Transcript

LIVE: Republicans REVOLT on HOUSE FLOOR Against Trump and MAGA MIKE

From MeidasTouch · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 10 min · 13,052 words · 134 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "LIVE: Republicans REVOLT on HOUSE FLOOR Against Trump and MAGA MIKE", an episode of MeidasTouch published December 17, 2025 (1 h 10 min, about 13,052 words). It mentions 40 people, works and ideas, including Benji Carlson, majority, Jerry Lawler, Jim Miller, House vote.

What this episode is about

Breaking developments include four Republican lawmakers siding with Democrats to push for a House vote on extending Obamacare subsidies, while Jack Smith testifies about evidence against Trump in his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Additionally, ongoing divisions within the GOP are highlighted by debates over AI and data centers, as well as the impact of recent shootings and the reactions they provoke.

Key takeaways

  • Jack Smith testifies: Turns out, playing coy with democracy has a legal price tag attached.
  • Four Republicans join Dems: When your healthy dissent means healthier constituents, bipartisanship happens.
  • House Republicans feud: Johnson's leadership juggles, but the balancing act makes centrists nervous.
  • Obamacare vote dilemma: Even with little foundation, GOP still aspires for a miraculous substitute.
  • Political gridlock persists: Billions cut healthcare costs, yet DC chokes on its own bitter medicine.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: House vote, Jerry Lawler, majority, Brown school shootings
  2. – 20:00: Jim Miller, Atlanta bombing, David Shore, Vice President Harris
  3. – 30:00: A Few Good Men, DUP points, dupe.com, James Woods
  4. – 40:00: Benji Carlson, Kylo Ren, Adam Driver, Jerry Lawler
  5. – 50:00: Benji Carlson, Indicloud, Jim Miller, majority
  6. – 1:00:00: Benji Carlson, Chris Mullandorp, majority, Pat Summerall
  7. – 1:09:42: majority54, Midas Mighty, Ravi Gupta, Robbie Gupta

Notable quotes from "LIVE: Republicans REVOLT on HOUSE FLOOR Against Trump and MAGA MIKE"

  • Progress in every election and want to convince their friends and family members to join our majority. This is majority 54. Revy, we'll start with this Jack Smith news. So, he…
    about majority · at
  • Gotten potentially squashed in the Senate anyway. but what it would have done was given people like Lawler the opportunity to say they voted to extend the subsidies so that they're in some ways insulated from the politics here.
    about Jerry Lawler · at
  • This is a problem on both sides of the aisle. they the piece also quotes from Tim Miller who talks about how he you know Tim Miller I think is like a fairly studied guy on…
    about Jim Miller · at
  • Can't defend Cash Patel and I forget who we played last week. It might have been Tucker Carlson or somebody who's criticizing Cash Patel for tweeting instead of doing his job.…
    about Benji Carlson · at
  • That's why I use dupe.com. It's simple.
    about dupe.com · at
  • And here's the kicker. It's completely free. This holiday season, Dupe is giving away 1 million DUP points. And you could turn those points straight into gift cards. And here's…
    about DUP points · at
  • You and I have frequently spoken about Rob Reiner movies on this podcast, including a few good men. which I think Yeah. it's he it doesn't matter how talented you are in moments like this. Like a tragedy.
    about A Few Good Men · at
  • Guy, right? And the sort of the new Darth Vader in those movies is Kylo Ren. He's played by Adam Driver.
    about Kylo Ren · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Benji Carlson — Person · 8 mentions · first at
  • Jerry Lawler — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Jim Miller — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • James Woods — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    So many people's lives. And we get to the outpouring of sympathy from everybody from James Woods to Laura Ingram.
  • Kylo Ren — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Jason Kander — Person · 2 mentions
  • Rhiners — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, the Brown school shootings, and then the murder of the Rhiners at the hands of their son allegedly.
  • David Shore — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Piece quotes from a lot of different sources, but one is a late 2024 poll survey from David Shore, the Democratic data scientist that surveyed about 130,000 voters. They found that a quarter of those younger than 25.
  • Vice President Harris — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Zionists, but Jewish people. and there was negligible differences here between Harris and Trump supporters. So this is a problem on both sides of the aisle. they the piece also…
  • Rob Schneider — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Trump's response. We haven't heard from JD Vance. you keep going and going. actor Rob Schneider, who you sadly is a Trump supporter. said quote the president yesterday he must rise above it and he seems incapable of rising above the.
  • Joe Rogan — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Common cause with them. We won't have common cause with them. I think there's a big difference between engaging Joe Rogan and a lot of these people who are of one category of…
  • Adam Driver — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Guy, right? And the sort of the new Darth Vader in those movies is Kylo Ren. He's played by Adam Driver.
  • Mike Cernovich — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Well, Mike Cernovich, I guess this guy's name is another big right-wing influencer tweeted big anti-semite. Yeah.
  • Chris Mullandorp — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Had a discharge petition on campaign reform and ethics reform. And there was a guy named Chris Mullandorp who I got along really well with. He was a moderate Republican from…
  • Pat Summerall — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Personality. She compared him to her late father, which I did not realize was Pat Summerall, by the way.
  • Stephen Weber — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Well, shout out to you. Stephen Weber been talking about this on this podcast and a lot of our audience I know jumped in and signed petitions and organized there. So, keep up the good.
  • Robbie Gupta — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Moment and I wrote about this on my Substack. If people want to read the full piece, it's real Robbie Gupta.
  • Ravi Gupta — Person · 1 mention · first at
    There you go. All right. Well, speaking of which, tag us Jason Cander or Ravi Gupta. please leave a five-star review. Thank you to the Midas Mighty.
  • Josh Hawley — Person · 1 mention
  • Richard Jewell — Person · 1 mention
  • Yair Rosenberg — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • Majority 54 — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    Convince their friends and family members to join our majority. This is majority 54. Revy, we'll start with this Jack Smith news. So, he is testifying, I believe, behind closed…
  • HY-Vee — Company · 2 mentions
  • Turning Point — Company · 1 mention · first at
    People within the right including Trump but has also been alleging that Turning Point Charlie Kirk's organization that's now run by Erica Kirk, his widow, that like Kirk's…
  • Syorama — Company · 1 mention · first at
    So, this is what I write about. I worked at a sign shop called Syorama, where we made signs, and, it was a colorful cast of characters. One guy was a graffiti artist I worked with who wound up dying, when he stepped.
  • Midas Mighty — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Of which, tag us Jason Cander or Ravi Gupta. please leave a five-star review. Thank you to the Midas Mighty.
  • Arena — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

  • majority — Concept · 6 mentions · first at
  • House vote — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Smith is testifying this morning and four Republicans have defected and joined the Democrats to force a House vote on extending Obamacare subsidies.
  • DUP points — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Brown school shootings — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Highlight three of them here. the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, the Brown school shootings, and then the murder of the Rhiners at the hands of their son allegedly.
  • Atlanta bombing — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Custody. Now, we should have learned our lesson on this a long time ago. The Atlanta bombing when you and I were kids was a perfect example of this that there's nothing wrong…
  • West Wing — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    All want to assign it just to Steven Miller. Look, Steven Miller is not so dynamic of a personality in the West Wing that Trump is feeling pressure to deport without process or…
  • majority54 — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Let's just roll that out now. Hashtag majority54. And you could also tag me and Jason. We'll see it. And if Yeah. Make sure you tag us because I may not see the hashtag.

