The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Screws Red States Bad by Shock Firing

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump suddenly firing a top official that will lead to major problems for red states that voted for him and all of the United States of America as well. Simpler Hair Color: For 15% off your order, head to https://SimplerHairColor.com/MEIDAS and use code MEIDAS. 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

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Donald Trump just gave the middle finger to all red states, purple states, and frankly, all states in general that are suffering

from major disasters and need relief from FEMA. You probably know our reports here on the Midas Touch Network where we've talked about how the Trump regime's FEMA has denied emergency aid for Arkansas, despite MAGA Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders being a close ally of Donald Trump. Donald Trump's denied emergency FEMA supplemental aid for Georgia, which voted for Donald Trump. Denied it to Governor Kemp. He needed supplemental assistance for debris removal. Even though North Carolina voted for Donald Trump when they requested disaster assistance through Governor Stein, FEMA recently rejected the relief there. We're seeing this, frankly, Kentucky, though they have a Democratic governor in Beshear.

It's overwhelmingly a red state with all of the flooding and natural disasters that have occurred in Kentucky. Trump has rejected FEMA emergency relief there. Donald Trump wants to destroy FEMA. That's undisputed. He said it over and over again. Now, Donald Trump has had appointed as the interim FEMA director, a guy by the name of Cameron Hamilton. Now, Cameron Hamilton is someone who considers himself MAGA. He ran for Congress. He goes, I'm a MAGA Congress member. But earlier this week, Cameron Hamilton, the FEMA director, testified before Congress, and he said it was his own personal view. He said he would have to defer to the administration, but he said it was his own personal view that FEMA should not be destroyed. Although Donald Trump and Trump's Homeland

Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, have said they want FEMA destroyed. They want all the FEMA services to be dealt with by the states. The states don't have the money to deal with federal emergency relief. Our whole system relies on the federal government helping the states in certain situations. So acting FEMA director Cameron Hamilton was fired by Donald Trump. And this shows you the Trump regime's move where they're going to dismantle and destroy FEMA. They fired this guy. I'll show you the testimony that he gave. It was the most kind of innocuous testimony also. It was still very obsequious to the Trump regime, but it was not obsequious enough. So here's the Wall Street

Journal headline. Acting FEMA director Cameron Hamilton has been ousted from his position by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a day after he told lawmakers he didn't support eliminating his own agency. Yes, you heard that headline right. Let me show you the moment right now where he received a question from Congress he didn't want to answer. You can see him asking the chair, do I have to answer this question? And the chair kind of laughed and said, I'm not going to let you off that easy. He knew the writing was on the wall. It was the one question he didn't want to have to answer. He got it. To his credit, he answered that he did not want to destroy FEMA as the FEMA director, right? Could you imagine saying you want to destroy your own agency? And that got him fired. I want you to watch the moment he gets fired. You can see him in real time processing that he knows that him answering this question under oath accurately was going to get him fired. Here, play this clip. Yesterday, the secretary testified, Secretary Noem testified. Quite honestly, I found her responses confusing and inadequate. In response to my question, asking her about whether or not this administration

seeks to eliminate FEMA, this was her response. And I quote, President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people and that FEMA as it exists today should be eliminated and empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support. A clear answer. Does this administration seek to eliminate FEMA and do you support eliminating FEMA? Mr. Chairman, would you like me to answer the question? Please. I'm not going to let you off that easy.

Please proceed. No, I completely understand. As the senior advisor to the President on disasters and emergency management and to the Secretary of Homeland Security, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Having said that, I'm not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination such as consequential as that should be made. That is a conversation that should be had between the President of the United States and this governing body on identifying the exact ways and methodologies in which what is prudent for federal investment and what is not. And just so you see that this guy has called himself a MAGA before, just so you know what we're dealing with. Let me show you this clip of Cameron Hamilton when he was running for

Congress. Here, let's play this clip. I am a MAGA candidate because I think that his agendas, aside from all the rhetoric, were excellent for the betterment of this nation. Okay. Now, a day before Cameron Hamilton testified in Congress and answered that way, Donald Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, dog killer, cosplayer, Kristi Noem testified before Congress. This is how he was supposed to answer the question in the Trump regime. This was the talking point that FEMA should be eliminated. And when Cameron Hamilton did not answer this way, bye-bye. regime this this was the talking point that fema should be eliminated and when cameron hamilton did

not answer this way bye-bye this is how christy noam handled the question here play this clip president trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that fema and its response in many many circumstances has failed the american people and that fema as it exists today should be uh eliminated and empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support. Now, when Donald Trump was elected, remember, he visited California suffering from the wildfires. Donald Trump shows up and Donald Trump says he wants to get rid of FEMA. Remember, Donald Trump said that.

I'll show you the clip where Donald Trump went to California and said he wanted to eliminate FEMA. Let's play this clip. I'll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, FEMA is not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and whether it's a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA. And then FEMA gets here and they don't know the area. They've never been to the area.

