AOC Demolishes Disgusting Big Tech Companies In Congress

23 May 2026 · 23 min · 10 chapters

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In short

The episode features Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of The Midas Touch, discussing AOC’s criticism of Big Tech data centers and broader Republican corruption. Topic: AOC’s “Aaron Brockovich moment” claim that data centers pollute drinking water, with an example from Morgan County, Georgia, where water quality allegedly worsened after a data center was built. Filipkowski argues Democrats should focus on data-center impacts in rural Republican areas (noise, higher electric/water bills, pollution) and criticizes the EPA commissioner for not knowing the issue.

Guest backgrounds

Ron Filipkowski is a former Republican official turned critic; he hosts Uncovered and writes on Substack.

Key claims

Republicans “sell out” to Trump; Trump revived January 6th via a “slush fund” addendum; IRS/DOJ enforcement was gutted, enabling tax fraud; Trump’s proposed “ballroom” is taxpayer-funded.

Notable examples

Todd Blanche’s role in immunity; Mike Lindell and other grifters seeking money; April tax receipts down; White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting followed by Trump pushing taxpayer funding.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

AOC's Water and Data Center Issue

1:34 to 2:18

Discussion about AOC's comments on water pollution from data centers.

“This is the current drinking water in Morgan County, Georgia.”

The Political Implications of Data Centers

2:18 to 4:25

Exploring how Democrats can gain rural voters by addressing data center issues.

“And a lot of times their eyes glaze over.”

Evolving Views on AOC

4:25 to 7:10

Discussion about the speaker's changing perspective on AOC over time.

“Oh, that's a great idea because everybody universally that is affected by a data center hates data centers.”

Disillusionment with the Republican Party

7:10 to 9:14

A deep dive into the speaker's discontent with the current Republican Party.

“You know, I look back at some of the policies that I didn't blindly support.”

Trump's January 6th Fund Controversy

9:14 to 12:11

Analysis of the implications of Trump's fundraising related to January 6th.

“And yet he goes on TV and just praises him like he's Jesus now almost every day.”

The IRS and Corporate Audits

12:11 to 14:03

Discussing the IRS's limitations in auditing Trump and related corporations.

“And they're not going to report out the settlement agreements only every three months.”

Disgust and Disillusionment with Michael Cohen

14:03 to 14:47

A critique of Michael Cohen's actions and his desire for a pardon.

“You know, I just, this is despicable what he just did.”

Concerns Over IRS and Tax Fraud

14:47 to 16:48

Discussion on how IRS changes have led to increased tax fraud risks.

“So, let's talk about the ballroom and you brought up the IRS and I don't, I know we're running out of time, but how the IRS, the IRS can't audit Trump.”

Trump's Potential Electoral Manipulations

16:48 to 18:54

Speculations on Trump's cognitive decline and his potential plans for the 2028 elections.

“because that's the month when the government brings in most of their tax revenue.”

The Ballroom Project and Funding Issues

18:54 to 22:26

An analysis of the controversy surrounding Trump's ballroom project and funding.

“But, you know, I got to watch this one, you know, so I did watch it.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over$900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99 % of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of$946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025.

0:36Potential savings will vary.

0:43We are joined today by the editor-in-chief of the Midas Touch and a former Republican official that now, in my estimation, is the biggest smartass on social media. He hosts a weekly podcast, Uncovered, and he writes a substack today in politics. Please welcome Ron Filipkowski. How are you? Great. I appreciate you having me on. It's quite an honor. I was just telling him before the show, I laugh out loud all the time at what your posts are on social media. You are the biggest smartass, which is just my absolute love language. So I wanted to start by this AOC clip regarding water and data centers.

