The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Suffers Major Defeat in Shock Romania Election

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on breaking news out of Romania, where far-right candidate George Simion—who modeled himself after Trump and the MAGA movement—suffered a shocking defeat to centrist candidate Nicușor Dan. Relief Band: Get up to 20% OFF plus FREE Shipping when you go to https://ReliefBand.com and use Promo Code: MEIDAS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Romania has spoken in their major presidential election. They have rejected the Trump and Putin-backed far right-wing candidate George Simeon. Instead, the pro-EU, pro-democracy centrist candidate who's currently the mayor of Bucharest, Nakusha Dan, is going to go on and win this election. 95% of the vote has been counted and Nikusha Dan is taking a commanding lead with 54% of the vote to George Simeon's 45% of the vote. Romania has spoken. They want closer ties within the European Union. They want democracy. They want to support Ukraine. This is a massive loss for Donald Trump and MAGA, who supported George Simeon, who modeled himself as Romania's Trump, as Romania's MAGA. This is a massive defeat for Vladimir Putin and for far right-wing autocracies across the world. Now, George Simeon modeled in the kleptocratic, despicable, vile model

is not conceding. Instead, he's declaring victory despite losing. He has posted on social media in Trumpian fashion, I am the new president of Romania despite losing. Now, this has also been amplified by RT, the Russian propaganda network, as well. But let's be very clear. Nikusha Dan is going to go on and win this election. As I mentioned, the mayor of Bucharest, a centrist, a math Olympiad, has a PhD, a brilliant soft-spoken man who supports democracy. Now, if you looked at the odds a few days ago, George Simeon had a 75% to 80% chance of winning. After all, he won the first round of Romania's election back in early May. Then right before the elections were to take place,

we saw George Simeon's odds of winning slide to about 54%. Two hours ago, there was a complete reversal. Now, you may be used to seeing the polling look like this, although it looked a little bit, not as all of a sudden fashion like this, but when we showed you how the far right-wing party in Canada lost after leading in the polls. Same thing in Australia, their far right-wing party lost after leading in the polls. More repudiation of MAGA, more repudiation of anyone who doesn't

support Ukraine, and a major repudiation to sympathizers of Vladimir Putin. Let's take you to the scene of Bucharest right here where the people are celebrating. Let's watch this. Let's play the clip. So what happened in this election to lead Nakusha Dan to go on to beat George Simeon? How did the centrists pull off this upset right now? Well, there was a surge that we just saw today in Bucharest and other areas of young voters. They saw what happened in early May during the first round, where although Simeon didn't get a majority, Simeon still got the leading vote total. And I think the young people said, our future is going to be

absolutely destroyed by this MAGA Putin candidate. Romania will be lost to Putin. So you saw this surge of young people voting. You saw this record turnout that nobody expected to see in Romania. And this led to the centrist pro-democracy, pro-EU candidate pulling off this important upset and an upset that was a further repudiation of Trump and Putin. Let me show you how France 24 was talking about this election just days ago. Here's how they described George Simeon from the AUR, the MAGA Putin candidate, the far right wing extremist. Play this clip. The far right candidate openly emulates American President Donald Trump.

Nationalist and critical of elites in the media, he says he wants to restore Romania's greatness. In Bucharest, he sought to reassure businessmen that even though he has never been in government, he is fit to lead. The AUR wants to remain in the European Union, but has proposed cutting off military aid to Ukraine. We need to take care of our own interests and of our own citizens. If the far right received 40% of the vote in the first round this month, it's also thanks to Kalin Georgescu.

The anti-vaccine, pro-Russian candidate won the first round of elections in November before it was annulled. Now under investigation for campaign abuses, Georgescu must report to the police once a week. Our next sponsor has been a game changer for my family and me. If you get nauseous, you absolutely must get our next partner, ReliefBand. ReliefBand is the original anti-nausea wristband that quickly relieves and effectively prevents nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness, anxiety, migraines, hangovers, morning sickness, chemotherapy, and so much more. Relief band is legitimately a band you wear on your wrist to give you the relief from nausea, and you can change the intensity depending on

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On the other side, campaigners for the centrist candidate and mayor of Bucharest, Nekushur Dan, are worried. The country is turning to the extreme right, away from the European Union and towards the influence of Russia. The independent candidate presents himself as anti-corruption. He says the campaign has been tough. People don't have a lot of confidence in traditional media and are looking elsewhere.

