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- [00:00]
Ben Miceli
This is what I like to see. You've got Democrats, you've got Senator Bernie Sanders and others going on the offense and saying to the people, it's time to go to the streets. It's time to protest. It's time to stand up against authoritarianism. Go on the offense. Then you've got these MAGA Republicans and their propaganda machines on the defense. This is what I like to see. I want to highlight what's going on with some of these stronger pro democracy voices. And I want to show you what it looks like to see MAGA Republicans on their heels. So here we have Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont saying, this struggle against authoritarianism is going to require we the people, to take to the streets. Play this clip.
- [00:47]
Bernie Sanders
At the end of the day, the struggle against Trump, the struggle against oligarchy, which is led by Elon Musk, the struggle against authoritarianism, the fight to make sure that the working class of this country gets a fair shake, that is not going to be won here in Capitol Hill. It's going to be won by millions of people all over this country standing up and saying, you know what? We fought and died for democracy. We're not going to move toward authoritarianism. We fought to create a country that works for all, not just the billionaire class. That's the struggle. And I'm gonna be active in trying to rally the American people to do just that.
- [01:27]
Ben Miceli
Exactly, Bernie, exactly. Then Bernie Sanders talks about how we're not just dealing with this move toward authoritarianism, we're dealing with what is new to America. Yes, politicians have always lied, but the way we are seeing the big lie every day, it's like Nazi Germany.
- [01:48]
Caitlin
Play this clip into this. And what we do know is that there's a lot of people that still remain in the datab. But as far as people who are actually getting payments, it was 44,000 who got payments, according to an audit that was done in 2023.
- [02:01]
Bernie Sanders
Out of how many millions?
- [02:02]
Caitlin
There's tens of millions. So when they say tens of millions, that would be.
- [02:06]
Bernie Sanders
This is what we are dealing with. We're not only dealing with oligarchy, the incredible power of the very, very rich. We're not only dealing with a move toward authoritarianism. We're dealing with what is new to America. You know, politicians have always lied. Nothing new about that. But the level that we're seeing right now, the big lie over and over again. And it goes out, there's a big lie, and then it goes out on Musk's Twitter to what several hundred million people repeated over and over again. Now the word is out there. Oh, people on Social Security, 150 years of age. Can you believe it? The whole thing is corrupt. It's broken. Well, where does that lead you, Caitlin? What's the next step if government can't do anything, if Social Security doesn't work, if Medicare doesn't work, if Medicaid doesn't work, we're going to get rid of all of those programs and we're going to give it over to the billionaire class to run it.
- [03:00]
Caitlin
That's what you think they're ultimately trying to do?
- [03:02]
Bernie Sanders
Yeah. At the end of the day, not only Social Security a, they want massive cuts to programs for the working class in this country in order to give tax breaks to the very rich. And, and then they want to move to the privatization of every important government agency.
- [03:15]
Ben Miceli
And here Bernie Sanders says there should be co equal branches of government. But with the way Congress is right now, with the Republicans in control, they've given up their authority to Donald Trump. Play this clip.
- [03:30]
Bernie Sanders
Elon Musk is clearly running the show. The wealthiest person in the world who has enormous conflicts of interests, who is helping to fund right wing extremist organizations all over the world, who is looking forward to get massive tax breaks from Congress, he's running the show.
- [03:51]
Caitlin
So if he's technically, if he's running the show, but not on paper, as they essentially argue, but you say in practice, he basically is. You're a co equal branch of government as a senator on Capitol Hill.
- [04:02]
Bernie Sanders
Are we? I kind of thought so, but I think you have to explain that to the president.
- [04:06]
Caitlin
Do you feel that you have oversight when it comes to what Elon Musk is doing?
- [04:09]
Chris Murphy
Of course.
- [04:09]
Bernie Sanders
Look, what we're seeing right now, Caitlin, is it's a very dangerous moment. I'm laughing here, but it is, it is not funny. This country is moving very rapidly under Trump into an authoritarian form of society. You know.