And they want to give you rules that you've never heard about. They want to bring people that aren't as good as the people you already have. And FEMA has turned out to be a disaster. And you could go back a long way. You could go back to Louisiana. You could go back to some of the things that took place in Texas. It turns out to be the state that ends up doing the work. It just complicates it. I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly. We pay a percentage to the state. Now, as I mentioned at the outset of the video, since then, FEMA has been denying pretty much universally a lot of the relief that

was being requested by states, especially supplemental emergency stuff. So Arkansas and Kentucky and Georgia and North Carolina, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, like they need emergency debris removal. The states are asking the federal government, former President Biden would just say, sure, of course. Of course we're going to give you FEMA aid. This is what the federal government is there for. And for Donald Trump, it was deny, deny, deny, and deny. Now, folks, here at the Midas Touch Network, we anticipate these issues in advance, how they're going to harm the states here, how they're going to harm

our country. So you may have been wondering why when I had Democratic Congress member Jared Moskowitz on five or six a day over the last weekend, I had him on. Remember, I was asking him about FEMA because we were anticipating this issue arising, especially as we get into hurricane season. Now, Congress member Moskowitz, he ran Florida State Emergency Relief, which worked with FEMA before he was a member of Congress. So he's very well versed in this area. Here's what Congress member Moskowitz told me. It's so particularly relevant right now. Let's watch this clip. I'm deeply concerned what they're doing with FEMA. I mean, look, I'm from Florida. I'm a former director of emergency management. I'm the only

director, former director of emergency management, all of Congress. But if they actually do what Kristi Noem wants to do with FEMA, which is get rid of it, which is what she said, chop it up and give it to other agencies, which won't be more efficient. It'll make it worse if she wants to mess with reimbursement. I mean, you could have a state like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. They could go bankrupt if they get a Category 4 storm and they don't have federal reimbursement. If the federal government isn't coming out and organizing resources, you know, because FEMA doesn't have a lot of resources. It's DOD that's got the resources. Other agencies, FEMA organizes that and brings it. If no one's doing that after a Katrina for Louisiana or a Helene in North Carolina, people are going to die.

And these places are not going to have a good response, and they're not going to recover. I did Hurricane Michael. That was one of the recoveries I did in the Panhandle. Extremely poor area, all Republican, by the way. Without the money the federal government sent in the first Trump administration, these towns would never recover. They'd be gone. And so this is something that we're not talking about, but we're getting into hurricane season, and I'm worried about whether or not FEMA is going to work. There are people in the Trump

administration, in the West Wing, okay, that are from Florida and know this, they got to stop the secretary who's never done a disaster cleanup in her entire life being from being the governor where she was, okay, that this is needed. That doesn't mean there doesn't need to be reform, Ben. FEMA does need to reform. They need to get faster, smaller. They need to get out of homeland. They need to stop doing all of the immigration grants. Let ICE and Homeland run their own grants. FEMA shouldn't be running them. Okay, so there are things we can fix, but to get rid of this for the American people

would be devastating beyond belief. And I haven't even talked about what they've done at NOAA about getting rid of weather balloons and getting rid of people, being able to figure out how we're gonna track these hurricanes, the hurricane hunters. There's questions whether those planes are going to be able to get in the

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Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S, for 15% off your order. Once again, that's simplerhaircolor.com slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S, for 15% off, And make sure you use that promo code Midas so they know I sent you. Now, here's the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear. This was about two months ago, where he was talking about the importance of FEMA back then. And this was before a lot of the denials of FEMA aid that we're seeing right now. Let's play this clip. So I'll give you an example of our 2022 flooding. I called the FEMA administrator directly as it was going on. She was in Tennessee and she had the Tennessee National Guard send extra helicopters to hoist people off of their roofs that could not escape what was catastrophic flooding. In the flooding we just recently had, we had boat teams from all over the country that we were able to bring in and even help

pre-stage along with ours. They saved over a thousand people in a 24-hour period. They come into our emergency operations center and bring more people with expertise that have been through this before. In fact, the FEMA representative they sent to us to help with this flooding was my head of emergency operations in the last flooding. So I had two very experienced people helping me lead. And then what we have is different requirements to get what's called public assistance, which helps states and localities rebuild infrastructure, roads and bridges. And then if you have a really tough natural disaster, individual assistance where families can apply. Well, guess what?

Every application for all of those has to be significantly reviewed and they have to make sure it meets federal law. Right now, there is one group through FEMA that does it for all 50 states. If they eliminate FEMA, each of the states have to do that themselves to tell Congress they're complying with federal law. That means that the money that currently comes to help our families would get eaten up by overhead, not just in Kentucky, but all across the country. It would be the opposite of efficiency. It'd be making us do what one group does with 50 separate groups across the country. So I think when you see in real time

how Cameron Hamilton answered the question correctly, but that got him fired, you see the message that's sent to any Trump person who testifies, but setting aside his termination, this is gonna hurt red states. Like, again, remember the example that I give of the movie Don't Look Up? The asteroid or the comet's hitting, is gonna come and hit Earth and no one's focused and they're the administration and that show saying, don't look up, don't look up,

and they do a whole thing, don't look up. And it's like, look up, I'm telling you it's going to happen. There's so many examples of this, whether it's Donald Trump's disastrous trade war, whether it's Donald Trump's gutting of health and human services, whether it's, again, here cutting FEMA. As we head into hurricane season, what's going to happen when there's a hurricane and there's no FEMA? Don't you see that's in the horizon of what's going to happen? And then what? He's going to blame it on someone? I mean, the reality is for Cameron Hamilton, him getting fired may actually be the best thing to happen to him because he would have been the fall guy for sure of the disasters that can happen

around the horizon. This is why I say I don't care if you're from a red state or a blue state or a purple state. There shouldn't be a Democrat or Republican issue. As Congress member Moskowitz said, sure, you want to enhance the efficiencies of FEMA. There's ways to do it, but you can't just get rid of it. And that's what the Trump regime legitimately wants to do. And you saw the receipts right there. Tell me what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.