Sponsors

  • Aura Frames — Sponsor · 6 mentions
  • dupe.com — Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
  • Indicloud — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    How adults log off mindfully and maybe with a little fizz. If you're 21 or older, visit indicloud.co and use code majority for 25% off plus free shipping. That's indic.co code…

Full transcript with timestamps

Two stories are breaking right now. Jack Smith is testifying this morning and four Republicans have defected and joined the Democrats to force a House vote on extending Obamacare subsidies. Then we'll talk about the trifecta of devastating shootings around these past few days. Uh the various reactions to them and what worries us most about those reactions. Trump's chief of staff made the grave mistake of saying some things out loud that she is supposed to pretend not to know or believe. Plus, the debate over AI and data centers is heating up and it's causing divisions in the GOP. Speaking of GOP divisions, which faction of the extreme right-wing has the most juice in the Republican party right now? We'll take a look.

Welcome back to the podcast for the 54% of Americans who regularly vote for progress in every election and want to convince their friends and family members to join our majority. This is majority 54. Revy, we'll start with this Jack Smith news. So, he is testifying, I believe, behind closed doors in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Um he I don't know how maybe they he put out what his opening statement was going to be, but we have it here. Uh and in his opening statement, he says, "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power." I don't know if we have the graphic, but I'll paraphrase the other thing he said, which is he basically uh said, Oh, here we go. He said the dec Thank you, Jeremy. He said, "The decision to bring charges against

President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts." So, basically, he was like, "Yeah, he did it and I didn't do anything. I just said there's here's the evidence." And they were like, "Yeah, this dude did a crime." I mean, that's pretty much what his statement is. um he is testifying behind closed doors despite the fact that you know his camp has been saying apparently if you want me to come and testify, let me do it in front of everybody so that you're not mischaracterizing everything I say, which is probably what they're going to try to do. And so that's what the next fight is going to be about is about, you know, misconstring or accurately portraying what it is that he's saying this morning behind closed doors to House Republicans.

Yeah, good for him. And I think he can probably expect that he'll now get indicted for mortgage fraud or something. Um, which tends to happen to people who try to hold Trump accountable on these types of things.

Yeah. Well, that is about the size of it. Well said. All right. The other piece of breaking news is that um as we hurdle toward this end ofear deadline for Obamacare subsidies uh to expire and therefore for all of our premiums to go up, uh the Democrats have a discharge petition to try to force a vote on renewing the Obamacare subsidies. And in fact, in the Democrats version, it'd be a three-year extension. There are four uh Republican lawmakers. Um, and there's four Republican lawmakers who are in competitive districts who have been urging their party to do something about it. Uh, and now I guess they've gotten to a wits end where their party is refusing to actually act on those subsidies and they've signed on to this dis discharge petition. So, it will now either before the deadline, depending on what Mike Johnson does, or after the deadline, um come to an actual vote.

Yeah. And I think the big question is what then happens in the Senate. Uh which it seems like it faces uh major hurdles there, but at least we then have a conversation. Um and you have to put people on the spot. Um and we've cleared at least one hurdle here. I think the bigger takeaway here though is that Mike Johnson's grasp on power just like the president's is um more in peril now than it's been uh since the inauguration and since probably Johnson won the speakerhip in the beginning. Uh he just faces significant hurdles uh to maintaining his power through the midterm elections.

uh you know we saw him being criticized from the right in some ways from Massie and Marjgery Taylor Green uh who felt like he hasn't been faithful to the sort of MAGA project in some ways and now you're seeing him facing heat from centrists and it's going to be really hard for him to maintain some semblance of control.

Yeah, it seems like every time we turn around he's losing people on something like he's losing votes on something. Um and and this is no different. Uh one thing that it makes me think of is like I don't know whether this actually results in anything happening ultimately because it seems that what's happening is that while this discharge petition and ultimately this vote on Obamacare subsidies uh are on one end of of current events. the other end of healthcare current events is the Republicans are doing their let's come up with some sort of replacement for Obamacare and they've got a you know they're going to try and have their own bill combined with in the Senate you've got people saying that they would refuse to do a three-year extension. Um so one way or another it's very hard to see how this actually results in renewing unfortunately in renewing the Obamacare subsidies before the end of the year and

before they run out. And so you end up right back where we've been saying you started and why I you know what the shutdown highlighted which is that premiums are going to go up and it's going to be difficult for Republicans to blame the Democrats for that.

You know what's interesting also is if Mike Johnson were thinking like a typical speaker who wants to maintain the majority, he would have allowed this vote because in the end it would have gotten potentially squashed in the Senate anyway. Uh but what it would have done was given people like Lawler the opportunity to say they voted to extend the subsidies so that they're in some ways insulated from the politics here. Now I don't think it totally insulates them because there's a lot of um work that people like Lawler are doing whether it's supporting Trump or Johnson or participating in the overall MAGA project.

uh that still means they're accountable for uh among other things uh the lack of health care uh that people have and the increased premiums and costs that they're going to have. But now Lawler and these handful of other people now can go back to their constituents and say here's this thing I tried to do. Um so uh

and that they stood up to their own party in a competitive district like at the end of the day regardless of the context. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's only a handful of them. And it'll be interesting once this discharge petition goes through. I don't know how the polit like the the procedure of all this works, but if more people who are in in endangered members of the house vote for the extension uh because of the politics of it. So maybe now it's like they're less worried about pissing off Johnson because the votes going to happen one way or the other. So maybe they flip more votes. It'll be interesting to see. Yeah, I'd have to imagine that it's going to be like the Epstein thing, right? Where once you get to the point where you have enough people signed on for this, it means that the once they have the vote, there's a real chance it's going to pass and then I I think that there's going to be a bunch of rats that jump off that ship and just I'm not trying to call these people rats, although I wouldn't not call them rats. Um it, you know, you're

just going to have a I would imagine you'll have quite a few that'll be like, well, we had to do something. Um, but maybe not because they have this competing bill or maybe they vote for both. But either way, uh, I think it's really likely people's premiums are going to go up in the very near future.

Yeah. And and if there are enough people who defect in the House, maybe that changes the conversation in the Senate where if there's like a tide of people supporting these extensions, maybe some of the people on the fence in the Senate feel like they

uh their politics have changed. But we'll see. Um well let's get to the unfortunate uh major trend line of the week which was we had uh a number of catastrophic events over the weekend uh and in the past week and and we'll highlight three of them here. um the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, uh the Brown school shootings, and then the uh murder of the Rhiners uh at the hands of their son allegedly. Um let's start with Bondi, Jason. Um this is horrible. Uh and it's not in our country, but it I think it it prompts a few important questions.

