out like 16 letters

to countries and you were too lazy that you didn't even send out 90 letters You did like 16 right and then you didn't check them either and then he goes the letter is the deal Right a letter is the deal. What the hell are you talk? The letter is the deal. What does that even mean? It doesn't make sense and I I think, you know, a lot of people credit him for a lot of sophistication, savvy on economic matters, but it just looks chaotic to the average person. So I'll just give you an, just, this is anecdotal, but you know, in my district, 47% of the voters

supported Trump and a lot of the voters supported Trump. And a lot of them were independents. A lot of them were small business people. And now they are basically complaining to me that the tariffs have caused so much business uncertainty, whether it's importers or in logistics or in small manufacturing, such that, you know, they're pausing investments, pausing hiring, they're now laying people off.

And it is just, you know, driving people insane. Yeah, you know, and what I worry a lot about is this mirage of the market kind of rebounding to frankly, where it was under Biden, maybe, you know, some of the indexes slightly up some of them right where they were just over a six month period, but that not reflecting the fact that we now have or Trump has set all of these traps for Main Street and that, you know, every time he does a fake deal or a fake this, the market responds to kind of the Ponzi scheme nature of it, but that we all know lying, you know, the day traders and the quant traders, they may be feasting off of this environment and find it fun or whatever. But at the core level, when the ships aren't coming in the way they used to, and all of the members of Congress, I speak to say, look, our businesses are saying the exact same things that you are saying. I mean, let's not forget an 07 08, that great recession was caused by subprime mortgages and it had a cascading effect in

my view and I want to hear from you Trump's set up hundreds of examples of subprime mortgage like things that any one of these things at any point you wake up and then all of a sudden it's Reported like oh my god, how did this happen? And I'm like because we've been telling you here's what he's done then all of a sudden it's reported like, oh my God, how did this happen? And I'm like, because we've been telling you, here's what he's done in all of these places. It's very predictable that he set up

these ticking time bombs. 100%. I think, you know, you just look at the inflation numbers from the other day, we're going in the wrong direction right now. You look at the high mortgage rates, 6.75%. You look at just the cost of groceries. It hasn't really changed since he came into office.

It's stuck at a high level. And you just, as an average person out there, you're about to see, especially if you're making let's say $60,000, $70,000 or less, you're about to see your net income probably go down because of the large lousy law. And by the way, if you live in a rural area or underserved area and your hospital is about to close and you're going to have further layoffs and oh, by the way, you can't access health care, that is really, really bad. And people are starting to feel that

and just a certain anxiety and they're pulling back on, you know, the way that they would otherwise behave in the economy, which is what we want them to do. We want people to buy things. We want them to invest. We want them to buy homes. They're not doing that as much now. Congressman, thanks for joining us. Come back soon. As always, my friend, thank you. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever.

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