GOP Leaders Crash and Burn in Weekend from Hell

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

Speaker 1 These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Speaker 1 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

Speaker 1 It's okay not to be perfect perfect with finances.

Speaker 2 Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app?

Speaker 2 Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today.

Speaker 2 Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry, which may impact your credit scores.

Speaker 2 The holidays mean more travel, travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft.

Speaker 2 But Life Lock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our U.S.-based restoration specialists will fix it guaranteed or your money back.

Speaker 2 Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Life Lock.
Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com/slash podcast.

Speaker 1 Terms apply. The MAGA Republicans having a disastrous weekend.
As I previously reported,

Speaker 1 they're canceling all of their town halls because they know that they're going to get asked difficult questions or they're going to get booed. So they're avoiding those.

Speaker 1 Also, they rolled out what they claim to be a continuing resolution, a CR to keep the government funded. But when you actually look at this 99-page document, it's actually not a continuing resolution.

Speaker 1 It's part of Trump and Musk's plan just to destroy the government. I mean, take a quick look, as Jamie Dupree says, a quick look at the GOP, quote-unquote, continuing resolution.

Speaker 1 There are 22 different instances in the bill where funding for certain programs is set at $0.

Speaker 1 Just look, for example,

Speaker 1 for example, for the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, $0, $0, $0. On major pieces of funding, $116 million here, $38 million there.

Speaker 1 and why this is so deceptive as well is a continuing resolution usually just means you take the existing budget and you continue it because you can't pass your own budget the maga republicans have been using continuing resolutions over and over again because they're so incompetent they can't pass a budget and usually when you talk about crs you want it to be clean so there's not all this other language in there that you have to parse through because then if there's other language you would say pass an actual budget versus a CR, a clean one that just takes the budget and rolls it over.

Speaker 1 So this is really just a way to kind of be deceptive while gutting. I mean, look.
agriculture. This is a way to be deceptive and gut education and all of these things that

Speaker 1 Americans rely on. By the way, there's nothing in there about no tax on tips, nothing in there about no tax on Social Security, nothing in there about no tax on overtime.

Speaker 1 More lies from the liar-in-chief, Donald Trump. Then you have the MAGA Republicans going on TV to try to justify all of these things.
Like MAGA Republican Nancy May, she's like, Elon's a genius.

Speaker 1 We need more cuts. I'd like to see the whole government get destroyed.
This is what Nancy Mae says. Listen to her say it.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about Elon Musk for a minute. His critics are saying that he is usurping powers that should belong to the president or should belong to the Congress.

Speaker 3 The Congress has the power of the purse. He's the one who's been cutting positions in various government agencies.
Where do you come down on that?

Speaker 5 I don't think Elon Musk can cut enough. And in fact, I'd like to see him cut more.
And I'm so grateful as a member of Congress, on average, you know, you have 15 to 20 full-time employees.

Speaker 5 Not all of us. We just, we don't have the time or the ability to find all the waste, fraud, and abuse.

Speaker 5 And what he's done in a few short weeks with his large team, they have the same clearances, the same qualifications as anybody else taking a look at this information and this data.

Speaker 5 What he's done is a great service to his country, a great service to every hardworking American to expose some of this so that when we do get in there, when we do take that scalpel and we do start cutting away, that he's been able to find the fat that we got to trim.

Speaker 5 And I am so grateful every day for what Doge is doing, what Elon Musk is doing in service to his nation.

Speaker 3 You know, some people say he's going too far.

Speaker 5 I don't think he's going far enough, quite frankly. There is certainly enormous wastefraud abuse across every agency, across the federal government.

Speaker 1 Then you've got MAGA Republican Brian Fitzpatrick claims that Trump cutting off intelligence sharing with Ukraine is actually part of the art of the deal. It's escalate to de-escalate.

Speaker 1 Help Russia, but then that helps reach a peace deal. The hell is he even talking about? Play this clip.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about Elon Musk for a minute. His critics are saying that he is usurping powers that should belong to the president or should belong to the Congress.

Speaker 3 The Congress has the power of the purse. He's the one who's been cutting positions in various government agencies.
Where do you come down on that?

Speaker 5 I don't think Elon Musk can cut enough. And in fact, I'd like to see him cut more.
And I'm so grateful as a member of Congress, on average, you know, you have 15 to 20 full-time employees.

Speaker 5 Not all of us, we just, we don't have the time or the ability to find all the waste, fraud, and abuse.

Speaker 5 And what he's done in a few short weeks with his large team, they have the same clearances, the same qualifications as anybody else taking a look at this information and this data.

