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- [00:01]
Seth Moulton
I'm ready for my life to change. ABC Sunday American Idol returns. Give it your all.
- [00:07]
Ben
Good luck.
- [00:07]
Seth Moulton
Come out with a golden ticket.
- [00:09]
Carrie Underwood
Let's hear it.
- [00:10]
Seth Moulton
This is immense world. I've never seen anything like it.
- [00:15]
Carrie Underwood
And a new chapter begins.
- [00:17]
Ben
You're going to Hollywood.
- [00:19]
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant and Ryan Seacrest on American idol.
- [00:25]
Seth Moulton
Season premieres Sunday, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
- [00:31]
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- [01:00]
Ben
I'm joined by Democratic Congressmember Seth Moulton. Congressman, your former Marine Donald Trump's actions seem to be disproportionately attacking the veteran community, the spouses, members of the armed services, both in terms of the cuts in the federal government where a lot of veterans work, as well as to veterans affairs. We're learning what, 60, 70,000 jobs could be lost. I want to get your reaction to that.
- [01:29]
Seth Moulton
Yeah, I mean, look, Trump has never liked veterans. I mean, let's not forget this is the guy who literally made fun of John McCain for being a POW in Vietnam, who called people who sign up losers and if you get killed a sucker, I mean, this is just who Trump is. He dodged the draft himself because he thought someone else less important than him. I guess as a, as a guy in his early 20s should go to Vietnam in his place. So it's really not a surprise. It shouldn't be a surprise. People who believe his rhetoric about how he's tough and you know he's going to restore confidence in the military and things like this, it just doesn't line up with his personality. So, no, it's not surprising that he's cutting the VA and a lot of veterans are going to get hurt.
- [02:14]
Ben
Yeah, not a surprise that that's coming from him. But are you surprised? Pretty much all of your colleagues have gone and the Republican side have gone full MAGA at this point, giving standing ovations as Donald Trump talks about conquering Greenland and Panama or giving standing ovations as he talks about revoking the CHIPS act, which brings a lot of jobs even to their red states. Does that aspect surprise You.
- [02:42]
Seth Moulton
They're doing it for one reason, Ben. It's, it's not maga. It's a one word answer. Fear. That's why they're doing it. They're just cowards. They're so scared of him and they say some things, they say totally different things in private than what they say in public. So, yeah, they're gonna get on TV and act like sycophants because they're scared that he'll primary them if they don't. But then in private, they don't like what he's doing. They actually do respect veterans. They do respect NATO. I sat at the Munich Security Conference just three weeks ago with the likes of Senator Graham, entirely bipartisan delegation of Republicans and Democrats from the House of Representatives, all reassuring our European allies, all standing by, Zelensky, all propping him up, all doing the same thing, singing from the same sheet of music. And then here's the same story. Trump does something totally crazy that no Republican with an ounce of intelligence or morality can agree with. And about two hours later, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, these Republicans spin some crazy, disjointed story to justify what Trump did. And then all of a sudden they're cheering him on. So it's just utter hypocrisy because they're scared. They're just cowards.
- [04:08]
Ben
Share with you what Trump said earlier in the day. He held one of those Oval Office press conferences where he signed some ridiculous executive order. I think this one was, he signed an executive order saying that he was great for women. And he goes, I guess I'm great. I'm signing the order. Anyway. Then he gets asked all of the questions and here he's asked, are you making it US Policy that the US Won't defend NATO countries that don't pay? Here, let me show you what he said. Are you going to make that policy, US Policy that the US Wouldn't defend NATO countries that don't pay?
- [04:42]
Carrie Underwood
Well, I think it's common sense, right? If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them. No, I'm not going to defend him. I got into a lot of heat when I said that. He said, oh, he's violating NATO. And you know, the biggest problem I have with NATO, I really, you know, I mean, I know the guys very well, they're friends of mine. But if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem. France, we got a problem. A couple of others I won't mention. Do you think they're Going to come and protect us. They're supposed to.
- [05:18]
Ben
I'm not so sure now, you know, from your service.
- [05:22]
Seth Moulton
Utter lies.
- [05:23]
Ben
Yeah. To talk to us about it.
