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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
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- [01:29]
FanDuel Representative
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- [02:01]
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- [02:30]
Ben Meiselas
I haven't seen one headline in a major corporate news thing saying Trump crime family. Didn't we hear that all the time with former President Biden. Biden crime family this Biden crime in five family. That was not a single day where I don't think we were talking about it. James Comer from the House Oversight Committee would talk about this incessantly. Proved absolutely nothing at all. His investigations went nowhere because it was all built on lies and fake whistleblowers. I want to talk about all of the things that are happening in plain sight right now. But I want to remind everybody a video that we did at the Midas Touch Network, but we really just started this video we made basically like five years ago at this point. We called it the Trump crime family then in 2020. And it's way worse now. But let me show you this video. Let's play it.
- [03:20]
Guest Speaker
The family is a criminal enterprise.
- [03:22]
Ben Meiselas
Russian mobsters and corrupt oligarchs use Trump's properties not only launder vast sums of money but even as a base of operations for their criminal activity.
- [03:32]
Guest Speaker
Money tied to human trafficking and prostitution rings.
- [03:35]
Congressmember
That's another big one.
- [03:36]
Guest Speaker
I'll tell you what. It's an organized crime family as far as I'm concerned.
- [03:39]
Congressmember
Tonight, President Trump has a previously undisclosed.
- [03:42]
DraftKings Representative
Bank account in China.
- [03:44]
Congressmember
That company mysteriously showed a huge spike in revenue right after Trump was sworn in as president.
- [03:50]
Guest Speaker
He goes to China. The kid is following like a vacuum cleaner. Follows and follows and follows.
- [03:55]
Congressmember
Ivanka Trump. Her business won trademark approvals in China. The same day she met the Chinese.
- [04:00]
Guest Speaker
President at her father's Mar A Lago resort.
- [04:03]
Congressmember
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made at least $82 million last year while serving as unpaid White House advisers.
- [04:11]
Guest Speaker
Is a guy didn't have a job but now he's taking in millions and plenty of it.
- [04:15]
Ben Meiselas
There are new questions tonight about the.
- [04:17]
Congressmember
Eric Trump foundation charity golf events meant to raise money for children with cancer. Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to the Trump family business.
- [04:24]
Guest Speaker
It's a crime family. He's following his father.
- [04:27]
Congressmember
A crowdfunding campaign to build sections of the Southern.
- [04:31]
Guest Speaker
This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper.
- [04:34]
Congressmember
Bannon is accused of taking nearly was of that campaign to fund his own lavish lifestyle. The only thing he built up is a huge bank account for his son.
- [04:42]
Guest Speaker
A lot of disgrace. It's A crime family.
- [04:47]
Ben Meiselas
We make good videos back then. I can do that just based on this week. That was 2020. Look at the headlines this week. Meanwhile, over at the Willard hotel, Donald Trump Jr. And White House crypto czar David Sachs held an after party and launched a club for the ultra wealthy called the Executive Branch that costs more than half a million dollars to join. Calling their club the Executive Branch. You had Donald Trump previously meeting with UAE's National Security Advisor and announcing a big deal this week. Not a deal involving his horrible trade wars that's harming our economy, but a fund backed by Abu Dhabi will be making a $2 billion business deal using a Trump firm's digital coins. The transaction would be a major by a foreign government to Trump's private venture. And how about Qatar? Qatar and Dar Global will be developing a Trump golf or golf courses and villas in Qatar. This week they announced that. Big deal, big deals for Donald Trump. Let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Jared Moskowitz. Your buddy James Comer, MAGA Republican from the House Oversight Committee, doesn't seem interested in any of this, does he, Congressmember?
- [05:59]
Congressmember
Well, look, the only reason I have to imagine that the reason they're building Trump villas in Qatar and Trump hotels in Dubai is the plans in Gaza have fallen through. Have you heard anything about the Trump Hotel in Gaza? Has that fallen through?
- [06:12]
Ben Meiselas
That was a February thing where he would post the AI memes of himself. That was February.