There's lots of information out there about me and there's no verification. The latest polls show the candidates in the near dead heat with a slight advantage for the far right. Let's take a look at how the local Bucharest coverage has been describing the surge in young voter turnout today. Here, play this clip. The turnout has come to be a lot higher than people anticipated, especially among young people the ages between 18 to 34. And those are really the numbers that everybody is here observing. Two types of votes, the votes of the young people who tend not to vote in as many numbers as they have chosen to come out.

This time, according to the electoral registry here in Romania. While on the other side, we did see George Simeon already cast shadow over these elections, basically stating that some 1.8 million dead people were still registered and eligible to vote, saying that he hopes that those people did not rise from the dead to cast their vote, while on the other side, Nicosor Dan has already said that as far as he is concerned, the votes that are coming in are being counted as they are coming in, and he sees no transparency issues in these elections. As of this morning, the polls will close at some 9 p.m. But if these polls are challenged and additional doubts are casted on the electoral results,

it may take days and possibly even weeks to get the results of this election. I also thought one of the defining moments of this election was this clip that went viral right here of a Romanian woman singing the national anthem after casting her vote. A powerful moment unfolding at this polling station in Romania as a woman broke into song after voting, proudly singing the national anthem, recognizing that if the vote went for George Simeon, Romania would likely have been fully lost to Vladimir Putin. It would have become another satellite country of Putin.

And fortunately, fortunately, Romania said not today. Here, watch this clip. Now, here's the iconic fountains in Bucharest, lighting up the colors of Europe and the European Union to celebrate their hard-fought victory over fascism. Long live Romania. Long live Europe. Slava Ukraini. Play this clip. Now, it's also worth showing you as well this clip from earlier in the day of Bridget Brink, who recently quit her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. And here she talks about how what Trump was doing was basically sucking up to Putin and selling out Ukraine and treating the

victim, Ukraine, suffered the unlawful invasion by Putin as the aggressor. Here's why the ambassador to Ukraine quit her post. And I think this all ties into what we just saw in Bucharest with the Romania election. Play this clip. You served this country for so many decades. What happened that made you say, I can't take it? Well, maybe let me give you a little context. What happened that made you say, I can't take it? Well, maybe let me give you a little context. What I saw in Ukraine was horrifying. For three years, Russia launched missiles and drones at men, women, and children sleeping in their homes, tried to take down the energy grid for millions of Ukrainians to take out the power, heat,

and light in the middle of winter, and committed war crimes and atrocities at a level we haven't seen since World War II. I resigned from Ukraine and also from the Foreign Service because the policy since the beginning of the administration was to put pressure on the victim Ukraine rather than on the aggressor Russia. I fully agree that the war needs to end, but I believe that peace at any price is not peace at all. It's appeasement. And as we know from history, appeasement only leads to more war. And to be clear, you are a career diplomat. So that means you serve regardless of who is the president of the United States and what party they come from. And in fact, when you tried to leave post in January, Secretary Rubio asked you to stay on in Kiev,

as I understand it. You were there for a number of months until April. What specifically with this policy is a problem for you? Because you did, you worked at post under the Trump administration. Was there a trigger that made you say, we're getting it so wrong? Well, I would say it wasn't a hasty, rash decision. It was one that I took over the first three months of the administration. But the first sign was the Oval Office meeting. In February. In February.

Between President Trump and President Zelensky. Yes. Where I saw that our approach is to put pressure on Ukraine and not pressure on Russia. So, folks, a major upset, but an important one for the sake of democracy, for the sake of rejecting Putin and MAGA. despite the far right-wing candidate George Simeon of the AUR winning the first round of elections early in May, which scared a lot of people into thinking that Romania was lost to fascism, to MAGA, to Putin. Young voters and other voters stood up for democracy, cast their votes in favor of Nikusha Dan, the centrist mayor, soft-spoken man from Bucharest, who will go on to win this election.

Now, we're going to follow up, of course, of what's going on with this claim, this lie, this kleptocratic playbook that's now being utilized by Russia and George Simeon, claiming that they won when they lost trying to incite violence. Romanians are not going to stand for this, but this is textbook Trumpy Putin loser behavior. Great work, Romania. You stood up for the world. It's a great day for democracy.

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