Rep. Krishnamoorthi Discusses Major Republican Meltdown

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3:20Ben Meiselas:These MAGA Republican Congress members and senators are in panic mode before New Year's. They're going on their state regime media fox and saying, don't you worry, right around the corner, maybe sometime in Easter, the economy's going to get better. And you've got other MAGA Republicans saying, don't worry, I know we're taking away the Affordable Care Act subsidy, We know your premiums are about to skyrocket, but we're going to come up with a plan next year. OK, we promise you. So here you have MAGA Republican Congress member Michael Rulli. And here he says by Easter, next Easter, I think that's when the economy starts looking a little bit better.

4:00Ben Meiselas:Here play this clip. And then two two thirds say that things are getting worse. This to me is a messaging issue. How do you continue to tell the American people, look, the big, beautiful bill is now law. and that is going to translate into 2026 for you. There's only one path, Cheryl, and that's going to be in the pocketbook. I think the first and second quarter of 26 is going to show a lot. Remember, all those tax cuts have not been implemented yet in the great big beautiful bill. Interest rates were just cut. I just had a meeting with my brothers yesterday. All the prices in our grocery stores are dropping like a rock.

4:35Eggs are going all the way down to 99 cents. We see the beef market is dropping. We see sugar is dropping. We see all aspects of the grocery store prices are falling. Gas prices in Trumbull County are at$2 a gallon. Once all this starts to happen and those tax breaks happen, and I think we're going to really see an economy, hopefully by Easter, that is roaring. And if you want to win this midterm and you want to keep the gavel, the answer 1 ,000 % is going to be in the pocketbook. They understand what they keep.

5:04Ben Meiselas:he spoke to his brothers, everybody. I mean, maybe he should speak to his constituents. Maybe he should go out himself and actually see what's happening. And I like how the state regime media host is like, what we really have here is just a messaging issue. No, it's an issue issue because the American people are feeling it. Then you've got MAGA Republican Congress member Dan Crenshaw saying that what's really going to happen with these, because the ACA subsidies don't affect anybody. It's really not what's causing your premiums to rise. And we're going to have our own plan. But it's next year.

5:39Ben Meiselas:I know we took a vacation and didn't address this, but maybe next year we'll deal with it here. Play this clip. America, your premiums are not going up because these tax credits are expiring. They affect very, very few people. And to the extent that they even affect them, you're talking about 4 % of the actual increase. No, that's their plan. Let's bring a Democratic Congress member Raja Kristoforthi. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I mean, between both of them, I'll tell you what they don't want to talk about, Trump's cover up of the Epstein files, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

6:12Ben Meiselas:But first, this is what your colleagues are doing when they have control of all the branches of government. They could have come up with their own plans and fixed it. But now it's just hopes. Just wait till next year. Wait to the, didn't Donald Trump say on day one, this would all be fixed? I, he did. And, and obviously it hasn't happened. I can just, I can just see a viewer like kind of scratch their heads and look at the screen as they hear these guys talking and be like, you know, I was born at night, but not last night. And I think that, you know, we're kind of seeing a situation where, you know, people go to these grocery stores.

6:49They don't know what he's talking about, about a grocery store in Trumbull County that's seeing prices fall like a rock. What they're seeing is prices are skyrocketing, whether it's on produce, but also just on daily staples of life, housing, healthcare, childcare, education. And with regard to healthcare, we have 22 million people who are going to see their premiums skyrocket by on average 114%, according to Kaiser Family Foundation. And so for Dan Crenshaw or anyone to say that, you know, the expiration of the ACA tax credits has nothing to do with premiums increasing for people is misleading at best and just flat out false.

7:37Ben Meiselas:And then they have the destruction of Medicaid that they time after the midterms. And so this is like phase one. Phase two is, you know, After the midterms, while they've helped their billionaire and millionaire buddies with the tax cuts, that they're like, this is why the American people are going to feel it. Americans aren't going to feel it. I mean, their rich friends are going to feel it. And then you get screwed after the midterms if you're an American because your Medicaid is ripped away. That's right. Medicaid. Let's just revisit this big, beautiful bill that he has termed. I call it the large lousy law.

8:14The large lousy law is going to lead to 13 million people losing their health insurance, not to mention millions of people losing their SNAP benefits, as well as other essential social safety net programs. and as a product of food stamps and public housing, this is personal to me, Ben. But I think that you're absolutely right. The average person, because of the tariffs alone, is seeing prices skyrocket on numerous items. When you put tariffs on everything from everywhere, guess what? Prices rise for everyone. And that's what we're seeing, not to mention farmers and others who are caught in the crosshairs of this trade war, seeing their businesses fall and bankruptcies soar.

9:04So you have not only small businesses hurting, you have working people worrying about their health insurance. You're seeing people who are working poor losing their Medicaid benefits. And so you're seeing just people across the spectrum upset about this economy. And that's why the president's numbers are so underwater with regard to the economy, among other things.

9:29Ben Meiselas:By the way, then when you return to Congress after the New Year's, you run out of funding again. I mean, you hit another potential government shutdown. Those same discussions we had, whatever it was, you know, 30 days ago, 45 days ago, who knows at this point, even it all blends together in this disastrous regime. We then go back and then there's more talks about government shutdown because these bagger Republicans can't put forward any type of budget that actually funds the government for any significant period of time. Like, I just look at this and I'm thinking not as a Democrat, Republican, independent.