Speaker 5 What he's done is a great service to his country, a great service to every hardworking American to expose some of this so that when we do get in there, when we do take that scalpel and we do start cutting away, that he's been able to find the fat that we got to trim.

Speaker 5 And I am so grateful every day for what Doge is doing, what Elon Musk is doing in service to his nation.

Speaker 3 You know, some people say he's going too far.

Speaker 5 I don't think he's going far enough, quite frankly. There is certainly enormous wastefraud abuse across every agency across the federal government.

Speaker 1 I want to give a shout out to Democratic Congress member Auchenclaus,

Speaker 1 who's, you've seen him here on the Midas Touch network, here he calls out

Speaker 1 the panel that includes Republicans as well, saying, look, Republicans are not even saying the most basic statement. Ukraine is right, Russia is wrong.
Here, play this clip.

Speaker 6 There's 300 billion euros of frozen assets being held in Brussels right now that France and Germany and Belgium have control over. Russian assets, that's right.

Speaker 6 If Congress signaled in a bipartisan fashion that, one, we want Ukraine to win this war, we believe Russia was the aggressor, not Ukraine.

Speaker 6 And two, that we support our European allies in giving security guarantees to Ukraine, paid for with Russian assets. I think we could get to resolution very quickly.

Speaker 6 Congressional Republicans are not stepping up and just saying the very basic sentence of Ukraine is right, Russia is wrong.

Speaker 7 Let me ask you a question, Congressman Gonzalez.

Speaker 1 And then Democratic Congressmember Auchin Klaus looks at MAGA Republican Representative Tony Gonzalez after Gonzalez claims that Doge is popular and Auchin Klaus brings the receipts.

Speaker 1 That's why I love having Alkinclaus on this show, hear play this clip.

Speaker 8 Doge is very popular in my district. People are going, what is this?

Speaker 8 I mean, you listen to the State of the Union and President Trump goes down the list and you're hearing some of these things, money to Zamunda for, you know, research on squirrels, and you're like, no way this could be true.

Speaker 8 That's a lot of the talk in my district.

Speaker 6 Is it popular to cut health care for the 40% of kids in this country who rely on Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts? That's not going to be popular.

Speaker 8 You know well.

Speaker 7 let me just bring a Brendan right down.

Speaker 6 That is what congressional Republicans are doing. Doge is a misdirection tactic.

Speaker 6 The focus of effort is that they're going to take $880 billion out of health care that seniors rely on for at-home care, that kids rely on for primary care, and they're going to use it to give the 1%

Speaker 6 massive tax cuts.

Speaker 7 Everyone obviously supports getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Speaker 7 So let me remove that from the conversation for a second.

Speaker 1 Then Donald Trump brings out his Commerce Secretary, Howard Luttnick, who says: yes, the tariffs will go back on April 2nd unless we end the fentanyl. I mean, end the fentanyl?

Speaker 1 You're ending programs that help combat fentanyl. By the way, what about the bipartisan border deal? You're not doing that to stop.

Speaker 1 You're just going to talk about it and say we need to end fentanyl and then just defame Canada? Here, play this clip.

Speaker 9 April 2nd, that's going to be reciprocal tariffs. And I'm happy to talk about that, but let's try to keep those two different.

Speaker 10 Okay, understood. But you say he's not going to take his foot off the gas does that mean these are permanent tariffs mr.
secretary can you provide clarity yes or no

Speaker 9 if fentanyl ends i think these will come off but if fentanyl does not end or he's uncertain about it they will stay this way until he is comfortable this is black and white you got to save american lives so with this spec with respect to fentanyl this is about the border and fentanyl and that's an agreement between the the president and the two leaders of Canada.

Speaker 9 Of course, Justin Trudeau has got a lot to say.

Speaker 9 Of course, he's leaving in like days, so it's not really that fun to listen to some guy who's trying to create sort of a mess for Canada, which he's trying to do.

Speaker 9 President Treinbaum did a much more calm, thoughtful conversation with President Trump, and that's why this is the result.

Speaker 9 She was able to negotiate it because she said a thousand more people on the border stopping fentanyl from coming into this country.

Speaker 1 Mr. Secretary.
And you've got MAGA Republican Congresswoman Laurel Lee from Florida attacking the district courts for issuing injunctions against Trump's unlawful conduct. Let's play it.

Speaker 11 And what we saw this week was a district court that really exceeded the authority that it has and issued another one of these nationwide injunctions that are proliferating in our lower courts and really are an inappropriate use of what should be a very limited power.

