MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the disaster 1 AM meeting arranged by Trump and MAGA Mike to try and hide how disastrous their Budget Bill is. 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 happened at the 1 a.m. hearing?
more pathetic behavior from maga mike johnson and donald trump so now maga mike johnson is refusing to even take questions from the press about this disastrous budget bill also maga mike set a hearing in the rules committee at a 1am this morning or 1am in the night however you want to characterize it
hoping that the media would not cover what was taking place at all to try to push through this budget bill through the Rules Committee literally at 1 a.m. while Americans are sleeping. And I previously showed you how MAGA Mike was handing out talking points to his fellow MAGA Republican Congress members.
to try to discredit the nonpartisan CBO, Congressional Budget Office, by calling it a leftist, radical extremist organization that hates Donald Trump, despite the fact that MAGA Mike Johnson and other members of Congress previously cited to the Congressional Budget Office's nonpartisan reports
when it suited them to try to attack former President Biden, when what would have been added to the deficit under some of the proposals by Biden are way smaller than what's being caused by this disastrous Trump budget plan, which on the small side would add about $4 to $5 trillion to the deficit. But a MAGA Republican Congress member who is not happy at all with this bill
says it's going to add about $20 trillion. That would be MAGA Republican Congressmember Thomas Massie saying it'll add $20 trillion. So let's just go through what's taking place here. We have the Congressional Budget Office's recent score that just came out yesterday, where they're saying that the GOP bill would hurt the poorest 10% of Americans while benefiting the top 10% of Americans.
And at least 8.6 million people are gonna lose their health insurance on the low end. 7.6 million people will be dropped from Medicaid right away. And 1 million people will lose their Affordable Care Act plans
i mean this is one of the biggest wealth distributions from not wealthy people from poor people to the richest americans as brendan duke explains the official cbo analysis confirms the obvious the house republican tax and budget bill isn't shared sacrifice it makes poor people poorer and rich people richer it does this by cutting health care and nutrition to help finance tax cuts skewed to the very very very
wealthy. It's a really horrific, horrific budget. It's just frankly cruel. So let's go through the data points now. First, let me show you MAGA Mike Johnson yesterday refusing to answer any questions at all regarding this budget plan. Here, play this clip.
Now, we're not going to take a lot of questions this morning because we've already done a ton of media with you in the halls. The president gave you a lot. We gave you a lot. What we're leaving to do right now is gather up the small subgroups in the House Republican Conference and tie up the remaining loose ends. I'm very confident that we'll be able to do that.
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Chapter 2: Why is MAGA Mike hiding the budget bill?
So Democratic Congress member Jim McGovern from Massachusetts raised a very simple point. So if this bill is so great, if you all think this is really, really good, why are you debating it at 1 a.m.? Why are you trying to literally hide it while Americans are sleeping? Here, play this clip of Congress member McGovern.
What I do want to talk about is the fact that this morning, after midnight actually, Republicans told us that we would be considering their budget reconciliation bill At one o'clock in the morning on Wednesday. If Trump's big, beautiful bill is so great, why not debate it when people are still awake? Wouldn't you want everyone to know how great it is?
Why are you debating it at one o'clock in the morning? I think that's prime time in Guam. Any person with half a brain cell can immediately figure out why you want to notice a meeting for 1 a.m. It's because you don't want people to know what's in your bill. Remember what Trump said? Close your eyes and vote for it.
That's exactly what you're all doing because you all know exactly what the bill does, how unpopular it is, and what regular Americans think of it. It's going to give a huge, massive, historic tax cut to billionaires paid for by stealing, stealing from the American people, ripping away Medicaid from parents and grandparents, ripping away food assistance from kids.
This is not this is not hyperbole, my friends. We're not fear mongering. No matter and no matter how many times you use the word, that doesn't make it true. Your big, beautiful scam is a historic giveaway to those at the very, very top, financed and paid for by the rest of America. So, again, I ask, if this bill is so great, why debate it at 1 o'clock in the morning?
We all know the answer. So then you have the MAGA Republican Congress members who are against this bill and who have said that they will not vote for it, despite Donald Trump showing up on Capitol Hill and attacking them and threatening them. So here you have MAGA Republican Congress member Thomas Massey.
and he's asked by Manu Raju from CNN what he thinks about the Trump claim that this is not going to add to the deficit, to which, again, Thomas Massey, MAGA Republican, he says this is going to add $20 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. Play this clip.
No, actually, I've got a lot of people in the MAGA base who realize that we could have done this differently. We could extend the tax cuts and paid for them, but instead we're not. I mean, over here, the people in favor of this bill say that under the policies of this bill, we're going to add $20 trillion to debt over the next 10 years, which is $3.5 to $5 trillion more than would have been.
This is deficit neutral. Yeah, that's a joke. That's a joke.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the GOP budget bill?
So you have people like Chip Roy who want even more cuts to Medicaid, more cuts to SNAP. They think that there's not enough cuts. They also don't like this idea of
of blue states either significantly raising the SALT cap, state and local tax cap, which Donald Trump artificially put at $10,000 state and local tax deduction back in 2017, really punitive against blue states. And some of these other blue state members of Congress either want the cap raised or eliminated. You have MAGA Republican Congress members who want the cap remaining at $10,000.
You've got other MAGA Republicans who think it's bad optics to take away people's Medicaid. And then you have other MAGA Republicans who say it adds too much to the deficit. Those are the fights taking place right now. This was yesterday on Capitol Hill where you have MAGA Republican Rep Burleson and MAGA Republican Congress member Self and others criticizing this bill. Here, play this clip.
