Trump gets STUNNED as GOP REVOLTS ON SENATE FLOOR

What this episode is about

The content discusses the increasing rebellion within the Republican Party against Donald Trump's influence, highlighted by recent Senate and House votes that limit his military authority and a unanimous decision to acknowledge the January 6th events, illustrating a growing divide among GOP members. Additionally, the narrative reflects Trump's attempts to assert strength amidst mounting internal challenges as his presidency faces critical midterm election pressures.

Key takeaways

• Rebukes in Congress signal Trump's grip is slipping; even his GOP is batting for the other team.
• Venezuela invasion plan? More like a prescription for political indigestion; Americans prefer healthcare solutions over foreign entanglements.
• Trumps War Powers vote: bipartisan rebellion proves walls can crumble even for the former 'strongman' of the GOP.
• When Nobel Peace Prizes overshadow military strategy, you know the strategy needs a critical rethink.
• Bipartisan support for ACA subsidies reveals a stark truth: voters want healthcare over foreign military action. Period.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Andy Kim (Guest) · 13 min speaking
• Unknown Host (Host) · 6 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Donald Trump
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Donald Trump
3. 9:00 – 12:00: Donald Trump

Notable quotes from "Trump gets STUNNED as GOP REVOLTS ON SENATE FLOOR"

• By the end of last week, Donald Trump was repeatedly rebuked in the Senate and the House by also many members of his own party. Donald Trump trying to project strength and unlawfully.

  about Donald Trump · at 0:11

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Donald Trump — Person · 8 mentions · first at 0:11

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 is agreed to. The A's are 52, the nays are 47. The motion is agreed to. Joint resolution will be placed on the calendar.

0:07 The joint resolution will be placed on the calendar. By the end of last week, Donald Trump was repeatedly rebuked in the Senate and the House by also many members of his own party. You know, Donald Trump trying to project strength and unlawfully invading Venezuela without authorization. And then Donald Trump again continuing to kind of beat his chest about being a predator in the Western Hemisphere. But what ultimately I saw was weakness and cracks developing within the Republican party and his MAGA base. There was also that weird story about Donald Trump calling like the Secret Service on Marjgery Taylor Green. I'll do a whole other uh video on that. But that vote right there was a war powers resolution where the Senate voted basically to restrict Donald Trump's power to further invade Venezuela without the authority uh of Congress. Separately in the House of Representatives, the Affordable Care

1:07 Act resolution uh was uh also uh passed to extend the subsidies there. 17 Republicans joining with the uh Democrats there. That still has to go back to the Senate. We also saw the Senate in a unanimous consent vote agree to put the January 6th plaque up which Trump and MAGA Mike and Trump's DOJ has been uh resisting. So you see those cracks developing. I want to bring in Democratic Senator Andy Kim from the great state of New Jersey. Senator Kim, it's so great to see you. What are you seeing develop? Because I mean I think that those two votes also the January 6th plaque vote which is as Donald Trump was putting the disinformation on the White House website about J6 among a number of things seems to show actual weakness at the end of this week.

1:58 Yeah, absolutely. I mean Donald Trump wanted to enter 2026 with a lot of strength. I mean this is the midterm election year. this is the year that's going to shape the rest of his presidency. And with the start with the Venezuela strikes, I think he thought, you know, he is on top. But in fact, this week, what I saw here at the capital was a lot of cracks in his support, a lot of signs of the weakness. And for instance, you know, we had the the briefing with Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegsth. Uh, you know, that was something that I actually think created greater concern amongst senators. I think that briefing was a reason why a number of Republicans voted against the Trump administration with the war powers because nobody wants to have this go on for years of America running Venezuela.

2:48 And that's literally what Rubio told us in the briefing. He said it publicly since that this is going to be years. Rubio said that this will be the remainder of the Trump administration will be uh you know be running Venezuela and nobody wants that. And I I I think we're starting to see those cracks and I think that this is going to be the effort that hopefully will snowball as we get towards the midterm elections.

