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Host
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. 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 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. So the Trump regime is rolling out their new talking points regarding this disastrous budget bill. And they're saying that the 34 million able bodied Americans on Medicaid will now be working the farms as the Trump regime deports the migrant farm workers. This is you're going to work the farms for your health care right now or else. This is what Trump's Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday. Here, play this.
Congressman
But I can't underscore enough.
Congressman Stube/Stubbs
There will be no amnesty.
Congressman
The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which again, with.
Congressman Stube/Stubbs
34 million people able bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly.
Congressman
Thank you.
Host
Then you had MAGA Republican Congressmember Stube or Stubbs speaking on FOX about how lots of people are working 80 hours a week and we should be cutting way more with government services. Here's what they were talking about on fox. Let's play it.
Congressman Stube/Stubbs
But within Medicaid and I think this is where the messaging has been interesting. It's 80 hours a month that you have to show that you worked 80 hours a month. A lot of people, congressmen work 80 hours a week. Things like that that were, that were in those Medicaid decisions, those cuts. At the same time you've got reconciliation coming, you've got rescissions coming. So aren't there more places that we can cut and where would you be willing to cuts in spending so that we don't completely blow out the debt in this country which is already sitting at 37 trillion.
Congressman
Yeah, I support massive cuts to a.
Host
Whole entirety of government programs that we have.
Congressman
But unfortunately we have.
Host
Well, not unfortunately, but we have moderates in our party that obviously can't support.
Congressman
The type of cuts that somebody like me would support.
Host
80 hours a week by the way, said 8 hours a day, 8 hours a week. Also they're saying we ran up the debt in this disastrous budget bill. Now we got to do something about y' all did it. But if you listen to MAGA Republican Jim Jordan, he's basically saying, you know how you know this was a good budget bill. He says the left hates it. We own the libs, everybody we're kicking people off of Medicaid. Tens of millions of people, but we own the lib. So that's all we care about is maga. Republicans here play this clip.
Jim Jordan
If there's an able bodied adult out there now who is in our welfare system, guess what? That person's going to have to work. That is fair to taxpayers. That's good for our economy. Maybe most importantly, that's actually good for that recipient, for that individual, gets them on a better path to attaining work and skills and everything else to get to a better position in life. That is far from immoral. But I always say, David, we know this is a good bill because the left hates it. And the left hates it because it does not impact.
Host
We know it's good because the left hates it. By the way, if you want to see what Donald Trump's Homeland Security secretary has been posting on her Instagram during these very serious times, it's photos of herself on horses and, and asking which should be her official governor portrait right now, which that's what she's posting on her Instagram. Anyway, I digress. Let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Tom suozzi. New York's 3rd congressional district is where you represent. It was a district that voted for you as the Democrat, but split. They voted for Trump in the general election in 2024. What are you hearing right now in your district about the disastrous budget bill?
Congressman
You know, not everybody knows about this budget yet. A lot of the calls that I get are from people that are from organizations, from hospitals, from not for profits, people that are freaking out about these Medicaid cuts, about the cut to the food program that are happening. Very, very concerned about how it's going to affect the hospitals and the not for profits that service some of the most needy people in our country. You know, this whole thing doesn't really add up. You know, it's not just the, the liberals like Jim Jordan saying that don't like this budget. There were Republicans that actually voted for it, that said awful things about it, that it was immoral and it was wrong and, you know, it's bad for the rest of the country. Look at Lisa Murkowski, look at Senator Josh Hawley. Think of the different members of the Freedom Caucus that were talking about how awful the deficit is. Elon Musk talking about the deficit. This is going to be the biggest single deficit of any year ever in the history of the country because of this bill. So we're having these massive deficits. We're cutting some of the most Needy people off of their insurance. Remember the 2/3 of the people on Medicaid, 2/3 of the people in nursing homes are paid for with Medicaid. One tenth of all the veterans in America are paid for with Medicaid. Most 92% of people who are able bodied are working with Medicaid right now. The people that aren't, it's usually a single parent who's got a disabled kid at home in circumstances you can't possibly imagine. So you're, you're massive deficit. You're knocking these people off of their health care. You're going to cause health insurance prices to go up for all Americans. And why are you doing it? To provide the biggest tax cut ever for some of the wealthiest people in our country. It really just doesn't add up.
Host
You know, they used to pretend that, you know, hey, if we do all of this stuff, it's going to trickle down and you're going to do well. And now they're just kind of lying about things. I mean this, this whole premise from the MAGA Republicans that there are these 35 year old able bodied men who are like making it rain and getting rich off of Medicaid in their mother's basement when Medicaid reimburses for medical procedures. I'm trying to think of this 35 year old who's playing video games who's like, you know how I'm going to get rich? I've got a L5s, one tear, I'm going to go and get a procedure, a microdissection. I'm going to get rich. It's unfathomable. Even those, the talking points and then they start posting, we've done it, we're protecting all of our seniors. We've guaranteed you no tax on Social Security. And they repeated that one, no tax. And it's not, and it's not in the bill. You've been in politics for a long time and look, you know that politics can be a rough and tumble place. But like these people, this is like one of Trump's scams from back in.
