The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Stevens Responds to Trump’s Disastrous Government Shutdown

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump letting MAGA Mike sink or swim on his own with the messaging over the Trump shutdown and MAGA Mike is definitely sinking and Meiselas interviews Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens about what’s she’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

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Mag and Mike Johnson is having an awful morning. His messaging is just all over the place. He's talking about rabble rousers, getting paid more money than pregnant women. And somehow this is why he and Donald Trump want to shut the government down. I have no clue what he's even talking about it. Rabble rousers are getting paid everybody. Did everybody know rabble rousers are getting paid? Play this clip.

If you're a young, pregnant American citizen woman who shows up in an ER and you get treated and they pay the hospital less for treating you than some illegal rabble rouser who came in from some, you know, South American country to do us harm, that is wrong. The Republican Party stands for common sense. In the big, beautiful bill, we fix that. And Chuck Schumer wants to unwind it, and it is unconscionable to me that he's inflicting all this pain on American citizens so they can play games and try to appease the radical left base.

That's what this is. It's like just literally playing madlibs or like cos-playing Donald Trump. I don't even know what, what are you even talking about? I mean, if you're a young pregnant woman, you're worried about rabble-rousers getting reimbursed by hospitals so they don't want to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies and they don't want to protect people's medical. What am I missing here? I'm losing what the hell they're talking about.

Americans are going to lose their health care and they're having these like bizarro conversations and creepy conversations. We all know that earlier this morning, Donald Trump also posted that the mayor, of Chicago and the governor of Illinois, Pritzker, need to be arrested. So Maga Mike was asked his thoughts, you know, do you think they should be arrested? Should the governor of Illinois be arrested? Now, a normal speaker would say, no, no, you don't arrest governors. But this is what this guy said. Here, play this clip. Thank you. Do you agree that the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois should be important?

Should they be in prison? Should the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois be in prison? I'm not the Attorney General. I'm the Speaker of the House, and I'm trying to manage the chaos here. I'm not following the day-to-day on that. I do know that they've resisted the introduction or the offering of National Guard troops in Chicago, which is a terribly dangerous city and has been destroyed in the process of being destroyed under liberal Democrat governance and their terrible policies.

What kind of answer is that? Where are these people from? What world are you living in? These states and cities are not in the process of being destroyed. They're freaking subsidizing your district. They're subsidizing your state. Quite literally, you are a taker district in a taker state that relies on these areas you're attacking to subsidize your very existence as a state.

It's mind-boggling to me that he goes up there and this is what he's talking about in a shutdown. So what about EMTALA? What about the Emergency Medical Treatment Act? Because it seems that all the talking points are that people who show up in the emergency room now have to show their papers, no matter who you are. Are you here lawfully or not? And that's when the physician decides in an emergency room if they treat you. So Maga Mike, that seems to be J.D. Vance's talking points in what you were saying before, because otherwise migrants are not allowed to get health care under Medicare, Medicaid, or affordable care. extensions. Is that what you mean, Mag and Mike?

Here, play this clip. Speaker, John, and a lot of the free health care for illegal aliens that you've been talking about is care provided in emergency rooms, which are required by federal law to care for anybody, even if they can't pay, even if they're not a citizen, do you think that that law should be changed? No, you're talking about Imtala, which has been part of the law for most of my life. Emergency care is provided without question to anyone who comes in. If you're hemorrhaging and you show up in an emergency room, you get treated.

that's something we all support. That's a very good law. We're in favor of it. You're cherry picking a tiny subset of the issues. It's not cherry picking the issue. He's picking the cherry that you've been talking about every other day. What is going on here? And finally, should the MAGA Republicans use the nuclear option and just push forward

this extremist Trump Project 2025, take health care away from the American people agenda, and have no filibuster in the Senate? Here, let's play this clip. Could you go nuclear and blow that all up and end the filibuster once and for all and allow everything for only majority party vote, 51 votes in the Senate? I mean, is it possible?

Yes. Is it wise? You can have a lot of people who would tell you it's not. I mean, on the Republican side, I would be deeply concerned if the Democrats had a bare majority in the Senate right now, a Marxist ideology taken over the Democrat Party? Do I want them to have no safeguards and no stumbling box or hurdles at all in the way of turning us into a communist country?

I don't think that's a great idea. That's me. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they always say. And there are some safeguards in the process that were built in a long, long time ago to prevent one party just running roughshut. Marxist agenda, rabble rousers. What is he talking about to help me make sense of it? It's bringing Congresswoman Haley Stevens. Congresswoman Stevens is also running for the Senate seat in Michigan.

We'll talk about that because you heard him over there talk about ending the filibuster and the Senate. But first, when you see him there given a press conference like that and saying these things while he's sent all of his MAGA Republican members to go on a paid vacation while you're there in D.C. working. What's your response, Congresswoman? Yeah, we're ready to stand up for the health care of the people of this country, and certainly I'm fighting for the pocketbooks of Michiganers. And I will tell you, I was actually at the dentist office talking to my hygienist who has a 10-month-old. And she was talking about the actual bill that she had from giving birth the $16,000 that it cost her to just have. have a baby and how she was going to pay that bill and how she probably wasn't going to. And so why aren't we having a more realistic conversation about what is happening to the pocketbooks of everyday Michiganders? That's what I'm fighting for.