3:09 Right? You look at Venezuela and it's like, well, what is the what's the plan? And you know, there seems based on what was said publicly. I know some of the briefing was classified of course, but there doesn't really seem to be a plan. And then it's like, okay, so you're going to have basically Maduro's team, Deli Rodriguez, Dest Cabo, the enforcer, they're going to run things. And then what about Machado? And now she's going to Mara Lago to give Donald Trump her Nobel Peace Prize. And maybe there's a trade for that this weekend. And people like, what are we even doing? We we're going to war over Nobel Peace Prizes or because of Maduro's dancing. And and by the way, it doesn't seem like uh China and Russia got the message that they're banned from Venezuela because if you look at what Lavrov's saying and Demetri, they seem to be still pretty chummy with Deli and she seems to be doing things which which is good

4:04 releasing some political prison, but there seems to be this same entrenchment of the regime that was there there before.

4:11 Yeah, look, I you know, I I worked in both Afghanistan and Iraq before. Uh, I know that there are limitations to what America can control, but that is not a lesson that Donald Trump learned. He is entering this with so much hubris and arrogance. And honestly, what I've seen in the past is the people that suffer from that type of hubris of an American leader, it's often the service members, it's often the military families. It's often the regular American people who want a president and a government that's focused on them. Nobody wants, you know, a president that's running Venezuela. We want a a government that's running America. I want to be a Congress that's focused on America, not on Venezuela.

4:57 And and I think that's exactly the kind of message that people are getting uh loud and clear right now. They want us to have less foreign entanglements and and and things that are tying us down and instead be able to focus on the affordability, the challenges that we play. And then they're seeing us spending billions of dollars of military equipment and personnel in Venezuela and outside of Venezuela. 20% of the naval fleet of America right now is right outside of Venezuela. And like I said, potentially there for years to come, right? So that brings us to the affordability issue because then in the House of Representatives, they took a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies by 3 years. You know, you had Donald Trump talking about subsidies, but subsidies for oil companies in Venezuela. Um, while the American people are saying, "Hello, we've lost our health care right now because the

5:54 premiums have skyrocketed without the subsidy." So, it was what, 17 House members. That's not a small number. And I and it would probably be more if they put income if they did a few things, but 17 is still a is still a lot. I support the bill in its kind of current form, whatever. But you have 17 supporting it. But that was another rebuke. So what happens next there? Because it seems that Thoon's going to try to block that and it seems that Trump wants the Senate to squash it. But when there's that type of support in the House, is this kind of like what we saw with the Epstein discharge petition where there's so much momentum that it just starts to build?

6:29 What happens in the Senate? Yeah, I what you're seeing is in real time Speaker Johnson's power collapsing. You know, his ability to control is is falling apart. And that's because people are just tired of that, frankly, on both sides of the aisle. You know, just the other day, I I slipped and I called him Secretary Johnson because I was saying that he uh is acting more like a cabinet official in the Trump administration rather than a leader of a separate and equal branch of government. And that's true. And and people are are sick and tired of that, including on the Republican side. You should hear the things that they tell me behind the scenes. So, I I think these are manifestations of that. You're seeing that with the Epstein files. You're seeing it now with healthcare. You're going to see it continue to grow and that just chips away at it. But what I will say is like look at what Trump's

7:16 response was when it came to for instance the war powers resolution. You know, five Republicans voted alongside the Democrats. And then Trump immediately said they should not be reelected. You know, he was immediately attacking them by name. And look, it included Susan Collins, who is critically important for the Republicans if they want to try to maintain uh majority in the Senate. So, look, if Trump doesn't want Susan Collins to go back to the Senate after this term, I think a lot of Democrats in Maine uh you know, are are happy to to try to work in that direction. But it just shows you like how Trump wants not just loyalty anymore. He wants feelalty. He wants complete control. and and that's where things are really coming ac coming apart. But look, uh, in terms of what comes next, we had this vote in the Senate already. We saw the Republicans vote against an effort to extend these subsidies. We will continue to push

8:13 because look, like people are really struggling. You know, the the calls we're getting from people who are talking about the increases that they're going to be experiencing. Now, this is not theoretical anymore. This is real. So, we'll keep pushing, but if the Republicans continue to block it, this has to be at the top of the list of what we're pressing and hammering uh when it comes to the midterm elections, especially since the majority of people who benefit from the ACA subsidies live in states that Trump won before. So, you know, these are people uh that may have very well supported Trump or at least at the state level their governments did.

