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Host
Trump voters are regretting what they did, especially individuals in the market who are or who are looking at their pensions and 401ks right now, or those in the investment community. You had people like Geiger Capital who had previously posted. No one other than fairly stupid partisans on the left think that Trump is truly going to implement 20% tariffs on everything across the board. Maybe didn't predict 145% tariffs against China or whatever cockamamie formula they use. And then Geiger Capital responded to their own post recently. I won't delete this tweet because I am a man of honor. But yes, I was wrong on the tariffs in November. He has indeed put blanket tariffs on every country. Trump 2.0 is very different. Also seeing a lot of posts like this. I've lost $208,000 since Trump became the president I should have voted for. And of course the person can spell Kamala Harris's name correctly. It says Kamala. Other statements like this. It's no secret I voted for Trump, but I didn't vote for a global trade war. He better fix this strife immediately if Republicans want a chance to keep the House or Senate. 71 million Americans have a 401K. We are the world's largest consumers. Our trade deficits could have been ironed out with a phone call. I believe this is a huge miscalculation. Democrats should be jumping up and down tonight celebrating. Actually, we're not jumping up and down celebrating. This is a horrible time generally for the country. I mean the pain that Donald Trump is inflicting. Other posts like this. I'm a small business in a small town. 99.9% of America's small businesses. We cannot survive the tariffs. I voted for Trump, so don't come on here and calling me a liberal. I can go on and on and on. Headlines like this market turmoil puts bro sphere support for Trump under strain. And while as we're recording this, you never know with kind of the pump and dump meme coin economy that Donald Trump has turned our markets into. So I want to be careful what I say. But as the markets are once again in a crash mode right now. Donald Trump held a cabinet meeting and he talked about the big day we had the prior day. Or play this clip.
Donald Trump
Prescription drug prices are even to down. We're doing very well. It's, it's been amazing. We had a big day yesterday. There'll always be transition difficulty but we had a in history. It was the biggest day in history. The markets so very, very happy with the way the country's running.
Host
Very happy with the way the country is running. Let's call in Democratic Congressmember Jimmy Gomez. Congressmember Gomez. He's very happy, very happy with it. Transition problem. Very happy with it. What's, what's your response to that?
Congressmember Jimmy Gomez
Well, it pisses me off. It actually makes me extremely angry because his, his economic plan, if he wants to call it, has just been creating chaos. One, we always knew taking on having a trade war would be difficult, especially when you're picking a war with every single country in the, on the globe, including your own allies. That was, that's insane. I always, he always said, oh, these are easy to win. Easy to win, not when the opposition starts firing back. And that's what exactly started happening. And he just created a tailspin in the marketplace where you saw the stocks going down, down and down. You also saw the consumer confidence crashing. You saw banks started saying, hey, there's going to be a recession, recession, recession. And it just was a complete chaos. And what happens is you're starting to see it hurt. Really. Working men and women, people that need to look at their receipt when they go to the grocery store or restaurant, they really need to buckle down. And here's the thing, those tariffs, he lifted, the big ones, but not all the, all the tariffs. So what you're going to see is you're going to see that inflation still go up, people still hurt. And once that happens, people start tightening their belts, they stop spending, their revenues decline. And all of a sudden, when revenues decline, the small business owner starts cutting back on hours and, and then laying off people. So we're in a downward spiral. It hasn't stopped just because he paused it for 90 days. The bond market, super bad to an extent. If people are not scared, they should be, because we were on the verge of having a financial economic meltdown. And this guy, the only reason he changed was because people were saying, hey, this is going to bring down the entire economy. So this guy is costing people their livelihoods or 401ks. And I think that that's finally breaking through to the people that voted for him. But this guy has no idea what he's doing. He listens to an economic advisor named Pete Navarro who made up an expert called Ron Vera to justify his positions. That's insane.
Host
You run the lead. The Congressional Dads Caucus. You know, there were overall still in the last election, a lot of, you know, men who voted for, for, for Trump. I mean, but, you know, men, dads, you know, are all Americans, but are feeling the pain. What's your vantage point from the dad's caucus about what you're, you know, about what you're seeing?
Congressmember Jimmy Gomez
So the dad's caucus, we started off, we only had six members. Now we're up to 45 members and it really is talking about the issues that men and families care about. One, how do you survive? How do you actually earn enough? How do you make sure things are not going up and up? How do you kind of provide and in a way really kind of acknowledges people where they're at. You know, you're a dad, you're a mom, you're struggling. Well, we want to figure out how to make life easier for you. And one of the things that we've known is that when we talk to dads about raising a kid, saving for a house, losing a job, mental health. We had people talk about mental health, we'd have them talk about gun violence. When you talk about issues that impact them, they're more likely to listen to your other policies. But when you sit there and you kind of like don't have that conversation, don't treat them as a valued part of your coalition, well then all of a sudden they start moving away from you. And this appeals. The Dad's Caucus, we have everybody who is from a blue dog to new dam to progressive members. It's ideologically diverse, racially diverse and geographically diverse. It's one of the few caucuses that actually can do that because we start where people, where people's priorities are themselves and their families.
