MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Democrats crushing Trump’s picks at a recent hearing and Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Jim Himes about what’s next in the massive Signal-Gate scandal. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How are Democrats responding to Trump allies in Congress?
We're seeing Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee fighting back. An incredible explosive hearing yesterday where Democratic members were not taking the BS peddled by the Trump regime officials who were testifying. Let me show you what went down.
The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congress member Himes, said the following to Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence. Let's play it.
You, on March 15th, as DNI, retweeted a post from Ian Miles Chong, who is listed on RT, that's Russia Today's website, as, quote, a political and cultural commentator who has contributed content to RT since at least 2022.
Director Gabbard, do you think that it's responsible for you as head of the intelligence community and the principal's presidential intelligence advisor to retweet posts from individuals affiliated with Russian state media?
That retweet came from my personal account, and I would have to go back to look at the substance of the tweet.
Can I, just so that we don't have a lack of confusion amongst our allies and enemies and us, can I act perhaps that you not think that you should be saying one thing on your personal account than you say officially?
I maintain my First Amendment rights to be able to express my own personal views on different issues. Thank you. I yield back.
What? The director of national intelligence saying that she wants to use her First Amendment rights to repost Russian propaganda? Great questioning there by Congressman Himes. Then you had Democratic Congressmember Castro say the following. Let's play it.
Thank you, Chairman. Tulsi, you and I came into the Congress together in 2013. And Cash, you and I, I was serving on the Intelligence Committee when you worked on the Intelligence Committee. And John, you and I are both from Texas, and we both served together on the Intelligence Committee.
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Chapter 2: What questions did Congressman Himes pose to the Director of National Intelligence?
Well, it absolutely should have been classified information, right? I mean, there's no doubt about that. Whether it was actually classified, I suppose it's something that they would like to argue about. By the way, if it wasn't classified, that's a whole other scandal because the timing and nature of an attack on a foreign country, you know, not a hard one, as Raja so ably pointed out.
Where are we at with this right now? I mean, you led for the Democrats as the ranking member, the Democrats in the House Intelligence. Where are we at? Where do we go from here? What's going on?
Yeah, I think, you know, there's a couple of pieces that have to be satisfied here. Number one, we need to get a complete inventory of whatever was on this crazy signal chat, right? That is not provided to us by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, right? So step one, you got to produce information the entire signal chain, everything that was on it.
Secondly, there needs to be an investigation over precisely how it happened for two reasons. Number one, it can never happen again. We're getting all twisted up in the underwear here over, you know, is it classified or not classified? Or, you know, is it a violation of the represent? This can never happen again.
And I know my Republican friends want to convince you that, well, they didn't precisely name the target. Guess what? If the Houthis knew that we were coming on any given day, that could have resulted in dead pilots or it could have resulted in them sinking a naval ship. Right. So anyway, we need to know exactly what happened. We need the investigation to cough up how it happened.
And then, of course, we need a commitment that it never happens again and that we learn from it and continue. whatever accountability this unaccountable administration thinks is wise to impose on the people who were involved.
But Congressman, this couldn't possibly just be the only one. Like the way they named the chat, Houthi small group, the way everyone seemed to conduct what was taking place as business as usual. At least it tells me that this is what they're doing all the time, every day, with other plans, other attacks.
We don't know that yet for a fact, but it seemed as a lawyer, it seemed pattern and practice like. So what's being done to determine if this is rampant, if this is how they do it all of the time? And do you think this is how they've been conducting business all of the time like this on signal chats with very sensitive information?
Okay, broadly, let's start with a slightly even broader question, which is, is this an administration that is operating with prudent guidelines, following rules, doing things with competence? No, this is the administration that apart from setting up a signal chat, decided to fire the people who maintain and look after our nuclear weapons. Oops, well, that was a mistake.
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Chapter 3: Why is the retweet from the Director of National Intelligence controversial?
Is there a Facebook page that Elon Musk set up where there's a whole bunch of social security numbers or medical records? The oversight task is enormous. And then let me say this, too. I know what was happening here. You know, you just have to read Pete Hegseth's typed in text about F-18s launching accompanied by MQ-9s. Weather good. You know, CENTCOM says go. This is Pete Hegseth playing soldier.
Right. It's just the testosterone upwelling he gets when he gets to type MQ-9s en route is his life right now. You know, he's a guy who is, you know, not even closely qualified to the position he has. And so when he gets to get on a signal chat with his buddies and say, we're a ghost and calm says all in F-18s, it just makes him feel really, really good.
Sadly, of course, it puts our people at risk.
Now, your Republican colleagues, who I think once upon a time would like labels like National Security Hawk and this and that, their response has either been, this is normal, this is cool. oopsies, mistakes happen, or yeah, I'm concerned about it. It's a mistake. I think the strongest statement we got was somewhere between oopsie and it's a mistake, maybe on the Senate slightly stronger.
So what could you do though, as the ranking member, that means you're the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, but you still don't control the committee. You don't have subpoena power. They get to control the course of, but what can you do in that reality?
Yeah, it's a great question. And it's a question that when you're in the minority, like I am, like the Democratic Party is, always has a somewhat unsatisfying answer. You know, in the Senate, the Democratic senators have a few more tools at their disposal. On the House side, where the House...
uh majority rules and where the speaker of the house is a wholly owned subsidiary of donald j trump and where with maybe one or two exceptions i'm thinking don bacon and a few others uh people are absolutely terrified by the political end that they will encounter if they get in the way of this president there's just not a lot of things that you could do to even wake up
the republicans who if this had been done under the biden administration they'd have war paint on and be burning the buildings down in fact i pointed this out yesterday in closed session which is okay folks let's stop the pearl clutching and the arguments about whether you know f-18 is a precise war plan you know that if barack obama's administration or joe biden's administration had done that we we would have to deploy the national guard to calm you guys down
I want to get your take on Elise Stefanik. It's being announced that her nomination is being pulled for the ambassador to the United Nations. This follows, I think Republicans are getting worried about the electoral map that they're seeing. They saw what happened in a Pennsylvania state race that never went Democrat since 1889 and a Democrat won in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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