Rep. Jared Moskowitz on GOP Crashing Over Trump Cover Up

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1:47Ben Meiselas:Your team just added its 67th AI tool, and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you. Vanta is the platform used by over 16 ,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started at Vanta.com. The MAGA Republicans in Congress are absolutely panicking right now after Democrats successfully did this maneuver in the Oversight Committee to get other MAGA Republicans to join and actually subpoena the Epstein files from the Department of Justice.

2:31Ben Meiselas:Now, look, I think the DOJ is going to try to obstruct and not produce these records. But now you have the Republicans who are trying to come to Donald Trump's defense, trying to say, why do we even need to see these files? Can we just move? Let's just move on. There's nothing that is even going to be in here. You've got Congress member Zink. Here's what he had to say today. Let's play it. You know, it reminds me, actually, of the Russian collusion. Look, I've talked to Pam Bondi. The list, as I understand it, is a victim list. Remember, you have horrendous crimes with children. And Chief Justice Roberts is mentioned, I understand, because he took a flight that Epstein owned.

3:13Ben Meiselas:So just necessarily knowing someone is not criminal, but you also have to protect the innocent. So I understand that Trump asked, the Trump administration asked the judge to intervene, Take a look at what should be sealed, what is not sealed. But I just don't think that everyone's looking for this golden nugget. And it just reminds me of the Russian collusion. There's nothing there, I can assure you, with the president of the United States that would lead to any other conclusion that he knew him. That's it. How are these human beings? How are these human beings? Let's just start there. How is this even real?

3:51Ben Meiselas:And you've got Congressmember Jimenez. Here's what he's got to say. Some heinous things. and to young girls, and he paid the ultimate price, I guess, with his own suicide. But we need to move on. And again, the American people are more worried about tabletop issues, kitchen table issues, their economy, how much they're paying for gas, how much money can they keep in their pockets once the effects of the big, beautiful bill take effect with no tax on tips and overtime. Social security, you know, lowering gas prices through energy dominance. I think the American people are a lot more interested in that than in there.

4:34Ben Meiselas:Literally just saying words. Social security. What about social security? What do you even mean? All right. And then you have MAGA Republican Senator Roger Marshall saying the real thing we need to focus on is Hillary Clinton. Hillary. Minimal impact on the election. And Barack says, oh, no, let's change that narrative. Let's go out there and delegitimize the election and tell the American people that Russia interfered with the election. Otherwise, how in the world could Hillary Clinton be beaten? Never mind that she was on tranquilizers at the time and to her wits end and was thriving for all the power she can get.

5:09Ben Meiselas:Look, again, this is the threat to democracy. This is the truth that true democracy when the president of the United States weaponizes the entire intelligence agency and the legacy media against the future president of the United States, the duly elected future president of the United States. Yeah, that... What? Let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Jared Moskowitz. Congressman Moskowitz, where are you, Congressman? Good afternoon. Well, I mean, you know, Mike Johnson sent us away. He sent us on vacation to try to escape the Epstein thing. So I'm on an island. Not that one. and I had this ridiculous shirt.

5:50No, look, I'm in my office. I'm still wearing the ridiculous shirt for you. Can you believe they sent us home? So I listened to my colleagues with all due respect to them and if what they were saying were true, why are we home? Why are we here? Why did they send us out of Washington early? Why did they cancel committees? Why did they cancel votes? If they weren't running away, what are they hiding? And so, you know, it is ironic. The reason we're talking about this is because Donald Trump talked about it and Don Jr. talked about it and Kash Patel talked about it and Dan Bongino talked about it.

6:25And Pam Bondi said the list was on her desk and then turned out no list, no desk. OK, that's why we're talking about it. And then the reports come out, obviously, about, you know, a big, beautiful secret. and then it comes out that Pam Bondi briefed the president that his name was on the list, which, by the way, I don't know, is shocking to me that his name is on the list or in the boxes or in the files. I mean, based on his behavior the last 10 days, I can't believe that his name is all over these things. I mean, he's not acting that way, right? You don't see that. I don't see it.