Host
And a big part of that is health, making sure they're healthy, their families are healthy, their parents are healthy. You know, one of the things about this budget in addition the MAGA Republican Trump budget, in addition to giving $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to the billionaires, is it's gutting Medicaid. But they almost pretend that they're not doing it like it. Not that it could even get worse, but it does in the sense that then they're deceitful about it. Like that's not what we're doing when they're doing it. Here's what speaker of the House MAGA Mike Johnson said earlier today after pushing forward the Senate blueprint, which by the way looks nothing like the House blueprint. But they're just pretending that they're going to go along with this until I guess, what, we hit a debt ceiling and then we're in another crisis mode. But here's what MAGA Mike says, then I'll get your response to it all.
MAGA Mike Johnson
No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid to anyone who's duly owed. What we've talked about is returning work requirements. So for example, you don't have able bodied young men on a program that's designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled. They're draining resources from people who actually do that. So if you, if you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day. We have a lot of fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid. Just one, one tiny example. The estimate is $51 billion.
Host
Congressman, your response to that?
Congressmember Jimmy Gomez
The Republican plan is really defund, defraud and lie to the American public. And here's the defund. They're trying to cut Medicaid. They're trying to cut Social Security by making it so hard for people to get their checks. They're trying to cut the Department of Education. They're just trying to cut, cut, cut without giving a damn of who it's going to hurt. So that's the defund. And then they want to take that savings and use it to defraud the American people by giving tax breaks to the top 1/10 1%, the billionaires, the ultra wealthy, and making sure that the corporations get a lower tax rate as well. That's how they're going to defraud the American people. And then they're lying about it. Here's the thing, he said, oh, that's not what we're doing. Their own budget instructions to the Energy and Commerce Committee says you have to cut 880 billion out of federal spending. Well, they have jurisdiction over Medicaid, Medicare and some other spending. Well, the other spending is only you cut everything to the bone. You get rid of it, you only cut 200 billion. So where do you get the other 680 billion in savings that they need? Medicaid. Yeah, they can do some tightening up work requirements, which is shameful in itself because it's going to hurt working people. But that only saves you about 100 and $120 billion. So they're straight up lying. That's why I actually went to Valadao's representative Valadao's and Bakersfield's district held a town hall. He has 67% of his district on Medicaid and he doesn't care. And it's like that's because either you're lying about the math, lying that you're going to cut the deficit, or you're just lying about your entire plan. So their defund, defraud and lie strategy, we got to just expose and make people know what really is going on.
Host
Finally, I got to ask you about this Because LAUSD is in your congressional district and LAUSD is sprawling in the, in the Los Angeles area with schools all over, but the headquarters is in your district. So on Thursday, LAUSD confirmed that plain clothes federal agents tried to question kids at two elementary schools in Los Angeles Monday, but were denied entry by administrators. Superintendent Carvalho said the agents claimed they had parent permission to question the kids, but it wasn't true. Carvalho said the agents were seeking to talk to five children who came to this country as unaccompanied minors and are in the care of legal guardians. LAUSD's legal team is responding. The agents did not have warrants to access the campuses. And especially where we're seeing the Trump regime disappearing humans without due process and sending people literally to concentration camps in El Salvador. I mean, I want to get your reaction to this breaking story today and just generally of the disappearing of human beings with no due process.
Congressmember Jimmy Gomez
Now, I was just made aware of the superintendent. What happened LA USD it's extremely scary because this basically says that the Trump administration knows no bounds and it has no dignity when it comes to dealing with even young children. And as a dad, you know, that is something that worries me. And I'm glad that the superintendent and also the guardians of these individuals stepped up because even if you're undocumented, you have certain rights in this country. And I've been holding know your rights workshops. I've been going door to door handing out that information so people are not fooled by, by ICE agents saying that they have a warrant when they don't. And that's the best way to protect right now, protect our communities, is to make sure they have that information. And here's the thing, when they're pulling people off the streets, sending them to El Salvador, that is just one step of pulling American citizen themselves off of the streets. He's even looking into that. If you Basically his press secretary said, oh, we're looking into it to see if it's legal. We don't know if it's legal. This administration doesn't care about the law. They don't care about the custom and practices. They're going to try to push their agenda. And what people have to decide for themselves that one of these court cases will reach the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, if they rule against them and Trump ignores it, what are they willing to do? Because we're not a country of kings, we're a democracy. And people are going to have to decide are we going to stand up or we let Trump actually trample on our Constitution. This is getting real serious and real dangerous.