The obvious one is around gun control and the fact that this was like the first mass shooting Australia had in I don't know I heard people saying like a decade. I don't know what the exact number is but they don't get they don't have them very often and the numbers when you compare the US to Australia are insane. Uh and this would have been way more fatal if they had the kind of semi-automatic weapons that we have. So there's the gun control element of it. There's also the anti-semitism element of this. Um, and I sent along this article from Yaire Rosenberg in the Atlantic, um, where he talks about how there's been an alarming rise of anti-semitism among young people. And he quotes a ton of data here to say that this is not a right-left problem, but a young old problem. and that the numbers of young people in this country uh who espouse anti-semitic feelings um and thoughts and ideas are on the rise in

some very alarming ways. And uh and I'm not saying that this shooting is a result of young people or not, but it's just to say that our future on questions of anti-semitism is pretty bleak. And and I and I share that just to say that this checks out to me. And you and I I think we've talked about it on air, we talk about it off air. This certainly checks out with my experience.

Yeah, it's [clears throat] a function of a lot of things. Um but one of those things is that you know you and I are like we're in our 40s now. We're getting older and so we get to say things like when we were growing up

Yes. So when we were growing up and we were studying World War II in school or watching World War II depicted in movies, we had people in our lives who served in World War II who would talk and and also World War II culturally framed the, you know, second half of that century at a minimum. And really, I'd say at least probably the first 10 years combined with 911 of, you know, this century. And so it was our cultural framework. And so understanding the just the atrocity that was the Holocaust and it it like the idea of somebody not believing in it. I just don't remember that really being a thing growing up. I I don't you know now we were young maybe people were protecting us from that kind of stuff but it certainly wasn't anywhere near the mainstream you know and and so I I think that there are so many ways in which um the passing away of the World War II generation has been so awful for us. One of them is that we

just have so few people around who say you know what uh fascism is really bad and we've fought it before. Um we have so few people who can say like here's what anti-semitism leads to. Um and then on top of that we have this culture that wants to assign very simple explanations to everything in the news. And so when we see Israel um doing things like dang near leveling Gaza and you have somebody over there in Netanyahu who I mean speaking just for myself uh I'm ashamed of um then it's things get conflated and people are always looking for shorter explanations of things. Um and I yeah I can feel it's not that I mean anti-semitism is on the rise but it's probably better described as um anti-semitism is just not the disqualifier that it was.

Well there's some remarkable data to back up our intuition here. So he this piece quotes from a lot of different sources, but one is a late 2024 uh poll survey from David Shore, the Democratic data scientist that that surveyed about 130,000 voters. They found that a quarter of those younger than 25 uh held an unfavorable opinion of Jewish people, not Israel, Israelis or even Zionists, but Jewish people. Uh and there was negligible differences here between Harris and Trump supporters. So this is a problem on both sides of the aisle. Um they the piece also quotes from uh Tim Miller who talks about how he you know Tim Miller I think is like a fairly studied guy on online trends uh and they and Miller is basically sounding the alarms of what he's seeing.

And I'll just say as somebody who ran Arena, which is a big community of progressives, that a lot of the members of our community uh that I interacted with back then who I still follow I've followed or keep track of on social media, I've seen a rise of just very alarming posts where people are edging closer and closer to outright anti-semitism. Uh and I I don't know what to do about it. uh other than like treating it the way that we treat offensive views on the right, right? Which is like you can't be a part of this coalition or at least we can't be like friends if you're going to espouse views that we would in any other context call out, right? Like there's no special exception here.

Yeah. the [clears throat] Okay, let's stipulate for a second like let's put aside listener whatever your personal views are about the actions of Netanyahu and Israel and I I'm a Jew and as I just stated I have mine um and they're not favorable toward Netanyahu's actions for the most part um but let's stipulate for a minute just imagine yourself that you are a full-on progressive a free Palestine person and you you use words like apartheid and genocide and stuff like that imagine that's your frame of of reference for a moment and then imagine that you're at a rally and you're at a rally where people are saying that kind of thing and then you hear somebody say something about Jews and it's maybe not the most horrendous thing. Uh maybe it doesn't fit into the stereotypical classical World War II era stereotypes. Maybe it's not about money.

Maybe it's more about them having too much power. Maybe, you know, that kind of thing. Okay, now stop yourself for a second. Now imagine that your mindset is um is more the other way that you're completely the other side of this thing and that you're at a MAGA rally and you are a person who says, you know, level Gaza, do all those things. And the person up there speaking is saying things about the need to make sure we don't allow any Muslims into this country and that we get Muslims out of this country. And their reason for it is because they're saying that look at what happened in Bondi, that was ISIS. Look at what happened with the National Guard shooting. That person was a Muslim, right? They're talking about 9/11.

I'm sorry. Like, I don't see the difference between those two things. They are directly analogous. And if you are a person who believes, as I do, and as most good-hearted people do, that ISIS is a horrible uh violent um bastardization of Islam, right? uh and that therefore Muslims in America should be treated as false citizens and should not be discriminated against, then you really should arrive at like if you have a negative view of Israel, you shouldn't have a problem arriving at the same conclusion about individual Jews and that you shouldn't have an opinion formed about individual Jews based on a Jewish nation state that you don't like.

Yeah. Amen to that. Uh and the texture of this is so sad. You know, I'm sure you saw this, but there was a Holocaust survivor, which I presume must have been kids that is a husband and wife who must have been children when they they were um in, you know, you know, confined during the Holocaust. Uh the the husband I I guess like jumped on the wife and saved her, but he was killed. So, he survives all of that and all these years and is killed in this massacre. It's horrible. Um but on the on the other side of the texture the the the person who disarmed the guy got who got shot was a Muslim. So I think if we point the way forward like what is the kind of society we want to live in

that is the answer which is that we see each other as humans and we do the right thing

that no matter what our religious beliefs are if we have any at all uh that that guy is a hero and that we want to live in a world where people like him exist you know and the gentleman who jumped on his wife like th those acts uh in the face of such tragedy point the way forward. Yeah. No, I agree.

Well, you know, somebody who maybe doesn't point the way forward in progress maybe represents uh a bit of a regression here is is uh one Cash Patel. Uh and I think uh when we think about the Brown shooting, which I as of this recording, we don't know yet. I think I've been I've been in meetings all the last couple hours, but I haven't seen anything on motive yet uh or who the shooter is. I know there's

I don't think they've pictures circulating. What' you say? They haven't caught him yet.

They haven't caught him. Uh, and maybe one of the reason that gets to your point here.

Yeah. Maybe one of the reasons why I haven't caught him is because of who our FBI director is and Esquire magazine uh I think summed it up in their title to a piece called Cash Patel is somehow even worse at his job than we already thought. Uh, and I mean we don't need to go through the details here, but I think one detail is that he uh leapt. This is not the first time he's done this. uh he leapt to uh Twitter to announce that they had a person of interest in custody. Now, we should have learned our lesson on this a long time ago. The Atlanta bombing uh when you and I were kids was a perfect example of this

that there's nothing wrong with bringing in people of interest there. That that is not the part I'm criticizing. The part that I'm criticizing is um announcing it as if it's triumphal, which the way he announced it suggested that hey, we got this figured out when there's a dangerous person on the loose. We don't like there was very little evidence. Uh it comes out that this person of interest that they had actually was the shooter. Again, bring anybody in you think you have any reason to think um and talk to them. Um so you have problem A, which is now everybody thinks they're safe when they're not. Uh and then problem B is that uh there there are many layers uh typically in these types of situations where it's not the FBI director himself jumping on Twitter all the time thumping his chest.