Congressman
The day with Trump University, counting on the fractured media environment that people aren't gonna actually what's going on. And Trump is the master of distraction. You know, when we were debating this, you know, 24 hour debates through the middle of the night about this, you know, as much as three weeks or a month ago when this thing really kicked off, what were we hearing about? We were hearing about the plane from Qatar. The next week we're doing more debates. We're having more votes on this. We're doing more hearings, more markups. What do we hear about? We hear about the Chinese tariffs. What happens next? We hear about the bombings in Israel. We hear about Iran. We hear about other things. Trump will bring up any other topic. He'll go down to Alligator Alley, down to the Everglades, where he's gonna do the Alligator Alcatraz. I mean, he'll do whatever he can to not actually talk about this bill publicly in a broad way. Why? It's a loser. People do not like the idea that we're cutting taxes for some of the wealthiest Americans unnecessarily. So they don't need it in this economy. They're doing great. They're making a lot of money from their stock portfolio. They don't need, they haven't needed it for years. So they're cutting taxes for some of the wealthiest Americans. They're hurting some of the people in the most desperate circumstances. You hear these stories of people on Medicaid, of these parents with their disabled kids and people that have been through these awful, tragic experiences with their health that are dependent on this as a lifeline. You're going to see people's health insurance go up dramatically. People, you know, we've, for 10 years, we've been hearing about them trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. This is a backdoor way to get rid of some of the Obamacare stuff as well. And it's going to cause people's health care costs to go up. So big tax cuts, most vulnerable people, and the biggest deficit ever in the history of the country, where even Elon Musk is saying this is awful and irresponsible. The Freedom Caucus. This is awful and irresponsible. They voted for it anyway. So it's, the whole thing's a, a ruse, a sham, a pickpocket. What happens, One person comes in and bumps into you, and when they bump into you and you're distracted, the other person picks your pocket. Well, they're getting us all excited about, you know, the Alligator, Alcatraz, the, the, the, the, the, the National Guard being activated in L. A, the bombings in Iran, the plane from Qatar, whatever. It is just something else not to talk about how awful this bill actually is.
Host
Let's talk about the bipartisan immigration plan that, that you have. I remember James Langford from Oklahoma, maga, Republican senator back a year and a half ago at this point, was pushing a bipartisan immigration bill, very strong borders, giving lots of money to law enforcement to deal with criminals and then treating people who have been here for a long time, contributing and paying their taxes with dignity and creating pathways for people who have worked here their whole lives or a long period of time to be able to not have to hide in the shadows and to be able to work and recognizing their accomplishments. Democrats worked with Lankford to come up with ways to soften some of the harsh things when it comes to asylum. And there was a deal, if you want to actually call a bill, a beautiful bill, actually one that could have made a major difference, help the economy. But Donald Trump said kill it.
Congressman
And so Donald Trump killed it. So this is a great example of what I was just talking about, the pickpockets and him distracting. Okay, let's remember there was a bipartisan deal that would have secured the border and solved a lot of problems related to immigration that was negotiated by Democrats and Republicans, Lankford and Murphy, Republican and Democrat. And Trump killed it. And when they asked him during the debate, they said, Mr. President, you're very concerned about the border and you want to secure the border. There's a bipartisan deal in the Senate right now. The president, President Biden, says he'll sign it. Kamala Harris says she supports it. Other Democrats in the House say they'll support it. Why did you kill that bill? And you know what his answer was? They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. They're eating the pets. And we fell for it for six weeks. We did funny memes and dogs talking to cats and ha, ha, ha, very funny. But we never talked about the fact that Trump killed the bill, saying he wanted a border security. There was a bill for border security. He killed the bill, and so he distracted everybody. So right now, the president has said something over the past couple weeks. That clip you had from the agricultural Secretary is very disconcerting. Trump came out and said, you know what? We have all these people in agriculture and in hospitality that are good people. They've been working hard for more than 10 years, and they've been here a long time. And the farmers need them. And maybe I have the right documentation. Let's figure out a way to use common sense and to legalize these folks. And then Stephen Miller came in, crashed in and said, forget that. We're going after everybody. We're going to deport everybody. And then president came out again and said, no, we got to help the farmers. I love the farmers. I love the border. I want to skew the border, but I love the farmers. I want to help the Farmers. So I wrote a letter to the president. I said, Mr. President, we have these folks in my district that have just been picked up by ice. The guy's been working in the community for years. It's the same thing. They've been here for years. They don't have all the proper documentation, but they've been here for more than 10 years. No criminal activity. Nobody should disagree with the idea of deporting violent criminals. That's a reasonable thing to do, and we should do that. But now we're getting all these innocent folks getting caught up in this whole thing, and people are living in fear. People are afraid to report things to the police because they're afraid of getting entrapped in the process. So I wrote a letter to the president. I said, Mr. President, I've been listening to you very carefully. Let's make a deal. Let's make a deal to permanently secure the border, not just from executive orders, but have Congress do bipartisan support so that we really can secure the border for the future. Let's fix the broken asylum system that's being abused by the cartels and the coyotes that are collecting $10,000 a person and telling people how to game the system. And most importantly, let's build this coalition of business badges and the Bible and put the community behind the idea of legalizing people that have been here for more than 10 years that have otherwise been playing by the rules. They go to work six days a week. They go to church on Sunday. Let them live a life. They don't have to have citizenship. Forget about a pathway to citizenship. Just give them legalization so they can go to work. They can pay their taxes. They. They can take care of their families. They can stop looking over their shoulder that somebody jack boot, thug is going to come in and try and pick them up. So there's a deal to be made here. The question is whether the President really wants to secure his legacy and has the guts to stand up to the extremists that really want to try and get rid of everybody and make everybody's life miserable.
