The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Tom Suozzi Calls Bluff of GOP after Tax Scam

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s latest plan to make Americans work on farms if they able bodied and on Medicaid as part of the disastrous budget bill and Meiselas speaks with Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi.  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

This podcast is supported by Talkspace. When my husband came home from his military deployment, readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found Talkspace. Talkspace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online. Military members, veterans, and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones. I just answered a few questions online and Talkspace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me, and I can message her anytime.

It was so easy to set up, and they accept TRICARE. Therapy was going so well, my husband and I started seeing a couples therapist through Talkspace too. Talkspace works with most major insurers, including TriCare. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com slash military. Go to Talkspace.com slash military to get started today. That's Talkspace.com slash military. So the Trump regime is rolling out their new talking points regarding this disastrous budget bill and they're saying that the 34 million able-bodied Americans on Medicaid will now be working the farms as the Trump regime deports the migrant farm workers. This is you're going to work the farms for your

health care right now or else. This is what Trump's agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday, here play this. But I can't underscore enough. There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which again, with 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that

fairly quickly. Thank you. week and we should be cutting way more with government services. Here's what they were talking about on Fox. Let's play it. But within Medicaid, and I think this is where the messaging has been interesting, it's 80 hours a month that you have to show that you worked. 80 hours a month. A lot of people, congressmen, work 80 hours a week. Things like that that were fit that were in those Medicaid decisions, those cuts, at the same time, you've got reconciliation coming, you've got rescissions coming.

So aren't there more places that we can cut, and where would you be willing to make cuts in spending so that we don't completely blow out the debt in this country, which is already sitting at 37 trillion? Yeah, I support massive cuts to a whole entirety of government programs that we have, but unfortunately we have, well not unfortunately, but we have moderates in our party

that obviously can't support the type of cuts that somebody like me would support. 80 hours a week, by the way, I said eight hours a day, eight hours a week. Also they're saying, we ran up the debt in this disastrous budget bill, now we gotta do something about y'all. Y'all did it.

But if you listen to Magga Republican Jim Jordan, he's basically saying, you know how you know this was a good budget bill. He says the left hates it. We own the libs, everybody. We're kicking people off of Medicaid, tens of millions of people, but we own the libs. So that's all we care about is Magga Republicans here play this clip. If there's an able-bodied adult out there now who is in our welfare system, guess what? the Libs. So that's all we care about as MAGA Republicans here play this clip. and everything else to get to a better position in life. That is far from immoral. But we, I always say, David, we know this is a good bill because the left hates it. And the left hates it because it does not empower.

We know it's good because the left hates it, by the way. If you want to see what Donald Trump's Homeland Security Secretary has been posting on her Instagram during these very serious times, it's photos of herself on horses and asking which should be her official governor portrait right now, which that's what she's posting on her Instagram. Anyway, I digress. Let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Tom Swasey. New York's third congressional district is where you represent.

It was a district that voted for you as the Democrat, but split. They voted for Trump in the general election in 2024. What are you hearing right now in your district about the disastrous budget? You know, not everybody knows about this budget yet. A lot of the calls that I get are from people that are from organizations, from hospitals,

from not-for-profits, people that are freaking out about these Medicaid cuts, about the cut to the food program that are happening, very, very concerned about how it's going to affect the hospitals and the not-for-profits that service some of the most needy people in our country. You know, this whole thing doesn't really add up. You know, it's not just the liberals,

like Jim Jordan saying, that don't like this budget. There were Republicans that actually voted for it that said awful things about it, that it was immoral, that it was wrong, and, you know, it's bad for the rest of the country. Look at Lisa Murkowski. Look at Senator Josh Hawley. Think of the different members of the Freedom Caucus

that were talking about how awful the deficit is. Elon Musk talking about the deficit. This is going to be the biggest single deficit of any year ever in the history of the country because of this bill. So we're having these massive deficits. We're cutting some of the most needy people off of their insurance. Remember, the two-thirds of the people on Medicaid, two-thirds of the people in nursing homes are paid for with Medicaid. One-tenth of the people in nursing homes are paid for with Medicaid.

One-tenth of all the veterans in America are paid for with Medicaid. Most, 92% of people who are able-bodied are working with Medicaid right now. The people that aren't, it's usually a single parent who's got a disabled kid at home. In circumstances you can't possibly imagine. So your massive deficit,

you're knocking these people off of their healthcare, you're gonna cause health insurance prices to go up for all Americans. And why are you doing it? To provide the biggest tax cut ever for some of the wealthiest people in our country. It really just doesn't add up. You know, they used to pretend that, you know,

hey, if we do all of this stuff, it's gonna trickle down and you're gonna do well. And now they're just kind of lying about things. I mean, this this whole premise from the Maggots, Republicans, that there are these 35 year old able bodied men who are like making it rain and getting rich off of Medicaid in their mother's basement. When Medicaid reimburses for medical procedures, I'm trying to think of this 35 year old who's playing video games. It's like, you know how I'm gonna get rich? I've got a L5 S1 tear. I'm gonna go and get a procedure, a micro dissection.