Uh and so I mean there are many other problems but those are two starters. Well, and the individual's name got leaked. So, much like the Richard Juul case, uh, you know, that's going to be an issue for the rest of that person's life. Um,

terrible. It's I mean, can you imagine? It's like the absolute opposite of a lottery ticket. Um, just a terrible thing to have happen to you.

Well, there's a lot of reporting on Cash Patel right now. Um there was a story uh and I heard this from from Tim Miller again, but that he apparently at some point in the past couple weeks held up a plane because he couldn't like it was doing some kind of public uh response to some one of the many tragedies that he's presiding over and uh this is all alleged and this is coming from Miller uh waited until he could get the proper sized FBI windbreaker which I don't know if this is a joke or not that it's like a child's large or something But maybe that's not true. I don't want to

I don't want to get sued here. But but we have some weird behavior and and maybe

maybe all that other stuff isn't true. But he one thing we know for sure is that he's using FBI resources uh for his private life. Uh and you don't have to take my word for it. Um he all but admits to it. Uh let's go to this clip of him being asked about this.

And no one told them not to go on vacation. And it's ironic that they're saying, "Oh, you're going on vacation or you're going to see your girlfriend perform." And if I was actually abusing it, I would go see every one of her shows. I think I get to like 15%.

Uh, that, by the way, is an interview with Steven Miller's wife. So hard-hitting stuff.

Does he look like an FBI director to you? Just like everything about that clip, he's like hunched over on a couch with a clip on mic. I'm like,

what? He looks like a podcaster to me. Uh because he is one. I mean, there's obviously no higher calling, but

yeah, I mean, we are the best of the best clearly. Uh well, anyway, the I refreshed myself this morning on Cash Patel's background. And he's, you know, a guy who the closest he's actually gotten to law enforcement seems to be that he was a public defender in Miami for a little while. Um, and then after that, yeah, he worked at the Justice Department, but as far as I can tell, he was

he was a laughingstock of the Justice Department. He was a laughingtock and he wasn't really prosecuting people. He was a staffer. I mean, he's referred to as a staffer. There's also, you know, there's all sorts of cases where he, I mean, it was exactly what you described, was a laughingstock at the Justice Department. And what he really, his main qualification, we should remember, for this job is that he just thought that he believed in all these conspiracy theories about the FBI that all happened to absolve Trump of any wrongdoing ever.

And that's why he's there. So, can you imagine? I mean, we've seen the articles about the low morale at the FBI. Can you imagine working at the FBI and they bring in a new boss and the boss is somebody who has become famous for saying that you are a treasonous idiot and now he's your boss. Uh no wonder nobody there likes the guy at all.

What's interesting to me is like even MAGA people I think I've mentioned this on the podcast even my father he he can't defend Cash Patel and I forget who we played last week. It might have been Tucker Carlson or somebody who's criticizing Cash Patel for tweeting instead of doing his job. So like even the most extreme lunatics seem to notice that Cash Patel isn't up to the job, which is really saying something. Um but anyway, um we're going to take a break, Jason. When we come back, we're going to talk about Reiner and the absolutely atrocious response from the president.

Susie Wilds is uh very interesting press tour she did uh this past week. um AI and tech. We're going to come back to a conversation we had last week and then some more right-wing infighting. Last minute shopping during the holidays is the worst. You're probably running out of ideas of what to buy. The stores are packed and forget about finding parking. Ora frames is the best last minute solution with a gift that feels thoughtful and personal. I typically struggle with ideas for what to buy my family and friends. So, I tend to put it off a bit because I want to get them something special, something memorable.

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One last piece on this Brown shooting. I think it was Chuck Schumer gave a press conference about it and he started the press conference by saying go Bills and people were sending this to me as if I was responsible for it like like they wanted me to explain what Schumer was doing. And of course even I an avid Bills fan am not going to justify that. That's insane. So, people don't send this to me. I have no responsibility over it. Obviously, I don't support that. That those two things should not be mixed together in any way.

Anyway, let's talk about Reiner. Um, I love Rob Reiner. I don't know his wife. Um,

or I loved I don't know him personally. I don't know a lot about his wife who seems like a wonderful person. You and I have frequently spoken about Rob Reiner movies on this podcast, including a few good men. Um, which I think

Yeah. I mean, it's he it doesn't matter how talented you are in moments like this. Like a tragedy is a tragedy, but he is an American institution and somebody who's been in so many people's lives. And we get to the the outpouring of sympathy from everybody from James Woods uh to Laura

Ingram. Uh this is a man who is a uh an American um in every possible way, right? like not just in the way he was creative but also in the way he engaged that even people who disagree with him you know people like like James Woods if you look at his Twitter he's taking a break from implying that like Obama and and Biden are like responsible for like mass atrocities I forget exactly what he was tweeting is like some crazy he tweeted about Obama and Biden and then an hour later he's like but let me just say Rob Riner is a great man and he saved my career Right.

Ingram said something really nice about him too, like this was clearly a guy who's going about things the right way. Um, and so before we get to some of the unfortunate parts of the reaction, I just want to say that like I have the highest regard for Rob Briner.

I I never met him either. I had, you know, just through social media we interacted a few times and I remember being so like starruck each time just because I mean his movies are incredible. Like true is 12. I've already shown him a few Good men and we we watched it a few months ago. He saw A Princess Bride years ago. Um and and just yeah he institution is the right way to put it. Well uh Trump posted on social, on truth social that Reiner and his wife were killed, quote, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome. He doubled down on that later um, when asked about it. I'm not going to play that clip. This is this even by Trump standards. I started sending this around immediately when I got it because I was like, how is this even possible? And people who are accustomed to whatever from Trump, the

common reaction I got is this has to be fake because even by Trump's standards, I'm not sure I was shocked, but like and like there's nothing six months from now we will he will up the ante and do something even worse if we can even imagine what that is. But um this broke through Jason in a way that I I honestly can't think of a single thing maybe January 6, right? Like that prompted enough people from every corner of our politics to say, "Hey, this is really wrong." Not enough to be honest. Like we can get to the Republicans and I think we're people are overstating the amount of elected Republicans who are saying the right thing on this. But a lot of Republicans who are not in elected office are pointing to how obscene this is.

To me, it's the latest evidence that he's just losing it. You know, because I mean, I guess you could say he's doing it to distract from other things. You know, Epstein files are supposed to come out soon. You know, more of it is all that kind of thing. But really, I think it just comes down to this sickness that Trump has where absolutely every single thing in the world that happens is about him. And so the only great people, the only great Americans that he acknowledges to be great are the ones who have a a connection to him and b one where they have genulected to him. And that's this reminds me of, you know, I like I like war heroes. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like heroes who weren't captured, right? Um because everybody there was even people who didn't vote for John McCain had enormous admiration and respect for John McCain and that would have been fine with Trump if John

McCain had fallen into line because then in his mind he gets to share in that agulation and respect and and some of it is his really because that person likes him. But if he gets the sense that that person doesn't like him then his objective is to tear them down. And that's what's happening here. Yeah, I was thinking a lot about this like is the and we'll never know the I mean we won't know the answer to this but is the is this him uh degrading? Like is it is it like a cognitive decline thing or is it just who he is like and he's just more comfortable being who he is right now?