Host
Congressmember Jimmy Gomez, thank you for joining us. We need you to come back soon. You were here in the early days of the Midas Touch Network. I remember we did an interview when the audience was quite this size. So I'll always remember that.
Congressmember Jimmy Gomez
January 6th right after that. So congratulations on all your success.
Host
Thank you very much, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas substack for ad free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at midasplus Dot.
The MeidasTouch Podcast: Congressman Gomez Responds to Trump Economic Turmoil
Release Date: April 12, 2025
In the latest episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, hosts Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas engage in a robust discussion centered around the economic upheaval attributed to former President Donald Trump's policies. The episode features an insightful interview with Democratic Congressmember Jimmy Gomez, who provides a critical analysis of Trump's economic strategies and their repercussions on American families and the nation's financial stability.
The episode opens with the host addressing growing discontent among Trump voters regarding the administration's economic decisions, particularly the imposition of extensive tariffs. The host critiques statements from entities like Geiger Capital, highlighting a shift in their stance as they acknowledge miscalculations in tariff implementations.
Host (02:20): "Trump 2.0 is very different... I've lost $208,000 since Trump became the president I should have voted for."
This segment underscores the tangible financial losses experienced by individuals and the broader market instability caused by Trump's blanket tariffs, which have disrupted global trade relations and eroded consumer confidence.
A pivotal moment in the episode features a clip of Donald Trump touting the administration's economic successes amidst evident turmoil.
Donald Trump (04:44): "Prescription drug prices are even to down. We're doing very well. It's been amazing... The markets so very, very happy with the way the country's running."
This optimistic portrayal by Trump starkly contrasts with the grim realities discussed by Congressmember Gomez, setting the stage for a critical examination of Trump's economic narrative.
In an in-depth interview, Congressmember Gomez articulates the adverse effects of Trump's economic strategies, particularly the comprehensive trade wars that have destabilized markets and strained international alliances.
Gomez (05:19): "His economic plan... has just been creating chaos. You saw the stocks going down, down and down. The bond market, super bad to an extent."
Gomez emphasizes that the relentless tariffs have not only failed to rectify trade deficits but have also led to increased inflation and reduced consumer spending, pushing small businesses to the brink.
Gomez (06:30): "The only reason he [Trump] changed was because people are saying... this is going to bring down the entire economy. This guy is costing people their livelihoods or 401ks."
His analysis highlights the disconnect between Trump's optimistic economic rhetoric and the tangible hardships faced by ordinary Americans, including significant losses in retirement savings and the destabilization of small businesses.
The conversation shifts to the Congressional Dads Caucus, led by Gomez, which focuses on addressing the pressing concerns of American fathers and their families. Gomez outlines the caucus's growth and its commitment to issues such as mental health, economic stability, and family welfare.
Gomez (08:04): "We're talking about how do you survive? How do you actually earn enough? How do you make sure things are not going up and up?"
He underscores the caucus's bipartisan and diverse nature, stressing the importance of engaging with constituents on personal and familial issues to build a more inclusive political coalition.
The podcast delves into the contentious topic of Medicaid cuts proposed by Republican lawmakers, specifically addressing statements from Speaker of the House, MAGA Mike Johnson.
MAGA Mike Johnson (10:19): "No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid... we save a lot of money and return the dignity of work to young men."
Gomez vehemently opposes these proposals, arguing that they represent a blatant attempt to defund essential social services while funneling tax breaks to the wealthy.
Gomez (10:54): "The Republican plan is really defund, defraud and lie to the American public... they're going to defraud the American people."
He critiques the unrealistic budget cuts and exposes the Republicans' misleading narratives about their fiscal strategies, advocating for transparent and equitable economic policies.
A recent incident involving the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) serves as a focal point for discussing federal overreach and the erosion of due process under the Trump administration. Officials attempted to question unaccompanied minor students without proper warrants, prompting Gomez to condemn the actions.
Gomez (13:57): "This administration doesn't care about the law... They're going to try to push their agenda. People are going to have to decide... are we going to stand up or we let Trump actually trample on our Constitution."
He highlights the broader implications of such actions, warning of potential human rights violations and the undermining of democratic principles.
The episode concludes with hosts reflecting on the interview's insights and the growing support for democratic policies amidst economic uncertainty. They encourage listeners to engage with the content and support the movement towards safeguarding democracy and economic stability.
Host (15:46): "Congressmember Jimmy Gomez, thank you for joining us... congratulations on all your success."
Key Takeaways:
This episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast offers a comprehensive analysis of the current economic landscape, the political maneuvers affecting everyday Americans, and the ongoing struggle to uphold democratic values in the face of authoritarian tendencies.