Loading summary
A
we're almost halfway through the year and a lot of people are running on empty without fully realizing it grow therapy helps you find care that's covered by insurance before burnout becomes the baseline whether it's your first time in therapy or your fiftieth grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you not the other way around they connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the us offering both virtual and in person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and get started in as little as two days and if something comes up you can cancel up to twenty four hours in advance at no cost there are no subscriptions no long term commitments you just pay per session grow helps you find therapy on your time whatever challenges you're facing grow therapy is here to help grow accepts over one hundred insurance plans including medicaid in some states sessions average about twenty one dollars with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan visit growththerapy dot com booknow to get started that's growththerapy dot com booknow growththerapy dot com booknow availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan
B
furious world leaders are putting the screws into donald trump and twisting it before his trip to beijing at the end of this week where he will be meeting with xi jinping on may fourteen may fifteenth world leaders want to show just how weak donald trump has made the united states in advance of this meeting with xi jinping we've heard from a prince in saudi arabia we've heard from president zelensky we've heard from members of nato who no longer want to even hold meetings with donald trump anymore and push future nato meetings until the end of donald trump's term we've heard from other world leaders as well and we've heard from netanyahu right now who's trying to pressure donald trump to invade iran yet again and reopen hostilities before donald trump takes this trip to china i want to share with you what's going on right now in this dynamic to show how weak donald trump is before he arrives in china and then of course there is the perspective of beijing neutering donald trump before he arrives there at the end of this week of course we saw when wang yi the foreign minister of china meet with the foreign minister of iran iraqi last week and not only did the chinese greet the iranian foreign minister with a warm welcome frankly they treated iran like a conquering hero and china put out statements strongly condemning the united states and israel for invading iran and china made it clear that it was supporting iran and iran was a close friend the statements from iran where we appreciate china's support of all of our endeavors politically socially economically and in matters of war and peace yet donald trump's going to be showing up in china looking so utterly weak and pathetic as xi jinping has been helping iran so why don't we start with saudi arabia we know previously saudi arabia would not let the united states use its airspace and air base after trump launched project freedom and then apparently donald trump's like all right i'll try to hit cargill and then could we maybe use the airspace and the air base again and at least the public narrative is that iran will let donald trump use the air base there in riyadh but what was just published this past weekend was an op ed from prince turkey al faisal who's the son of king faisal who ran the saudi arabian intelligence agency for over two decades other than mbs you don't get any more senior person than prince turkey al faisal and he wrote for arab news an op ed called this is how crown prince mohammed bin salman succeeded and what it frames this issue as is that the united states and israel have really been the enemy of saudi arabia not iran sure iran retaliated against saudi arabia but what prince turkey al faisal says is that what israel was trying to provoke was for saudi arabia to retaliate against ir and then unleash hell in the entire middle east have the war spread so that there was now a war between saudi arabia and iran where they would attack each other's desalination facilities and other petroleum facilities and crude facilities and liquefied natural gas facilities then draw in uae against saudi arabia and then basically have this massive world war in the middle east where israel would try to stand back and let the arab nations destroy themselves and so what prince turkey al faisal says is you know yes we know that trump and netanyahu invaded iran and sure iran then retaliated against its neighbors which was expected saudi arabia being one but we didn't respond to iran because we knew if we did then it would be mutually assured destruction in the region if we escalated and that's when netanyahu and trump were trying to trigger the whole time a destruction of all of the arab nations and so the fact that you have prince turkey al faisal saying this publicly that the real enemy is the united states and israel i mean it cuts against all of these narratives that actually with the abraham accords and this and that you know israel and saudi arabia will be working strongly together and that there's one big kumbaya moment in the middle east no you have saudi arabia through their top official other than mbs calling out the united states and israel for trying to destroy the middle east and as donald trump tries to go to china and claim energy dominance and claim that he has all of these connections and all of these friends in the middle east saudi arabia is very clear i mean again you have prince turkey al faisal publicly identifying the