I'm a little bit in the latter camp. Although politically it might make more sense to frame it in the former because it it actually gives people a permission to to jump off the ship to be like, hey, I voted for this other guy, but this guy is clearly declining. So maybe that's more politically effective. But in my heart, I'm like, this is who he has always been.

I'd argue it's both. And here's how. uh he's always been this person, but he has previously had an enhanced ability to conceal that person to some degree. It's in some circumstances. And now that person is just coming out more and more because he's not as capable of containing the, you know, the wolf inside of him, the monster inside of him. uh he's aware of it and he just and and part of that is just like how many old people do you know who say really awful offensive things? Uh it happens particularly old men.

Um a little bit of that is you know they don't give a damn anymore and a little bit of that is their ability to contain it is degraded.

Yeah. [snorts] Um well uh the Republicans who called this out, you know, there are a few uh Massie, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lawler, um they criticized him fairly quickly, but there's still plenty of them have not commented on this. Mike Johnson, um although like called the killing senseless or something like that, walked away when asked by reporters about Trump's response. We haven't heard from JD Vance. I mean, you keep going and going and going. Um actor Rob Schneider, who you you know, sadly is a Trump supporter. uh said quote the president yesterday he must rise above it and he seems incapable of rising above the situation and being the president of all of us. I would say the most surprising reaction though came from one Nick Fuentes and I'm going to play this clip but before I do let me make clear what is obvious which is I'm not glossing Nick Fuentes. This guy is an anti-semite. Um who even and we we were

going to play a clip last week. There were a couple of clips of an interview he did where among other things he said Hitler is cool. So hard to like um square like calling somebody cool who murdered a bunch of Jews uh bunch of is an understatement. Um um and a lot of other people uh to then say like killing is wrong. Uh, but I play this just because I of a phenomenon of um I think who tweeted the person who tweeted this out that I saw it was like Trump has become so unhinged and horrible that even Nick Fuentes has moral clarity over him

or at least the instinct at least the instinct to distance himself. Yeah. And we could talk about what's going on here because it is interesting and this would normally go in the Republican division section of our podcast but it's obviously relevant here. So, let's go to the clip.

You talk about his political legacy. That's one thing. Some guy, some producer, some civilian dies at the hands of his kid. It's such a grizzly situation. It is objectively awful to make fun of that. Now, if Trump were actually doing what he promised to do, you could overlook the fact that he's a douchebag. You could overlook the fact that he's vain, that he's a narcissist, that he's tactical but not strategic. you could overlook all these things if he was bringing home the goods. That was kind of the deal in 2016. You said, "We don't love everything about Trump, but you know what? We're willing to we're willing to accommodate. It's an acquired taste, but it's okay because he's doing all these other things."

Well, what's actually the pitch now? Yeah. Well, I mean, I see why you wanted to play it. I I had actually not watched it previous to the show because I just didn't want to. But yeah, I mean, he's he's not actually finding any moral clarity. He's just saying, "Look, we've always known he's a douchebag. Uh, but now he's not doing any of the he's not doing enough of the evil stuff that we thought he was going to do. So, why why is it even worth it to have such a guy a guy who's such an objective douchebag? That's not really inspiring."

Yeah. And obviously there's nothing Nick Fentes that's going to convince me. I think there's a couple notable things. One is um there's this growing group of people within the right and Fentes is part of it. Carlson is part of it who I would say like we're obviously never going to be have common cause with them. We won't have common cause with them. I think there's a big difference between engaging Joe Rogan and a lot of these people who um are of one category of just legitimate disagreements and emphasis and all that versus people who are truly hateful horrible people who are not genuine in how they debate and obviously Fontes is part of the latter. But what is going on and we our job is to do absolutely nothing about it and just note it is that this is a real problem for 20 the the midterms and especially the next presidential election for a lot of stay-at-home votes, right? like like the

same group of people who are staying at home and not going on dates, which was something we're going to talk about last week um [clears throat] are also going to stay at home and not vote if they keep listening to this stuff. And that's a problem for the Republicans, you know, like the message is not going to be vote for Democrats. It's going to be don't engage. just not worth your time, you know. And JD Vance has a real problem here because Fuentes attacks him personally and his wife and Vance has been unable to in any way call that out, which is something we'll talk about in a little bit. And so this is a ticking time bomb for them. And these people have huge audiences.

Do you the other ele the other thing going on here is that everybody knows that we're heading into the lame duck part of the Trump presidency and politically the the Republican party is beginning to have the conversation about what's next and who's next and there's a vacuum and all of these people want to fill it and so it's these internal rivalries combined with Trump's influence beginning to wayne or a sense now his power is still enor enormous. He's still got the power of the presidency, but his influence is beginning to wne. And these sharks smell blood in the water. It reminds me I can't remember. Are you a Star Wars fan?

Like, have you watched the new movies? No, I haven't watched any of the new stuff, but I'm a fan of the originals.

Okay. So, anybody who's watched the new ones will get this, but in the new ones, uh, there's this character, Admiral Hu, and he is he looks a little like Nick Fuentes, and he's a smarmy little little guy, right? And you know, the sort of the new Darth Vader in those movies is Kylo Ren. He's played by Adam Driver. And there's a part, and I'm going to spoil this for people, but come on, it's been out for a few years. Um, there's a part where in the final movie, uh, there's a spy in the, you know, it's, they don't call it the Empire anymore, but it's basically the Empire. There's a spy in the Empire, and it turns out it's this smarmy little bad guy. And when he's confronted about it, he says, "I I don't want you to win. I want him to lose. Talking about Kylo Ren. And that's who Nick Fuentes reminds me of. He reminds me of the little weasel. Uh and and and same with Carlson and all these folks who are just like, "Oh, I see that

the leader might might be on his way out. He might be weakening and what I really care about is me and so I'm going to grab as much as I can." And so that's why to your point, we're never really going to have common cause with these people, but they do present a good barometer for us as to the state of Trump's waning influence.

Yeah. And he really boxes in the the Ben Shapiro types because what Shapiro has been arguing for uh has been incoherent. And it's like you go back to he was super critical of Trump uh in 2016 and and in many ways called out all the things that happened that he was stoking hate and yada yada yada that he's not a true conservative. These are all the things these people were saying. Then they flip and as you pointed out it's probably a business decision. They're just like ah I don't really have a place unless I go back and support this guy.

Uh, and so they flip and and they basically are making the argument to their audience that Fuentes calls out here, which is it's worth it because we're going to get what we want out of this guy. And what they're stuck with is all the things that they knew were true and in some cases publicly said in the case of Shapiro about this guy that he's hateful and that he's actually hateful in ways that are actually very specific and potent on the things you care most about uh, Ben Shapiro, like anti-semitism. And actually, it couldn't be worse for in terms of a president of the United States on that issue like and you supported this guy and you said years ago that he would be like this and he would stoke the exact hatreds now that you're dealing with. But you can't even then go to your audience and be like, "But at least we got this other thing." And so now those people are in a bind. Their their positions are

completely incoherent. Like they have nothing to offer their audience. And in comes other enterprising charlatans like Fuentes and Carlson who are like, "Well, I'm gonna sell you the new snake oil."