Speaker 11 So that's something that I know we're also going to be looking at is how we can reduce or stop that court shopping.

Speaker 11 And even the Supreme Court called it an aggregation of judicial power and judicial hubris. So we need to really look at how we can prevent that from happening.

Speaker 1 I often get asked, what's the secret to how Midas Touch has grown so fast? I said it's easy. It's the community, the Midas Mighty number one.
Then we have to make good content.

Speaker 1 Number three, we got to have the business behind the business, the nuts and bolts that make it all work. And we use Shopify here at the Midas Touch Network.
Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

Speaker 1 It's home of the number one checkout on the planet.

Speaker 1 And the not-so-secret secret with ShopPay, it boosts your conversions by up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going down.

Speaker 1 So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform, make it better today and sign up with Shopify, join Shopify. Businesses that sell more, sell on Shopify.
So here's what you got to do.

Speaker 1 Upgrade your business the way we did. And I want you to head to shopify.com slash MIDAS.
That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com slash MIDAS. Upgrade your selling today.

Speaker 1 Sign up for your $1 per month trial period right here. If you go to shopify.com slash MIDAS, all lowercase, that's shopify.com slash Midas and get that $1 per month trial period right now.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Shopify. By the way, shout out to Democratic Congressmember Jake Auchincloss.

Speaker 1 Again, this is a great line, I thought, where he goes, Zelensky flew into Washington, but he walked into the Kremlin. Here, play this clip.

Speaker 6 As well, we were doing a town hall in the biggest city in my district. Democrats still do town halls.
And this city voted for Donald Trump in 2024, first time in 100 years.

Speaker 6 The most resonant theme of the day that I heard from these Americans was how livid they are about the way that President Trump behaved in the Oval Office with Vladimir Zelensky.

Speaker 6 Zelensky flew to Washington, but he walked into the Kremlin. And the propaganda that they heard from the commander-in-chief made Americans feel less safe and made them feel ashamed.

Speaker 6 This is an opportunity for congressional Republicans to distance themselves from this abomination and to demonstrate that Americans are going to stand for freedom and democracy.

Speaker 6 Because with all due respect, people do win wars. The United States won World War II.
It made this world safe for freedom and democracy.

Speaker 6 We are now making it less safe for freedom and democracy by giving Russia all the cards that Donald Trump claims they have.

Speaker 8 Well, I would add, it's time for America to have all the cards. I don't want to see anyone, I don't want my, I don't want American daughters and sons going to fight wars just like I did.

Speaker 1 Now I want to contrast this for you. Here are some of the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, you know, leading some rallies.

Speaker 1 I like to see them out there speaking to the people the same way we've been covering what Senator Bernie Sanders has been doing. But let's play this clip of Democrats in the House and Senate.

Speaker 1 Let's play it. A man worth over $400 billion

Speaker 7 is going to decide what happens with my grandma's social security check.

Speaker 12 No one elected Elon Musk to nothing. Elon Musk is seizing the power that belongs to the American people.

Speaker 13 We are here to fight back. Elon Musk gives $250 million to elect Donald Trump.

Speaker 13 And Donald Trump turns over the keys to the United States government, to Elon Musk and his billionaire friends and his cronies.

Speaker 14 We know that we work for the American people. And what we're not going to do is stand around where they pull this bullshit that they're trying to pull right now.
We are going to be in your face.

Speaker 14 We are going to be on your.

Speaker 14 And we are going to make sure

Speaker 14 we are gonna make sure

Speaker 14 you understand what democracy looks like and this ain't it.

Speaker 1 And then contrast that to over here, uh, the MAGA Republican Congress member Hudson, who leads the uh Republican Congressional Committee, uh, campaign committee.

Speaker 1 And he's out there basically saying, Look, we have to cancel all of our town halls because of George Soros. Here, play this clip.

Speaker 15 Unfortunately, the Democrat Party has hijacked these in-person town halls and bussing people in whose sole purpose is to disrupt these

Speaker 15 meetings. And so you can't have a meaningful dialogue with your constituents.

Speaker 15 So my recommendation is use technology so you can have these meaningful dialogues so you can actually reach more constituents.

Speaker 15 A lot of people are really busy with their families, their jobs, and their lives.

Speaker 15 They don't have time to go to a town hall meeting. I mean, are you just concerned about the optics, though?

Speaker 15 I'm concerned about

Speaker 15 Democrat activists who are disrupting.

Speaker 15 Do you have proof that these are all Democrats sitting in these constituent towns halls? Just y'all's news coverage. Have you held a town hall?