That's what I want to see get done here. Not more tax cuts for billionaires and falsehoods being spouted, just actual real common sense. what is taking place for working michiganers so just tell us you know what the what this really means in dollars and cents because you know you have republicans out there changing like whatever their messaging is it seems every day one day they're blaming migrants another day they're blaming transgender people another day they're posting about sombreros another day Donald trump and Mag and Mike and Thune, they're just, like, threatening, you better sign this or else we're firing all government employees and the Democrat agencies, whatever the hell that's supposed

to me. We're going to go after people. I don't even know what they're even talking about. And then, you know, but like this is about, I mean, I've been posting a lot of this data. It's like someone who's on an Affordable Care Act plan who's, you know, paying $300 to $400 to $400 a month. They're going to pay $2,000 a month ago bankrupt. Like very soon, like imminent bankruptcy. while Donald Trump's showing photos about how gold his Oval offices. So, like, this is a real human issue. This isn't some abstraction. No, and there's $1.3 trillion of credit card debt in this country.

There are people who are putting grocery bills on credit cards and then paying interest on them. We are in an affordability crisis. Coffee is up 20%. Beef is up 16%. Bacon is up over 10%. Give me a break. And now we're going to see the health care costs skyrocket. I'll give you some more numbers, Ben.

We've got a family of four at $125,000 a year. They're going to see their health care costs go up about $7,700 a year. That is not chump change. That is paying for kids sports games. That is, you know, buying the snacks that you need to feed growing kids. Look, this is not acceptable. And yet, what did we get? billionaires getting a tax cut and all this gamesmanship.

And look, it's a really simple proposition that we're all, you know, offering here. Protect the pocketbooks of people. You know, look, we've got Republicans right now who are trying to introduce legislation yet again to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. That is not a solution right now. That is not going to work. This is about keeping costs low, avoiding. a health care crisis that we are tumbling into. I've been hearing this for months. I mean, we are at a boiling point. Employers had had to let employees know what was going to be covered,

what wasn't, what costs were going to go up back in August when this tax bill was passed. So look, you know, just come to the table, negotiate in some respects. You know, it was reported that, you know, the president certainly wanted to do so. And now it's just blustering and bowls in the China shop going every which way. And, you know, Many of us, myself included, are seeing laser focused on what we are hearing from the people. We are so proud to represent what I am hearing from the people of Michigan who I fight for each and every single day. Yeah, I mean, it's like in fifth grade, I think I took my first government course or learned a little bit about how the system works. And you learn, you know what, in our system, when there's multiple political parties and you don't live in a dictatorship,

the parties speak to each other and they compromise and they come up with solutions unless, you know, Republicans had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. They don't have to do anything. Maybe it's a different story, but where you require compromise, you speak. And by the way, even if you had a filibuster-proof, whatever, you would still in an American system that we were the champions of in the world say, wow, this other group, this other political party still represents millions and tens of millions. So how do we make sure we're helping America as a country? And right now, you have the exact opposite. I mean, it seems that for Trump and MAGA,

the enemy is the liberal and their friend is Vladimir Putin. Yeah. No, it's very troubling. And I would say that this seems to only happen under Donald Trump's leadership. Chaos, confusion, it is no surprise that this is the way government works. They're bragging that they've got this mandate, this stronghold. Then why can't they open the government? Why can't they make sure military personnel get paid? This is what we get with Donald Trump's leadership. This is also why I have introduced legislation called No Tariffs on Groceries Act because 55 tariff announcements in the first 100 days and still going are contributing to those rising costs and they're impacting people. And that's a common sense proposal around blanket tariffs.

We are not getting these solutions from his administration. And, you know, it's a darn shame. Let's talk about the Senate race right now. running for Senate, from state of Michigan. Talk to us about that, you know, and talk to us, you know, right now it's in a primary. When is the primary and talk to us about kind of your pitch to the voters that sets you aside from the other candidates? Yeah, well, look, my life's work has been defined by putting up my hand for Michigan in very tough, uncertain moments. And this is the most courageous thing I could think to do in this moment, which is push-based.

on Trump's selected Senate candidate, that is Mike Rogers, who has really just made his campaign platform very clear. You know, he wants to rubber-stamp Donald Trump and the threats to people's pocketbooks and their benefit checks. I served as chief of staff on President Obama's U.S. auto rescue. I was the person from Michigan on the team taking those phone calls during a great recession from Michiganders who were worried about their jobs, worried about losing everything they had ever worked for. And now it is eerily similar to that great recession period, except for in this moment, we are seeing a billionaire with a chainsaw, you know, slashing through our federal agencies. I was recently named one of Michigan's most effective

lawmakers, our most effective democratic lawmaker in the chamber. I've delivered real results for the people of Michigan. And right now, I am pushing back. I have introduced legislation to remove the tariffs on groceries. I have introduced legislation to stand up to Trump's abuses of power, particularly with deploying the military on fellow Americans. That's legislation I put forward in earlier this year very presciently. And I'm also leading the effort to impeach RFK because enough is enough. So I'm campaigning as I am governing and I am showing people how I will deliver for Michigan in stand up to this chaos, this confusion, and also deliver real results from us. I certainly am going to use Michigan as my North Star, unlike Mike Rogers, who just wants

to clink his martini glasses, rub elbows, and bobble along the Potomac. Where could people learn more about your campaign, Congresswoman? Well, that is very generous. If you've been, you know, I've got a website, Haley4M.com, I invite people to get involved. This is an unprecedented campaign. There's a reason why every single poll shows I'm the only Democrat capable of beating Mike Rogers, and that is because of the magic that I have with independent, the results that I deliver on, the way in which I speak the manufacturing language of my state, really understanding what drives us forward.

I'm a daughter of small business owners. I grew up around a lot of dirt, grease, and grime because it was a landscape business that my parents were running. And so I'm running with a whole lot of Michigan heart and dedication to the people who deserve the best champion in the United States Senate. Congresswoman Stevens, thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing all that information, and we hope you come back.

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