They're all going to find a way to position themselves as having not really been a Trump person because because in the by the time Trump's presidency is over, MAGA may still be a thing, but Trump won't be. And now they'll find different ways to do it. They'll find ways that save face. They'll say, "Well, he wasn't conservative enough. He didn't go far enough. I wanted him to do more." Or, you know, or I never liked I never liked the way he behaved. Or the They'll find all those things which I'll just, you know, recycle one of the things I've been saying for years, which is Trump is going to prove to be the Iraq war of presidents because find me a politician who anymore. Find me a politician who will tell you that they supported the Iraq war. They may admit they voted a certain way, but that you cannot find one. The Iraq war is now just a thing that happened somehow, right?

And that's what's Trump is going to be just a thing that happened. You know, I was there. I I didn't really support him. It's And here's why. That's that's where we're headed.

Well, we're going to take a break and actually Jeremy, let's flip the order. We'll continue on this conversation about divisions within uh MAGA and then we'll talk about Susie Wilds is just wild week um when we get back. You can't mute the world, but you can mute your stress one gummy or soda at a time. Indicide is your online cannabis dispensary for quieting the noise. Gummies, curated flour, pre-rolls, and now zero sugar, zerocalorie THC sodas. All federally legal, THC, DEA certified, lab tested, shipped, discreet, because some headlines deserve to be ignored and some days deserve bubbles. The first time I tried Indicoud, I realized silence is the best headline. So, this is for when you've read enough breaking news from one lifetime. Sleep gummies that quiet the ticker, sparkling sodas that end the day early, and social blends that save Thanksgiving. This is how adults log off mindfully and maybe

with a little fizz. If you're 21 or older, visit indicloud.co co and use code majority for 25% off plus free shipping. That's indic.co code code majority. 25% off, free shipping, and one less headline in your head. Enjoy responsibly and thanks to Indicoud for sponsoring today's muchneeded quiet. All right, let's continue on this question of the divisions within MAGA. Um, one thing that happened this week, and I will forgive the audience for not knowing uh about this because it is not in any way their priority, but we want you to know about these divisions and be a a student of them. We've set this up before. Candace Owens has a huge audience. uh she has turned on a lot of people within the right including Trump but has also uh been alleging that um uh Turning Point uh Charlie Kirk's uh organization that's now run by Erica Kirk, his his widow, um that like Kirk's death was actually like some kind of

conspiracy that involves the French, the Jews, I don't know who else. Um, and this she's been just saying these things are obviously probably very traumatic for Erica Kirk. She has to deal with all these people insinuating all kinds of things. Um, and then there was some kind of like meeting brokered this week where the two of them sat down and then Candace Owens emerged from this meeting doubling down on the conspiracy theory. So that's one big development. Jason,

can I just pause for a second and say, imagine being part of a movement where it is necessary for someone to broker a meeting between you and Candace Owens,

like where you have to acknowledge somebody saying those kinds of things about your family or just saying the kind of whackadoodle crap that she says that you actually have to as a as a professional hazard have to acknowledge and meet with that person for four hours. Like, God, I'm glad we don't live in that world.

Try to explain this division. So, this this comes from a write up on this from CNN. Owens's campaign following Kirk's September 10th assassination has driven deep divisions within the MAGA influencer world. Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and comedian Dave Smith have all defended them to some degree, defended her to some degree. Well, Tim P and Ben Shapi Ben Shapiro have both described Owens's actions as evil. and Nick Fuentes has said she's a narcissist hurting America. Now, on the face of that, you're like, "Some of those make sense, but what is Nick Fuentes doing with this group?" And then I was like, "Oh, she's black. That's what it is."

That's that's 50%. The other 50% is she's standing on his corner. Yeah. You know, she's she they they share a potential audience,

right? I mean, at the end of the day, the only I mean, this is all about one color, and that's green for all these people. I mean, that's the thing. Fuentes, um, you know, uh, Shapi, all these people, they behave, as you pointed out a minute ago, no different than Republican members of Congress. 2016, you know, I don't like the way what he's saying. It's important that he not be our nominee. Uh, he wins. 2017, you know, I think we should hear him out. 2018, I'll do whatever he wants. Right? They behave the exact same way.

The difference is they have bigger microphones. They make a ton of money. and they are the subject of or the target of hero worship by members of Congress because they have such a platform.

Well, um Mike Cernovich, I guess this guy's name is another big right-wing influencer tweeted

big anti-semite. Yeah. Another Okay. Yeah. This is our big I apologize for elevating these people this week. I'm not elevating. We're we're covering divisions within the right. But here's what he had to say this week. We had our chance to save our country. People would rather do vanity fair interviews, podcasts, and meme coins. The suffering heading our way is immense and often leaves me with a deep sense of sadness. But God can now say, "I saved Trump. I gave MAGA the office." And what of it? Some buyer's remorse maybe. I mean, that's a poorly worded tweet, but I'm I guess he's saying he regrets some things. I don't know. Like

I think he's saying we didn't get enough bad. You know, look, nobody thinks they're the bad guy, right? Everybody thinks they're the good guy in the in the movie,

but we didn't get enough of our good, we know, bad things done. And and it's because of infighting maybe he's saying, but in general, I mean, like look, whenever they say like not enough is happening, that just so you know, audience, that's the pressure that I all these people are feeling. It's not. We all want to assign it just to Steven Miller. Look, Steven Miller is not so dynamic of a personality in the West Wing that Trump is feeling pressure to deport without process or purpose or reason or really any sort of forethought, people who don't deserve it at all. Uh, you know, he's not like trying to get the numbers up just cuz Steven Miller is talking about it. He's trying to get the numbers up because these people are like, "I still see some brown people when I leave my house sometimes. Why did we even help you get elected?" And that's the pressure he's feeling and that's the kind of stuff

that they're talking about. Well, um Tim Miller uh made an interesting comment about where he thinks the power uh lies and is is growing within the Republican party. Let's go to this clip. The faction that JD seems the most concerned about shoring up is like the most conspiratorial like MAGA nationalist element of the party. Like he's got Tucker's kid on his staff. He will not disavow Fuentes or disavow anyone that is making anti-Indian comments despite his family. like he who he chooses to engage with online is like generally usually going after whatever establishment types and like being more defensive of you know kind of the fringe right like and I think that tells us like where he assesses the juices in the party and I think that is like more important than where we ass like I I think that it seems to me like the juice is with the you know whatever Candace Tucker wing of the party but I think