Host
You look at his life, though, it seems that it's always been filled with chaos that ultimately leads to bankruptcies. And then he blames somebody for the problem and then moves on to the next one. He's personally enriched, and his life has been hopping to the next. The next. The next one. And then he said, look, these were. This Republican Party is. Is. Is right, is ripe for it, with the greed, with the. With everything. You know, they'll. They'll fall for this Dick, he found his mark. He took him over, you know, is running it, and now, you know, it's just weird stuff that you see. I mean, some of the strangest stuff. And we'll leave with this. I just want to get your take on it, because, again, you've been in politics for a while. I mean, just seeing some of your colleagues out there, oh, we need to give him a Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, he's so wise. He's the smartest guy ever. It's like just. It's just some strange beh. Some strange stuff that's going on.
Congressman
I want to make a deal with the president on immigration. I'd love to, but it was killing me during the whole big beautiful bill debate, during the whole thing that was in the middle of the whole thing, he did something on truth social media to advertise his new Trump fragrance. I was like, oh, my gosh, what has happened to our country? So it's just imagine, though, you're.
Host
Look, I grew up in New York's third, which was once New York's second. You know, they don't like that weirdo stuff. Like, they don't like, like, like they look at that. And I know how, you know, I know how they. I understand, even though I strongly disagree with it, how they could fall for some of this stuff, and now they're. It's being exposed as a lie. But I just can see the people waking up, and it's going, ugh, like.
Congressman
The idea of people's families getting separated and, you know, ICE guys wearing masks and picking up otherwise innocent people, you know, go after the criminals, you know, get them out of here. I'm with you. Let's do that. But the stuff that they're doing now is just over the top. And we're concerned because there's so much money being put into ICE and into the border security stuff. We have to marry that with actually legalizing a bunch of people. And I'm hoping we can break through to the President because it could be very scary, quite frankly. And I have all these different people. In my district, I have people who voted for Trump. He won by 19,000 votes. In my district, people voted for me. I won by 11,000 votes. So I've got Democrats in one ear more, the base people saying, this is the end of the world. He's destroying democracy. We have to stop this guy. This is awful. I got other people in the other year saying, well, you got to break some eggs to make an omelet. You know, we got to. We Got to try and, you know, change some stuff. The government's not working. We got to fix some stuff. And then we got most of the people in the middle saying, what are you guys doing? Can't you like, just work things out? What about me? What about my life? What are you doing to help make my life better? Can't you work together and actually solve some problems? And the natural inclination is, you know, punch, counterpunch. That's the normal behavior of anybody. And Trump is a real puncher. He's always knocking people, always hitting people, always trying to pick a fight. And the natural reaction of most of us, most human beings, is to punch back. But if we keep this punch, counterpunch thing, eye for an eye, we're all going to end up blind. So we got to figure out how to rise above this and figure out, okay, let's find places to actually solve some problems. Now that's hard to do, especially in this environment with some of the crazy stuff that we see happening. But that's our obligation. That's why I'm in politics. That's why I'm in. I've been doing this off and on for 30 years. It's not worth it to win a race or to get your name in the newspaper or to, or to make a speech. It's only if you actually get stuff done to make people's lives better that makes this worthwhile. And you talk about Trump going from this thing, from that thing to the next thing. Well, this is, you know, he's 80 years old or whatever. He is 79 years old. This is it. He's not running again in 2028. Even with all the rumors and conspiracy, he's not running again. So he ought to be thinking about what's his legacy going to be. He's obviously one of the most important figures in, you know, the modern generation. What's his reputation going to be when this is all said and done? The only way he's going to have a positive legacy is if he actually makes some bipartisan deals that will be long lasting, that will actually make things better for people. This idea of he's got to win every fight and knock everybody down in the process will not last. And people will not end up ultimately going for some of the more dramatic stuff, especially, you know, selling the fragrances.
