The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Witnesses Collapse on Live TV from Cross-Exam

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on some more brilliant cross-examination and questioning from Democratic Senators and Congress Members of Trump witnesses at various hearings. PolicyGenius: Head to https://policygenius.com/MEIDAS to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun.

And make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. 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 bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario democratic senators are going gloves off ripping the trump witnesses to shreds who are testifying before them. Take a look at Democratic Senator Slotkin from Michigan as she looks with disgust at dog killer Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Let's play the clip. My concern is you're sending a chill down the spine of America by going after people who either have legal status or American citizens. And when my colleagues ask you about habeas corpus and you say, literally, we can review the tape that you believe it's a right the president has, you sat here in front of all

of us and swore an oath to the Constitution. And that is not at all what habeas corpus is. It is a right that we all get, that American citizens get, that people who are in the United States legally have. So my concern is it's complete overreach. I don't think American citizens, even those who voted for Trump, believe that you should be able to just grab someone off the street, sloppy, who has the legal right to be here, and certainly an American citizen. And I just

am concerned that while you say you're going after the most dangerous folks, what you're actually doing is going after folks for political reasons, right? Absolutely not. A PhD student that's on our- We are absolutely not doing that. Is not at the top of the list. And we're not deporting US citizens, and we're not deporting people who have legal status here.

Well, 10 of them have been deported. 10 American citizens have been deported. And we're now also learning about the Trump regime sending a Burmese national to South Sudan in violation of a federal judge's order. We'll be covering that more in depth as well. A massive violation of a court order there. Then you have Democratic Senator Dick Durbin schooling RFK Jr. in some basic facts. And RFK Jr. is forced to admit, oh, I guess I'm just learning this now. Play this clip. But I want to remind you, on April 1st, 10 laboratory heads at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes received their layoff notices. They were all PhDs and senior investigators. They're not administrators,

whatever that might be. They were running intramural labs at NIH. If you have your way, they'll all be gone on June 2nd. Science Magazine reported 25 of 320 physician researchers at NIH's internal clinical center are leaving, and the number of patients treated in the hospital has been reduced by 30%. Three grants involving ALS and dementia work at Northwestern University in Illinois have been paused, one looking at how to stop the buildup of damaged proteins, another looking at cellular mechanisms that can be drug targets. Just last week, an ALS researcher at Harvard had his grant cut that was using AI to accelerate the

reversal of ALS symptoms. Brian Wallach is waiting for a cure. He is not giving up. His source of hope is this research that you are unfortunately terminating. How can we possibly address his concerns and give hope to people across the country who are suffering from so many diseases when our government is cutting back on that research? As I said, Senator, I do not know about any cuts to ALS research, and I'm happy to meet with you. I just read them to you. I will have to go and talk with jay bhattacharya and find out what the rationale was for those cuts i don't i just don't know about them until you told them told me about them at this moment there are many things that concern

both of us about the state of public health in america next up you have democratic congresswoman Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Here's her line of questioning where she talks about how all this Trump crap is a bunch of political theater and not progress. Beautiful line of questioning right here. Play this clip. So, I have some questions. The questions are going to be, is it political theater or progress? You ready? The first question is going to be, doing an executive order revoking birthright citizenship,

political theater or progress? Political theater. It doesn't help the mission of ICE. Okay. How about revoking student visas? It takes up the time of ICE officers and is political theater, and it takes away from the national security and public safety mission. How about bashing car windows of people with no criminal record? That's driven from quotas of arrests being driven by the White House, and that is politicization of ICE immigration enforcement, so it's political theater. How about deporting people who are even citizens? That's not even deportation, but you know what I'm saying.

It's political theater. And I believe that this White House is getting the outcome, you know, the reaction that they want and they desire. How about arresting political opponents? That would be political theater. Yeah. So here's the deal. I know that you've been cut off a number of times as you have tried to give answers to

various questions. Thank you so much for explaining that even this committee hearing is actually a bunch of political theater because there's a lot of things that we could be talking about. We could be talking about the fact that we are currently in reconciliation. And while everyone else has been told to do things such as make sure that you take food out of people's mouths, make sure that you get rid of people's healthcare, make sure that you are harming our federal workers even more

by making sure that the resources that they need to be able to do their job just kind of disappear. But at the same time, I think the way that Mr. Moskowitz figured it, it would be approximately $44,000 as relates to a bonus for each ICE agent. Is that correct? It's incorrect. It was $42,000. Okay.