- [04:24]
Ben Miceli
You know who I think has been doing a really good job lately? Senator Chris Murphy, I think, has been doing a really good job. Here he is talking about Pete Hegseth, the unqualified Secretary of Defense who was a Fox host. Play this clip.
- [04:39]
Chris Murphy
Pete Hegseth got the job because he's the weekend news anchor on Fox and Donald Trump watches a lot of Fox and so he decided to make that guy the head of the Department of Defense and our chief negotiator in Ukraine. Pete Hegseth is screwing it up badly. But of course he is. He has no experience negotiating with anybody. All he knows how to do is read the news. So nobody should be surprised that this national security cabinet is badly mismanaging the early stages of this negotiation and are going to end up in a settlement that ultimately likes likely gets a lot of Americans killed in the medium and long run.
- [05:20]
Sean Duffy
Just to play devil's and here you.
- [05:22]
Ben Miceli
Have Senator Murphy again explaining why Donald Trump wants to steal Ukraine's rare earth minerals, then kind of put it into his own sovereign wealth fund for him and the billionaires to divvy up. Here, play this clip.
- [05:36]
Chris Van Hollen
President Trump is adamant about the US Getting access to Ukraine's supply of rare earth minerals. Ukraine's president says he's open to it in exchange for security guarantees. But then President Trump also says that the US Would not take part in any peacekeeping force. But if European countries wanted to send peacekeeping forces, he's quote, all for it. Would any kind of peacekeeping force without US Involvement be, I mean, feasible? Would that be enough of a deterrent?
- [06:07]
Chris Murphy
Well, I mean, Donald Trump pretends like he's some great deal maker. It's pretty amazing that he has thrown out any leverage that could help in these negotiations. Right from the start, Donald Trump has said, yeah, the United States isn't going to take part in any security guarantee after the war ends. The United States isn't going to continue to fund Ukraine. The United States doesn't believe that Ukraine should be able to regain the territory that it's lost. Essentially, you're giving away all the leverage that you might have at the negotiating table. But let's also be clear about why he wants these mineral rights. This is just about the billionaires that he serves that can make a ton of money in Ukraine if they are taking those minerals out of the ground and selling them globally for a profit. So it's consistent with the way that Donald Trump operates that his number one agenda would be to gain mineral rights for his billionaire donors instead of actually trying to secure the freedom of Ukraine and American security interests in the Bingo.
- [07:11]
Ben Miceli
Just call it like it is. Don't hold back. Don't mince words. And you know who doesn't hold back and who doesn't mince words? Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Here she is. Let's play it.
- [07:24]
Caitlin
It's not even just nonsense. It's just that they're idiots. I mean, these are the same guys, remember, as it relates to our nuclear stockpile, Right? They're like, wait a minute, we needed those guys. Can we get them back? We don't know how to like, I don't know how anyone in this country can look at this administration and feel some semblance of any type of confidence. Right. And this is all at the same time, like, Elon doesn't want us talking about the fact that he has received almost a billion dollars worth of new contract money from the government in just two weeks. 400 million for Tesla and over 300 million for SpaceX. This is nothing more than a money grab. He's not out there trying to save money for the American people. That's not what he's doing. He's lining his pockets. And at the same time, he's outraging people who don't know exactly how we spend our money and how it benefits us to make sure that things like HIV and AIDS doesn't become the worldwide pandemic that it used to be. Exactly. Same thing with everything else that we're doing, dealing with.
- [08:31]
Ben Miceli
I love this one right here. Let's play it as well.
- [08:33]
Sean Duffy
You were involved in a hearing with Elon Musk about condoms. Right. Do you remember this whole. This whole.
- [08:38]
Caitlin
It wasn't with Elon. Elon, if you're watching, come through, Boo. Cause you haven't shown up to the Doge subconscious.
- [08:45]
Chris Murphy
That's right.