8:51 Uh, this is a perfect example to show why Trumpism and Trump's policies are failing America.

8:58 You referred to Maga Mike Johnson as being like a secretary because he's functioning as a like a cabinet member for Donald Trump. In that New York Times article that came out, they observed that Donald Trump would refer to his cabinet members as his children and he would call Rubio his kid and Vance his kid and he would buy them shoes and he would say to the reporter, "Hey, can you show them the shoes that I bought you?" And Rubio and Vance would show the shoes to them. And in that same interview, the New York Times asked, "Well, so I guess my point is that maybe Magna Mike Johnson is viewed as as one of Donald Trump's children based on that bizarre bizarre cult over there."

9:44 Yeah. It's crazy to think about. I mean, like just he's literally humiliating them in public to to force them to show just uh how much control he has over them. One thing I I've been saying on this is I've been calling it, you know, mob boss tactics. You know, I've seen this. I'm from Jersey. Unfortunately, you know, we we we're called the Soprano State for a reason, but we're familiar with these types of tactics, you know, that that are about just, you know, total domination, utilizing, you know, every tool to just pressure and coers. I mean, essentially what you saw in Venezuela is now this moving to the foreign policy level of what I call an extortion foreign policy. And this is all happening again because Trump is just subjugating his own leadership.

10:33 This is all just coming down to him. And that's where the breakdown of the government is. You know, like we do not un I hate to say this, but we do not have three functioning branches of government anymore. You know, we have one branch of government that is literally trying to dominate the other two. And that's part of these mob boss tactics that you were just showcasing in terms of how he's handling his own uh administration.

10:57 But here's what here's what I don't get like about your Republican colleagues who share this stuff with you privately but don't have the courage to publicly resist or stand up like being a senator. Think about the jobs out there. Like you know it's a pretty it's a pretty good one like in terms of like there's two in a state. It's it it's it should be a powerful gig. Like it's hard to become one. You have to go through a lot of process. So you become a United States senator and these are smart people. Look, why would you want to do that and then have a have this guy treat like it just doesn't make How do you describe the dynamic? Because you know these senators on the Republican side, these are smart, tough people in private, but they give up all of their agency to this mania. Help me make some sense. Like I don't get it.

11:53 Yeah. You know, I I I say like look, like it's a good job, but it's not that good. you know, it's not that good of a job that I'm going to betray my own morals and values that I'm going to, you know, humiliate myself uh publicly by basically subjugating myself to uh another person. I mean, he is a bully and you're allowing a bully to just dominate you. Like, why would you go through this? Um, you know, so I just find it to be

12:23 Do you guys like make fun of him by like like behind the scenes when you're there with the Republicans? Like when you're talking to them? You don't have to give me the exact dialogue, but do you look at them and are you like really like really? And they're like, I know how does how does

12:38 that does happen? What what I will often find is that, you know, like my Republican colleagues, they will, you know, they will note that like, look, like he he Trump is is clearly someone that's that's able to connect with a a huge swath of the, you know, Republican base and that gives him power. But in terms of just where his ideas are, uh the way that they talk about him, like I remember I was having a conversation with uh actually someone within his administration and we were talking about something that we were disagreeing with the president on and they were just like like let's just like not talk about this and and keep this quiet and maybe he'll forget about it. like maybe we can just literally someone in his his own team is saying this like they're just like treating him like like maybe he'll just forget about it and we can like actually go ahead and do this thing. And I just like find that to be crazy, you know,

13:31 that that like everyone around him is just recognizing how how reckless things are, how chaotic things are, and and they just think, well, this is just what they have to deal with. If they have to uh if they want to continue to be centered, they just have to deal with this. uh rather than thinking about maybe we should actually try to fix this and get something that resembles a government that is described in the Constitution back on the ground

14:01 and they continue to cover up the Epstein files. I I I saw it was a Democratic senator who in a previous unanimous consent where people agreed to tell the DOJ, don't delete the Epstein files. They wanted to put it in one of the upcoming appropriations bills and that was vote that was voted down by some of the Republicans in the Senate. And it's just it's a wild thing that here we are two weeks 3 weeks after the Epstein Transparency Act was a was a law. Maybe even more at this point maybe. Yeah. And we haven't even heard and and they're just going dark like they're just going like like they're just going silent with it. They're not doing the redaction reports. I I it's it's also a wild concept that that they're covering that up in plain view.