10:04Ben Meiselas:I'm just thinking as someone who's run a business, who's someone who's as a lawyer worked with other businesses. I'm like, who runs things like this? Like, it's just not a way to operate. But I'll tell you who does. Trump. And this is why all of his businesses have gone bankrupt over and over again. And he's running the country. And you go, Oh, I see why he bankrupted casinos because he does this shit. Excuse my language. He likes chaos. Okay. I think he enjoys it. And for the average working family, for the average business, chaos is ruinous. As you know, you can't plan for anything. Whatever you've planned for, now you have to wonder whether those plans are in doubt because of the change in whatever rule, regulation, or whatever executive order he issues that kind of goes against what people were kind of relying on in making their plans.

11:03A great example is just, you know, we have so many wind and solar projects in Illinois and across the country that were about to be constructed. Billions of dollars worth of projects employing millions of union workers. And those are on hold now because of the IRA rollback and the tax credits for clean, renewable energy. Not only that, but because of that, electricity prices are skyrocketing as utilities can no longer count on that electricity from clean energy sources coming online. And so this is just a classic example of how, you know, Donald Trump and his chaos and his reversals of policies at a whim, you know, lead to, you know, basically people getting hurt in what I call the most sensitive nerve in the body, their pocketbook nerve.

12:01Ben Meiselas:And then you have, of course, what no MAGA Republican wants to talk about, Trump's cover up of the Epstein files. They've tried and they've tried to cover this up, to make this go away. Mag and Mike shut down Congress the first time, told everybody to go home to try to avoid this. And now we're seeing, you know, the efforts to cover up, let's just say it what it is, a child sex trafficking ring. And you have Donald Trump continuing to say it's a hoax and a witch hunt. The Midas Touch reported that there was 1.2 million missing records from the SDNY. And then within a 24 hour period, you had the DOJ saying, aha, we found another 1 million records.

12:43Ben Meiselas:Where did these come from? And it was like, didn't you say these were on your desk back in February? And the way they're handling this to me just shows, I mean, you know, you're a lawyer for those who don't know, you went to Harvard Law, you've, you know, you've been a lawyer, you know, these issues very, very well. I mean, we would call this in law an adverse inference instruction against the person, right? You'd be like, well, clearly you did it because no one goes to these lengths to hide something unless you do it. That's right. I think this is this looks to me increasingly like a cover up, but it's also a cover up.

13:19And we talked about chaos before. This is cover up plus chaos. And you're essentially kind of rolling out these documents with random redactions. In my opinion, they're not necessarily so random because it seems like there's a lot of care with which they redacted any reference to Trump, but not so much care when it talks about when we talk about redacting for the name of survivors or others who might have been the victim of this child sex trafficking ring. And I think that that kind of lack of care may have also been a message they're trying to send to survivors. You know, don't push it because if you keep doing this, we're going to keep rolling out these documents in a way that could prejudice you.

14:09Of course, that goes completely against the law. And remember why we're even here. It's because the survivors came forward. There were more than 1 ,000 victims of the child sex trafficking ring. They were girls at the time. Now they are middle-aged women. They came to Capitol Hill. They told us their stories. They did so at great personal risk. And it stiffened the resolve of Republicans and Democrats alike to try to do justice for them and to try to prevent this from ever happening again. Ben, we have to make sure that there's full transparency as to all these records, that they all come out and that we do everything we can to get to the bottom of what happened, because there could be predators among us even today, Ben, who are continuing kind of these vile acts that they started 20 years ago.

14:55Ben Meiselas:And, Congressman, you're also running for that Senate seat in in Illinois. Illinois has been targeted uniquely by this Trump regime. I mean, every state's been under attack, but specifically Illinois, I mean, with the raids that have been taking place. And it's been one thing. It's been one thing after another. So as you kind of wrap up this year and you kind of reflect on it, I mean, one of the things that I think about as I think about Illinois and I think about the rest of this country is like resiliency, not in our institutions. institutions. Like, dude, our institutions suck. Like, let's be very clear.

15:29Ben Meiselas:A lot of these institutions bent and broke and the leaders that we thought were going to be standing for us in terms of the media and corporate CEOs, they ended up showing up with golden blocks and Rolexes and whatever. But the people said, you know what? Not happening. This is still America. And that's something that I take with me as we approach 2026. And I don't think that Trump and his regime expected the resiliency in the people. I think they thought we would break the way the institutions would. That's exactly right. Look, let's give credit where credit is due. I think that we should give credit to those leaders who stood up to Trump.

16:08People like my own governor, J.B. Pritzker, who I thought did an excellent job of helping to lead us through some very troubling times. Let's give credit to the media and people like you and others in the press who've been intimidated or who've been harassed for just doing their jobs and trying to get the truth out. Let's talk about just average, ordinary people who go to the streets, who protest, who help their neighbors, who come out and try to alert folks when they see an illegal ice raid about to be visited upon their neighborhood. And they try to look out for the children and and elders and others in the neighborhood who might be the targets, illegal targets, I must add.

16:55And, you know, I think we have to remember that the people have the power. And if we use our power, then we can stand up and hold people accountable. And that includes Donald Trump. And we must. We can't shirk in that duty one iota.

17:14Ben Meiselas:Congressman, where can people learn more about just your campaign if they're if they're interested in the Senate campaign to find out more? W.W.W. Dot R.A.J.A.F.O.R.I.L. Raja for L.Raja for Illinois dot com. So W.W.W. Dot R.A.J.A.F.O.R.I.L. Dot com. I'll tell people and they'll know this Congressman Christopher that you were you were on the Midas Touch Network when we were right at that. million subscriber mark. So you're really an OG Midas. Let's just be clear about that. I am so honored to be with you. You guys have done such tremendous work and you're standing up to power and telling the truth.

17:58So God bless.

17:59Ben Meiselas:Thank you so much. Congressman Roger, Chris DeMorthy from Illinois. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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