Wow! GOP Leaders Panic on Live TV Over Trump Failures

0:00This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way. Because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at Claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's Claude.ai slash Spotify. With summer coming to an end, you're going to be spending more time indoors. Get your home ready and save up to 50 % off custom window treatments during the Labor Day Mega Sale at Blinds.com. From room darkening to light filtering shades, finding the perfect fit is easy.

0:44Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services. Or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50 % off site-wide plus huge savings on doorbusters. Right now during the Labor Day Mega Sale at Blinds.com. In business, the best days are when priorities stay on track. The Hartford helps midsize and large companies manage key exposures with insurance and proactive risk solutions. So focus can stay where it belongs. Visit thehartford.com slash risk mitigation to learn more. What if you can see what's happening inside your body? Pre-Nuvo's whole body scan screens for hundreds of conditions, including many solid tumors as early as stage one, all in under an hour.

1:31And now, you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. This Labor Day, save$300 off your scan when you book at pre-nuvo.com. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com. Save$300 now through September 8th at pre-nuvo.com. Terms and conditions apply.

1:50Ben Meiselas:Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Well, now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. MAGA Mike Johnson and the other MAGA Republicans were making complete fools of themselves over the weekend as they were not sure how to deal with the fact that the Trump regime cut massive amounts of funding and resources from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, which also runs the NWS, the National Weather Service.

2:43Ben Meiselas:And as the Trump regime has called for the elimination of FEMA, given the disastrous flooding that we saw in Kerr County, Texas, with an unthinkable and unimaginable death toll, the MAGA Republicans, one by one, basically give the response they give with horrific school shootings, thoughts and prayers. We should be happy and glad that it wasn't worse than this. And our thoughts and prayers, we're really helpless. There was nothing that we could have done. What kind of response is this? Oh, and then by the way, the White House puts out a press release saying, this is now a national day of prayer.

3:22Ben Meiselas:We're all praying, pray, pray, pray. Look, you want to pray. That's great. But can we fund the government to do the work? You know, the main meteorologist coordinator from that area and like five other positions right around that area in Kerr County, Texas, in Kerrville, were forced out by Doge? Did you know that? Did you know that lots of meteorologists have been warning that exactly these types of things could happen? I've been highlighting them here now for months and months and months, and the Trump regime has called for eliminating FEMA, and they keep saying, let Texas run the show. Texas can handle it.

4:00Ben Meiselas:The states are leading and will, of course, provide support. That's not the way it's supposed to work. The feds are supposed to take leadership and let people know where to be pre-positioned and actually do things. That's why we have a federal government. What are we doing here? Here's MAGA Mike Johnson saying, in a moment like this, we're just helpless. We're just helpless. Here, play this clip. State and federal resources have just poured into that area. Is there anything more that can be done congressionally, legislatively to help these folks? In a moment like this, we feel just as helpless as everyone else does.

4:31I've talked to my colleagues there in Texas, Chip Roy and August Pfluger, whose families, you know, that's Chip's district. August's daughters were at the camp. We also had Betty Carter of Georgia had grandchildren there. It touches so many families. And all we know to do at this moment is pray. Every available resource has been deployed. The president, of course, is dialed in and watching this develop moment by moment as we are. And we will handle supplemental funding requests as they come in. But right now, they're still trying to do rescue and recovery. And our hearts go out to all of

5:01Ben Meiselas:How about you don't fire all of the scientists and the experts? Maybe we start with that. It's unthinkable. How we tolerate that they're getting rid of weather forecasting? Anyway, here's MAGA Republican Senator John Cornyn from Texas saying that he has conflicting feelings about this. Conflicting feelings? What feelings could be conflicting? This is a unmitigated tragedy, a catastrophe. Here, play this clip. This is so unfathomable. It's just, it's really hard to get your arms around this. You're a Texan. You live there. These are your constituents. What are you hearing, seeing, and feeling in Texas this morning?

5:49Well, it's a very sad time, but it's also a time when 850 plus campers were accounted for and recovered. I talked to a friend of mine who's a former colleague of yours in the House of Representatives who had two daughters there, and they had just gotten home late yesterday afternoon, and of course they were traumatized by the whole event, but they were just beside themselves with joy that they had recovered their children. But tragically, as you point out, there are 27 campers, these young girls still missing. And this was a 100-year flood event in an area that It had been known to flood, but nothing like this, where the floodwaters rose 26 feet in about 45 minutes in the middle of the night.