Host
Congressman Tom Suozzi, no one would ever accuse you of using the Trump clone. Sub subscribe let's, let's get to 6 million. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth over lies collection@store.midas touch.com All 100 USA Union made.
The MeidasTouch Podcast: Rep. Tom Suozzi Calls Bluff of GOP after Tax Scam
Release Date: July 12, 2025
In this episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, hosted by the Meiselas brothers—Ben, Brett, and Jordy—the discussion centers around the contentious recent budget bill proposed by the GOP, its implications on Medicaid, and the broader political maneuvers within the Republican Party. A significant portion of the episode features an interview with Democratic Congressmember Tom Suozzi from New York's 3rd congressional district. Suozzi provides a critical analysis of the GOP's strategies, the impact of the budget bill on vulnerable populations, and the state of immigration policy in the United States.
The episode begins with the Meiselas brothers dissecting the GOP's latest budget bill, which has sparked controversy due to its proposed cuts to Medicaid. The Republicans, led by figures like Congressman Stube/Stubbs, advocate for the removal of 34 million able-bodied Americans from Medicaid, suggesting they should work in agriculture to maintain their healthcare benefits.
Notable Quote:
"The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation," (00:58) - Congressman Stube/Stubbs
The budget bill not only aims to reduce Medicaid enrollment but also seeks significant tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, exacerbating the national deficit, which is already at a staggering $37 trillion.
The podcast delves into the tactics employed by former President Donald Trump and his allies to divert attention from the controversial aspects of the budget bill. The Meiselas brothers criticize Trump’s approach of introducing distracting narratives, such as foreign policy issues or personal ventures, to overshadow the negative implications of the bill.
Notable Quote:
"Trump is the master of distraction. He’ll bring up any other topic to not actually talk about this bill publicly in a broad way. Why? It's a loser." (06:49) - Congressman Tom Suozzi
Suozzi emphasizes that Trump's distractions prevent meaningful discourse on the bill's impact, particularly its detrimental effects on healthcare and vulnerable communities.
A significant segment of the podcast features Rep. Tom Suozzi, who discusses his bipartisan approach to immigration reform. He outlines a plan focused on securing the border, rectifying the broken asylum system, and providing legalization for long-term residents without offering a pathway to citizenship. Suozzi criticizes the hardline stance of the Freedom Caucus and extremist elements within the GOP, advocating for pragmatic solutions that benefit both the economy and communities.
Notable Quote:
"Let them live a life. They don't have to have citizenship. Forget about a pathway to citizenship. Just give them legalization so they can go to work. They can pay their taxes." (12:35) - Congressman Tom Suozzi
He also addresses the political challenges of implementing such reforms amidst deep partisan divides and the influence of populist figures like Trump.
Throughout the episode, there is a recurring theme of political polarization hindering effective governance. Suozzi highlights the frustration among his constituents, who are split between staunch supporters and those advocating for more moderate, solution-oriented politics. He underscores the necessity for bipartisan collaboration to address critical issues like immigration and the national deficit.
Notable Quote:
"If we keep this punch, counterpunch thing, eye for an eye, we're all going to end up blind. So we got to figure out how to rise above this and figure out, okay, let's find places to actually solve some problems." (15:13) - Congressman Tom Suozzi
Suozzi calls for moving beyond retaliatory politics to focus on creating tangible improvements in people's lives, emphasizing that effective leadership is essential for national progress.
Congressman Stube/Stubbs:
"But there will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation." (00:58)
Jim Jordan:
"That person's going to have to work. That is fair to taxpayers. That's good for our economy." (02:53)
Congressman Tom Suozzi:
"This is going to be the biggest single deficit of any year ever in the history of the country because of this bill." (05:46)
Congressman Tom Suozzi:
"The only way he's going to have a positive legacy is if he actually makes some bipartisan deals that will be long lasting, that will actually make things better for people." (18:33)
This episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast offers a critical examination of the GOP's recent budget bill, highlighting its potential to harm vulnerable populations through Medicaid cuts and exacerbate the national deficit. Rep. Tom Suozzi provides insightful commentary on the need for bipartisan efforts to reform immigration and stabilize the economy. The discussion underscores the detrimental impact of partisan distractions and the urgent need for politicians to prioritize effective governance over political maneuvering. The Meiselas brothers adeptly facilitate this conversation, blending humor with serious political discourse, thereby making complex issues accessible to their audience.
Overall, the podcast emphasizes the importance of holding political leaders accountable and advocating for policies that support democracy and the well-being of all Americans.