1:28And I thought your response on social media was great. And so I want to talk about that. So Seth, if you'll play that clip. Sure. I have a jar right here. This is the current drinking water in Morgan County, Georgia. Right after a data center was constructed, the metadata center was constructed. The only difference between the clean water and this was that data center. I have another one as well. So this wasn't just one well. This wasn't just one family's situation. This is what the drinking water now looks like next to that data center. And I think both of us can agree that neither one of these things are drinkable.

2:18so you called this her aaron brockovich moment can you expand on that for us yeah sure i mean what a great movie and what a great person that aaron has been over the decades and tremendous work that she did and it sort of reminded me of the scene in the movie where brockovich asked the lawyer for the water company uh handed the puts the glass across the table and said here uh why don't here's some water why don't you have a drink of that that that water comes from uh whatever the town was higby or something in california hinkley that water comes from hinkley go ahead and have a sip and the lawyer wouldn't wouldn't drink it it sort of reminded me of that but the data center issue is something that i've been way out in front of for a long time i think this is a massive issue it is an issue that not enough democrats talk about or pay attention to I know because like our Capitol Hill reporter, I tell them to ask representatives all the time about data centers.

3:16And a lot of times their eyes glaze over. Because to me, this is an issue where Democrats can reclaim a lot of the rural voters that they lost over the last couple decades. Because many of these data centers are being built in rural Republican areas. And they hate them. They hate the noise. they hate the electric bills going up, they hate their water bills going up, and it's also polluting the water. So here you have the EPA commissioner who's in charge of water safety in America. And AOC asks her about this problem of data centers polluting water all over the country, and she doesn't know anything about it.

4:00She says she's never heard of this problem before. So I just think this is an issue where Democrats need to get in the game. Some of them Some are, but I think this is a key issue because Republicans are all in on these data centers. They 100 % favor them because of the economic benefit and the campaign contributions they get. So this is a way where Democrats can sort of reclaim those rural voters that they've lost, I think. Oh, that's a great idea because everybody universally that is affected by a data center hates data centers. One thing that struck me is I am a Republican convert also. I didn't legally change my registration until 2000 after 2016.

4:44But I look at like my parents, if you ask them, they're super MAGA, super evangelical Christian. If you ask them, who is the devil? AOC might just be right. I mean, they have deemed the Republican Party has demonized her. So I think it's funny. I mean, when you look at AOC now, having been in, you know, high up in Republican politics in Florida, do you kind of chuckle to yourself that AOC has now become someone that you really respect? Yeah. And, you know, I, my opinion has changed about her a lot. And a lot of it is because she's changed in my opinion. I mean, I think she would admit that she has talked about that, that when she came in, you know, first she was very young, she was in her twenties and she was a member of the squad and she did a lot of bomb throwing and, you know, made a lot of inflammatory statements about several different things.

5:41And then I think she, she has said this and interviews, she realized that that's not what she wants her career arc to be. She wants to be in leadership. I think she either wants to be Speaker of the House or President. And I think, you know, as she matured and got some years under her and some wisdom, I think she realized that she needed to be more of a team player. She needed to help leadership, whip votes, and she needed to sort of expand her portfolio where she's talking more about foreign policy and more about tax issues. I mean, she's just become a brilliant student of policy. And I think that that is the most impressive thing about her, is that you can ask her about almost any issue.

6:29And we do all the time. We talk to her almost every day at Midas. Our reporters ask her questions almost every day. And we ask her questions about a variety of topics all over the map. She, maybe more than any other Democrat, is able to give you an intelligent answer about such a wide array of topics. So I'm just incredibly impressed with her. I think that she has grown a lot and she's still, what, early 30s? She's a bright future ahead of her. I think everybody talks about her as president. I think she would be more ideally a Speaker of the House down the road, but that's my opinion. You know, I look back at some of the policies that I didn't blindly support.