Speaker 15 I held a lot of telephone town halls. I've got one coming up

Speaker 15 next week or two.

Speaker 15 Don't you think it's important to have that face-to-face interaction with people in your district? I think it's the only way you can be a good representative.

Speaker 15 And that's why it's such a shame that the Democrats are threats to democracy by disrupting this dialogue.

Speaker 1 So utterly stupid. Here's Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.
Let's play it.

Speaker 4 At the kitchen table, hoping that he would offer something to help them afford a new home or pay the rent or afford health care or child care. There was nothing in it for the American people.

Speaker 4 And that's where we need to keep our focus. I was just listening to your guest precede me trying to explain that these tariffs, these on-again, off-again tariffs, are not about trade.
It's a drug war.

Speaker 4 And then, but next month it's a trade war, but now it's a drug war.

Speaker 4 It was incomprehensible and he was also trying to say that numbers the job numbers that came in less than expected are somehow good news they're destroying the economy and they're making it harder and harder for Americans to afford things that's where we need to keep the focus that's why we lost the last election because we weren't razor focused on laser focused on the high cost of living and what they're doing now is just making it so much worse in the administration and that's really what we need to emphasize.

Speaker 4 You've made it clear you're a part of

Speaker 1 Donald Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noam, who shot and killed her dogs in her past. That's one of the things she was known for.

Speaker 1 And here she talks about when it comes to reviving the policy of family separations, here's what she says.

Speaker 16 Legally, and they can self-deport as well.

Speaker 16 We've set up a system and a website where people who are here illegally right now can register and they can choose to go home on their own and keep their families united.

Speaker 16 Well, the kids do have a a choice. If they have parents they make a choice to keep their families together if they want to or not.

Speaker 16 If parents make a decision to leave their children behind then that's a choice that they made as a family.

Speaker 16 And we need to remember that when Americans break the law and they have consequences or face a situation, they're separated from their families too.

Speaker 16 I don't believe we should prioritize people from other countries above Americans.

Speaker 17 But when it comes to reviving the policy of separating families from their children at the border.

Speaker 16 we're actually reviving it.

Speaker 16 President Biden didn't follow the law.

Speaker 16 He didn't follow the law in the fact that it's always been equally applied until his administration.

Speaker 16 And then he made decisions to ignore federal law in how he handled immigration and enforcement within our borders.

Speaker 1 And here, MAGA Republican Representative Rick Scott acknowledges that there will be disturbances in economic policies.

Speaker 1 You know, Rick Scott got rich working for a company that pled, that it issued us, that reached a settlement with the government.

Speaker 1 He invoked the Fifth over 75 times in the biggest criminal case of Medicaid fraud. That's how he got his money.
He's worth hundreds of millions of dollars,

Speaker 1 engaged in the types of fraud allegations that Musk and others were saying are the main problems. That's how this guy got rich.

Speaker 1 And now he's just saying, well, Americans will just have to deal with it here. Play this clue.

Speaker 7 Quickly, if you could, sir, President Trump has acknowledged that there's going to be a little disturbance due to his economic policies.

Speaker 7 How bad is this disturbance going to be and how long is it going to last?

Speaker 18 Well, first off, Donald Trump walked in with a crappy economy.

Speaker 18 The number of full-time jobs has been dropping almost the entire Biden administration. This is a lot of work.
The manufacturing jobs are coming back. That had not been happening under Biden.

Speaker 18 That's a big deal. The number one thing is we've got to get American manufacturing back into this country.
So I'm very optimistic that we're going to get this done.

Speaker 18 Now, is it work to balance the budget? Yeah, it's work.

Speaker 18 We're going to stop wasting money. So people are going to go build, we're going to go start building the private sector again and stop growing the public sector.

Speaker 18 It's going to cause some people to change jobs.

Speaker 7 Your constituents that are living paycheck to paycheck, how long is this disturbance going to last?

Speaker 18 Well, the disturbance is the 20% inflation under Biden, the fact there's no full-time jobs. So it's already changing.
We're already adding full-time jobs.

Speaker 18 We've already added 10,000 manufacturing jobs just last month. I'm very optimistic it's going to happen very quickly.

Speaker 7 Okay. I mean, inflation was high, but it was not 20%.
Senator Rick Scott, a floor.

Speaker 1 Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think.
And I like some of these Democrats fighting back. Hit subscribe.
Let's get to 5 million subscribers and thanks for watching.

Speaker 1 Can't get enough, Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now at midasplus.com.