My bad. But the reality is that we do have real problems. And I don't know how we're going to get to real solutions if we continue to just make everything about politics as it was properly outlined by the gentleman from Florida. That was a Republican bill. And I'll be perfectly honest with you. I wasn't really a big fan of the bill myself on my side.

So I know that there was a lot of conservative stuff in that bill that was going to be harmful. And with that, I am going to yield back to the gentleman from Florida. More from Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who brings the fight. Play the clip. Federal law explicitly prohibits DHS from, quote, preventing a member of Congress from entering for the purpose of conducting oversight any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens or to make any temporary modification at any such facility that in any way alters what is observed by a visiting member of Congress. It is against the law. Full stop. Separately, the court has consistently held that the speech and debate clause of the Constitution protects individual members from prosecution for legislative

acts, including, quote, fact-finding, field investigations, and information gathering. The court has consistently held that the primary purpose of the speech and debate clause is to, quote, prevent intimidation by the executive and before a possibly hostile judiciary. So let's call this for what it is. This administration is criminalizing legislative oversight

and the Republicans on this committee are helping them to do so. Rep McIver didn't engage in interference. It was ICE that engaged in interference while members of Congress attempted to conduct legitimate oversight of ICE facilities. Now we've got Democratic Congress member, Jamie Raskin, who's fired up. He's pissed. You've got the Trump regime giving the family of Ashley Babbitt $5 million from taxpayer money.

She was an insurrectionist who would not listen to the cops when she tried to break into the secured area. And she and a group of other insurrectionists threatened the lives of Republican, Democrat, independent members of Congress. Watch Raskin go in, play the clip. In Trump world, violent insurrectionists and cop beating extremists are heroes. They're martyrs. They're patriots. Members of Congress performing oversightists are heroes. They're martyrs. They're patriots. Members of Congress performing oversight functions are criminals and insurrectionists. And veteran criminal prosecutors

of January 6th felons are fired. So Donald Trump can continue to pander to his private militia of pardoned rioters and insurrectionists and a reserve army of extremists who've proven themselves willing to stand back and stand by. More from Democratic Congress member Raskin here. Let's play it. In 2023, then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said, I think the police officer did his job. Now, although Trump's new attorney general is set to give $5 million to the rioters' family, Trump has not proposed to give a penny to the more than who died at age 42 here on January 7th, 2021ates the insult of Speaker Johnson's continuing refusal to hang a simple plaque in honor of the officers who defended the Capitol and the Congress and the vice president, a plaque mandated by law. And now more than two years overdue on the West front of the Capitol, the speaker's stubborn refusal

to respect the law is craven submission to the executive branch, to Donald Trump, who wants to pretend that the rampaging mob that he sent to Congress was made up of patriotic heroes and that the people he pardoned were, quote, hostages. More from Raskin, let's play it. Now we've got colleagues who celebrate January 6th insurrectionists actually calling for prosecution of members of the House for doing their jobs.

Representative Buddy Carter called our colleagues rioters. Representative Bishop actually said, this was an insurrection. I didn't know that was in his vocabulary, but this was an insurrection. And he said it was a debacle worse than 9-11. Next up, we've got Democratic Congress member Jared Moskowitz, who points out the amount of waste in the MAGA Republican budget where they want to give $800 million in bonuses to ICE agents, $42,000 per ICE agent. And Moskowitz is like, I'm okay, give them a bonus. But does that $42,000 per ICE agent? What about all the FEMA people we're cutting and the NIH people and CDC who were firing and the veterans who were firing? Here, play this clip. Mr. Mourinho, on that topic of

bonuses, just real quick, do you support ICE agents getting $42,000 worth of bonuses? There's $800 billion for bonuses. Okay. I say billion, I'm sorry, million. I apologize. $800 million in there for bonuses. Do you support that? Yeah. What kind of bonuses are we talking? Are we talking retention bonuses? This is a great question. Mr. Marino, great question. They didn't say at all in the backup. There was no documentation at all what the bonuses were for or whatever. It was just $800 million for bonuses. It sounded like a It was just $800 million for bonuses. It sounded like a lot of money for federal employees for bonuses.