14:48 Yeah. You point, you know, you pointed out the the January 6 plaque, right? I mean, and for those who might not have been following the story, you know, we passed by law a requirement to to showcase a plaque that's dedicated to those that saved our lives that day, the Capitol Police and other law enforcement. and Speaker Johnson is just like refusing to put this forward and like we don't even know where it is. I was like telling my colleagues it's like probably like in that warehouse where from Raiders of the Lost Arc that they like, you know, put things in that no one ever sees again. And like I just find like just the fact that the speaker of the house is so scared of Trump that he refuses to even put forward a plaque that is about like lifting up law enforcement and what they did for us is crazy. and and like looks my colleagues in in the Senate I thought were really admirable the other day when uh in a

15:46 bipartisan way some of my colleagues went forward and and called for unanimous consent uh and which really just puts it the spot you know is any senator actually going to come to the floor and try to stop the unanimous consent about you know supporting our law enforcement and that's why it got passed. So, we're going to, you know, we're trying to figure out where Speaker Johnson's hiding this plaque now. Literally all day, we're trying to figure out where it is, and we're going to put it up in the capital finally, uh, to be able to honor, uh, our law enforcement that saved our lives, but also to mark the memory of January 6, which was such a dark day for our capital and our democracy.

16:24 Before we go, anything you think that there's a blind spot on that as we head into this weekend, you want to uh, address or just let the people know? uh you know just it's it's been a weird it's been a weird start to it's been a bizarre start to 2026 and uh they've thrown a lot at us so far.

16:40 Yeah. Well, just two things I'll say. One is you know as we move forward on this war powers resolution uh you know that that vote allows us to move towards the final. So we're actually going to have you know hours of public debate about Venezuela on the floor. This is exactly the kind of dialogue that and debate that should have been happening. We have so far since even the boat strike started had zero public hearings about what's happening in Venezuela. Zero in the armed services committee, zero in the foreign relations, zero in the intelligence committee. And this is what the administration's been kind of hiding behind. Even when they do briefings, they refuse to do them unclassified because they want to hide behind the classification because they know that the American people disagree with what they're doing that they don't want us bogged down for years in Venezuela. So, this is going to be the

17:31 first week. Next week is going to be the first time where we can really have a substantive debate on the floor about Venezuela. We're going to be bringing forward ones about Greenland and others because it's important for the American people to see that Trump is now threatening a NATO ally of ours. And I've worked in Afghanistan. I lived on a mil NATO military base that had, you know, soldiers from Denmark there working alongside ours to protect us. U you know, it's important to shine a light on that. The other thing I'll just say is it's so clearly in the election season. I can feel it with my colleagues here that are on the ballot. especially my Republican colleagues, they're terrified. They know the trajectory of where things are going. And uh you know, that's something I think the people need to pay attention to is is just how that's going to change the dynamic with legislation, but we have to keep the

18:21 pressure on when it comes to the elections. That's ultimately how we're going to stop this.

18:26 Senator Andy Kim, we appreciate you. Thanks for joining us. Thanks so much. Everybody, hit subscribe here. Let's get to 6 million. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our Substack at midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipowski, ad free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at midasplus.com.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump gets STUNNED as GOP REVOLTS ON SENATE FLOOR"?

Andy Kim (Guest), Unknown Host (Host).

What is "Trump gets STUNNED as GOP REVOLTS ON SENATE FLOOR" about?

The content discusses the increasing rebellion within the Republican Party against Donald Trump's influence, highlighted by recent Senate and House votes that limit his military authority and a unanimous decision to acknowledge the January 6th events, illustrating a growing divide among GOP members. Additionally, the narrative reflects Trump's attempts to assert strength amidst mounting internal…

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

1 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump gets STUNNED as GOP REVOLTS ON SENATE FLOOR"?

The episode runs 19 min; the transcript is about 3,461 words in 30 timestamped sections.

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