united states and israel essentially as the enemy right here south korea in advance of donald trump's trip to china they have announced that they will continue increasing its defense ties with european countries for example example south korea and estonia just signed a deal to export three of these very cutting edge multiple launch rocket systems and the deal is part of an ongoing framework between south korea's korea trade investment promotion agency and estonia's estonian center for defense investment and other europe countries as well are involved in this where we see south korea moving away from purchasing military equipment from the united states and you know it's reciprocal as well for example south korea working with canada on submarines that canada might otherwise buy from the united states or elsewhere the us military industrial complex being shunned by the rest of the world and again one of the levers that donald trump would try to pull when he meet xi jinping is the strength of the united states military well then you have the story that you know that that just broke today after senator mark kelly further made it clear on the morning shows that the us has basically run out of all of its munitions like for a one trillion dollars military budget we had last year the munition situation in the us is far worse than anybody has even discussed so far and that's one of the things that senator mark kelly you know a decorated veteran says and also as china prepares to meet with the with don one of the things they know is that they control the rare earths they control the rare earth metals so donald trump remember tried to tariff the world he tried to impose one hundred forty percent tariffs on china and he tried to impose his will then china said okay we're gonna not give you the rare earths the stock market crashed donald trump tapped out china won the trade war against the us but these rare earths they're component parts in the munitions that donald trump expended in his catastrophic war in iran with netanyahu so if we want to rebuild munitions were one hundred percent entirely dependent on the rare arts from china so xi jinping knows that and xi jinping is also going to use that as leverage right now in order to extract concessions on taiwan and xi jinping knows that donald trump is indifferent to taiwan trump and maga who claim to be china hawks and care about taiwan it was just all bs it was just saying that in in order to try to gin up attacks on former president biden and democrats but the trump regime has demonstrated they don't care about taiwan they don't care about any asian security umbrella heck the trump regime wouldn't allow the president of taiwan to travel over united states airspace on his way to another trip and trump didn't comment at all when one of the taiwanese opposition parties who wants to have unification with china took a six day or seven day trip to china and so xi jinping is going to talk about how the real sentiment in taiwan is this kind of separatist well taiwanese separatist movement unification depending on if you're looking at it from the perspective of china or taiwan and so xi jinping is going to press on that so we talked about saudi arabia we talked about south korea we'll talk about nato very quickly as well nato is mocking donald trump and saying that he's putting countries on their naughty list and so germany was on the naughty list they go all right now giorgia meloni of italy is on the naughty list donald trump thought that meloni would be one of his right wing maga puppets she is right wing but she hasn't behaved always like a donald trump sycophant or puppet rubio was there recently with giorgia meloni when he went to make a fool of himself in front of the pope remember the pope gave rubio a peace plant and rubio gave the pope a crystal football and from from all that we've heard on the midas touch network this meeting between rubio and meloni was just an absolute disaster where they screamed at each other and rubio tried to threaten meloni that we're gonna withdraw troops and meloni stood her ground and again as europe has asserted itself and so italy's on the naughty list now and so italy expects that this week or next week the trump regime's gonna pull troops out of italy as well the same way they did with germany and nato at this point as i mentioned at the outset is planning for really a post us nato maybe they'll call it nato europe nato plus whatever but they don't consider really the us as having really any major role they'll make public statements but until trump's out they know that nato really exists in name only which then brings us to zelensky i'm hitting all of these points of trump having the screws put in him and looking so utterly weak before his trip to china at the end of this week again again you're not seeing any corporate news in the united states talk about any of them have you heard corporate news talk about any of these things that's why by the way hit subscribe help us get to seven million subscribers you may think you're subscribed but you may not actually subscribe on this video so that brings us to zelensky right so donald trump made that social media post on friday saying that he brokered a two or three day ceasefire between ukraine and russia between zelensky and putin putin was demanding the ceasefire and unilaterally declaring the same way trump unilaterally declares ceasefire so that putin can have his military parade what they call victory day in russia on saturday on may ninth by the way the russians didn't have any tanks or any of their other kind of weapons that