7:15I just didn't give a shit enough to ask about in the Republican Party and now what they stand for. And now I want to take a shower to get that stink off me. What do you see now when you say Republican Party? Yeah, you know, like people think like I left the party, I left it too, you know, because of Trump and I did not, you know, I left the Republican Party because of what how everybody else in the party responded to Trump. I mean, you had that handful of those never Trump Republican Lincoln Project type people back in 2016 who spoke up and spoke out and resisted. And J.D. Vance was one of them, by the way.

8:00And then that was fine. But then to see all of these Republicans like Vance, Rubio, who despised Donald Trump, who hated Donald Trump, who thought he was a fraud and a con artist and a grifter and all those things. I mean, Marco Rubio said some of the most horrible things about Donald Trump, called him a racist, you know, in 2016 than anybody out there. And now he's his secretary of state. So it was just, you know, a close friend of mine. Joe Gruters is now the RNC chairman. Joe and I were friends for 25 years. We lived in the same town. And, you know, to watch people like that completely sell their soul and to sell out and take everything that they supposedly believed in that I believed in and just say, none of that matters anymore.

8:55We're all going to line up behind this charlatan, this con man. I just said, I'm disgusted. It's not Trump that is the reason why I'm leaving. It's all of you. All of you sellouts. I mean, look at a guy like Tom Emmer who's out there. Tom Emmer hates Donald Trump. He despises Donald Trump. Everybody knows that. And yet he goes on TV and just praises him like he's Jesus now almost every day. It's disgusting to me, really. It is disgusting. And what's so funny about it, there's a party of masculinity and alpha males and all of that. And I'm like, y 'all are all the biggest pussies on the planet because you bend the knee to this stupid, stupid person.

9:39Okay, so what did you think when you heard about Trump's January 6th slush fund? I mean, the corruption is so staggering, you almost can't even keep up. You know, when the story first broke, I immediately said, this is the most corrupt thing that has ever happened. Not just that Trump has ever done. It's the most corrupt thing that has ever happened in U.S. history. You know, my degree is in U.S. history. I was a high school U.S. history teacher many years ago. You know, I've read biographies of every president. So I'm pretty well versed in U.S. history and been a political junkie my whole life.

10:22There has never been no president has ever done anything this corrupt ever. I mean, from the whole thing, the fact that it stemmed from a bogus IRS lawsuit resulted in this thing. And now you're going to have all these grifters coming forward. You've already got Mike Lindell out there asking for$400 million. Enrique Terrio wants$2 million. You know, I saw another one is asking for$4 million. You know, some of the worst dregs of society are all going to come forward. John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, they're all coming out of the woodwork. They're like cockroaches coming out. It's like flipping the light switch on.

10:59All these J6 losers and scumbags are all back. And it's like you're looking at these Republicans in Congress, John Thune, Tim Scott, these guys who have to run these campaign committees to try and hold on to their majorities. And they're just beside themselves right now. They cannot believe that Donald Trump has just dropped this bomb on top of their shitstorm on top of their head. They were all griping about it yesterday. at least a dozen senators on the record by name went on camera to denounce this. That has never happened before. You know, we haven't seen anything like, and you're taking J6, an issue which is dead and buried, which is gone as an electoral issue.

11:42Nobody talked about January 6th in the 2024 election. It was a dead and buried issue. And Donald Trump has just revived it and made it literally one of the top issues in the 2026 midterms. It's absolute insanity, stupidity, and naked corruption. I mean, the fact that Todd Blanche's personal criminal defense attorney is now appointing all five members. Yeah. I mean, that's – and they're meeting in secret. And they're not going to report out the settlement agreements only every three months. So they could hand out all this money in secret for three months. We won't know. It's just every three months we get a list of names and dollar amounts.

12:27I mean, it's just absolutely outrageous. My two things with this are, number one, instead of coming out and voting against it and killing the addendum to the bill, they closed down the Senate, which is Mike Johnson's move. I don't want to vote against Trump, so we'll just all go home. So that's a bunch of fucking cowards right there. And then two, the people that are getting it are so despicable. But in my opinion, Trump is trying to rewrite history that no, I was wronged. It wasn't seditious conspiracy to overturn the government in my favor. It was weaponized against them. And so I'm like, you're such a dumb shit.