It's pretty telling that the vice president agrees with that. Yeah, until I saw this clip, I didn't know that JD Vance had hired Tucker Carlson's son. Um, it does say a lot. Look, it's not it's not hard to figure out who has the juice in the party because now you simply look at ratings. You don't look at what what you used to look at is fundraising numbers. You used to look at um things like cable bookings. You used to, you know, how big was their audience? But but that audience used to come through earned media and now it comes through owned media, right? So Ben Shapiro owns a certain market share of the listening audience. Uh Tucker Carlson has a different one. And you just simply look at the numbers that their YouTube uh you their YouTube numbers, their Spotify numbers, all those sorts of things. And that's how you can tell who has the juice. And JD Vance is smart enough to be able to do

that. JD Vance has done it before. It's how he ended up vice president to a guy he said might be Hitler. It's cuz he looked at the numbers and he saw where things are going. And what's interesting about that is that now it's not issues really that that determine where people are going to be politically. It's personalities now. People aren't taking courses anymore. They're taking professors. And so here's what I mean. Used to be, okay, I want to win a primary. I got to go show that I'm, you know, if I'm a Republican, I got to go show that I'm the most anti-choice. I got to go show all these things. Now, that's not what you do. You just literally go on a show. You go on Tucker Carlson's show. You go, you know, you do the things that they want. And then it used to be that when it came general election time, you pivoted and you tried to show that you were a little more moderate on abortion and you were

more moderate on immigration. That's not how it works now. Now you don't go so much on Tucker Carlson and you start trying to go on Rogan again. It it's just personalities now. Uh and yeah, I think I think Tim is right. It's not that hard to see who has the juice right now. You just see who these people are catering to. Well, one more data point here is u the Hill magazine uh newspaper uh reported on this polling from NBC uh that shows some reason for concern among MAG universe. I don't want to overstate there's a huge debate over how much import to give this but um 70% of respondents uh who consider themselves MAGA Republicans said they strongly approve of the president. It's an eight-point drop from April. And um there was a drop also in Republicans who identify more with MAGA than with the GOP. It used to be 5644 more identifying with MAGA. Now it's 50/50. I don't think this is like in of itself

big enough. I mean, there's margins of error and all kinds of stuff. And what does it mean to be MAGA versus Republican? And maybe people conflate the two such now that actually like the question itself doesn't really like people are assuming different things about the question. But it's just one more thing to monitor. Uh is like if you start to see these numbers get dramatic and and there there more detailed studies to be like what do you mean by Republican and what do you mean by MAGA? Then I take it more seriously. But it's just one data point.

Look there's lots of vibes out there that demonstrate that Trump's influence is waning. But we talked at the very beginning of the show about the most clear piece of evidence and that is that you have Republican members and by the way not the same Republican members every time signing on to discharge petitions. And that may sound like just a boring procedural thing. uh you know if you've never been a member of a legislative body but a discharge petition in a House of Representatives is a humongous deal if you are a member of the majority party um and you do that right like so it's a procedural vote that is just throwing sand in the eye of your leadership when you do that and in this case in both of these cases that leadership includes Donald Trump because he doesn't he didn't want either of the Epstein discharge petition certainly or this one. And so for Republicans, different Republicans in both cases to

step out and say, "We are going to join the Democrats because we so think you're wrong and we're going to uh go around the power of our party that we have the numbers to exercise. And we are going to like sabotage that power to make it so that something that our party doesn't want brought to the floor for a vote that it will bypass committee and do and just go straight to the floor for a vote. That is a huge deal. When I was in the Missouri state house, uh I had a discharge petition or we I don't remember who started it, but we had a discharge petition on campaign reform and ethics reform. And there was a guy uh named Chris Mullandorp um who I got along really well with. He was a moderate Republican from this area south of Kansas City. And uh we called him Mole and and I got Mole to sign on to a discharge petition to bring that to the floor. And he was stripped of every committee. Uh, I mean he was treated

terribly afterwards and and um I mean just watching the way they treated him it was like he had I I think of the most sacrosanked thing that you could violate in like whatever club you belong to. It was it was that I mean he uh he was like the way mob the mob treats a snitch is is how he was treated and uh and it's that that's the dynamic in any legislative body. So, it is a huge deal that you have members of Congress signing on to these discharge petitions. It is to me the clearest indicator yet that Trump's influence is waning and that their fear of him is waning. Now, they may still have physical fear, but their political fear of him is waning because they don't they don't think it necessarily matters if he weighs in at a primary against him.

Well, let's talk about this Susie Wilds situation here. Uh, so for people listening, Susie Wilds was the campaign manager for Trump and then she's been his chief of staff and is like talked about as like the responsible I'm putting air quotes out there. Um, the responsible person meaning like the more organized trying to keep him disciplined and all this. I mean the bar is so low here like whatever. Like, but what is interesting is that she gave uh it seems multiple interviews over the course of the presidency so far with Vanity Fair and they released a two-parter um discussing uh or revealing what she said and and some of the highlights are that she said Trump has an alcoholics personality. She compared him to her late father, which I did not realize was Pat Summerall, by the way.

Um that uh she had a loose agreement with him that score settling would end after the first 90 days. Lots of questions there, like as if that's responsible, like okay, you could do score settling for 90 days, but not and that he uh did not abide by that. Um, she said that JD Vance has been a conspiracy theorist for a decade and that his conversion uh from never Trumper to meal loyalist was political rather than genuine. She said that Elon Musk is an odd odd duck um who is a ketamine avowed ketamine user. Um I mean there's more here but uh I mean first of all great you're honest you're still working for the guy.

No personal credit to her like at all for this. It's just another data point to say this guy is out of control. His own chief of staff is saying it.

Yeah. But yet another chief of staff, by the way, we don't need just her to tell us this.

Here's the thing about the psychology of Trump. I think Susie Wilds knew exactly what she was doing. If you look at everything she said, there's one thing that she said that could have potentially bothered Trump because he is sinking boats in order to get Maduro to say uncle. And he would probably say that he uh he all he is exacting retribution on people and he would have no problem saying, "Yeah, I have staff who told me I should stop. I'm not going to stop." She knows that. She knows that he probably likes the idea that people have told him not to do that and he's doing it anyway. The only thing that she said that could have gone sideways on her is when she said he has an al alcoholics personality. But listen to the rest of the quote because he sees something and believes no matter what it is that he absolutely can do it himself.

Trump was asked about this and Trump said, "Yeah, that's probably right. I've never had a drink, but that's probably a fair a fair description. And then what did she do the rest of the way? She said all sorts of things that Trump believes about other people. Trump loves that JD Vance uh that has no leverage over him ever because he broke JD Vance to bring him in. He hates Musk now. He wants people to say bad things about Musk. All everything she did is all she did was cement herself more thoroughly in Trump's circle of trust is what she did there. And that's the most damning thing that we have that sort of a sociopath in the White House.

Yeah. I mean that's well put. Um there's all sides reporting that people are pissed within the administration about this which you'd imagine for the person.

She took shots at everybody but him. she took shots, but also like regardless, it it has the appearance of a lack of discipline, whether it was intentional or not. So, I think like a lot of people who she's probably trying to get to be more disciplined um are probably like, "What the hell?" Uh

I promise you every opinion she stated about anybody else is something that he and she have talked about in the Oval Office before and he shares every one of those views and he can't

um Well, that's all we got for today, Jason. Um, one for us. What you got, man?