they usually have because they were afraid of ukrainian drones ukraine has now taken you know with the study of war and all of these groups that analyze the russia invasion of ukraine ukraine's counteroffensive has allowed ukraine to take the initiative right now and ukraine's going on the offense right now and russia is being pushed back right now and so ukraine's actually winning i mean they were winning before in the sense that russia said they were going to take over ukraine in three days and then russia was basically making very incremental gains and losing thirty five to forty thousand soldiers every single month but now ukraine's affirmatively actually on a one to one basis winning the war and now conquering territory and taking over land i mean its own territory let me be very clear that was stolen from it but ukraine is making major gains now going on offense because it has all this incredible technology these drone interceptors the drone technology itself the unmanned vessels which by the way trump rejected and go i don't want help from zelensky we don't want help from why would we want that we're working on our relationship with russia russia we're removing all of the sanctions from russia so anyway putin wanted this ceasefire trump tried to help putin and get this ceasefire on so called victory day putin pressed for it had donald trump basically call zelensky zelensky agreed under the condition and trump said what would take place is that there would be a prisoner swap one thousand russian prisoners for one thousand ukrainian prisoners and that the ceasefire would relate only to red square so zelensky posted that he was agreeing with the ceasefire provided there was a prisoner exchange one thousand ukrainians for one thousand russians and zelinsky said okay we won't attack red square with our drones which is what putin was absolutely terrified of but the thing is now russia is refusing to return the prisoners and actually do the deal that trump claims he got so zelensky is calling donald trump out as a terrible deal maker here's what zelinsky posted our contacts with the american side regarding guarantees for the implementation of the arrangements reached recently and announced by the president of the united states are ongoing the prisoner exchange one thousand for one thousand is being prepared and must take place the americans assumed responsibility for these guarantees ukraine's coordination headquarters has handed over the list for one thousand prisoners of war to the russian side there was an american mediation in reaching this arrangement on the exchange and accordingly we expect the american side to play an active role in ensuring it's fulfilled as our editor in chief ron philip kowski writes i'm reading between the lines here that there may be some issues with trump's big announcement on this in other words donald trump again showing how weak he is he said he did this deal and russia was going to give one thousand prisoners for one thousand prisoners now putin's not following it and you see how weak donald trump is looking heading to this trip to iran so how is donald trump trying to project as donald trump's trip to china sorry donald trump's trip to china so how is donald trump trying to project strength right now well he has his senior officials leaking to the press about oh donald trump's gonna press xi jinping on this no he's not donald trump's pathetic he ain't pressing xi jinping donald trump's gonna go into the room and go xi it
C
looks so beautiful xi could we do
B
the photo with the chinese soldiers standing at a table they say you're the
C
king xi so beautiful so beautiful so
B
powerful what do you think the guy's gonna say the guy can barely put forward sentences he's gonna have the makeup all over his hands and his neck i mean what do we think the guy going to do the guy can't speak in sentences but this is what bloomberg reported trump is expected to confront xi jinping this week over china's support for iran including oil purchases and possible weapons exports according to senior us officials
C
the two leaders will meet thursday and
B
friday in beijing amid tensions over trade taiwan artificial intelligence and the us israeli conflict with iran i would expect the president to apply pressure on china over iran when he goes to beijing a us official told reporters in a briefing that will not be easy trump will in effect have to ask xi for help which a is a sign of weakness will come at a cost what will us have to give for that help and c what if china says no then the trump summit will it be another casualty of war yeah he's gonna look absolutely pathetic right now is what is what's going to happen so that brings me by the way to netanyahu's propaganda interview with state regime media in the us which calls itself cbs which used to be a very you know strong and powerful news network which is now state regime under barry weiss and the whole new regime they have there so they brought netanyahu on to do a propaganda piece but it just looked utterly horrible so as donald trump is heading to to china right what does netanyahu want war he wants more war and saudi arabia knew exactly what netanyahu was trying to do by bringing the whole region into a war and then for netanyahu more war he believes cements his power means that he can keep asking for extensions on his criminal case he's like he's a trump you know he's a trump and allows him to continue the genocide there in gaza and lebanon on so here's what netanyahu is saying before donald trump's trip to china i mean just think about how he's also weakening donald trump before the china trip netanyahu claims china supported parts of iran's missile manufacturing program and says beijing should reconsider he says that social media is responsible for declining support for israel among young americans claiming foreign countries use biden farms to undermine american sympathy for israel he says people tell me bibi you're king and i say i'm not a king kings don't have to be elected i have to be elected can i have your vote i mean he says the same stuff that trump says right i mean these two genocidal maniacs are they like the same person how do you envision the highly enriched uranium will be removed from iran netanyahu