This bill comes to the floor, you're a no. Right now, I'm a no. I want to get to a yes. I absolutely want to get to a yes. But I ran on balancing the budget. I don't know that I can sleep at night if I don't stick to that.
It's already very expensive. We've tripled it with no negotiations. Everybody's just assumed the $30,000. Now they're asking for more. Are you still in now? Nothing's changed.
Don't work for the Freedom Caucus. They just need to get over themselves. So then you have MAGA Republican Congress members like Warren Davis, Warren Davidson, a New York MAGA Republican Congress member, La Lota. And again, La Lota was basically yelled at by Donald Trump yesterday for requesting that the SALT deduction cap either be significantly higher or just removed entirely.
Let's play this clip right here.
But if this bill came to the floor right now, could you vote yes? I couldn't vote for this bill right now. I mean, it grows deficit spending right now. So it does raise the debt limit. We need to do that. But it doesn't cut spending. So it sounds like Trump didn't change your mind. We'll see if he changes the bill.
You sound pretty frustrated right now. I'm fired up, Manu. I'm here to fight for Long Islanders, regular middle class people who are just trying to make a living. Those are the people who need to be included in this bill. He said we're done negotiating with you guys. Did he not? What I took that is, hey, everybody figure it out.
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Chapter 4: How many Americans will lose health insurance?
And here we hear more from MAGA Republican Congress members as well, like Mike Lawler, who says this was all pretty stupid, waiting until the last minute. MAGA Republican Congress member Bacon and another clip here of MAGA Republican Chip Roy play this clip.
They chose to wait until the last minute. And why is that? What's the reason for that? You'll have to ask them. It was a pretty stupid exercise, frankly.
When you work hard to get an agreement and the committee's passed stuff out, and then people come in and want to undo them, it makes us mad. You've got an angry group of folks out there. Can you support it?
No, we've got lots of work to go. Lots of miles to put in on this thing. Should they have this 1 a.m. meeting on Wednesday?
No, they're trying to run it in through the jet teams. And I just don't agree with that. I mean, I'll keep working in good faith to try to make the dole as good as it can be and then decide where things stand. I think it's not the way we should do business.
Here's MAGA Republican Congress member Ogles and Bacon. Here they are right here.
Does the speaker not bring this to the floor by Thursday? Well, that's up to the speaker. But I would say that if the vote were held right now, it dies a painful death.
You're concerned about what the Freedom Caucus is pushing for right now?
Well, yeah, we have to defend against it because they're in a sense of putting poison pills in that won't pass. That's what the president's saying. So I hope they heed the president.
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Chapter 5: What are the criticisms of the budget bill?
Let's talk about one of those, which is something that concerns Congressman Lolota and others. The state and local taxes, this deduction cap, it's a huge issue in higher earning districts like New York, as we certainly understand. Why should someone like Congressman Lolota vote against the interests of of their constituents.
I get it, but you know what? Every single day, Congressman Lolota is losing constituents to the state of Florida because we have no state income tax. So again, this is failed leadership in New York's Albany's capital. You've got governors in Illinois and New York and California that just do not know how to get their financial house in order. So this problem is not his problem.
This is the governor of New York's problem and their inability to control their own finances.
I just wanna say this, okay? Blue states by and large are donor states and red states are taker states. It's such a wild concept to me that these Congress members from the red states whose entire states are subsidized by the blue states, they wouldn't exist without the blue states, are so punitive and attack the blue states the way they do.
And there are some Congress members who are still Republican from these blue states. Even if this thing gets through in the House of Representatives, the next hurdle is going to be in the Senate.
And from what we're hearing from all of these senators, whether it's Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, they're saying they're not going to support this bill in the way that the House of Representatives is trying to push this forward, play this clip.
I don't think people vote for President Trump. thought that we would continue spending at President Biden's levels. My objection is still raising the debt ceiling by either four or five trillion dollars. I think what that does is basically show that conservatives and Republicans aren't concerned with the deficit. Yes, I know. I've been very wary of having Medicaid.
It is wrong to cut health care for the working poor. And that's what we're talking about here with Medicaid. My state is a Medicaid expansion state.
So that's the dynamic on Capitol Hill right now, with MAGA Mike Johnson refusing to take questions. And then I'll just leave you with this fraud that Donald Trump is engaged in, where Donald Trump is saying, I'm not worried about the deficit, he said, because he claims that he brought in $7.1 trillion in his Middle East trip, which in the same sentence he says $5 trillion or $5.1 trillion.
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Chapter 6: How are Republicans divided over the budget bill?
They're not giving their entire annual GDP to the United States, and they're not giving it immediately to the United States. It would take them 20, 30 years if they were going to do that, and they would bankrupt their own countries.
here's donald trump saying that in order to justify this bill which i agree with massey this is i've always said this number it's going to add 20 trillion dollars here's what uh trump said play they respect our country again they were going to go to china china was going to take over those countries 100 they were dealing with china because they weren't treated right by the last administration and they have tremendous economic power they have more money than anybody we probably have more money but we have other things like this
they are very very uh they are very cash rich to put it mildly and they're spending 5.1 trillion probably it's going to be 7 trillion by the time we stop and you know somebody said every other president goes and leaves and spends money gives other countries money i'm the only one that goes and takes money back You know, when you think of it, I said, that's an interesting statement.
I never thought of it that way. But we have a, this is really just a pep talk. We have a very unified house and we have a very unified Senate.
Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think and hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers.
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