6:58Ben Meiselas:You know, I would say of the overall files that exist, maybe 10 % have already been released. based on the civil cases, FOIA requests, some other releases that happened in some of the other cases. And you brought this up last year, more like 18 months ago, when the MAGA Republicans were trying to kind of weaponize Epstein against Democrats and do all this stuff in the oversight committee. I remember that moment you brought in a big, you know, poster of Trump and Epstein, And you went on a rant when when not a lot of we were talking about it on the network. But you said, hello, do you know the connections?

7:43Ben Meiselas:Then you went through the connection. So this has been something that you brought up consistently to show the hypocrisy, but to show who Trump is. Yeah, when Republicans are saying that Democrats weren't talking about this, it's not true. I was talking about it and others were talking about it. And I made that poster because Marjorie Taylor Greene had been going on a rant about pedophiles and, you know, Democrats and pizza parlors and all this other bullshit that comes out of her mouth. So I said, you know what, I'm going to make a poster. My staff was like, please don't. But I made the poster and put it in the back.

8:15And I was like, let's see what Marjorie does. And like clockwork, right, Marjorie's talking about pedophiles. And so I just decided to hold up the poster, not knowing, obviously, we would be where we are today. But it's nice to see my Republicans, you know, breaking out the records, you know, the 30s and the 40s, getting out their old albums, you know, Hillary's emails. Now she's on Tranquilizers. OK, you know, Barack Obama. We're going to arrest Barack Obama. He apparently was, you know, in charge of Russiagate. It's not like they didn't have four years, you know, when when Trump was president.

8:50OK, and could have, of course, brought this to America's attention. You know, the DNI, Tulsa Gabbard was asked about that. And she said, oh, well, there were people in the Trump administration that kept it from coming out. Well, really? Well, then if what they're saying is a crime, then those people should be arrested because that was obstruction of justice within the Trump administration. So I'd like to hear the names of those Trump people that kept it from coming out. So this is just all, you know, this is just like it's like the Wizard of Oz. OK, pay no attention to the man behind a curtain.

9:20Look at the look at the show. Look at the fire and the fireworks. And, you know, my listening to my colleagues, you know, it's they don't even believe the shit coming out of their mouth. I love them, love them to death, but they don't believe any of that stuff coming out of their mouth. They know he's in the files. They don't know necessarily that he did anything wrong. And there's no evidence of that, of course. So we're not going to just jump to conclusion. But he clearly was very close with Mr. Epstein. His name is all over this file, all over the files, you know, and so it's embarrassing. And if you just look at the president's behavior of, oh, yeah, we'll release him.

9:57And then all of a sudden, it's a hoax. Or Joe Biden, while he was in the basement, was, you know, putting Trump's name into the files. By the way, if that were true, then the Democrats would have released it in the last four years of the Biden administration. You know, and then it's, you know, my Republican supporters have bought this hook line and sinker. I don't want their support anymore. They're buying into this hoax. Meanwhile, literally, the people he appointed in the FBI, the two top people, are there because of the Epstein thing. cash patel and dan bongino rose to prominence because they were going to expose all the democrats uh on on the epstein list and so look i agree that there are way more important issues going on in america there are kitchen table issues unaffordability the tariffs uh the horrible big beautiful bill taking people's health insurance away right what they're doing with you know citizens in this country uh that come from different countries and so there are lots of more important things to talk about.

10:58But this is a disaster of their own making, probably needs a FEMA declaration if we still had a FEMA. And so we're only talking about it because their base is talking about it. And we're just trying to help them out, you know, to figure out how to solve this.

11:12Ben Meiselas:But doesn't it also go to all those other issues as well? Because it's just the American people are being lied to. And here it's... Well, we've known that for a long time, right? And I I know this is like the first time that some people, you know, in the MAGA verse are like, oh, well, if he's lying to us now, how long has he been lying to us? Right. I know they're they're they're struggling with that. Right. We've known this for a long time, that part of what he does in his marketing brilliance is just lie and lie and lie and exaggerate and make up stories. right like you know his uncle was a professor with the unabomber which isn't true right there's hundreds of those okay uh and this is the first time that the bubble has popped because they really thought for the first time they were gonna get the deep state and now their guy is part of the deep state and it's it's awkward for them i get it by the way do you know who told stories about teaching with the Unabomber and where that actually came from.