- [05:26]
Seth Moulton
I mean, these countries did come to us after 9 11, and they're not even required to do so the way we are required by treaty to come to their aid if they get attacked in Europe. They didn't have to help us in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they did. And it's not surprising that Trump doesn't know that. I mean, he's not a student of history, but I think more to the point, he doesn't have any sons or daughters who served in the military after 9 11. They're all about my age. They all could have done their part. Just, just, just one of them had signed up. Maybe he would know that. We served on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside Canadian troops, French troops, United troops from the uk, the Danes, the Poles, all these NATO countries, not to mention our ally just to the north. And, you know, they lost a lot of lives there. They didn't need to do that, but they did it because that's what allies do. That's what allies do. They stand by your side. And, you know, when we went to Iraq, we made, we became allies with these Iraqis. Right. And they were difficult allies. I mean, there are a lot of times we, we disagreed. I've been in a lot of very contentious meetings with Iraqi leaders. They didn't always pay their bills, but no one on the ground there, even those of us who disagreed with the war, imagined selling them out, selling them out to the enemy, starting to use Al Qaeda talking points. I mean, that's what Trump's doing. He's selling Ukraine out, he's selling our NATO allies out, and he's literally using the talking points of the enemy. Imagine if Roosevelt had started using Hitler talking points. That's how bad this is. And you know, I get it that, like, we don't win elections on national security issues, but Trump is putting this country in danger. He's putting, putting our national security at risk because all across the globe, our allies are saying we can't trust America anymore. And our adversaries, especially Xi Jinping and China, are saying, yeah, looks like we're getting the green light. We can just walk all over America and its friends no matter where we want.
- [07:38]
Ben
Well, look, elections are won and lost over the economy, as you posted, Russia's stock market is up, China's stock is up, America's stocks are down. And it's just more than just the stocks. Being down the Atlanta Federal reserve saying that GDP will be negative 2.8 to negative 3% in the first quarter. Whereas if Donald Trump just put on autopilot former President Biden's economy, it would have been 3 to 4% GDP growth. Also, you have prices surging. So that combination of GDP contraction and prices. Price is surging is something called stagflation. Hasn't happened in 50 years and is crushing. And then Trump every day, tariff, no tariff. Tariff, no tariff. And he's like, watching the market go up and down, and then he gets scared, so he pulls the tariffs, which are dangerous. What. What are you hearing from, you know, your constituents? What are you seeing out there? You know, generally, the. The sentiment and the vibes are caused by his economic disarray.
- [08:42]
Seth Moulton
Look, I can't remember a time when we've gotten more calls into the office from people who are just scared, desperate, unsure. We're getting a lot of calls from veterans right now who say we depend on the va. I mean, I depend on the va. I get my healthcare at the va. I made that promise when I got elected that I'd continue going to the VA and wouldn't just live off the congressional healthcare plan. And if they cut 80,000 people from the VA, we're not gonna be able to get care. So it's all these concerns, and, yeah, a lot of them are about the economy. Let's not forget Trump promised that prices would go down on day one. Well, they've just gone up. That's the one thing. It's gone up. The market's down. Consumer confidence is down. Investment is down. Everything's down except prices. Prices are going up. And none of this crazy talk about tariffs, none of the selling out our allies, Ukraine, none of our unwillingness to just uphold our commitment to NATO, which has kept us safe for 75 years. None of that is lowering prices. Prices are going up.
- [09:47]
Ben
Let's talk about Doge. Elon Musk pretends that he's not the leader of doge. They said some. Amy Gleason, who no one's heard of, is actually administrator because Elon doesn't want to have to testify before Congress before getting into the damage that Doge is causing. Let's just talk about transparency, which is that none of your Republican colleagues are allowing Elon Musk to go before a Doge subcommittee or any committee to actually discuss what he's doing. I mean, regardless of where someone is on any political issue, you would think at the most basic level, oversight is a thing, and you show up Before Congress, you talk about it or else you're probably got something to hide. Let's talk. Start with transparency and let's talk about the impact you're seeing.