13:13All of his plans, it's like he's too stupid to actually execute him. And then what I thought was interesting is Michael Cohen says he might file. And I'm like, Michael Cohen, your bitch is with the Trump administration. I mean, look, Michael worked for us, you know, and. I liked him. He wrote that column in Substack a couple months ago where he denounced Lachisa James and claimed that they tried to, and the Manhattan DA, and tried to claim that they forced him to lie or tried to talk him into lying, things like that. And, you know, I talked to Ben immediately after that column came out and I just said, I don't think I can work with this guy.

14:03You know, I just, this is despicable what he just did. Then he did a podcast with Laura Loomer. It was somebody like that. He did a podcast with some right winger. Oh, Patrick Bette David. And, you know, he went on there and I listened to that and I was just totally disgusted. And now you have him coming forward wanting money. He wasn't even prosecuted by the Biden administration. He was prosecuted during the Trump administration. So, yeah, I mean like, and he's also angling for a pardon, Michael Cohen is. So, I just don't want anything to do with that guy. Yeah. It's a real fall from grace in my opinion.

14:46Okay. So, let's talk about the ballroom and you brought up the IRS and I don't, I know we're running out of time, but how the IRS, the IRS can't audit Trump. He can't audit family or corporations, and they're fucking taking every corporation on planet Earth and putting their name on it. What was your first thought when you heard that? This is a broader problem that I have been really worried about. Look, tax receipts in April were way down from last April, and this is something that has been on my radar that I have been watching. And the reason is this. When Trump got there, one of the first things Doge did is they wiped out the IRS audit investigators.

15:32You know, they got rid of a lot of them. And they gutted DOJ's white collar fraud division. I mean, it basically doesn't even exist anymore. So this has sent the signal to all these corrupt billionaires and hundred millionaires and corporations that if they file fraudulent tax returns, if they scam on their taxes, there's really nobody that's going to investigate them. There's nobody that's going to prosecute them. I mean, I think what you're going to see over this next couple of years is the number of audits and prosecutions for tax frauds are going to bottom out. They're going to go through the floor.

16:12And when you know that there's no cops out, I mean, people tend to speed when, if they know that there's not going to be any police on the road. I mean, people, once these scammers, grifters, and con artists, and tax cheats know that there's no fox guarding the chicken coop, it's all hell is going to break loose. So now, I think that there is a lot of blatant tax fraud going on right now as we sit here from these people that we will never know about. We will absolutely never, because all this stuff's confidential. So that, and so I was really paying attention to the April tax receipts, because that's the month when the government brings in most of their tax revenue.

16:57And it was way down this year from last year. So I think that there is a lot of scamming going on. And then what happens? Trump has, again, his former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, is the one who signed this, giving him, his family, and his company's complete immunity from audits, investigations. And the reason why this is significant is because Donald Trump scammed nearly$100 million in a tax refund about a decade ago. He wrote off bogus losses on his Trump Tower Chicago and a couple of his other businesses and committed tax fraud, and he's never been prosecuted for it and the case was never closed.

17:38So what this did is it basically closed that case and it also basically signaled to his sons who were out there running a bunch of corrupt enterprises that they don't have to worry about being audited. It's just unbelievable how blatant this is but again nobody's going to stop him and one thing that leads to that is now we have Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's found the light. Alex Jones found the light. They're on this podcast. They say, oh, well, Trump's going to cancel the 2028 elections, which that doesn't surprise me. That would not surprise me. But then I tie that into the ballroom. He wants this fucking ballroom because he wants to hide and never come out of the White House.

