The MeidasTouch Podcast

Dems Finally OUTMANEUVER Trump with RAPID RESPONSE

January 29, 2025 16m
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Democratic Senators, Congressman Members, and Governors fighting back against Trump and warning people in clear terms. Uplift Desk: Elevate your workspace and energize your year with Uplift Desk. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/meidas for a special offer exclusive to our audience. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Head to https://Lumen.me/legalaf and use code: LEGALAF to get 20% off your lumen today! 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

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So Donald Trump and Elon Musk just offered a fake buyout to all federal employees saying that if they resign before February 6th, they are going to get paid all of their salary through September of 2025. Well, Congress hasn't appropriated that money.
There's no authority to do it. And it's likely another bait and switch by Donald Trump, which he did to stiff contractors his entire career.
That's just what Donald Trump does. Democrats are forcefully calling Donald Trump and Elon Musk out for this scam.
You have the Democratic Oversight Committee saying the following, there's a fork in the road, all right, and Trump, Musk, and their Project 2025 cronies are going down the wrong path again. Read Jerry Connolly's statement on the Trump administration's latest attempt to push our experts, federal workers, and others out and replace them with political hacks.
This is Jerry Connolly's statement from the Oversight Committee. Donald Trump is trying every trick he and his Project 2025 cronies can think of to circumvent established civil service protections so they can purge the civil service of experts and replace them with political loyalists.
The victims here, as is always the case with Donald Trump, are the American people who will see government services and benefits allocated not by nonpartisan civil servants, but by partisan hacks. But moreover, Donald Trump is also, I think, trying to con and fraud the federal workers.
You sign your resignation. You think you're going to get the money from Donald Trump and Elon Musk, or do you think you're going to get the old bait and switch? Democratic Senator Tim Kaine gave a powerful speech earlier where he said the buyout idea is another Trump scam.
Quote, he's tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept the offer and resign, he'll stiff you just like he stiffed other contractors.
Folks, if you have friends, family, or you, or you know people who work at the federal government, make sure they know that this is likely yet another Trump and Musk scam. Don't be fooled.
Here is Senator Tim Kaine on the Senate floor making this impassioned case. Let's play it.
And they received an email that said from the administration, if you tender your resignation by next Friday, we will guarantee you payment through the end of September, whether or not you show up for work. So tender your resignation.
And then boy, it's just going to be a gravy train. You're just going to get paid for seven months without working.
The president has no authority to make that offer. There's no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work.
This is a guy who made this promise to contractors again and again and again when he was a private business guy. Oh, come work for me on my casino.
Come work for me in a hotel. We're going to do a handshake.
We're going to do a contract. The contractor does the work and then finds out they get stiffed.
So my message to federal employees who receive this is, yeah, the president has tried to terrorize you for about a week and then gives you a little sweetheart offer. If you resign in the next week, we're just going to pay you for doing nothing for the next seven months.
Don't be fooled. Here, Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, she goes, Trump is offering a fake buyout to federal workers with no guarantee he won't screw them the minute they accept and then replace them with unqualified, inexperienced loyalists the second they leave.
This is straight from the pages of Project 2025. Want to share this with you because Democrats going on the offense and calling Donald Trump out.
Here's Governor Tim Walz. This is his interview he gave recently on MSNBC.
Here's what he had to say about the Trump roligarch. Play this clip.
Those folks are in there and they're making, you know, they put out tweets from the president's fail son who threatens people like we're coming for you. You think this is bad or whatever.
So I would tell people, stay focused. Don't take the bait on the distractions.
Surround yourself with people who understand this and recognize the things they went after today are basically a big chunk of what society does. And people like to have clean water and hospitals and safety and roads and airports.
All the things are going after. And you summed it up.
This is their societies that function like this, where the rich and the oligarchs do everything. And there's some fabulously wealthy people who are basically not basically are above the law.
And the rest of us are here. You know, when I watch that clip, I get a little frustrated because that's the governor walls that Vice President Kamala Harris picked.
And he seemed to be holding back or the advisors were holding him back during the campaign. He came out so strong.
He was calling Trump and J.D. Vance weird.
And then I guess they were saying, don't say that. I thought that was powerful as could be.
Speaking of powerful as can be, Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman here, he talks about how Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are basically allowing Trump to impound all of legislatively prescribed funds that are out there going to all of these people who need it, all of these federal programs Trump is not allowing to reach its final recipients, people who rely on this for life or death matters here. Watch this.
$3 trillion are distributed through these federal programs. And a policy difference under the law is not a good reason.
It's not a sufficient reason to stop payment of federal funds. So just because Donald Trump doesn't like it does not give him license under the law, as Caroline Levitt said.
There's, of course, no reference to what law, but it is flatly illegal. And here's Democratic