12:20Ben Meiselas:It seems it actually came from Epstein. And Epstein, when he was, for real, when he was a teacher, he would be telling other people's stories about when he studied or taught with the Unabomber. And so people had been connecting that and going, wait a minute, was that the Epstein story and not your uncle story? Because obviously Epstein didn't go. I mean, obviously the Unabomber didn't go to MIT and wasn't Trump's uncle wasn't alive when the Unabomber was was the Trump just dropping little Easter eggs. Right. Like I'm going to tell Epstein stories. No one's going to know little Easter eggs. Love it.

12:53Well, you go.

12:54Ben Meiselas:Well, you go back to his 2004 book as well by Trump. And he's like, I have a special friend named Jeffrey who could just goes by Jeffrey. And everybody thinks that he has all of these magical powers. There's there's all of that coming up. But look, You mentioned, you know, these other cover ups that you talked about, FEMA. You were the head of emergency management in Florida before becoming a member of Congress. One of the things that just happened recently as well, and I don't want all this news to deflect from, again, what took place in Texas, the flash floods and the lack of warnings that were given and what could have been done better there and the total lack of accountability by the Trump administration.

13:32Ben Meiselas:But the head of urban search and rescue at FEMA resigned, you know, and this was a career person over at FEMA, you know, who and as our audience may recall, urban search and rescue was ready to go right away. But because Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, required her sign off on any cost above$100 ,000, and obviously Urban Search and Rescue would cost more than$100 ,000, Urban Search and Rescue said that they weren't activated for 72 hours, and that was critical time. And then she kind of just says, oh, this is fake news. But now the head of Urban Search and Rescue resigns. How big of a deal is that, and what should our audience know?

14:14So first, let me say, as I was listening to you, I'm looking at myself, thinking to myself, how ridiculous I look in this shirt for the opening bit. Okay. The situation with FEMA is worse than people know. In fact, I actually think people in the West Wing are finding out in real time how bad the situation is at FEMA and what Christine Noem did there. Look, the industry has known for a long time that there needed to be FEMA reform. FEMA had been disabused by Homeland. This goes back to several administrations. They were using FEMA to run all of the grants and the 22 other agencies. And FEMA got away a little bit from being a core response agency and became a giant grant agency.

14:53So I actually have a bipartisan bill with Byron Donalds to get FEMA out of Homeland because there is a bipartisan recognition. It's bipartisan by Cameroon. We got Tom Tillis and Senator Padilla in the Senate that has that bill. Because we got to get FEMA out of Homeland, it is to survive. And now I got to get it away from Kristi Noem if we're going to have an emergency management agency anymore. So let me tell you what she's done since she's been there. First of all, she fired 20 percent of the workforce, the experienced people. Then she gave people buyouts, forced the more of the experienced people to leave, because you're being told every day we're going to close this agency.

15:29You're going to take a buyout. So you got regional offices, which are really the offices that respond first to these local disasters. They're 20, 30 percent empty. You've got areas where their regional administrators have resigned. You know, those are the folks that would call up the emergency management director and start moving assets, trying to figure out, you know, what the immediate needs are, pushing resources down, even stuff you didn't ask for. Then she held on to 10 billion dollars of previously declared disaster aid from previous presidential declarations. What's the impact of that? Well, if you're not reimbursing cities, counties, states, vendors, municipal co-ops, they can't be ready.

16:02They don't have the capital for the next hurricane season. Florida's owed$4 billion that we're waiting on, even though it was previously approved. She then says we want states to develop more resources. She then cuts the program, the EMPG program that actually sends money down so states can develop more capability. They get rid of the BRIC program, which helps build resiliency, helps bring costs down for future disasters. she fires the first interim FEMA administrator that they appointed not senate confirmed of course because no one wants to work for christy noem uh and then wants to be senate confirmed no one's leaving their emergency management job to go do that she fires that guy because he said we should keep FEMA she brings in this new guy he's got no emergency management experience he literally looks like he got came out of a strip club okay he just did a hearing looked like the big lebowski has no idea of anything emergency management any FEMA related uh his background is in weapons of mass destruction, which makes sense.

