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- [00:00]
Ben Meiselas
Have I Got News for you is back for another season. Roy Wood Jr, Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black are finding the funny in the week's biggest stories. Have I Got News for you? Saturday at 9 on CNN and stream next day on Max. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive. To see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. During tax season, your personal info travels to a lot of places between payroll, your tax consultant and the IRS. If your W2 gets exposed, that's just the ticket for identity thieves. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Don't let identity thieves take you for a ride. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Let's get right into it, folks. On the Midas Touch podcast. I want to remind you from the very beginning what it was that Donald Trump was saying repeatedly on the campaign trail that corporate, media and propaganda promoted over and over again. He said that that prices will start to decrease immediately on day one. Here's what he said. Play the clip. So when I win, I will immediately bring prices down. Starting on day one, we will end Kamala's war on American energy and we will drill, baby, drill. We're going to drill. I just want to come with receipts like this receipt over here. And I could show you hundreds of clips like this where Donald Trump said that there would be peace in Ukraine on day one. He said specifically that he would bring Putin and and Zelinsky into a room together and they would have a deal within 24 hours. In fact, even before he took office, he said if he were to win the election, a deal would just be made during the transition period. Here, play it and you'll see. You'll see the receipts and the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Yes.
- [02:17]
Brett Meiselas
How would you do that?
- [02:19]
Ben Meiselas
I know Zelensky very well. I'll end that war between those two countries in 24 hours.
- [02:26]
Brett Meiselas
And it won't even take that long.
- [02:28]
Ben Meiselas
Okay. Well, let's look at headlines like this. Major trouble for Donald Trump in new polling. This comes from the Economist YouGov poll, which now has his approval rating dropping to 46%, which I still think is pretty high. And you're probably like, yeah, that's still a little too high. It should be noted, though, that this is still supposed to be the honeymoon period for someone. Cause they literally just won and they are pushing the propaganda like crazy. And it's not working. You know, where he's losing a lot of support with actually young people. About 37% now is what his approval rating is amongst young people. It's very, very low. As young voters who he tricked are now saying, wait a minute, you're literally just screwed us and you lied to us. This is the Wall Street Journal headline as well. Trump voters splinter over his rapid shakeup of Washington. And then there are quotes like this in this article. I feel so stupid, guilty, regretful, embarrassed. It's a huge one. I am absolutely embarrassed that I voted for Donald Trump. Yeah, you should be. This is what Donald Trump was doing this past weekend while there was horrific storms in Kentucky and Virginia and West Virginia took the lives of at least nine or ten people in Kentucky. And our hearts go out to everybody there. Donald Trump was spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money going to the Daytona 500. This followed Donald Trump going to the super bowl the prior week. He just goes to every sporting event now and he flies Air Force One around and he takes the motorcade around again, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. While Kentucky and West Virginia, Virginia, Arkansas, also Tennessee, were suffering and literally underwater. Trump took the motorcade and went around in circles on the track. He was also posting all weekend things like this. He who saves his country violates no law, quote attributed to Napoleon, which is an interesting photo and quote for him to pick one, not just for it's just reckless unlawfulness, but also as Donald Trump threatens Europe the way he does. There's an emergency meeting today in Europe called by French President Emmanuel Macron to respond to the fact that Donald Trump has cut out Europe and Ukraine and is pursuing just direct negotiations with Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia. Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov is there, meeting with the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And again, they're intentionally cutting out Europe and Ukraine who are impacted the most. And of course, this also follows a devastating appearance by the United States in Europe in the Munich Conference, where JD Vance attacked all of the European democracies. And then the Trump delegation tried to get Zelensky to sign a piece of paper turning over all of the rare earth minerals in Ukraine to the United States and Donald Trump without any security guarantees. Fortunately, Zelensky said absolutely not. Oh, yeah, by the way, what Trump was posting that quote, he who saves his country violates no law too was an article about how federal judges were ruling against some of Donald Trump's lawlessness. So Trump indicating that he was not going to follow court orders. And then when Donald Trump left the Daytona 500 event, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, calling Doge, where are you? Oh, lying about condoms in Gaza or whatever, then Donald Trump talked about egg prices reaching an all time high. And of course the liar, guess what? He lied. And Donald Trump said, well, the prices were much higher at an all time high before I got here. Here, play this clip. Reached an all time high. What's your prices have reached an all time high. A long before I ever got here, it was at an all time. This didn't remember I've been here for three weeks. And when you saw the inflation numbers, I've been here for three weeks. I have had nothing to do with inflation. This was caused by Biden. I had four years of virtually no inflation.