Congressman Dan Goldman again. What really happened here, Anderson, is that they planned to stop all funding and that there was enough of an outrage that they released supplemental guidance today trying to roll this back.
But what was clear is they shut down all of the money right away. And that was their plan.
And what I either they didn't realize because of ignorance or perhaps cruelty was the point of it is that it would have a tremendous impact on hundreds of millions of Americans. Muscles are vital for movement and play a key role in supporting the vascular system.
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You control the House, you control the Senate. Don't do it unlawfully via impoundment.
If you want to do this, go through the process. That's what laws are for.
Laws are on the books that allow, that require, that mandate these funds, these government funds go to their destination. You can't just be like, no,

that's called being a dictator on day one.

Here's what Tim Kaine has to say.

Play this clip.

I really want to focus on this last thing.

What the president is doing is not only illegal,

it's not only chaotic and damaging to Virginians,

it's betraying a deep insecurity.

And let me explain why.

As you know, we're working on a budget deal right now.

The Republicans kicked the budget to March 14.

The president of the budget to March 14. The president has two Republican houses.
If he wants to cut the budget, he's got majorities in both houses. He could just work with them to do it the lawful way, reach a budget that matches the Trump priorities over the course of the next six weeks.
The fact that he's not doing that, that he's using this illegal unilateral executive strategy means he doesn't have confidence that the Republican leadership in both houses will go along with the extremity of the actions that he's taking. That should tell us something.
But if you want to know what they're talking about on Fox, the WMD, the weapon of mass distraction, what are they trying to do here? Know their playbook, folks. They're talking about, oh, Trump's going to do an iron dome in case Russia nukes us.
Iron dome. I thought Donald Trump had great relations with Putin.
I thought him and Putin were buddies in that the war in Ukraine was going to end on day one. I thought Trump promised us peace in 24 hours after the election.
Oh, that failed. 24 hours after the inauguration, that failed.
And now you're saying that we need an Iron Dome to protect against nuclear weapons in the United States from Putin, who's Trump's buddy? What in the world are y'all talking about? You can't even get your WMDs, your weapons of mass distraction, consistent at all. And now your WMDs are actual WMDs, weapons of mass destruction.
You're running that playbook right now. That's the playbook you're running to try to distract us.
Isn't it so obvious folks? So pathetic. If you talk to most Americans, they probably think we do have a missile system, same as what you see in Israel.
But the truth is we don't, which makes us highly vulnerable because if we do get attacked by ballistic missiles or hypersonic missiles, or God forbid, even nuclear, it's probably not going to be shot all the way from Russia. It's probably not going to be shot all the way from North Korea or from China.
It's going to be shot in international waters just off our shores, which isn't going to give us a whole lot of time to respond. And when you start dealing with hypersonic missiles, it doesn't have a projected pattern like a ballistic missile does, where a ballistic missile has an arc that goes up and you intercept it.
When you're dealing with hypersonic missiles, you've got to intercept quick because of the fact that it's moving quick and it's moving at an unpredicted location. So it...
Anyway, thanks for watching. Hit subscribe.
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