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- [00:01]
Ben Meiselas
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. It's just so wild to see all of these MAGA Republicans in utter disarray right now as Donald Trump just blows up the federal government, destroys our economy. I mean, look, you now have the right wing podcasters like Joe Rogan say that they're against the oligarchy and that the oligarchy is the danger. Watch Joe. Why this is the MAGA Republican podcaster Joe Rogan. Play this clip.
- [00:49]
Brett Meiselas
Bernie Sanders is right in that you should be scared of oligarchs and oligarchs shouldn't be running our government. He's right in that regard. And when people get into positions of just unchecked power.
- [01:02]
Ben Meiselas
All right, Joe, I don't know if this is anything to do with the fact that we're beating you in podcast downloads right now by like, double a month. We get like, twice as many downloads as him or that. The Midas Touch Network. Thanks to all of you, the Midas Mighty just won the Webby Podcast of the year. These MAGA Republicans are changing their tune. Joe Rogan, you laundered the oligarchy and normalized it in the 2024 election. You are literally the oligarchy guy. Oh, and then they have Nancy Mace. Remember yesterday I was showing you Nanc Mace, like, going around, like, grocery stores with her cell phone and, like, picking fights with, like, random people and, and saying, like, you're in Daisy Duke shorts. Then she'd like record to go up. Being harassed. I'm being harassed. Well, she just made a video of herself. This is what maga. This is what the MAGA Republicans are doing. She made a video of herself reading these statements, which she say are names that people call her. And it's like, just. I'll show you just a small portion of it. Here, play this clip. So here you go. Listen up. Nancy is a nasty bitch. I would pay money to see Mace get fucking decked in the mouth. And look, nobody should be harassing members of Congress. Nobody should be engaged in, you know, behavior that's threatening or intimidating at all. You know, Nancy Mace is someone who harasses and intimidates marginalized communities and discriminates against the LGBTQ Community and trans people, in my opinion. You know, but what do you do? Why are you reading this? That, that goes on, by the way, for minutes. I'm showing you eight seconds. Because she goes on and just spends the whole time reading in her own voice and like cursing and cursing. Anyway, this is from Associated Pressed headline. As controversies pile up, Trump allies increasingly are turning on another. Okay, so yesterday at the White House, they were walking Tim Pool, the kind of MAGA Republican right wing podcaster around, and he was dressed with his like weird beanie that he wears and he was wearing like a zip up sweatshirt shirt. This whole thing was weird. Then he email, then he interviewed Kristi Noem. I thought this, this Brendan Dilly guy I think is a, is a MAGA podcaster too. And here's what he's mocking the other MAGA podcaster, Tim Pool, who he thinks is not real maga. He goes, christine Ohm is such a badass that she sat down this morning and come and confronted the homeless man that stole her purse last night at dinner, right? And then Tim Pool goes into the White House press room yesterday, as our editor in chief, Ron Philip Koski goes. Podcaster Tim Pool got the invite to the White House press briefing in the new media seat. And his question is to ask Caroline Levitt, the chief propagandist of the White House, to comment on why everyone is being mean to the people in that seat for asking stupid questions. Here, Play this clip on an effort.
- [04:04]
Brett Meiselas
From the White House to expand access to new companies. You've created this new media seat.
- [04:09]
Ben Meiselas
So I'm wondering if you can comment.
- [04:11]
Brett Meiselas
On following this expansion.
- [04:13]
Ben Meiselas
You've had numerous outlets disparage the companies that you've had sit here as well as the reporters.
- [04:19]
Brett Meiselas
I'm wondering if you comment on that unprofessional behavior.
- [04:22]
Ben Meiselas
Also yesterday we learned that Vladimir Putin got Donald Trump a gift, that Donald Trump and Trump's special envoy to Russia absolutely love Steve Witkoff. Donald Trump's special envoy to Russia unveiled this incredible painting that he says it was incredible that Putin gave them and said that Donald Trump was touched by this painting. What timeline are we living in? You were touched by the painting that a war criminal, genocide or, you know, Putin killer, you know, literally an enemy of the United States. I'm glad that you were touched by it. So then you had Pete Hegseth make his rounds yesterday, like, like this is wacky, like zombie stuff though, right? Like this is some Twilight Zone stuff. Pete Hegseth and went on Fox because Pete Hegseth was a former Fox host. So he goes on FOX Morning. He was the Fox Sunday morning host. And like he's so utterly unhinged. And he's talking about how it's not a bad thing that he gave the classified war plans to his wife. And they're not really war plans. Here, watch this.
