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The MeidasTouch Podcast

MAGA Mike Gets Stabbed in the Back by the GOP

Wed, 28 May 2025

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MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Republican Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson getting undermined by those he thought were closest to him in the GOP. Pacagen: Get 15% OFF your order plus a special gift at https://Pacagen.com/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

Audio
Transcription

Chapter 1: Why is MAGA Mike Johnson being criticized?

0.149 - 19.082 Ben Meiselas

MAGA Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, is getting clowned on. He just got devastating news as more MAGA Republican senators in the Senate are saying no way, no how are they supporting the big disastrous bill that MAGA Mike and Donald Trump want to push forward.

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Chapter 2: Who are the key figures opposing MAGA Mike's budget bill?

19.542 - 49.816 Ben Meiselas

But get this, you know who else is also tag-teaming MAGA Mike and Donald Trump and telling them no way, no how with this budget bill? Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis. By the way, you also have the chair of the Republican National Committee, a guy named Michael Whatley, saying that this thing is no bueno as well. Let me take a look as MAGA Mike gets his worst nightmare smacked down.

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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Rick Scott's position on the budget bill?

50.096 - 75.13 Ben Meiselas

What the hell are you going to do, MAGA Mike Johnson? So here we have MAGA Republican Senator Rick Scott, who was involved in the biggest Medicaid and Medicare fraud in the history of the United States. That's how he got his money after pleading the fifth dozens and dozens of times in a case against his company. But here he says he ain't voting on the budget bill.

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75.57 - 78.772 Ben Meiselas

Watch MAGA Republican Senator Rick Scott play this clip.

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79.333 - 84.256 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

So, Senator, would you say without any changes at its current composition, would you vote no?

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85.393 - 95.857 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Oh, absolutely. I don't know. This bill doesn't have it. If they brought it to the floor right now, there's not a chance it'll get the 51 votes it needs.

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Chapter 4: What did leaked audio reveal about the Republican stance on taxes?

96.177 - 112.664 Ben Meiselas

Now, here is leaked audio from the RNC chair saying that the Republicans voted for the largest tax increase in American history with Trump's budget bill. This came from FactPost that clipped it and Hakimian who noted it. Play this clip.

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113.052 - 122.419 Unknown Speaker

What we saw was the largest tax increase in the American history that the Republicans had voted for. Every single Democrat voted against it.

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Chapter 5: How does Elon Musk feel about the proposed budget?

122.479 - 128.044 Ben Meiselas

Here we've got Elon Musk saying, uh-uh, he's not in support of this. Play this clip.

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128.964 - 141.654 Elon Musk

So, you know, I was like disappointed to see the massive spending vote, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it. And that reminds the work that the Doge team is doing.

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142.324 - 148.814 Unknown Speaker

I actually thought that when this big, beautiful bill came along. I mean, like, everything he's done on Doge gets wiped out in the first year.

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149.976 - 157.608 Unknown Speaker

I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don't know if it can be both. My personal opinion.

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158.325 - 172.715 Ben Meiselas

This was a speech from Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, saying that this is a bad bill that the Republicans in the House and in Congress in general have betrayed the American people. Play this clip.

172.735 - 200.847 Unknown Speaker

And yet, we have a Republican Congress, and to this day, we're in the end of May, past Memorial Day, and not one cent in Doge cuts have been implemented by the Congress. That's one of the reasons why we need a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It's another reason why we need term limits for members of Congress.

206.001 - 231.234 Unknown Speaker

But I think what you've seen with how and I kind of said this early on that Doge and Elon were on a collision course with the swamp. And the question is, what would happen? And I don't think there's any question that Doge fought the swamp. And so far, the swamp has won. And that's just unfortunate. But I don't think you can look at this any other way. More from MAGA Republican Senator Rick Scott.

231.374 - 239.379 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Because our audience is like, wait a second, I thought it passed the House. Are you saying that the Senate can change it and then there's a reconciliation between the House and the Senate? Is that correct?

240.199 - 256.692 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Yeah. Charlie, we'll change it. We'll have our own bill. And what will happen is it will go back through a conference or it will just go back to the House and they'll pass our bill. But I believe we're going to dramatically reduce mandatory spending. To get this budget balanced in a short period of time, which is what we have to do.

Chapter 6: What reforms are needed for protecting Medicaid?

Chapter 7: What is Packagen and how does it help with allergies?