6:37So a terrible tragedy. But thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem, the federal disaster relief has been provided at the request of Governor Abbott. And it's just a time of very many conflicting feelings. But primarily, we're very sad for those who've lost their lives and the unaccounted for. Governor Abbott has called today a day of prayer. And we are still saying our prayers here in Texas for those who are grieving and those

7:07Ben Meiselas:who are still unaccounted for. But you see what they're messaging over and over. This was a once in a generational thing. There's nothing we can do. It sounds exactly what they said with COVID. But everyone said, there's nothing we can do about anything. That seems to be there. Just pray. Just pray. Anyway, then you have MAGA Republican Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Advisor. And he's asked on Face the Nation. So you mentioned these tariff letters that are going to go out. Can you tell us what the tariff letters are? Because you all claimed there was going to be 90 deals in 90 days. and now you're just sending letters to countries and telling them what their tariff is going.

7:48Ben Meiselas:That's not a deal. And then Kevin Hassett's like, I can't tell you. Then why are you going on the TV show? If you can't talk about the things, why are you there? Oh yes, to spew propaganda. Here, play this clip. I mentioned those letters that will start going out tomorrow, according to President Trump. He said about 10 to 12 countries will receive them. Can you tell us who's going to get one and what they say? I can't. Because again, the part of the letter that could be happening, right, is that we're close to a deal. We're not really satisfied with the progress that we're making in the deal. And so we're saying, okay, fine, we're going to send a letter, but maybe you get a deal at the last minute too.

8:29Until we see everything that plays out, I think that we need to just hold our fire and watch for the news this week. Is it fair to say that those notices are going to go to our smaller trading partners as you negotiate with our bigger ones? I think that it could be that It'll be both. But also, don't forget that when we have great trade deals, our smaller trading partners could become much bigger trading partners. And that's, I think, one of the reasons why countries are racing to set deals up with us ahead of the deadline.

8:55Ben Meiselas:And MAGA Republican Congress member Jason Smith, he just goes up there and just lies and lies and lies. And he goes, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that our growth rate is going to be above 3 % and there's not going to be any debt that's at. We're not going, there's going to be no increase in our deficit. I promise you this. Here, play this clip. We need to do more. The tax provisions that we put into this piece of legislation will create exponential growth. The Congressional Budget Office, Jason, scored growth at 1.8%. Growth over the last 50 years on average has been 2.7 to 2.8. I guarantee you, Jason, you're hearing it today.

9:40I guarantee you that our growth rate will be above 3%. And if our growth rate is above 3%, this bill will actually cut the deficit by$600 billion.

9:53Ben Meiselas:Don't all of these MAGA Republicans seem like the people selling you scammy infomercials? Doesn't it seem like that's what they're doing anyway? Here's MAGA Republican Treasury Secretary Scott Besant on Donald Trump publicly slamming the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. And Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who lots of people say that Donald Trump wants to make this guy something called a shadow Federal Reserve chairman while he's the Treasury Secretary. and as the shadow Federal Reserve chairman, he's going to, and it's what they say that Trump's getting ready to do. He will then announce that he's going to lower interest rates right away to what Donald Trump wants it to be, like less than 1%, which the mere announcement of that going to happen would be inflationary.

10:46Ben Meiselas:And here, Besant with that shit eating grin of his, you know, with that grin goes, well, you know, I like basketball And Bobby Knight, he liked to work the refs. So I think you work the refs, referring to Donald Trump attacking the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, as working the refs. Working the refs? Just let the chairman of the Federal Reserve do his job and be independent and look at the data. We're working the refs. Play this clip. Reporting this, an early announcement could allow the chair in waiting to influence investor expectations about the likely path for rates like a backseat driver attempting to steer monetary policy before Powell's term ends.

11:30You have demurred on whether you would be the guy for that job. But what do you think is the impact of all of this, this public back and forth with the Fed chair? Well, Shannon, I'm a basketball fan. And in basketball, there are two schools working the refs. There's the Bobby Knight School and the Dean Smith School. Obviously, President Trump's more in the Bobby Knight School. And I will tell you, Bobby Knight won three national championships. Dean Smith only won two. So working the ref seems to be effective. So there may be some chair throwing. That's what you're saying. There might be some chair throwing if we're going with the Bobby Knight School of how this is done.

12:04Think about this. There are good candidates already on the Fed board for Fed chair, and they make their opinions known at every meeting. So I don't find that disruptive at all. Okay. Mr. Secretary, great to have you with us. Thank you.