- [06:18]
Congressmember
I live in the past. Sometimes I apologize. You know, look, Ben, the American people were told this the first time, okay? And then they were sold a bag of goods by James Comer. You know, that, you know, they were saying that, you know, Joe Biden's being fed Jell O in the basement, but he's also a criminal mastermind, okay, with his son Hunter, you know, and that didn't work with mainstream America, but it was something they spent tens of millions of dollars on in Congress pursuing Hunter and his father, you know, with this fake impeachment nonsense. But I gotta be honest. I think the American people know this about the Trump family, right? Like they know this. They saw it in the first term. Now he's not up for reelection, although he says, you know, the third term. Nonsense. They're selling all sorts of hats and shirts. He's not up for reelection again. And so. And he's got immunity that the Supreme Court gave him. So, yes, this is a giant grift. You know, what these countries are getting, of course, in exchange for all this, we'll never know. Trump, meme coin, villas, hotels. We'll never know what they're getting in exchange, but clearly they're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. So, yeah, the Trump family is going to leave this next four years, probably making tens of billions of dollars off of the back of the President of the United States.
- [07:36]
Ben Meiselas
What I think is the most important point there also, though, in addition to the fact that that's corrupt and unlawful and all of that, how the American is feeling right now, the average American who was promised all of these things by Donald Trump, and even though Donald Trump's out there giving speeches and saying.
- [07:53]
Congressmember
What do you mean? What do you mean promised? I mean, we're in the golden age, Ben.
- [07:57]
Ben Meiselas
Well, that's the point, right? As he goes out there right now and says, this is the greatest it's ever been. Your gas is a dollar and 89. Right? Right. No, he says, by the way, gas in Florida, A$89. I think Scott Besant then repeats that, oh, gags are down 87%. Housing is more affordable. I did it. I did it. The greatest ever. And I think Americans, other than, you know, look, 35% of the MAGA crew, they're not going to move. But independents and Americans are saying that that's not happening.
- [08:28]
Congressmember
That's why his approval rating is 39%. Right. That's why he's got the worst approval rating of any president modern era, in the first hundred days. I mean, I said the other day that, you know, perhaps William Henry Harrison had a worse hundred days than this president. And so, you know. But Trump said something the other day on News Nation in the town hall. He was asked a question by Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly said, you know, if the tariffs aren't solved, Mr. President, of all this stuff, and the economy's going well, it's not gonna be very good for you in the midterms. And actually, what he said was, he answered that by saying, no, I'll go out and tell the American people how great it is. And that is two things, admitting two things. One is, you know, that is Trump's kind of superpower. He just doesn't care about reality. And he goes out and tells people what the reality should be. But also it also admits that the American people don't pay so much attention that they are able to buy that. I don't know that it's going to work this time because you can tell people about numbers they do not see, oh, these are the numbers at the border. These are the numbers here. Those are not numbers that they can confirm. Right. But going out and telling them egg prices are the lowest they've ever been. People go to the grocery store and see that this Easter egg prices were the high, saying, oh, gas is $1.98. Well, they go to the gas station and see that it's 350. Okay, right. So he's not gonna be able to do that. When the people can go out and verify these numbers where people are losing their jobs, they're making less money, they feel uneasy, goods are being more expensive. I mean, you're about to see that, right? The tariff stuff, you know, Trump talked about, oh, we gotta get these deals in 90 days. The 90 day thing is because that's really when the ships are not leaving. The stuff that was in storage is now on the shelves. And we get to a point where, you know, the goods are coming in that are now tariffs, if they're coming in at all. I heard the other day on the radio that the President had a meeting with Christmas vendors, vendors that sell Christmas toys, Christmas ornaments. And they said 85% of the stuff that we sell here for Christmas is made in China. And they have about six weeks to start getting that through production. And so as the president, you know, President promised he'd start no more wars. It turns out he started a war on Christmas after all that. How ironic.