I'm gonna get rich. It's unfathomable even those, the talking points. Then they start posting, we've done it. We're protecting all of our seniors. We've guaranteed you no tax on social security. And they repeated that one. No tax. And it's not in the bill. You've been in politics for a long time. And look, you know that politics can be a rough and tumble place. But these people are just... This is like one of Trump's

scams from back in the day with Trump University. Just counting on the fractured media environment that people aren't going to actually know what's going on. And Trump is the master of distraction. You know, when we were debating this, you know, 24 hour debates through the middle of the night about this, you know, as much as three weeks or a month ago when this thing really kicked off, what were we hearing about?

We were hearing about the plane from Qatar. The next week, we're doing more debates. We're having more votes on this. We're doing more hearings, more markups. What do we hear about? We hear about the Chinese tariffs. What happens next? We hear about the bombings in Israel.

We hear about Iran. We hear about other things. Trump will bring up any other topic. He'll go down to alligator alley Ali down to the Everglades where he's going to do the alligator Alcatraz. I mean, he'll do whatever he can to not actually talk about this bill publicly in a broad way. Why? It's a loser.

People do not like the idea that we're cutting taxes for some of the wealthiest Americans, unnecessarily so. They don't need it in this economy. They're doing great. They're doing great. They're making a lot of money from their stock portfolio. They haven't needed it for years. So they're cutting taxes for some of the wealthiest Americans. They're hurting some of the people in the most desperate circumstances. You'll hear these stories of people on Medicaid, of these parents with their disabled kids and people that have been through these awful,

tragic experiences with their health that are dependent on this as a lifeline. You're going to see people's health insurance go up dramatically. You know, for 10 years we've been hearing about them trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. This is a backdoor way to get rid of some of the Obamacare stuff as well, and it's going to cost people's healthcare costs to go up.

So, big tax cuts, most vulnerable people, and the biggest deficit ever in the history of the country. Where even Elon Musk is saying, this is awful and irresponsible. The Freedom Caucus, this is awful and irresponsible. They voted for it anyway. So, it's the whole thing's a ruse, a sham, a pickpocket. What happens? One person comes in and bumps into you, and when they bump into you and you're distracted, the other person picks your pocket. Well, they're getting

us all excited about the alligator Alcatraz, the National Guard being activated in LA, the bombings in Iran, the plane from Qatar, whatever it is, just something else, not to talk about how awful this bill actually is. Let's talk about the bipartisan immigration plan that you have. I remember James Langford from Oklahoma, a MAGA Republican senator back a year and a half ago at this point, was pushing a bipartisan

immigration bill, very strong borders, giving lots of money to law enforcement to deal with criminals, and then treating people who have been here for a long time contributing and paying their taxes with dignity and creating pathways for people who have worked here their whole lives or a long period of time to be able to not have to hide in the shadows and to be able to work and recognizing their accomplishments. Democrats worked with Langford to come up with ways to soften some of the harsh things when it comes to asylum and and there was a deal if you want to actually call a bill a beautiful bill actually one that could have made a major difference helped the economy, but Donald Trump said killed it. So this is a great example of what always you talk about the pickpockets and him distracting, okay? Let's remember, there was a bipartisan deal that would have secured the border and solved a lot

of problems related to immigration that was negotiated by Democrats and Republicans, Langford and Murphy, Republican and Democrat, and Trump killed it. And when they asked him during the debate, they said, Mr. President, you're very concerned about the border and you want to secure the border. There's a bipartisan deal in the Senate right now. The president, President Biden says he'll sign it.

Kamala Harris says she supports it. Other Democrats in the House say they'll support it. Why did you kill that bill? And you know what his answer was? They're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the pets. And we fell for it. For six weeks, we did funny memes and, you know, dogs talking to cats and ha, ha, ha,

very funny. But we never talked about the fact that Trump killed the bill. Saying he wanted border security, there was a bill for border security, he killed the bill. And so he distracted everybody. So right now, the president has said something over the past couple of weeks, that clip you had from the agricultural secretary is very disconcerting.

Trump came out and said, you know what? We have all these people in agriculture and in hospitality that are good people. They've been working hard for more than 10 years and they've been here a long time and the farmers need them and maybe they don't have the right documentation. Let's figure out a way to use common sense and to legalize these folks." And then Stephen Miller came in, crashed in, and said,

you know, forget that, we're going after everybody, we're going to deport everybody. And then the president came out again and said, no, we got to help the farmers. I love the farmers. I love the border. I want to secure the border, but I love the farmers. I want to help the farmers. So I wrote a letter to the president. I said, Mr. President, we have these folks in my district

that have just been picked up by ICE. The guy's been working in the community for years. It's the same thing. They've been here for years. They don't have all the proper documentation, but they've been here for more than 10 years. No criminal activity. Nobody should disagree with the idea of deporting violent criminals.

That's a reasonable thing to do, and we should do that. But now we're getting all these innocent folks getting caught up in this whole thing, and people are living in fear, people are afraid to report things to the police because they're afraid of getting entrapped in the process. So I wrote a letter to the president. I said, Mr. President, I've been listening to you very carefully. Let's make a deal.