- [08:46]
Sean Duffy
It was an idiot. Right? And you called him out at that subcommittee. But this became weird because Buddy Carter, your colleague from Georgia, started talking about how we were giving condoms to the Taliban, and then Donald Trump himself. Then it became about Gaza, but that would have to have been about 7,000 condoms per person. And then he said it was just Hamas. Hamas, which none of it made sense, but it caused a lot of people to have to run around and follow the story and find out that we give condoms as part of USAID to prevent the spread of HIV to a place in Mozambique called Gaza Province.
- [09:17]
Caitlin
Correct.
- [09:17]
Sean Duffy
This is the nonsense we have to deal with. Everybody.
- [09:19]
Caitlin
It's not even just nonsense. It's just that they're idiots. I mean, these are the same guys, remember, as it relates to our nuclear stockpile, Right? They're like, oh, wait a minute, we needed those guys. Oh, can we get them back? Oh, we don't know how to like.
- [09:32]
Ben Miceli
Next up, you have Democrats, Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland. Here he is saying, you realize, just think about what Donald Trump, Marco Rubio are doing by going to Saudi Arabia and trying to cut deals, begging Putin to cut deals with America while Ukraine is fighting for its life. Could you imagine what that was like if in World War II, you had FDR in the middle of it, saying to Churchill, I'll just let Van Hollen says it better than me. Here, play this clip right now.
- [10:08]
Chris Van Hollen
But what they did in Munich with President Zelensky was primarily to bully them, right? The Secretary of Treasury handed him a piece of paper that essentially required Ukraine to hand over about 50% of its mineral reserves to the United States simply in payment of the support that we've already given, which we've given because they were a democratic country attacked by Putin and the Russian forces. I mean, can you imagine FDR in the middle of World War II, saying to Churchill, you know, we're not going to continue to help you until you turn over half of your coal and mineral reserves. That's not how you behave when you want to support a friend who's under attack by an authoritarian like Putin.
- [10:57]
Ben Miceli
Exactly. Exactly.
- [11:00]
Jasmine Crockett
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- [12:51]
Ben Miceli
So let me show you some of these MAGA Republicans on the defense. Here's MAGA Republican Senator Katie Britt saying this is we're doing oversight. This is great. Play this clip.
- [13:02]
Caitlin
When we were asking questions of the Biden administration, asking for answers, they refused to answer it. Look, oversight is back. American taxpayers work hard for this money. They give it to the government. The government should be good stewards of it. We must give people answers. We must do better. The things that have been uncovering, uncovered are actually mind boggling. And I have a feeling we are just scratching the surface. We're going to get to the bottom of it. We're $36 trillion in debt. Doing better started the day that we rolled in a Republican Congress on January 3rd. And when President Trump took office on January 20th, America is back. And this is just the beginning.
- [13:41]
Ben Miceli
And then you have the MAGA Republican Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who then tries to blame all of the plane crashes that have been taking place under the Trump administration on former President Biden. Play this clip.
- [13:57]
Chris Van Hollen
To cast blame on this administration for the policy failures of the last four years and say it's our fault is outrageous, but it's rich. So I want to talk quickly about the FAA. Yeah, so it's true that less than 400 people were laid off at the FAA. There's 45,000 employees there. So this is 0.89%.
- [14:18]
Ben Miceli
So utterly pathetic. And here's Sean Duffy again, again, Trump Secretary of Transportation lying and saying that there were more plane crashes under Biden than under Trump already. And he goes, planes crash.
- [14:32]
Sean Duffy
That's just air crashes happen.
- [14:34]
Ben Miceli
Could you imagine if Pete Buttigieg says, yeah, air crashes just happened here, play this clip.
- [14:39]
Sean Duffy
But air crashes happen.
- [14:41]
Chris Van Hollen
But there were more under Biden than Donald Trump. But the point here is we want to get to a place where we have zero crashes. We don't want people to die in aircraft. Which is why what I've done is focus on how do you upgrade the system.
- [14:52]
Sean Duffy
But will you look at what's happened?
- [14:54]
Chris Van Hollen
The airspace around DCA that was allowed to stay open under the last administration, the inspections that were done of the aircraft that have crashed, that was done under the last administration.