16:59They dropped a bomb on the agency. And so, you know, this is what we have. The situation in Texas, which was the first disaster under the new regime of Kristi Noem, because she's really running FEMA, not this guy. It's heartbreaking. The news out of Texas is just terrible. I've seen what it looks like when parents have to bury their kids because of what happened at my high school at Marjory's someone dug us a mile from my home. It's the absolute worst, absolute worst. It just, I can't believe what went on in that community. And there should be an after action review. We got to know what worked in response, what didn't work in response.

17:42You know, there's going to be things that didn't work well at the local level. There's always going to be those. And they'll look at the state and they'll look at the federal. But, you know, I can tell you the two things that stand out to me right away that are different from any other disaster that I can remember in modern history. And to be clear, this was not FEMA's best performance in the history of performances, like Kristi Noem says. This is their worst performance since Katrina. Okay. It's why the USAR director just left. Okay. He just resigned. Another person with experience leaving. Why?

18:14Because Kristi Noem wouldn't put the USAR teams, the urgent urban search and rescue teams. These are the professionals that go into the water and save people. She wouldn't put them on the road for three days. I have never heard that in the history of FEMA and knowing this industry. And I've been doing this since my twenties. Okay. You put them on the road immediately. In fact, you push them into the area, move them from the Omaha area. You move them to the, from the new Orleans district. If you want, you can pull task force one and task force two from Florida. You pre-position that equipment. As soon as they knew there was an issue, move them, get on the road.

18:48Even if the state doesn't request it, you move it. It's an insignificant cost to the billions of dollars they're going to spend on response and recovery due to this disaster. She didn't do it because of this rule that, you know, we're not going to do anything. If it's$100 ,000 or more, it has to come to the secretary. Is that making FEMA faster? No, that's bureaucracy. That's red tape. That's exactly the opposite of what they said they wanted to do after North Carolina. When the president complained FEMA wasn't fast enough. Kristi Noma has made it slower. Okay. And, and so, you know, the USAR director resigns because he can't believe that the teams weren't there in time.

19:23And then the second thing that is just totally abnormal, never seen it before the FEMA administrator, again, the interim one, not Senate confirmed because he can't be Senate confirmed because he doesn't, he doesn't meet the statutory requirements because he has no experience. He doesn't go to Texas for nine days. I have never seen a president and secretary go to a disaster area without their FEMA administrator. Never, never, never. In fact, sometimes, most of the times, the FEMA administrator goes on the ground first to get the situation under control and to brief the president. And so, look, I'm sure they're very worried about hurricane season, and they should be.

20:00And states are going to be in for a rude awakening. I think FEMA is in worse shape than any other agency in the Trump administration. And so my hope is that we have an easy hurricane season, right? Because if the system is tested, and I'm not talking about for Texas or Florida, talking about Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, states that would go bankrupt if they have a big storm. I'm worried that they're not going to do pre-landfall debt, FEMA, which they give the declaration out before landfall. I'm worried that that money is not going to come. They used to do expedited reimbursement, sending that money down.

20:31What's the money for? If cities and counties don't know if they're going to get reimbursed, they don't respond fast enough. They don't put that capital, right? They don't go get the equipment. They don't pre-position stuff. And so I'm deeply worried about states that don't have the significant budgets of Florida and Texas and have the big emergency management departments. South Carolina, North Carolina, you can go up the whole East Coast until you get to New York.

20:54Ben Meiselas:So it took like 10 days for the interim head of FEMA with no emergency management experience to even show his face. And this is what he looked like when he showed up. I mean, that's the reference that you made. That's him showing up after not being there. And here's how - I mean, I have a question. I mean, I know I say this while I'm wearing a lemon shirt. So, you know, but does that shirt even have buttons? Yeah. And here was his appearance before the House of Representatives. I mean, which was just just a complete and total. Like he didn't look at anyone's faces. Like he was like looking down the whole time.

21:31Ben Meiselas:He looks like, by the way, he looks like Mickey Rourke in that Spider-Man movie. What the hell's going on, man? What's going on? Congressman, thanks for joining us as always. Thanks. I'm gonna go change my shirt. Everybody. Well, thanks for wearing that for this interview. Now you can dress professional. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to, let's get to 6 million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new truth over lies collection at store.midastouch.com. All 100 % USA union made.

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