- [10:44]
Ben Meiselas
When DOGE was first announced, I mean, you had said, look, I would. And it wasn't described as being actually in the executive branch or whatever it is right now. You said, look, I will do oversight, count me in as a Democratic member to try to hold Musk accountable. You got some criticism for that. But your point was, let me look through what they're doing. Because you had at the time, had a sense, I know if they're doing a great job, great. But if they're not, there needs to be people who have oversight over. Over Doge. Right now, federal spending is actually higher than it was under former President Biden.
- [11:23]
Congressmember
And borrowing, spending and borrowing.
- [11:26]
Ben Meiselas
If anything, Doge has added to the deficit. I mean, first, has Doge, in your view, now that you have a data set, been a complete and utter failure? How would you describe it? And then two, what are you kind of doing even right now to fight back against it?
- [11:43]
Congressmember
Sure. DOGE has been a complete and utter failure. Okay, first of all, I joined DOGE for a couple of reasons in the beginning. One, because, you know, look, the polls were clear. Eighty plus percent of Americans believe the government spends too money and that there's waste there I didn't want Republicans to own the messaging war on that, that somehow Democrats were gonna defend the status quo, and Republicans were the one only that were interested in waste. I wanted to take some of that away, you know, whether, you know, this was going to have legitimacy or not. The American people voted for this, and so it had legitimacy. But I wanted to make sure that we weren't ceding that messaging war. I also wanted to go to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, be in the room, because I represent a district where 120,000 people get Social Security, 90,000 people get Medicaid. And so it was important for me to go protect that. Well, let me tell you how this has gone, right? So we're now in May. The Doge Caucus had two meetings. They were both in January. I was at both of them. And they never met again, not once. Elon never included the DOGE Caucus. We never got any of our ideas. It was completely run out of the executive branch. So the DOGE Executive Committee, something completely different. They're the ones who cut all this stuff. Congress was not involved. Okay? And Also, Elon fell 85% short of his goals. And now there is data that shows that they saved. They claim they saved 160 billion, but it actually cost us 135 billion to save the 160. So Doge is a complete and utter failure. They also never did the E part, Ben. They were supposed to make government more efficient. E. They just did. Dog. I guess they left out the E. There's not a single department that's more efficient. And now that Elon is gone, trying to save his company, the secretaries of these agencies are secretly rehiring. You're not hearing a lot about that. They're rehiring because they have departments that don't work. The State Department needs to rehire because they don't have enough people. Right. FAA needs to rehire. They don't have enough people. Okay? You know, so they're trying to rehire these places to make them work. Same thing with the Pentagon. They need to get people in there to make that place working. So DOGE was a complete and utter failure. But I wasn't gonna let the Republicans own the messaging war, because when you're in the minority, the only thing you have is that message. And I think actually we handled it well, Democrats, myself included, and others said, look, hey, look, we're willing to talk, you know, waste, fraud and abuse. Absolutely. We should look at that $7 trillion economy. You know, we should. A $7 trillion budget, I'm sure there's stuff in there. And look, I didn't committee the other day. I took, I found a billion dollars of savings in the judiciary budget. They want to buy new cars, they want to spend $1.3 billion on new lawyers, they want to do 858 million on bonuses. And I cut that to show them we can find a billion dollars worth of savings just in a quick. And they voted against it. Every Republican in Jewishry voted against it. So they're not serious. Elon's not serious. Trump's not serious on attacking the debt or deficit. Their tax plan is gonna add three and a half trillion at a minimum to the debt every year. And so Doge, which was supposed to get out of debt, is a complete and utter failure.
- [14:43]
Ben Meiselas
Also your MAGA Republican colleagues, weren't they obsessed with releasing the Epstein files? And they would say all the time they had a whole committee where they were going to do that.
- [14:53]
Congressmember
And Anna Paulina, you didn't get one of those white binders with, with publicly released information.
- [14:59]
Ben Meiselas
I got one said the full files, the full files. And, and then they went out, the right wing influencers of the White House, they tried to pretend that they were the files.
- [15:07]
Congressmember
Then they looked at the list of the people that were in the files and they were like, we know half these people.