12:19Ben Meiselas:And here, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is asked on Fox. So, you know, our most recent polls show that 50 % of Americans don't like these tariffs. And they say the tariffs are going to hurt Americans and make things more expensive. Mind you, he's on Fox. He's seeing a Fox poll right here. And what's their response to everything? This is why you can't debate with these people. You can't have intelligent conversations with them because they just go, oh, that's Trump derangement syndrome. That's TDS. That's TDS. What are you talking about? We know that tariffs are being passed on to consumers. If anybody threw a barbecue or had people over to your house or went shopping recently for the fourth or afterwards, things are more expensive.

13:06Ben Meiselas:It's not TDS. We know things are more expensive. We're just trying to deal with the reality and grapple with with the reality here. Play this clip. Okay, so let's talk about some analyses on these tariffs from the AP. They see this. A JPMorgan Chase Institute analysis finds a critical group of U.S. employers would face a direct cost of$82.3 billion from President Donald Trump's current tariff plans. They go on to say the investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a report expects companies to pass 60 percent of their tariff costs onto consumers. Our most recent poll shows that 57 % of Americans do think the tariffs are going to hurt the U.S.

13:41economy. So some of the experts, everyday Americans, they have real concerns about how this is going to cost them. What's your message to them? Well, I think there's a lot of misinformation out there. I think TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, has turned into tariff derangement syndrome. As soon as you call them the Trump tariffs, 90 % of Democrats hate them. and I'm going to have to disagree with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. The empirical data shows that we have seen no inflation.

14:11Ben Meiselas:If your manhood feels like the Florida panhandle this time of year, great news. You can instantly refresh yourself 15 times a day without jumping in the shower. Washing with Tushy Bidet transforms Swamp Butt into a dewy cloud. I absolutely love my Tushy Bidet. Installation was surprisingly quick and easy. Now, I had it up and running in no time with no prior plumbing experience. It looks modern and sleek, blending in perfectly with my bathroom aesthetic. The cleaning experience is a total game changer, way cleaner and more refreshing than using toilet paper. Honestly, I didn't realize how much I was missing out until I tried it.

14:49Ben Meiselas:Tushy is the everyday luxury bidet that instantly transforms your bathroom habits and bottom health for life. Tushy Bidet gives you two-in-one benefits, reducing irritation and preventing micro tears with soothing water instead of scratching toilet paper or damaging wet wipes. It's also easy to use, sit, cleanse, and dry using the built-in air dryer. That's right, cleaning yourself after using the bathroom is now hands-free. People who have made the switch to Tushy use up to 80 % less TP. No more clogged toilets. Every Hello Tushy bidet comes with a 30-day hassle-free return and a 12-month warranty.

15:30Ben Meiselas:Keep your swampiest body parts fresh and cool. For a limited time, our listeners get 10 % off their first bidet order when you use code MIDAS at checkout. That's 10 % off your first bidet order at hellotushy.com with promo code MIDAS. Now, when you see him respond like this and you see how Howard Nutlick responds and how others in the Trump regime respond. It's why I find it very difficult to believe the data by the Trump regime and 147 ,000 jobs were created in their latest jobs report that they released before July 4th. As I mentioned, Donald Trump, when he makes up numbers, he uses 47 a lot because he's the 47th president.

16:13Ben Meiselas:So we've seen him do this before with the Trump launches. I have 147 available and all of these things. But here's the thing. The day before, the private ADP payroll data showed 33 ,000 jobs were lost. So how did we go from negative 33 ,000 to plus 147 ,000? And the Trump regime said, well, the way we did that is all of these government jobs were created, especially in the public education sector. But the whole thing that the Trump regime was saying is that they were cutting back on government jobs. And all of the things we know that Doge was doing was to cut back on government jobs. And so in the Trump jobs report where it came up with 147 ,000, there was still a 7 ,000 job loss in manufacturing.

16:59Ben Meiselas:Remember, Trump claimed there was going to be a manufacturing boom. They couldn't fudge those numbers because you can compare those to the ADP payroll. So those numbers are private. So you can see those and have a comparable, a comp, But with these government data, with the government data, that's kind of in the control of just the Trump regime. So anyway, that's why when you hear these people go up in line, go TDS, they're not giving us honest facts or honest data. And here's another example of it. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is asked, well, you promised that there would be 90 deals in 90 days.

17:35Ben Meiselas:And so far, there really hasn't been any deals at all. you've done like two frameworks of deals, one with Vietnam and one with the UK, but those aren't actual deals. So are there going to be actual deals? And Besson goes, we never promised 90 deals in 90 days. That's just never anything we promised. And a lot of countries just aren't even calling us. So like a hundred countries haven't called us. They haven't called us. You all have been saying your phones are ringing off the hook. Hundreds of, I think Donald Trump once said 200 countries. He made up more calls than there are countries. 200 countries have been calling us.