- [10:35]
Seth Moulton
You know, I was in the gym a few weeks ago, bipartisan bunch of Republicans, and one of them said, oh, we're going to Bible study today. Anyone want to come? And I just said, I really hope you're going to cover hypocrisy. I hope you go over that in your Bible study group, because you guys are really good at it. Again, they're scared. They're scared. And they don't let hypocrisy get in the way of supporting Donald Trump, no matter what he's trying to do. Yes, everyone knows that Doge is bad. A lot of the calls we're getting and these thousands of calls, you know, 9,000 people showed up at a telephone telehaul I had last week. I mean, all these people are complaining about Elon Musk and Doge and all the things that are going to be impacted. He's definitely making government less efficient. It's going to take longer to get appointments at the va. It's going to take longer to get your license renewed. I mean, any of this stuff that's impacted by the federal government is going to get less efficient. But we also got to talk about the fact that, I mean, I'm sitting here as a Democrat who's a big champion of government reform and making government more efficient. The first bill I passed in Congress was the Faster Care for Veterans act, just to make it easier for vets to get appointments at the va. I heard a story of a guy called me up from my platoon and was like, hey, I tried to get a mental health appointment at the VA because I was thinking about killing myself last week. And they told me I could see someone in three months. And this great Marine vet that I served with risked his life for all of us. He's like, look, I wasn't thinking about killing myself in three months. I was thinking about it last week. And so there's a lot of reform that's needed in government. And I think Democrats have to be more proactive about saying, here's our plan to reform government, here's how we can do it. Well, the point is Musk might have a good idea the government could be more efficient, but the way he's going about it is just slashing everything. I mean, he's not making government more efficient, he's making it non existent. And that does not serve America well.
- [12:44]
Ben
The final Question. I'm sure you hear it a lot at your town halls. I always get asked it as well, is, what are the Democrats doing? What should they be doing? Everybody gets. You don't control the House, you don't control the Senate, control the executive branch. But I'm sure you hear it from your constituents. They say, we still want you to fight. We want you to fight. And so, you know, what does that mean to you where Democrats don't have control? What does that look like? And what are you challenging other Democrats to do as well, during these difficult times?
- [13:19]
Seth Moulton
We do have to fight. And I think you got to pick your battles, because you're right, we don't have control. So we can't win every battle. But take issues that you can. You can have an impact on. Like, I'm a Marine vet. So is J.D. vance. So I went after him pretty hard when he sold out Zelensky. And I know it got under their skin because they obviously called Fox and Friends and did a hit job on me the following morning, which I'm fine with. You know, but the point is, it got under their skin. We do have to stand up and fight. But the other thing that we have to do is we've got to put ourselves in a position to win. And let's be honest, we got wiped out in this last election when it should have been easy. We were running against a convicted felon. Democrats should have cleaned up across the board. So I don't care how much we lost by the simple fact that we lost means that we're out of touch with the majority of Americans and we gotta work on getting back in touch. And there's three things I'm focused on doing. A lot more listening and a lot less preaching. I wrote an op ed in the Washington Post about how we just become a party that talks down to people and says, if you disagree with us, you're not only wrong, you're a bad person. We gotta change that around and start listening to a majority of Americans again. The second thing we've gotta do is stop listening to the lobbyists, to the extremist groups that give us these litmus tests, these litmus tests on the far left that say if you don't, you know, answer these questions, check these boxes, then you're not a Democrat. Well, that's not a way to build a broad coalition. That's not the way to build a winning majority. And then the third thing is let's actually put people in leadership positions who aren't just from safe seats, put People like Pat Ryan, Abigail Spamberger, people who win tough elections, into leadership positions in the party to show that Democrats actually care about getting elected. And we're not just catering to San Francisco or Brooklyn. We gotta do these things to show America that we got the message that we lost. We got the message that you don't trust us anymore, that you, you think we're out of touch and we're going to turn this around. We're not just going to hate Trump. We're going to show a positive vision forward for the country that you can get behind because we're listening to what you want.
- [15:38]
Ben
I appreciate that. You know, I often get asked, you know, you cover Trump. This is it. Just that you hate Trump. I go, look, if this was a guy who was in Mar? A Lago just being a billionaire or whatever, I wouldn't care. I go, he's impacting you, he's impacting America. He's, he's hurting the economy. He's hurting our alliance. That's why I cover it. Let's focus on those issues. Congressmember Seth Moulton, I appreciate you joining us. This is your first time on the Midas Touch podcast. We hope you come back.
- [16:05]
Seth Moulton
Thanks for having me, everybody.
- [16:07]
Ben
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. You sign up for free now@midasplus.com.
- [16:31]
Seth Moulton
Like.
- [16:32]
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