Uh, my one for us is actually somewhat political, which is, um, I did something this morning I hadn't done in a little while. I participated in a press conference on, um, the fight over gerrymandering here in Missouri. The very short version is that the secretary of state is, um, and the attorney general of Missouri are pretending that they don't know the law on something so that they that signatures were turned in to overturn the jury mandering. And the way it works in Missouri is that when signatures are turned in to overturn a law of the legislature, then um that law is paused until that it can be resolved, until you have a vote on it. And it's been that way for 117 years that law has been in place. And Republican and Democratic secretaries of state and attorney attorneys general, including even Josh Holly, have honored that even on things they disagreed with. and uh and this attorney general and secretary

of state are pretending no no the law's not paused so that they can try and run out the clock and then just like print ballots on the on the new districts even if they lose in court. And so I was asked to talk about the secretary of state's role in this. I did a press conference about two hours ago and it what was interesting about it was is you know I haven't held office actually in nine years and um you know and I and I haven't sought office in seven years and that's a long enough time that uh press you know the last time I called a press conference uh on something political not something like in my nonprofit work or something like that uh it only worked one way. you stood outside or inside at a podium and people showed up. And now press conference is just a Zoom call. And I just think that's so interesting. And there were, you know, like 25 reporters on this uh uh on this Zoom call today and like two

of them had their screens on. And so I made a joke about that because they were two people I knew. And so that was just interesting like how I've only I've only been out of actual participatory electoral politics in that way. uh you know for seven years and little things like that have changed enormously. I'm just a dinosaur now.

Well, shout out to you. Stephen Weber been talking about this on this podcast and a lot of our audience I know jumped in and signed petitions and and organized uh there. So, keep up the good fight there. Um

what about you? You're still in Costa Rica. I'm still in Costa Rica. By the way, I had a great call with your wife yesterday. She's such a rock star, man. So impressive.

Um we're going to collaborate on a bunch of stuff this year. Um the I had this moment uh and I wrote about this on my Substack. If people want to read the full piece, it's uh real Robbie Gupta. And you can subscribe for free there. But I I I'd show up to this tennis court that I've been playing at for the past couple years. And um this kid greets me. He's like a young kid. He's like 13 years old, 14. Antonio is his name. And I never seen him before. And he's like showing me around. And I'm like I'm trying to explain but he speaks Spanish.

I speak English, so I He's explaining. He's showing me everything I know already and I'm like, "All right, I'll deal with it." So then I go play a little bit and then I take a water break and I'm like taking stock. I'm like, "There's like a crowd watching us." And then he's got a new haircut and he's like, he's so eager and I'm like I said to him, uh, and my friend was there who speaks Spanish, translated this for me. I was like, "Is this your first day of work?" And he said, "Yeah." I was like, "Is this your first job ever?" He said, "Yeah."

I was like, "Oh, that's cool." Made me think about first jobs. And so that's what I wrote about in my piece, but also it's just I I kind of broadened it out to be like there are these moments you go throughout your day and you just think it's a normal Tuesday, right? You're like you just think of everything through the lens of your experience. Like so you go to a restaurant and you don't really think about, well, if I send food back, what is the chef like? How much do they are they invested in whether I eat ate all my food or not? or um you know you run into the same barista every day and how much does it matter like how polite you are or whether you remember their name. And this is one of those moments where like it's just an you don't really you don't think about this as like one of the most important days of this kid's life

uh that he'll remember for the rest of his life. His first job ever. His family came out to watch him.

That's true. And so I thought that was they they literally cheered him on. I was like worried somebody was watching. He played tennis. I was going to go over them and be like, "This is going to be really underwhelming." But, uh, but it just was one of those moments to be like, you know what? Like, sometimes people around you, like there's like an an intensity to their life that [snorts] you have to work hard to to realize. And then once you do, it's like, wow. Like, there's more happening around me than than I originally thought. Um, and so it's one of those moments.

What was your first job? So, this is what I write about. I worked at a sign shop called Syorama, uh, where we made signs, uh, and, uh, it was a colorful cast of characters. One guy was a graffiti artist I worked with who wound up dying, uh, when he stepped on the third rail, uh, and subway. One guy um, was, I think, closeted gay and was like a source of a lot of neighborhood rumors. And the other guy was dying of cancer. Those are the three people I was working with. And that was a lesson in and it of itself. I was 13 as well. Yeah. Off the books.

$3 an hour. Uh so that was mine. What was yours? Uh I worked so like before I was, you know, 14 and old enough to work. I worked my dad had a a small business and I worked in my dad's small business and I made like minimum wage. Um and then my first job like you know where I went to work for somebody who was not my dad. um was at the HY, a grocery it's a grocery chain in the Midwest.

I've seen it in Iowa. I've been to the HY Ve based in Iowa. Um and uh and what was interesting about it for me was there was a new HY opening up near my house. And so I got a job and was there on the my first day of my first job was on the day that this place opened. And it was uh I it really made an impression on me because you know here I was I was 14 years old. It was my first job and like I was excited but like I didn't have that much writing on it, you know what I mean? like compar, you know, I wanted the the cash for like walking around money as a kid, you know, but but what was really eye opening to me was there were a lot of people there for their first day of that job who like had kids and were not were not in many cases making any more money than me and how huge it was to them and how you know to me like you know they'd come out and the the folks from corporate were there and they'd talk about HY is employeeowned

and and it is and it was this big thing and they were talking have benefit plans, all this. And I remember just being like, well, none of this applies to me. You know, it's um but but really it made an impression on me seeing these people who were just like so excited to have this job and there were so many people counting on them and whereas you know I was getting dropped off at the job by my dad and picked up by my dad you know or my mom and so yeah that made a big impression on me. I remember I was a bagger and I had this habit of um as a you know somewhat hyperactive kid. I had a tendency to like I was Tom Cruz and cocktail like flipping groceries up in the air as I'm putting them in bags

catching them almost all the time. But definitely the managers had to come to me and like stop doing that. It's it's annoying to people. Anyway, that was my first one. first jobs. I, you know, at some point we need to bring back um let's Jeremy, let's make a note. Let's bring back the hotline. I these are the types of moments where I'd be like bring in a voicemail and we got to set something up. I'd love to hear from people about their jobs.

Um we'll set something up in the for the new year so we could start taking questions again.

I miss that part of this. That's a good idea. I mean, you know what we could do is we could just We don't even need a hotline. It could just be if there's a thing you want us to talk about on the show and you put a video on Instagram or something and you tag us.

It's not hard for us to play the video on the show. Let's just roll that out now. Hashtag hashtag majority54. And you could also tag me and Jason. We'll see it. And if uh

Yeah. Make sure you tag us because I may not see the hashtag. Yeah. Yeah. Um that's great. Uh yeah. Done. Easy technology. We don't need a hotline.

There you go. All right. Well, speaking of which, tag tag us Jason Cander or Ravi Gupta. Uh please leave a five-star review. Thank you to the Midas Mighty. And remember, we all have a platform. Make sure to use yours today.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "LIVE: Republicans REVOLT on HOUSE FLOOR Against Trump and MAGA MIKE"?

Ravi Gupta (Host), Jason Kander (Host), Jeremy (Guest), Tim Miller (Guest), Kash Patel (Guest).

What is "LIVE: Republicans REVOLT on HOUSE FLOOR Against Trump and MAGA MIKE" about?

Breaking developments include four Republican lawmakers siding with Democrats to push for a House vote on extending Obamacare subsidies, while Jack Smith testifies about evidence against Trump in his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Additionally, ongoing divisions within the GOP are highlighted by debates over AI and data centers, as well as the impact of recent…

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

40 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Benji Carlson, majority, Jerry Lawler, Jim Miller, House vote, Majority 54. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "LIVE: Republicans REVOLT on HOUSE FLOOR Against Trump and MAGA MIKE"?

The episode runs 1 h 10 min; the transcript is about 13,052 words in 134 timestamped sections.

More from MeidasTouch

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated December 18, 2025.