- [05:30]
Brett Meiselas
Why would it surprise anybody, Brian, if.
- [05:31]
Ben Meiselas
Those very same people keep leaking to the very same reporters whatever information they think they can have to try to.
- [05:39]
Brett Meiselas
Sabotage the agenda of the president or the secretary?
- [05:43]
Ben Meiselas
So once a leaker, always a leaker. And at night on cnn, you have Scott Jennings who's like the Trump propagandist who goes on cnn. He's like, yeah, I think maybe Pete Hegseth should have shut up and just maybe be quiet for a little bit. Here, play this clip. A learning curve, Scott, in this meritocratic administration.
- [06:04]
Brett Meiselas
A learning curve at the Pentagon.
- [06:06]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah.
- [06:06]
Brett Meiselas
I have some public relations advice for these folks. If I were Secretary Hegseth, I wouldn't do any more media interviews right now.
- [06:14]
Ben Meiselas
The best way to prove you can.
- [06:15]
Brett Meiselas
Do the job is to do the job.
- [06:16]
Ben Meiselas
Wow. I can't believe it, but my little girl is 7 months old right now. Now, as soon as she was born, I had to stop procrastinating and avoiding something that I knew I had to do. I had to get life insurance. I was avoiding it. I'm glad I got it. I now learned that 40% of people wish they got life insurance when they were younger. And, you know, I think it's a really important thing to protect your family and give you the peace of mind. With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Some options are 100% online and let you avoid unnecessary medical exams. One of the things that I liked is that policygenius combined these digital tools with expertise of real licensed agents. They had real people who walked me through the process. They answered my questions, they helped me through the paperwork that could sometimes be confusing. They made the process seamless. And look, I trust policygenius and one of the reasons I think you should trust policygenius also is that thousands of happy Policy Genius customers left five star reviews similar to my review of it. They left it on Google and on trustpilot. So do me a favor, secure your families tomorrow so you have peace of mind today. Head to policygenius.com midas or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com Midas make sure you spell Midas right. M E I d a s one more time policygenius.com Midas and then you have Charles Gasparino, a MAGA guy, business guy, writes for the New York Post and here he's on Fox and he's talking about how Vance is now going to be the major executor and trade negotiations. Here. Play this clip Dissipation. What is interesting is that I heard that VP Vance, now we know he's in India right now, right? He's become, and this is how they described it to me, people close to.
- [08:19]
Brett Meiselas
Vance, a major executor in the trade negotiations. I don't know what that exactly means.
- [08:25]
Ben Meiselas
As means he have a gun? Does he have a gun in his hand? I doubt it. But apparently he's going to be part of, he's part and parcel of these things with Scott Besant, with Howard Lutnick.
- [08:33]
Brett Meiselas
To make this work.
- [08:34]
Ben Meiselas
And they are scrambling to do deals and then finally to kind of, you know, top it all off, the MAGA Republicans then bring on, you know, this Congress member right here and this MAGA Republican Congress member, you know, he talks about how he wants to gut Medicaid. Austin Scott from Georgia and here he talks about like yeah, what we want to do in our budget is we want to transfer the federal obligations of Medicaid. Right now it's 90% feds, 10% state. We want the whole states to handle it. They're, they're telling you their plan is to cut Medicaid. I mean, listen, just listen to what they're saying here. Play this clip.
- [09:12]
Brett Meiselas
FMAP is the federal medical assistance percentage and it ranges from 50% in the country to 76.9%. Now when the, when the Dems expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care act, they made that percentage match 90 10. So the federal government is paying 90% of the Medicaid expansion. And so what we have talked about is moving that 90% level of the expansion back towards the more traditional levels of 50 to approximately 80% instead of the 90 10, 90% being federal, 10% being state match and nobody would be kicked off of Medicaid as long as the governors decided that they wanted to continue to fund the program. And so we are going to ask the states to pick up and pay some additional percentage of the Medicaid percentage.