C
you go and you take it out president trump has said to me i want to go in there i mean he said that publicly he said i think he's right i think he's right then netanyahu says hitler didn't even say death to america death to britain i think he might have planned it but he didn't say he didn't say it
B
like showing sympathy for hitler what are you talking about and by the way if you go back in the past and look at past netanyahu speeches like i've seen if that's not enough netanyahu has also absolved hitler of his crime to say palestinians were the real orchestrators of the holocaust and he goes hitler
C
said he didn't say kill him he said expel him he said expel him but it was the palestinians who said
B
come what what are we talking about here then he goes in iran they
C
name streets after me do you know that well after president trump too obviously because he's leading the fight but they have this i don't speak farsi but they called me bibi june beloved bibi that's what they say in iran we love bibi we love you bibi yeah
B
they're not saying that what are you talking about they're not saying that in iran i mean these are these are some like demented individuals while we were
C
fighting the physical military battle on seven battlefield seven front war we were completely exposed on the eighth front the media war really social media war we have to find ways to fight the battle for the hard hearts and minds of young americans on social media we have a problem i recognize and we have to get our act together can we
B
just have peace please can we just have peace please so that's all going on before donald trump's trip to china and again you see how absolutely weak every world leaders treating him like right on all different sides of it it whether you whether you're saudi arabia whether you're netanyahu whether you're italy or whether you are you know or whether you're iran or whether you're beijing i mean they're treating the guy like the clown that he is the whole world knows this guy's a clown it's sad for america man it's sad to have such a freaking loser hit subscribe let's get to seven million thanks for watching everybody want to stay plugged in become a subscriber to our substack at midas plus plus dot com you'll get daily recaps from ron filipkowski ad free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at midasplus dot com
D
you didn't start a business just to keep the lights on you're here to sell more today than yesterday you're here to win lucky for you shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet like the just one tap ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts that's the good stuff right there so if your business is in it to win it win with shopify start your free trial today at shopify dot com win
Date: May 11, 2026
Hosts: Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas
This episode dives deep into the mounting international backlash against Donald Trump ahead of his highly publicized trip to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping. The Meiselas brothers break down how world leaders—from Saudi Arabia to Europe, Ukraine, and Israel—are isolating Trump and exposing the weakened global position of the United States under his leadership. The podcast combines sharp political analysis with the brothers' signature biting humor and candid brotherly banter, delivering both insight and entertainment.
[01:15–04:00]
Notable Quote:
“The United States and Israel have really been the enemy of Saudi Arabia, not Iran… The real enemy is the United States and Israel.” — Ben, paraphrasing Prince Turki Al Faisal’s op-ed [04:00]
[07:00–09:00]
[09:00–10:00]
[11:00–12:00]
Notable Quote:
“Trump and MAGA who claim to be China hawks and care about Taiwan—it was just all BS.” — Ben [12:00]
[12:30–14:30]
[14:30–16:00]
Notable Quote:
“Zelensky is calling Donald Trump out as a terrible deal maker.” — Ben [15:00]
[16:00–17:30]
Memorable Banter:
“He’s gonna go into the room and go, ‘Xi, it looks so beautiful… can we do the photo with the Chinese soldiers at the table? So beautiful, so powerful…’” — Brett (mocking Trump) [15:58–16:06]
[17:30–20:00]
Memorable Moment:
“They call me Bibi June, Beloved Bibi… That’s what they say in Iran. We love Bibi…” — Brett, parodying Netanyahu’s delusional claims [19:37–19:52]
[20:00–21:20]
The Meidas brothers maintain their signature mix of biting wit, passionate defense of democracy, and sharp criticism of Trump and his allies. Their banter, sarcasm, and mock impersonations both entertain and underline the gravity of the current geopolitical situation.
Summary:
This jam-packed episode provides an unfiltered, in-depth, and frequently hilarious look at how Trump's foreign policy failures have left America isolated and weak on the global stage—just as he prepares for a potentially disastrous meeting with Xi Jinping. This is essential listening for anyone tracking the unraveling of US leadership under Trump and the shifting tides of global alliances.