- [06:35]
Brett Meiselas
So I'm just taking over.
- [06:36]
Ben Meiselas
But I'll tell you what, this country has made more progress in the last three weeks than it's made in the last four years. Okay, liar, liar, pants on fire or America on fire. And it's actually very serious. Europe on fire, it's very serious. Asia on fire with some of the reckless statements that have been made by the Trump regime. Let's bring in Brett and Jordy. A little long buildup right there, but I thought it was important that I show those receipts right at the outset and get into it because prices are going way up, housing less affordable. Trump is causing major, major problems quicker than anyone even anticipated.
- [07:18]
Brett Meiselas
Receipts are more important than ever, especially when we have this disinformation echo chamber that's pumping out lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. I think it's important that we all flood the zone with the truth as they flood the zone with shit, to steal a phrase from Steve Bannon. It's never been more important than to do that. So I appreciate you kicking off the show that way. And the truth is, is that that is cutting through right now as we're seeing in this polling that we'll go through in some more detail in a little bit. But it's really interesting to see the dynamics already shifting and you see that the people are now rising up. And I know corporate media doesn't really want to cover like the protests and stuff that's going on. There are also massive protests today throughout the entire country. President's Day protests of voters, of Americans, concerned Americans going out There protesting the Trump administration, protesting Doge. So I want to, I'm just standing in solidarity with all those protesters. And I think we are seeing the American people now rising up. We are seeing even people who voted for Donald Trump who weren't maybe following the election super closely and just heard the lies that we were showing just before. Now they're seeing the reality. It's one thing to blame and just to say this person sucks, that person sucks, this person's a disaster, this things that this thing's this person's fault, that person's fault. Once you're in charge, you don't get that luxury to be able to do that. The buck stops with you, whether Donald Trump wants to admit it or not. So he needs to take responsibility for everything that is going on. And I think it is up to the people to hold him accountable and to hold him responsible. And I know that's what we're going to do here every single day. Jordy, what's new on your end? Liking that outfit. Looking good today.
- [08:52]
Jordy Meiselas
Thanks, B. Yeah, no, stoked, excited to get into the show. I mean, it is just bananas, right? As we say, Donald Trump is the weapon of mass distraction. Ben, I like that term that you use. As people's attention spans continue to get shorter and shorter, I think it's more important than ever that the receipts that we bring to the table are presented in a way that is just clear as that. I'm sorry you guys, your mellow embarking or not or.
- [09:17]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, you got, you got a very angry, your dog's very angry about what's going on.
- [09:21]
Jordy Meiselas
That's what you get here on the Might As Touch podcast, Benji.