437.736 - 454.306 Donald Trump

President Trump has suggested that the debt is not really top of mind of his concerns. He wants Republicans to fall in line. He wants Republicans to pass the bill. You told CNN, quote, somebody's got to be the dad that says, I know y'all want to go to Disney World, but we can't afford it. I guess I'm going to be that guy, unquote.

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454.666 - 467.855 Donald Trump

So how determined are you to be that guy if it actually means telling President Trump you are going to vote against the bill and you're going to try to get other Republican senators to join you unless there are major, major changes.

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470.517 - 490.974 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Well, in 2010, I sprang out of the Tea Party movement. And as I did praise my, I would shout, this is a fight for freedom. We are mortgaging our children's future. It's wrong. It's immoral. It has to stop. I haven't changed. My campaign promise in 2010 and every campaign after that was to stop mortgaging our children's future. It's immoral. It's wrong. It has to stop.

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491.375 - 514.277 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

And so he may not be worried about that. I am extremely worried about that. That is my primary goal running for Congress. This is our moment. We have witnessed an unprecedented level of increased spending, 58% since 2019, other than World War II. This is our only chance to reset that to a reasonable pre-pandemic level spending.

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514.297 - 518.921 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

And again, I think you can do it, and the spending that we would eliminate, people wouldn't even notice.

518.961 - 525.647 Ben Meiselas

But you have to do the work, which takes time. MAGA Republican Senator Rand Paul saying he ain't supporting this. Spending.

526.127 - 548.985 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Somebody has to stand up and yell, the emperor has no clothes, and everybody's falling in lockstep on this. Pass the big, beautiful bill. Don't question anything. Well, conservatives do need to stand up and have their voice heard. This is a problem we've been facing for decades now. And if we don't stand up on it, I really fear the direction the country is going.

549.045 - 568.613 Ben Meiselas

And here he explains one of the reasons why he says it's going to add trillions to the deficit. And he goes, just look. The budget bill itself calls for raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion over the next two years. They're going to run $2 trillion deficits per year. I think it's going to be more. Play this clip. Biden's spending levels.

569.033 - 586.94 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

When March, every Republican, virtually every Republican other than me, voted to continue the Biden spending levels, which are going to give us a $2.2 trillion deficit. Now, if you increase the debt ceiling $4 to $5 trillion, that means they're planning on $2 trillion this year and more than $2 trillion next year. That's just not conservative.

Chapter 8: What does President Trump want from the Republicans regarding the budget bill?

661.299 - 682.968 Unknown Speaker

It's rich coming from a freedom practice that's supposed to be fiscal conservatives and end up with not that conservative of a bill to elect us. What we're going to do is we're going to pass a bill that can get 50 votes and whatever other numbers come along with that, the magic number is 50. In other words, both are going to actually pass the bill.

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684.324 - 688.287 Ben Meiselas

MAGA Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, play the clip.

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689.868 - 695.331 Unknown Speaker

Some of the Freedom Caucus members are warning you guys not to water down any of their cuts. What do you say to them?

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695.931 - 720.834 Unknown Speaker

You had your chance. There's some of these cuts are not real. And we're talking about over a decade. You know, if you do a trillion and a half, that's like a percent and a half. So let's don't get high on our horse here that we've somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending because we didn't.

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722.094 - 742.712 Ben Meiselas

And one of the things that MAGA Mike Johnson has done here as well is he's highlighted the cruelty of the GOP platform, right? He's showing that they want to cut food assistance, SNAP, supplemental nutrition assistance program, cut rental assistance programs to people.

743.953 - 766.555 Ben Meiselas

If you're making between zero and $50,000 or $51,000, you literally just on day one, $1,000 gets taken from you and gets given to people who make more than $4.3 million, who will be saving an extra $370,000. the billionaires are going to get literally trillions of dollars in tax cuts right here, and Medicaid and Medicare is cut.

766.595 - 773.821 Ben Meiselas

But here's what MAGA Mike Johnson had to say about cutting SNAP in his own congressional district. Here, play this clip.

774.375 - 795.346

We don't want to slash benefits. And again, I make this very clear. We are not cutting Medicaid. We are not cutting SNAP. We're working in the elements of fraud, waste, and abuse. SNAP, for example, listen to the statistics. In 2024, over $11 billion in SNAP payments were erroneous. I mean, that's a number that everyone acknowledges is real. It may be much higher than that.

795.366 - 798.808 Donald Trump

Louisiana is like the second largest recipient of food stamps in the country, sir. Exactly.

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