- [10:05]
Ben Meiselas
And as American Bridge 21st Century says, if Republicans cut federal funding for Medicaid expansion, millions will lose their health care. There's a number of states with trigger laws that automatically end Medicaid if the federal funding is cut. So any, everywhere from Arizona to Arkansas to Idaho to Illinois, they have these trigger laws. And so it's effectively destroying Medicaid. And that's their, that's their plan. Right. With Trump's plan is, well, we'll have you know, we don't need fema. The states will do fema. No, the federal government needs to do federal emergency relief because the states don't have the resources. They're the very reason why there's a federal government is to, you know, is to deal with these things. They're like, oh, we don't need a Department of Education except when it comes to garnishing wages of students who are defaulted on their loans. Right. You had McMahon, Linda McMahon, the Department of Education secretary, destroy the Department of Education, but go after students here. This is her saying, you're right here.
- [11:09]
Brett Meiselas
I know you like to get into the details. So let's talk about the plans, the structure and the period of time to one, get money back if you're a taxpayer in the sense of no more payoffs, buyouts or whatever that the Biden administration left in place.
- [11:26]
Ben Meiselas
Well, thank you, David, and you and Lisa both for having me on this afternoon. Well, the plan is very simple. We, we have announced beginning May 5, you must start to repay your loan. And this is not to in any.
- [11:40]
Brett Meiselas
Way try to cause hardships.
- [11:41]
Ben Meiselas
There are several different payment plans that you can access. Oh, and then you have Joe Rogan again talking about the importance of due process. Yeah, you get Rogan talking about due process.
- [11:54]
Brett Meiselas
Here, play this clip about due process. No, that. Well, here's the problem with that. The problem with things that are going in a radical direction and then, then there's an over correction. So the over correction is lack of due process. The overcorrection is like, round them all up, ship them to jail. Like, that's like some things that you say when you're not thinking things through. Like, what do you do about all the criminals? Take them all, Send them to El Salvador.
- [12:19]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah.
- [12:20]
Brett Meiselas
What about due process? No, that. Well, here's the problem with that. What if you are an enemy of, let's not say any current president, let's pretend we got a new president, totally new guy in 2028. And this is a common practice now of just rounding up gang members with no due process and shipping them to El Salvador. You're a gang member. No, I'm not. Prove it. What? I gotta go to court. No, no due process. That's dangerous, Joe. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. That's. We got to be careful that we don't become monsters while we're fighting monsters. I think due process exists for a reason, and the reason is it is horrific for someone to be accused of something they didn't do, be imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit, and then live in a cell, live in a cage with a bunch of people who did commit shit. Here it is. Benjamin Franklin. It's better 100 guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer. That. That is wisdom.
- [13:20]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah.
- [13:21]
Brett Meiselas
That has survived hundreds of years. It's incredibly accurate, and it is the foundation of freedom. Like, we have to make sure that these people are actually guilty. Otherwise we become monsters. You can't. Like, what is that? When you fight monsters, be careful that you don't become one.
- [13:38]
Ben Meiselas
Become one.
- [13:38]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, yeah. That's very important. It's very important. You know, you can't do that. You know, it's one of those things where to support one side of this, you have to deny some, like, basic human values. Either way, like to support just rounding people up and just assuming they're all gang members. I'm not saying they're doing that, but this is the worst case scenario, right? They get a bunch of people in a room, they rope them all in, and one guy's just someone's cousin picking someone up to give him a ride home. That's possible. And now you're back on the one innocent person with. Now you're right back, and what if that dude is not doing anything wrong and he's got some stupid tattoos and they decide that this guy's a gang member, and now. Now you're in a prison in El Salvador, and you're not even from El Salvador. And now, you know you were just a hairdresser or you a tattoo artist, family man.
- [14:27]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah.
- [14:28]
Brett Meiselas
You came over here, and maybe you got a green card, and maybe you don't. Maybe you were just given asylum because a lot of people from Venezuela were given asylum in America.
- [14:36]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah.
- [14:37]
Brett Meiselas
And then you get shipped to El Salvador, where you're not even from El Salvador, so that the fact that that exists scares the shit out of me.
- [14:45]
Ben Meiselas
And then Elon Musk on an earnings call, whining about tariffs. Here. Let's play it. I just want to emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the President of the United States. I will weigh in with my advice with the president, which he will listen to my advice. But then it's up to him, of course, to make his decision. I've been on the record many times as saying that I believe lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity. But this decision is fundamentally up to the elected representative of the people being the President of the United States. So I'll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that's all I can do. So anyway, you, you you hear it for yourself right there. Let let me know what you think. Hit subscribe let's get to 5 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth over lies collection@store.midas touch.com All 100 USA Union made.