The MeidasTouch Podcast - This Vulnerable GOP District Just Got Blown Wide Open (Mike Sacks Interview)

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on recent devastating moments for vulnerable Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) and interviews Democrat Mike Sacks, who recently announced he is taking on Lawler in the battle for New York’s 17th congressional district. 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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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. A MAGA Republican Congress member from New York just revealed the entire game plan in a stunning admission on MSNBC. He said that Social Security cuts maybe, maybe happens, probably needs to happen. Listen to MAGA Republican Congress member Mike Lawler, in his own words, saying it's not realistic to rule out cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Play this clip. Basically, defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, that's about 90 percent of it right there. You can't cut from the rest of the budget to balance things. This this this has been the whole challenge, right? Because we're blocking off roughly 87,

90 percent of federal spending and saying we can't touch that, can't touch it. So we're arguing over roughly 13 percent of federal spending, you know, in terms of trying to find savings. And it's just not realistic. So the issue long term that we all have to grapple with, Republicans and Democrats, and we have to get serious about is how to tackle our national debt. Most of our debt is accrued by mandatory spending. There are savings to be had in the Defense Department. No question about it.

There are savings to be had across every agency and department in the federal government. The last time I checked, Donald Trump is proposing a $1ler, who you saw there, wants to give $4.5 trillion, yeah, that word trillion again, tax cuts for the billionaires. And there was that town hall on CNN. It was a very odd moment where this MAGA Republican Congress member Lawler continued to try to interrupt the Democratic Congresswoman Hayes from Connecticut as she was trying to make a point. And I guess he just didn't like the truth. So he kept on. It was just very odd and honestly, kind of creepy. Here, play this clip. If he has found all of this waste, fraud and abuse, we don't want that either. But what we're talking about is burning down the house instead of I'm still talking. What we're talking about, what we're talking about is burning down the house instead of taking out the garbage.

There is waste in the federal government. All of us would like to see that go. So can you identify one thing of waste? Mr. Lawler, can you please let me finish my conversation? And I'm going to finish. OK. It reminded me of that debate with Hillary Clinton and Trump, where Trump was like kind of creepily looking over her and then interrupting her. One more thing I want to share with you about Lawler, who, by the way, once kind of claimed he was like a centrist.

But I think he's revealed his true colors. This is from the Democratic majority pack right here, House majority forward. Actually, here's what they're running this ad about Lawler. It's brutal. Here, play this clip. Tariffs are part of the president's economic policy. I do believe the economy is going to boom. Tariffs is a tax and it will be passed on consumers.

An exceptionally brutal day on Wall Street. Millions of retirement accounts took a beating today. The economy is going to boom. Expected to increase the cost of everything from clothes to electronics to alcohol. It's going to push the U.S. economy, the global economy into recession. An all-out recession. The economy is going to boom. And Lawler says Americans need to experience pain.

I want to bring in Mike Sachs, one of the Democratic candidates for that seat in New York's 17th Congressional District. Hey, Mike, what do you make of all of that? I mean, you know, he branded himself originally when he first ran a while back as centrist, moderate, but he's shown that he's MAGA through and through. Yeah, Ben, thanks for having me here on Midas Touch Network. We just saw in those clips who Mike Lawler is. Now, he's up here in our district outside of New York City, Rockland County, Westchester County, Putnam County, Dutchess County. Mike Lawler pretends to be a moderate up here while he votes MAGA down there. He has allowed our social security office to close and then had to beg the dear leader to reopen it here in Westchester, where I live with my two young

children. He's failed to combat threats to Medicaid and is now saying, yes, we have to find some cuts of social security in order to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy and the billionaire best friends of Donald Trump. He's let Trump ram through tariffs that would raise prices for families here in the Hudson Valley. Tariffs that just Trump on his own whim said, okay, nevermind. Well, still 10% across the board and 125% on China. But still, Congress could have stepped up at that moment and said, no. You heard the senators in that ad, Republican senators in that ad, saying this is a tax that raises costs on everyday Americans. And Lawler saying, well, you know, it's worth checking out to see how this goes. That is someone who's not willing to use the power of the purse and the people's voice in the house to stand up to a personalist

autocrat in the White House. He's willing to give the power and the purse and the voice of the people in the people's house wholesale over to the White House so the dear leader, Donald Trump, can do whatever he wishes and ultimately tip off his best friends to make billions on his saying go right before the tariffs themselves, the big ones he'd announced he decided to cancel on his own whim. Meanwhile, Lawler's failed to do a damn thing about veterans losing their livelihoods thanks to Trump and Musk's chainsawing federal jobs. And that's affected veterans in this district as well. So no, he has played moderate up here, but he's clearly voting MAGA down there. He's MAGA, not moderate.