Let's make a deal to permanently secure the border, not just from executive orders, but have Congress do bipartisan support so that we really can secure the border for the future. Let's fix the broken asylum system that's being abused by the cartels and the coyotes that are collecting $10,000 a person and telling people how to game the system.

And most importantly, let's build this coalition of business badges in the Bible and put the community behind the idea of legalizing people that have been here for more than 10 years that have otherwise been playing by the rules. They go to work six days a week. They go to church on Sunday. Let's let them live a life.

They don't have to have citizenship. Forget about a pathway to citizenship. Just give them legalization so they can go to work, they can pay their taxes, they can take care of their families, they can stop looking over their shoulder that some Jack Booth thug is gonna come in and try and pick them up. So there's a deal to be made here.

The question is whether the president really wants to secure his legacy and has the guts to stand up to the extremists that really want to try and get rid of everybody and make everybody's life miserable. You look at his life, though, it seems that it's always been filled with chaos that ultimately leads to bankruptcies. And then he blames somebody for the problem and then moves on to the next one. He's personally enriched and his life has been hopping to the next, the next to the next one. He's personally enriched, and his life has been hopping to the next, the next, the next one. And then he said, look, this Republican party is ripe

for it with the greed, with everything. They'll fall for this stick. He found his mark, took him over, is running it. And now it's just weird stuff that you see. I mean, some of the strangest stuff, and we'll leave it with this, I just want to get your take running it. And now, you know, it's just weird stuff that you see. I mean, with some of the strangest stuff, and what we'll believe with this, I just want to get your take on it. Because again, you've been in politics for a while. I mean, just seeing some of your colleagues out there, oh, we

need to give him a Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, he's so wise. He's the smartest guy ever. It's like just it's just some strange be it's some strange stuff. It's going on. Listen, I want to make a deal with the president on immigration, I'd love to, but it was killing me during the whole big, beautiful bill debate, during the whole thing that was,

it's in the middle of the whole thing, he did something on Truth Social to advertise his new Trump fragrance. I was like, oh my gosh, what has happened to our country? So it's just- But I have to imagine though, look, I grew up in New York's third, which was once New York second, you know, they don't like that weirdo stuff. Like they don't like, like, like they look at that and I know how, you know, I know how they, I understand, even

though I strongly disagree with it, how they could fall for some of this stuff. And now they're, it's being exposed as a lie, But I just can see the people waking up and it's gone, ugh. Like the idea of people's families getting separated and you know, ICE guys wearing masks and picking up otherwise innocent people. You know, go after the criminals. You know, get them out of here.

I'm with you, let's do that. But the stuff that they're doing now is just over the top. And we're concerned because there's so much money being put into ICE and into the border security stuff, we have to marry that with actually legalizing a bunch of people. And I'm hoping we can break through to the president because it could be very scary, quite frankly. And we, you know, I have all these different people

in my district. I have people who voted for Trump, he won by 19,000 votes in my district. People who voted for me, I won by 11,000 votes. So I've got Democrats in one year, you know, is more the base people saying, you know, this is the end of the world. He's destroying democracy.

We have to stop this guy. This is awful. I got other people in the other year saying, well, you got to break some eggs to make an omelet. You know, we got to try and, you know, change some stuff. The government's not working. We got to fix some stuff. And then we got most of the people in the middle saying, what are you guys doing?

Can't you like just work things out? What about me? What about my life? What are you doing to help make my life better? Can't you work together and actually solve some problems? And the natural inclination is, you know, punch, counterpunch. That's the normal behavior of anybody. And Trump is a real puncher.

He's always knocking people, always hitting people, always trying to pick a fight. And the natural reaction of most of us, most human beings, is to punch back. But if we keep this punch, counterpunch thing eye for an eye, we're all gonna end up blind. So we gotta figure out how to rise above this and figure out, okay, let's find places

to actually solve some problems. Now that's hard to do, especially in this environment with some of the crazy stuff that we see happening, but that's our obligation. That's why I'm in politics. That's why I've been doing this off and on for 30 years. It's not worth it to win a race or to get your name in the newspaper or to, you know, make a speech. It's only if you actually get stuff done

to make people's lives better that makes this worthwhile. And you talk about Trump, you know, going from this thing, from that thing to the next thing. Well, this is, you know, he's 80 years old or whatever he is, 79 years old. This is it. He's not running again in 2028, even with all old. This is it. He's not running again in 2028, even with all the rumors and conspiracy theory.

He's not running again. So he ought to be thinking about what's his legacy gonna be? He's obviously one of the most important figures in the modern generation. What's his reputation gonna be when this is all said and done? The only way he's gonna have a positive legacy

is if he actually makes some bipartisan deals that will be long lasting, that will actually make things better for people. This idea of he's got to win every fight and knock everybody down in the process will not last. And people will not end up ultimately going for some of the more dramatic stuff, especially selling the fragrances. Congressman Tom Swasey, no one would ever accuse you of using the Trump of the more dramatic stuff, especially selling the fragrances. Congressman Tom Swasey, no one would ever accuse you of using the Trump clone. So subscribe. Let's get to six million. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.mitustouch.com. All 100% USA Union made.