Not that we don't want to treat our federal employees great. Of course we do. But I had suggested $500 million for bonuses, and they said, no, $500 million sounds a little better, right? Well, look. Or zero. Are you at zero for bonuses, maybe? I never received a $42,000 bonus when I was in the federal government.

Good, perfect. We agree. I would like to— However, however, however, times are different. Recruiting is tougher. Retention is a challenge. And if that's something that it's needed for, I would support it. No problem. So do you support those bonuses for NOAA, FEMA, the Pentagon, all of the departments, or just ICE? I would support strategic use of retention bonuses where they were needed. I think what's going on there, because as you heard, it's not even described what this money is for. I think it's a slush fund to buy more ads on, in my opinion, to buy more ads on Fox and to spread more kind of Trump propaganda. I think what that's gonna be used for.

And I think they're using the idea of ICE agents as like a sympathetic figure while the money's actually gonna go to Trump propaganda. Folks, I'm sure you hear me talk a lot about my family here on the Midas Touch Network. And in order to give me the peace of mind that I'm protecting my family's future it's important that I make sure that I have the best life

insurance that I can get for them and so I use policy genius because policy genius makes finding and buying life insurance simple ensuring that your loved ones have a financial safety net they can use to cover debts and routine expenses with policy, you can find life insurance policy starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future. I've been promoting PolicyGenius now for a while on the Midas Touch Network. I get great feedback from everybody who's tried it. And I think you'll find the process seamless.

I think it'll give you the peace of mind that you want. And you'll see how you can compare quotes from America's top insurers side by side. They've got a great licensed support team, which I really enjoy as well. So you can get fast responses. And when you're done with the process, you're like, all right, I'm glad that I checked that off my box and I did it right. And I did it with professionals. And I think that you'll have the same experience that I do. Life insurance is not a one-size-fits-all

product. Policy Genius doesn't treat it like one. So please check Life insurance off of your to-do list in no time with PolicyGenius. Head to policygenius.com slash Midas or click the link in the description to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash Midas. And remember to spell Midas correctly, M-E-I-D-A-S. That's policygenius.com slash Midas. Democratic Senator Murray, watch her line of questioning. Let's play the clip. You repeatedly claim that staffing and funding cuts that have been reported on publicly and even confirmed by your department staff are not happening. So either you're lying or you're not the one making the decisions.

Senator, you presided here, I think, for 32 years. You presided over the destruction of the health of the American people. Our people are now the sickest people in the world. Oh, Democratic Congresswoman Barragan, I thought, really destroyed Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator for Trump. Play this clip. You just mentioned two examples. Have you or EPA lawyers actually given that to the court or used that, cited that as fraud or criminality?

Well, first off, the standard- It's a yes or no. Have you? You're a lawyer. Yes. They have mentioned this. Which hearing was it at? Because I don't see it in the transcript

That happened in the United climate Conversation as a matter of fact, I'm gonna read to you the court transcript Can you proffer any evidence that there was illegal or evidence of abuse or fraud that any of this was improper unlawful? EPA lawyer I'm certainly not suggesting any of that was illegal or improper Okay, just yesterday, an EPA lawyer at the hearing suggested we're not accusing anybody of fraud. Did you understand that the evidence for EPA is not to establish criminality at the agency? Well, you're alleging criminality. You did so in a Fox News interview. You said that's what this greenhouse reduction fund was. In order to terminate a grant. You shouldn't be doing that if you cannot pro-offer the evidence.

But Congresswoman... This is not Fox News. We're not going to just allow you to just make allegations here without that evidence. Well, if this isn't a media interview, you should allow me to go through the entire list rather than just going through... Well, unfortunately, I only have five minutes

and I don't have time for you to filibuster. If you're truly interested in the entire list of all the evidence that's cutting me off, then allow me to get through the list. Here we got some good questioning from Democratic Senator Wyden. Let's play it. You've been getting all these questions from my colleagues with respect to this $165,000 in campaign donations after the announcement that you had been nominated is the concern about the possibility that promises were made in exchange

for that money. I just want to give you the chance to go over this with me. Did you promise any tax promoter you would help them if you got confirmed? I can answer that with an affirmative no. Okay. So you didn't meet with anybody when you were in town for the inauguration and promised them a private letter arrangement or something like that? A private letter arrangement. I don't... Where you say we're