- [15:04]
Sean Duffy
So it is rich that they would.
- [15:05]
Chris Van Hollen
Come at this administration for the mistakes that they've made and blame us for the crashes. We're going to fix what they refuse to fix over the course of their four years. And that's the mission of this department.
- [15:18]
Ben Miceli
And by the way, what Duffy saying is false. And also, Trump's only been in office for a month. There was no commercial jet crash when former President Biden was in office. Absolutely not. And again, here's how the MAGA Republican mouthpieces like John Roberts are trying to like, justify Elon Musk going through all of your personal files and your records. This is what they're saying on Fox. This is how they're trying to brainwash their audience of sheep. They're saying billionaires should be trusted. Billionaires are so rich that why would they care about your information. Like billionaires are the most trusted people in America. That's what they're saying. And they're pumping this into the arms of their sheeple. Watch this clip.
- [16:08]
Sean Duffy
Elon Musk had access to all that stuff when he was running PayPal.
- [16:11]
Caitlin
Right.
- [16:12]
Sean Duffy
And if you're going to trust anybody with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, wouldn't you want it to be a.
- [16:17]
Chris Van Hollen
Guy who really doesn't need your money?
- [16:19]
Caitlin
Right, right. And also, does anyone actually think that Elon Musk is sitting in the West Wing right now going through people's tax returns? Give me a break. It's people were appointed by the president within the agencies to conduct audits, to do their jobs. And people entrust their personal and private information to all kinds of people all the time. The irs, for instance, had contracted thousands of folks to review sensitive information. Yet there's a problem. And why is there a problem? Because they are Donald Trump appointees.
- [16:48]
Ben Miceli
It is so utterly, utterly ridiculous. So may I just compare right there, John Roberts, who you saw with Jim Acosta. Jim Acosta was recently on the Midas Touch network. We've been collaborating a lot with Acosta since he left his other network. Let me show you what Acosta said to me when I interviewed him yesterday. Play this clip.
- [17:11]
Jim Acosta
You know, I mean, she, it's hard to see somebody out Spicer, Sean Spicer or out Huckabee, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But Caroline Levitt, she is, she's making a run for it. She just might get on Trump's all star team of liars. She might be on the bench right now, but if she keeps working hard, she does her homework, she just might make it onto the team. It's a sad and sorry state of affairs. But what we're seeing right now from this White House is exactly what we saw during the first Trump administration. They performed for the audience of one. Ben. Sean Spicer did this. And as I used to say about Sean Spicer, the problem for Sean Spicer was not that Melissa McCarthy became Sean Spicer. It was that Sean Spicer became Melissa McCarthy and that caricature that we used to all laugh about on Saturday Night Live and Caroline Levitt, unless they've already done it on snl, I would have to think that something like that is in the works because the skit writes itself. There's such bad liars. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, anybody has kids out there when your kid is telling you a tall tale and you're just looking at them like, okay, Johnny, sure, yeah, I believe you. And you just walk away saying, what the hell? That kid's not telling me the truth. That's what's going on over at the White House right now. But make no mistake, they are performing for an audience of one. And so if she gets out in front of the cameras and starts telling the truth, Donald Trump, who was addicted to being on tv, hearing about himself on tv, reading about himself online, he's probably watching these briefings and thinking to himself, well, wait a minute. They can't go out there and tell the truth. They have to tell it the way I tell it, which is all lies. And we're right back where we were in that first Trump White House. Ben. It is a very sad and sorry state of affairs, and I feel very sorry for the fact checkers out there because once again, working in overdrive.
- [19:11]
Sean Duffy
Wow.
- [19:12]
Ben Miceli
So good right there. Well, let me know what you think. It's fight time, folks. It's fight time. You ready? You ready? I'm ready. I'm ready to do it with you. Let's go. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Can't get enough Midas?
- [19:27]
Jasmine Crockett
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- [19:32]
Sean Duffy
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- [19:34]
Ben Miceli
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