- [15:12]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah, I mean, Trump's name was literally in the call log, but that was information that was publicly released before. But now they just move on. Right? I mean, they make that an issue. They push it out there as like a key issue for them. And then all of a sudden they're like, yeah, we're not, we're not doing that anymore.
- [15:27]
Congressmember
Well look, that's why the numbers are where they are. The truth is it's not just Democrats and independents that are leaving them, it's some Republicans too. Right. Like to get to 39%, you know. Yeah, you got your core MAGA base, but they're also losing some Republicans. And look, it's the chaos, it's the uncertainty, it's the distractions. You know, Canada is going to be the 51st state. Greenland, we're going to vacation in Gaz Panama, we're going to deport people to El Salvador. And they announced the other day they're looking at Rwanda and the Sudan. These are all distractions to get Democrats and the media to stop talking about the economy and Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We shouldn't take the bait, by the way. We should stay focused on those two things. We should obviously defend due process and freedom. But stay focused on from a messaging standpoint, the economy, protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That's the whole ball game, in my opinion. But yeah, not a great, not a great 100 days for, for the president. You know, there is something about making a disaster and then trying to clean it up and take credit for the cleanup. But this, this is, this was all man made Congressmember.
- [16:30]
Ben Meiselas
When I've been having members on and I've been interviewing them, I end with this question because there's things that I know and there's things I don't know because I'm not.
- [16:39]
Congressmember
Like long walks on the beach.
- [16:40]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah, that's what I was about to ask you. Personal hobbies, favorite things to do. But no, but in all seriousness, are there issues that are not being discussed by media that you think deserve more attention, that you are thinking about that, you know, with our audience here, you just want to let people know one.
- [16:59]
Congressmember
Of the most destructive things that the Trump administration is doing at the moment. I'm hoping to work with them and reverse course and save it. But if I'm going off of the words of Secretary Noem, I'm deeply concerned. I'm deeply concerned what they're doing, but with female. I mean, look, I'm from Florida. I'm a former director of Emergency management. I'm the only director, former director of Emergency management, all of Congress. But if they actually do what Kristi Noem wants to do with fema, which is get rid of it, which is what she said, chop it up and give it to other agencies, which won't be more efficient. It'll make it worse. If she wants to mess with reimbursement, I mean, you could have a state like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, they could go bankrupt if they get a Category 4 storm and they don't have federal reimbursement if the federal government isn't coming out and organizing resources, you know, because FEMA doesn't have a lot of resources. It's DoD that's got the resources. Other agencies. FEMA organizes that and brings it. If no one's doing that after a Katrina for Louisiana or a Helene in North Carolina, people are going to die and these places are not going to have a good response and they're not going to recover. I did Hurricane Michael. That was one of the recoveries I did in the Panhandle. Extremely poor area. All Republican, by the way. Without the money the federal government sent in the first Trump administration, these towns would never recover. They'd be gone. And so this is something that we're not talking about. But we're getting into hurricane season, and I'm worried about whether or not FEMA is gonna work. There are people in the Trump administration, the West Wing, that are from Florida and know this. They gotta stop the secretary, who's never done a disaster cleanup in her entire life, being from being the governor where she was. Okay, that this is needed. That doesn't mean there doesn't need to be reform. Ben, FEMA does need a reform. They need to get faster, smaller. They need to get out of Homeland. They need to stop doing all of the immigration grants. Let ICE and Homeland run their own grants. FEMA shouldn't be running them. Okay, so there are things we can fix. But to get rid of this for the American people would be devastating beyond belief. And I haven't even talked about what they've done at NOAA about, you know, getting rid of weather balloons and getting rid of people. Being able to figure out how we're going to track these hurricanes, the hurricane hunters. There's questions whether those planes are going to be able to get in the air. There's time to still fix this on. On what Doge did to those two departments.
- [19:22]
Ben Meiselas
That's why I asked that question at the end. I think sometimes the most important things are the questions that are least asked. And I think it's been proven once again. Congressmember, thank you for joining us.
- [19:31]
Congressmember
You got it, man.
- [19:32]
Ben Meiselas
Thanks, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas. Check out the Midas+ substack for ad. Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com.