going to help. We're going to help you if I'm confirmed. I haven't promised anybody a letter of any type that I can think of. Okay. I was in my room for about 50 hours because I had food poisoning during the inauguration, so I didn't talk to many people. Okay. Mr. Long, our staff investigators have on tape now the tax promoter saying you met with him at the inauguration and promised him a favorable private letter ruling. We also have on tape the White River CFO who gave you the thousands of dollars that he expects favorable treatment of these fake tribal credits. So that's why I'm so troubled by this argument you've given today that, well, you can go over to the FEC and see things. That money doesn't just fall out of the sky and land at the FEC. And that's why these taped conversations are so troubling to me. Democratic Senator Baldwin, let's play it.

Any life-saving research. Is it Doge reviewing NIH funding opportunity announcements? Is it Doge reviewing NIH grant award? We've got administrators. We're cutting waste. We're cutting duplicated programs. And you're funding $3 billion less in biomedical research than you did a year prior. We're spending less on administration of those programs. 3,200 fewer grants.

Many of the grants were terminated because they were grants that were not advancing. These aren't grants terminated. These are grants not awarded because the panels weren't convened. Senator, we spend 70% of the world's biomedical research out of NIH. 70% and we're the sickest country in the world. We're cutting $18 billion or 40% from the NIH budget, slow the development of new treatments. And we are the sickest country in the world. $18 billion or 40% from the NIH budget slowed the development of new treatments. And we are the sickest country in the world. So that money has not been well spent. We've had a 38% increase in our agency, growth in our agency over the past four years. I'll ask you, is funding

for Alzheimer's disease research centers DEI? Because you're holding up $65 million for 14 of those centers in nine states, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Is funding for cancer centers DEI? Because you're holding up $47 million in cancer center support grants at nine cancer centers in eight states? Is funding for rare disease research, DEI, because you're holding up $55 million for 11 rare disease clinical research network grants in eight states? These are just a few examples, and the list goes on and on, Secretary Kennedy. I've run out of time. I yield back. Thank you. This is a fun game we're playing. Mr. Secretary, let's talk about clinical questions and to ask questions and don't

give me a chance to answer them. Don't give me time to answer them. Well, maybe in some of my questions, you can you can elaborate on some of that. Democratic Senator Warren, let's play it. I sent you this statute. You've had three weeks to talk to the lawyers about it. So let's jump in. Mr. Long, is it illegal for the president to direct the IRS to revoke a taxpayer's nonprofit status? In the first place, he wouldn't do that. That's not my question, Mr. Long. Please don't start down this. Are we on section 7212 or 7217?

I'm at 26 U.S.C. 7217. Do I need to read it to you? Prohibits any member of the executive branch to request the IRS to conduct or terminate an audit on a taxpayer. All right. So is it illegal? I'm going to follow the law, and if that's the law, yes. Okay, but I want you, that is the law.

Yeah. So I just want to be clear. Is it illegal for the President of the United States to instruct the IRS to remove a taxpayer's nonprofit status? Prohibits any member of the executive branch to request the IRS to conduct or terminate an audit of the taxpayer. Is that a yes? I'd have to go to the lawyers at the IRS to tell me.

No, come on. You just read it. I know, but I don't see the instance that you're speaking about in there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see. Look, it says it shall be unlawful for any applicable person, which in this case includes the president, to request directly or indirectly any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer. Is it illegal for the president to instruct the IRS to remove nonprofit status from a taxpayer?

I'm not going to have the answer that you need. I apologize, but like I said... Why are you not having the answer? You've had three weeks to consult with lawyers. The statute is about as clear as plain English. Well, if I say I'm going to follow the law, why would you need to ask me the question? Well, because I want to make sure that you understand what the law says. If you think follow the law means you just get to make it up on the spot, then, Bud, you don't get to be the IRS commissioner. And then, of course, I think the clip of the day, I have to put it in this video, is Democratic Senator Hassan from New Hampshire. This is how it's done. Let's play it. So, Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?

Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to. Let me stop you, ma'am. Habeas corpus, excuse me, that's incorrect. President Lincoln used it. Excuse me. Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea. As a senator from the live free or die state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans. So Secretary Noem,

do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone. Yeah, I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not. Let us be clear, though, that this president- It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress. Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe. Yeah, that's how it's done. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.midastouch.com. All 100% USA union made.