The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jim Himes on Trump’s Threats to National Security
Sat, 03 May 2025
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas report on Donald Trump’s voters having a rude awakening that Trump destroyed their lives and Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Jim Himes about his perspective on Donald Trump’s disastrous term. 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
Chapter 1: What are Trump's threats to national security?
Now it just feels like all about me, me, me, me, me, Donald Trump. Not, you know, the guy out there working in the trenches trying to make ends meet, trying to pay your mortgage, trying to pay the bills.
Chapter 2: How have Trump voters reacted to his presidency?
after 100 days of this dumpster fire of a presidency even trump voters right now are speaking out publicly and saying what an absolute mess they're talking about the disaster trump's inflicted on the economy the disaster donald trump's inflicted on our alliances and also just the lack of leadership in the white house is stunning to a lot of these trump voters let me introduce you to a guy named jay lives in uh pennsylvania
And here's what he has to say about the whole Signalgate scandal. I mean, he's just coming at it from a very common sense angle. And he's like, wait, what are you doing? You're having classified conversations on your cell phone. This is a Trump voter right here. Let's play it.
Chapter 3: What is Signalgate and why is it important?
You know, the secretary of defense. I don't mean to sound rude, but what kind of idiot puts his wife in a group chat that has access to military documents? You know?
So it... Were you bothered by the first signal chat issue that came out with the information with the reporter in that chat?
I was bothered by both of them. Because let's be realistic. If that was a military officer, they would have been destroyed. But because that's one of Trump's buddies, it's okay. We're not going to do anything about it.
Chapter 4: What does Jim Himes think about Trump's accountability?
I wanted to play that clip of Jay because he says it so simply. As I've always said, this shouldn't be about Democrats, Republicans. This shouldn't be pundits overcomplicating this. It's like, what the hell are you doing? What are you doing? Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
congress member i mean i think jay just puts it accurately there what do you make of all of this and especially with the news now that mike wall's national security advisors i guess what he's got promoting yeah he got moved to a different position he's now the united states he has to be confirmed but he's the united nations ambassador now
Yeah, yeah, you know, I think, look, Jay put it perfectly, which is people are coming to sense that something you really want in a president, which is a sense of accountability, is not there with Donald Trump, right? I mean, we saw this with the stock market, right?
When the stock market was going great right at the beginning of the inauguration, the president puts up a tweet saying, this is the Trump stock market. Then it turns around, he says, no, it's the Biden stock market. I think if I'd had an opportunity to ask Jay a question, it's not just about classified information and how vulnerable that becomes to Havana and Tehran and Beijing and Moscow.
Chapter 5: How does the Trump administration handle classified information?
That may not hit home for most Americans who aren't familiar with classified information, all that stuff. But you know what America sees here? They say, wow, our most responsible national security officials, the folks who look after nuclear weapons and decide whether we're gonna put our troops in harm's way are a bunch of yahoos, right? So what about the folks who are like running Medicare?
What about the folks who are running farm programs that American farmers rely on? Do they have any reason to believe that there is any steady hand on any tiller in the federal government? I mean, sadly, when you look at the range from Elon Musk to Mike Waltz to all of the crazy that was unleashed with tariffs, you wonder, is there anybody of any competence inside the White House?
You know, as the ranking Democratic member of the intelligence community, you're able to see a lot of sensitive documents. I know there's things that you can't talk about. But while we have you on the podcast, I just want to hear from you just generally, like, how bad is it right now?
Chapter 6: What keeps Congressman Himes up at night regarding national security?
And what should the American people know in terms of what keeps you up at night that you can share based on the way this Trump regime has handled things?
Sure, I mean, it's not complicated if we start with Signalgate, right? And what the American people saw there was that before a military raid,
the Secretary of Defense, on a signal chat that included a reporter, put up tactical details, weapon systems, timing, targets, that had the Chinese or the Russians, and they've got the capability to do it, gotten that information and handed it to the Houthis. The Houthis would have swiveled around their air defenses and we'd have dead pilots right now or sunken ships.
Now, by the grace of God, that didn't happen. So that's obviously a testament to the lack of judgment of our Secretary of Defense and Mike Waltz.
secondly you know we get the information that we get because lots of patriotic americans in uniform or spies for the cia intelligence officers put their lives at risk every single day and keeping them safe is the reason we are super careful with classified information because if it gets out that we know something that was said in a meeting with vladimir putin just for example
They'll figure out who did that. And that person gets a bullet to the back of their head. And apart from the moral aspects of that, that means we get a lot less critical information. So that's why this stuff is life and death. It's not something to be toyed around or to be screwed around with on a private phone with signal chats on it.