You know, I grew up in Long Island. You know, I know the ROC. You know, I had people who went to George Washington University where I went to undergrad from the area also. You know, they elected Lawler. I mean, Republican, and they've reelected him a few times. Are things shifting there? I mean, do you sense that there's an actual dynamic that's changing there because of what Doge has done? Or, you know, a lot of people look at these

races and, you know, and wonder how is it that, you know, still there are people who are like voting to gut their own social security and voting to gut their Medicaid. Right. I mean, this was something that Trump, the tariffs, at least he promised and people were just like, la, la, la, la, la. They didn't realize what was going to happen. Musk talking about social security being a Ponzi scheme. People were warned. But still, even with those warnings, what Doge has been doing,

which was not what Doge had announced it was going to do in the first place when it first took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, and what it was proposing then was bad enough. But Trump's and Musk's chainsawing through its proposed supposed waste, fraud, and abuse, we heard the congresswoman talking about that on the CNN clip you played. They're chainsawing through real people's jobs, real people's livelihoods in a way that no one asked for. Not a single person who voted for these people asked for it. It's not waste, fraud, and abuse. When Lawler is saying, can you identify one thing of waste, fraud, and abuse? It is clearly

not anything of the inflated millions or billions or whatever non-existent numbers that Elon's claiming to have cut. Secretary of Defense James Mattis would say he'd go line by line through the defense budget and he'd find actual waste, fraud, and abuse. None of that is what Doge is doing. So people did not ask for this and people are not waking up to that here in this district. People see Lawler and they see that's MAGA, not moderate. People are seeing what he says and they don't trust him or believe him anymore. And I think there's going to be a lot of people, even beyond the Democratic primary, people who are mad as hell up here. The Democrats in this district are mad as hell.

But even beyond that, people who thought they were voting for something and got something very different from these people. Billionaires who are stealing their voice and their power to enrich themselves at all of our expense and laughing all the way to the bank with it and think that we won't do anything about it. That is going to be the main dynamic driving this coming election. And Lawler's a part of it. We heard something also. The congresswoman said that they're burning down the House.

Trump-Musk burning down the House. What's happening is not only that Lawler's letting that happen, but it's knocking it down. It's leaving rubble and wreckage in the people's house. And that's the one part of the federal government in 2026 that democracy lovers, not just Democrats with a small d, but also small, or big d, but small d Democrats, people who believe in fighting autocracy in this country and cutting this vicious cycle where the rich just keep making themselves richer because they've hijacked our country. This is what's going to be left in rubbles because Lawler's letting it happen.

And we need someone with the vision to match this moment where people are rising up, taking to town halls, going on marches, doing the hands-off rallies. Someone who is willing to take that energy, bring it to the people's house, build back from the rubble of what Trump, Musk, and Lawler will have left us into a newer house. Something that can rebuild our country into something better, bigger, stronger, more secure, freer, and more prosperous. A democracy that represents all of us, not just the billionaires who've hijacked it. People want to find out more about your

campaign. Where do they go to find out more about you? Yeah. Everyone watching, you can go to MikeSacksForCongress.com. You can check out what I'm all about, which I've got two young sons here in the Hudson Valley, and we are looking for a better life for everybody. We're looking for a way that all of us can prosper. People here in this New York 17th district, we can see our children be able to afford housing up here in ways that is vanishing for those who've grown up here. We can make sure that those who have been deeply affected by this in our freedom, in our pocketbooks, in our democracy, that we rescue that. We build back from that rubble. You know, the reproductive freedom, which has been gutted by this long-term right-wing movement,

we can restore it. We can build a vision coming back from the house that we can make sure that come 2026, come 2028, come 2030, we are setting our country back to be stronger, more prosperous, more secure, and freer than ever before. There you have it, Mike Sachs. Thanks for sharing the wealth of knowledge about that district and what I see as definitely someone pretending to be moderate, but as MAGA through and through. we appreciate you. Thanks, man. Everybody hit subscribe.

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