18:22We saw I acted last time. And now we're talking about the elections. What do you think about the upcoming elections and in the ballroom. You know, I saw Green was on Alex Jones's podcast yesterday. And, you know, normally I probably wouldn't watch that. But I did see Alex posted some of the topics that they discussed. And one of them was Trump's cognitive decline. And the other was Trump canceling the 2028 election. So I said, OK, well, this isn't my favorite thing to do tonight to watch these two yahoos. But, you know, I got to watch this one, you know, so I did watch it. It was 30 minutes. It was, you know, 30 minutes of agony.

19:02But but the point is, is that they both are completely off the Trump train. Both of them, you know, they both attack him pretty much every day and they both have pretty sizable followings. And so, you know, one of the things that was interesting was they they did say that Trump is not the same guy. He's cognitively he's lost it. He's gone way downhill. Bill Green told a few different stories about why she believes that that's true. Alex Jones mentioned frontal lobe damage that he had. He speculated that he had a stroke, all kinds of things. I mean, it was pretty wild to listen to these two go at it.

19:38Right. Then they went in to talk about the 2020 election. And Green said, sounded a lot like a lot of Democrats. You know, she sounded like, I thought I was on Blue Sky listening to her. She said that Trump keeps bringing up that he's still going to be in office as if he's joking, but what she says is he's not joking. He's floating that out there. He keeps putting that out there as a possibility because he's conditioning people to get used to that as an idea. And then when she talked about how he became very interested when Zelensky said in the Oval Office last year that Ukraine hasn't had an election because the war is going on.

20:18And Trump picked up on that right away and said, oh, that's interesting. Maybe that could happen here. And we have Trump starting all kinds of wars, Iran, Cuba, everywhere else. And so they speculated that like Trump will start a war in 2028 and try to use that as his justification not to have an election, which I thought was pretty wild for the two of them to say that. But you're right. I listened to his press conference a couple days ago where he was out at the construction site of the ballroom and he was talking about it. And the impression I had after listening to that for an hour was this does not sound like a guy who plans to leave.

20:58Right. Absolutely. I mean, it's we've seen the evidence like history repeats itself. And he was willing to stage a coup in 2020. Now all he's going to have to do is run down at his little ballroom that. Oh, I just have to ask you this because it struck me. He's like, I'm funding the ballroom. He said that in a press conference yesterday. Bitch, you're trying to get$1 billion from the U.S. taxpayer. Shut the fuck up. Yeah, I posted all these old clips recently. When he first talked about the ballroom, he said it was going to cost$200 billion, million dollars, and he himself personally was going to pay for the whole thing.

21:39Then it went to$250 ,000, then it went to$300 ,000, then it went to$350 ,000, then it went to$400 ,000. Then it became donors were going to pay. And I said at the time, I'm like, there are no donors that are paying for this. This is what I've been saying for months and months. Every time he talks about all these corporate donors, he doesn't have the money. He has pledges. He claims he's got promises. He's got Tim Cook saying, oh, yeah, we'll think about putting in$5 million or something. That's all. He doesn't have money in the bank. And so I believe that his plan all along was to get this ballroom started, destroy the East Wing, put the hole in the ground, and then he's going to run out of money a third of the way through, and he's going to go to Congress and ask for it.

22:23I've said that for the last year. He's going to go to Congress. And what happens? They have this shooting incident at the White House Correspondence Dinner. Literally, Trump is in front of microphones 10 minutes later saying, we need taxpayers now to pay for the ballroom. It was that was his plan all along. I completely agree. Ron Filikowski, everybody follow him. Go to Substack for Today in Politics. Smartass of the year. In my opinion, you get my vote. I will continue to follow you. Thank you for being on. It was a treat. And we will talk soon. All right, we'll do it again. Thank you, Angie.

23:09We'll be right back.

From the publisher

We are joined by Rob Filipkowski of  @MeidasTouch  to discuss AOC's unfailing fight and the Trump administrations endless criming.


Pre-order Jennifer’s new book Not Today, Fascists today: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcast


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Special Guest: Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski

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