Like we know the Houthis have already shot down six, seven Reaper drones. I, you know, do we know one way or another with the lack of good data coming to us now and with all of the manipulation how to accurately assess something like that well how is that happening or if we're looking towards you know getting accurate data in ukraine or elsewhere you know is there a mechanism now where
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Chapter 7: What is the current state of U.S. intelligence?
The sharing of this data is still in a way that you feel good about the data on the intelligence community? Or do even you have concerns now based on the fact that there are Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and all of these people that you're not even getting the right data to assess this stuff?
Well, let's take that at two levels, sort of building on what I just said. Let's imagine, and this is purely hypothetical, but it's possible. Let's imagine that we've got a source inside the Jalisco cartels, right? And they're feeding us information about how the cartels are bringing in the fentanyl precursors.
Or we have a source inside Beijing telling us what the government, this is what spying is, right? So imagine those sources, and they know, that if they get exposed, not only will they be tortured to death and killed, but probably in the case of the cartels, so will every member of their family and all of their pets.
And so they're waking up this morning thinking, okay, I'm serving the United States and my life depends on the United States being exquisitely competent with their preservation of secrets. What do you think their conclusion is?
I mean, I know what my conclusion would be if my life depended on, you know, Mike Waltz not having signal chats with the director of national intelligence that a reporter can take a picture of. So that's a huge liability for the United States. Now, look, our people are good. Our satellites are good. We're going to get good data. But Americans need to ask the right question.
This is the second level of which I would answer your question, which is, You know, the objective in Yemen is not to blow up a bunch of Houthis. That's a means to an end, and that's to get them to stop shooting at ships in the Red Sea. So you'll know the successes happened when ships can transit the Red Sea on their way to the Suez Canal.
That has not happened yet, even though the Trump administration is pounding their chest about the amount of rubble that they've been able to bounce around in North Yemen. So that's how we judge success. You know, has the mission of opening the Suez Canal to commercial shipping been achieved? And so far, that has not.
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Chapter 8: How is success measured in U.S. military operations?
Let's take a look at, you mentioned the, even Mike Walsh, while he was in the cabinet meeting, was either on a signal or some app. And when you zoom in, you can see the conversations that he's having. I mean, you see a conversation with J.D. Vance. I have confirmation from my counterpart it's turned off. He's going to be here.
Even Rubio, you can see something about there is time, fully there is time. Now look, We don't know what that reference is, but there, I mean, you may, I don't, but people may know what that reference is. And for all we know, there is time has major implications in a negotiation that's taking place somewhere, right? Where, you know, I have confirmation from my counterpart.
Could be, these could be life and death things. I know that, I know that as a podcaster, I'm not showing my phone around like other than to show that image. Why do they not?
Yeah, look, there's nothing good about this. I gave you the example of the dude who is working for us inside a cartel in Mexico. That dude right now is asking himself, oh, my God, is my name getting sent by the Secretary of Defense to Mike Waltz and some reporters taking a picture of my name and I'm going to be drawn in quarter to my family will be murdered because of that. Right.
And that's, again, one example. Another example is we're negotiating with the Russians apparently right now over Ukraine. Right. Imagine, is it possible? that our negotiating position is on that signal chat? Yes, it is. So anyway, it's just Christmas morning in Beijing and Moscow and Tehran and Havana because of the lack of operational security that these guys are showing.
Let's just shift gears, talk about the economy. Let me show you another clip of Jay. By the way, Jay is a laid off federal government worker as well who voted for Trump. He worked in the IRS tax advocacy division. He was fired. And there's another part of the clip that I'm not going to show where He every day he wakes up to see if he's going back to work or not.
And he misses the team that he worked for. And he's not sure even what his status. It's like the least efficient thing ever. And people should go to NBC News 10. Watch that in Pennsylvania. But let me show you this clip, because on the economy, he's like it shows you the difference between Main Street and Wall Street. He's like he's like, what's even going on here?
Like, I didn't think it was going to be this way. Let's watch this clip.
for President Trump. What were you hoping that he would do?
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