- [09:23]
Ben Meiselas
Well, look, Donald Trump is a sexual assaulter and he is an abuser. And if you've had abusers in your life, you know that they engage in torture, psychological torture, and then they try to kind of worm their way back into your life or distract you from the torture. To be like, you remember when things were good, you remember all of these things. You know, the type of manipulation you always have to look at the pathology of Donald Trump as an abuser. He's also a reckless individual and a bankrupter and a destroyer of things. And his pathology always shows, but with that abusive mentality, he now wants to take all of the symbols of our great country and our great democracy and then just use that with all this reckless spending showing up at all of the events. Look, it's a big deal. When you see Air Force One flying overhead, just that's a big deal. Or when you see the motorcade, it does make you in the past feel patriotic about things. He knows that. But he's an abuser and he's using it to distract you from all of those receipts. I showed you at the outset that prices are going up, up, up. Inflation is going to surge again, by the way, later in the show, I've got a. I would not call it a treat because it's bad for America, but I got something no one else is talking about, which is I read the Trump Media annual report for Truth Social. I read the whole report, hundreds of pages, and yes, it did show that the company only earned about $3.6 million in total revenue. Not profit, not EBITDA, 3.6 million in total revenue, and it lost over $400 million. But there's a whole section. We'll talk about it later, about how surging inflation is going to be very harmful for the future prospects of Trump Media. They're admitting it in their own financials that Trump inflation's going to hurt Trump Media. He's blaming the failure of his company on the failure of his presidency. So we'll get there. But let me show you what the propaganda machine is trying to do. They're trying to pull on the heartstrings of people who like these symbols of patriotism. So they bring on this guy, Doug Burgum, right out of central casting, also a guy worth hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars on Donald Trump's cabinet. He's the Secretary of the Interior. And he goes, full North Korea, and he goes, how powerful was that image? Seeing the Beast and the motorcade circle around the track of the Daytona 500. America's back, baby. Here, play this clip. When we saw him take that victory lap of sorts going around the track, he seemed to be digging it well, Steve, watching President Trump in the Beast leading the pace car, leading a field of the most talented drivers in the world, kicking off the entire NASCAR season for America, when he was doing that, it reminded me of how he's actually leading the world right now. I had an opportunity to be with him, with Prime Minister Modi from India, with the prime Minister of Japan. And the world is looking to President Trump for his leadership. And he's out in front and everybody is following his lead. And, wow, is that great for America and great for the world? Literally nobody is following his lead. Even Hamas is not following Donald Trump's threats. Hamas views Donald Trump's threats as all bark, no bite. Because remember, over the weekend, Donald Trump set that deadline that if Hamas you don't return all of the Israeli hostages by noon on Saturday, all hell is going to break loose. And all Hamas did was return the three hostages it was supposed to under the ceasefire deal that former President Biden negotiated. Then Donald Trump was like, well, then Netanyahu will unleash the hell. I mean, they already did basically before, and now there was no new action that Netanyahu actually took. Different. So Hamas and Netanyahu basically both just kind of ignored Donald Trump. And we saw Donald Trump's fake deals with Canada, Donald Trump's fake deals with Mexico and Panama and others. But these fake deals have left the world hating and despising the United States and showing such weakness that in the next segment, we will also talk about this emergency meeting in Europe, that Europe realizes that America's isolated and they're gone. And America's basically no longer even a reliable ally or an ally at all.
- [14:11]
Brett Meiselas
Brett It's a pattern that we've now been seeing a lot, I think, honestly, throughout knowing Donald Trump in general as a politician in this country, but especially in these first two weeks of his first few weeks of his new admin. You know, I know in the beginning we were starting to call this the rug pull presidency. I think that certainly still applies. I'm going to add one more name to this presidency, and I'm going to call it the paper straw presidency. Because what I think Donald Trump is doing is a whole lot of symbolic actions that get people's kind of lizard brains going, whether it be the Daytona 500, driving the beast, driving, you know, flying Air Force One. Whether it be, yeah, let's change Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. America. F. Yeah, let's go. Whether it's the plastic, the plastic straw bands, all that sort of stuff plays to people's kind of lizard brains in a way, but isn't doing anything to actually help people's lives. While he's doing all that stuff, he's raiding the government. He's having his Elon Musk lackeys go through your Social Security accounts, go through your Medicaid, go through your tax filings, your bank account info. All this stuff he's trying to pass laws or bills to give four and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts to the billionaires to the richest American. By the way, in that tax proposal that right now Republicans are kicking around, no tax on tips. That's nowhere to be found in it. Where were some of the other policies? No tax on Social Security.
- [15:34]
Ben Meiselas
Overtime? Not there. No tax on Social Security. Not there.