18:13Ben Meiselas:So it's just lie after lie after lie. And this isn't me saying this as like a liberal or like a leftist. I'm just giving you the facts here. Here's what he says. Here, play this clip. When you talk about these letters and you talk about kind of the 90 deals in 90 days, or at least the president did back in April, so far that we've seen three and they're not concrete deals the way that we're used to seeing trade deals, their frameworks. The president has a reputation, self-described dealmaker. So why haven't we seen the kind of deals that he promised in the last 90 days? Again, he didn't promise this.

18:53And when we send out the hundred letters to these countries, that will set their tariff rate. So we're going to have a hundred done in the next few days. And that's not a deal. That's a threat. No, that's the level. That's the deal. If you want to trade with the United States, this is. But that's not a negotiation. That's just a. Well, many of these countries, many of these countries never even contacted us. So that's the thing.

19:20Ben Meiselas:Here's another example of this where he goes, the Democratic Party blew out the deficit in 2020. Who was in office in 2020? Trump was in office in 2020. And Trump created more debt than any president. Like 25, 30 % of all of our debt comes from Trump, if not more. It's the most debt ever during his first term. And now he's done basically that on steroids. But here he talks about the Democratic Party. did it play this clip? I wanted to cut through the red tape and not create more red tape, but I do want to move on. Well, no, no, no. But we've also wanted to put in work requirements, which somehow that was very popular under Bill Clinton, was popular under President Obama, and this Democratic Party blew out the deficit in 2020, and they never want to bring it back.

20:12But work requirements even pull well with the median Democratic voter, maybe not the fringe. Let's talk about tariffs.

20:20Ben Meiselas:President Trump gave... Here's another example where the truth and data matters. You have MAGA Republican Congress member Tim Burchett going on Fox. And here he goes, look, Donald Trump tells me that in China, they don't have any windmills. So why would we have windmills here? And they use Trump telling the MAGA Republicans that you don't see windmills in China as the reason that we've cut back and we're going to destroy wind energy and solar energy in the United States in favor coal, when in fact, the reality is, is that China has the highest wind power capacity in the world by far, two times more than like the rest of the world combined.

21:04Ben Meiselas:But here's what Tim Burchett says, play this clip. Well, that's one thing that the CBO and any of the bean counters never really take into considerations the incredible economic outlook for our country i mean can you imagine energy if we remove a lot of bureaucracy our nuclear facilities take eight to ten maybe 15 years to get to get online you you've got a new man at the epa that's that's turning them over pretty quick and um and we're going to and people are talking about coal again which i think is great god put it in the ground let's use it everybody across the world's using it and they're passing us by and the president wants to get out of bed with with stuff that doesn't matter like um like solar and wind you know we haven't had a major discovery in solar in over 20 years and wind is uh is very subjective and it's very expensive and there's a reason as president trump told me i believe it was um thursday that that you know there's no there's no windmills in china but but 99 of them that are sold are made in china so i think there's a lot of things in there that are going to happen.

22:11It's going to be great for this country.

22:13Ben Meiselas:And then finally, this seems like a quote directly out of 1984, where on Face of the Nation, Kevin Hassett, Trump's National Economic Advisor, says, why is there such a difference between your projections and your numbers and every other organization that says that this is going to be the most fiscally irresponsible bill, a piece of legislation in American history. And Hassett goes, remember, science is not democracy. Truth is not democracy. What does that even mean? Science is not democracy. Truth is not democracy. Just give us the truth. Play the clip. To the deficit. I know that you are so familiar with these numbers.

22:57The Yale Budget Lab estimates it will add$3 trillion to the debt. The tax foundation says this tax portion of the bill could also add$3 trillion to the deficit. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which factors in interest on the debt, says it could add up to$5 trillion over the next decade. And on this very program, even Speaker Johnson answered in the affirmative when asked if this bill would add over$4 trillion to the deficit. I know that the administration says the bill will actually shrink the deficit by$1.5 trillion. Help me understand why there is such a drastic difference between your number and all those others.

23:38Well, first of all, let's remember that science is not democracy. Truth is not democracy. Our estimates are based on modeling that we used last time when I was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to say what would happen if we had a bill, how much growth we would get. And we said, and we were criticized soundly, that we would get 3 % growth. And we even had the really technical macroeconomic models that said that we would get 3 % growth. We run the same models through this tax bill. It's even better. And what we're seeing is that if you get 3 % growth again, then that's 4 trillion more in revenue than the CBO and these other bodies are giving us credit for.

24:15They have been wrong in the past, and they're being wrong again in our belief.