- [15:37]
Brett Meiselas
None of that's there, but you know what is there? Massive tax cuts for billionaires. But guess what? You get to say Gulf of America now you get to say, yeah, it's the beast, the paper straw presidency. That is what I am seeing so far. And I think in this concept is that concept of all bark, no bite. But I think the important thing is, is that even it is a paper straw presidency, that those actions and the stupidity of his actions, especially when it comes to the global stage, have real world ramifications as we continue to see. Like, I'm not sure if the audience out there saw any of that Canada USA game, but you saw Canada once again booing. You know, some of our Canadian viewers say, we're not booing America or the United States. We're booing specifically the administration. So I'll make the nuance there. Booing the administration, what our country is doing under its new government right now, loudly booing. Then you see the unification of countries like Canada and shout out to Canada, we stand in solidarity with all of our Canadian viewers and listeners. But seeing Canada during their national anthem, all sing in unison, regardless of political parties standing arm in arm, seeing Trudeau at that game, like you're seeing the world right now uniting around us and in many ways boxing America out because America has boxed the world out. So you see this reciprocal, all right, you don't want us. Well, we don't want you either. And I think Europe is trying to find ways right now to work with us in productive ways for the betterment of global security. But Donald Trump keeps saying F you to them. And so we're in a situation now where the US Due to Donald Trump's actions, is basically more allied right now with Russia and with a lot of these other countries that would normally be considered our adversaries, while you have the eu, Canada, Mexico, all these other countries uniting basically against us. And, you know, if you really want to get into it, yeah, it looks.
- [17:29]
Ben Meiselas
Like you have, let me say this, Jordan, looks like a second. Looks like you have Ukraine and Europe, the democracies in Europe, at least on one side. And now you have like Trump and Putin and Lavrov on the other side. You have spineless Republicans pretending that that's not the dynamic and that it's all part of some four dimensional chess, which is not. Which is not happening. And then you've got 75 for 75 plus million of Americans who voted against Trump because he got less than 50% of the vote, basically saying, what in the world is going on? While Republicans Continue the charade, Jordy. Sorry.
- [18:08]
Jordy Meiselas
It just. It's so infuriating to me to watch, you know, the person who sits at the highest, you know, chair of leadership as POTUS in this country do literal victory lapse at the Daytona 500 or show up to the super bowl and have Fox do a zoom in on him. He is the ultimate Trump is the ultimate me guy. I've never seen someone makes any situation more about them than what people are there and gathered to do other than Donald Trump, whenever he shows up and sticks his face. Well, frankly, quite everywhere he's not working like this is. This is the misconception that I think might be out there, that I'm excited to sort of dispel on the show just because he's doing these weirdo victory laps. And the Beast at the Daytona 500, showing up at the super bowl, that's literally the opposite of working. He's just putting his face out there. He, he, he.
- [18:58]
Ben Meiselas
Well, Jordy, I'm reminded by, you know, Kendrick Lamar, who performed at the super bowl, his song Be Humble. Be humble. Sit down right? Be humble. That used to be humility, used to be part of a quality of leadership, especially at the highest levels of government. The same type of leadership that used to value speaking softly or walking softly and carrying a big stick. Everybody knows that America was powerful, but you exercised power surgically and strategically and not recklessly with being all bark and no bite. And so literally everything Trump does is counterintuitive and very harmful. It shows utter weakness, and it's masquerading as straight. But here's the thing. Corporate media covers politics the way sporting events are covered. And if you think about the way sporting events are covered, there's a reason why you have announcers sometimes, right? They're supposed to be the experts who tell you what's happening accurately and maybe try to guess what's going to happen in the future and kind of narrate the event. The way corporate media treats politics is like the sporting event, but then they put their finger on the scales, and then they have their announcers affirmatively interfering with the game and telling you things that are happening that are not actually happening before you. And one of the goals of the Midas Touch Network is to deconstruct that propaganda and reconstruct the truth. To say, look at all of the lies that they're telling you. Here's actually what's going on. Because they want to focus on, oh, what an incredible patriotic event it was at the Daytona 500. What don't they want to talk about is that in states like Kentucky and in states like Virginia and West Virginia, people were dying. And Donald Trump didn't say crap about what was happening while he was there, saying, look, victory, victory. They want to show you things like this. MAGA Republican Representative Claudia Tenney unveils the bill to designate Trump's birthday as a public holiday. You've got Donald Trump making posts on President's Day, by the way. I guess today is unpresidence day at this point. We shout out to all the prior presidents before this piece of crap right now in the Oval Office. And you've got Donald Trump posting his mug shot photo on President's Day and next to his official portrait with a quote that says, they're not after me, they're after you. I'm just standing in the way. Happy President's Day. And then there's another post attached to that which shows that he has posted his criminal mugshot right by the Oval Office. That's his President's Day message. And they want to distract you. That's why at the outset, where do I focus this show on? Prices are going up right now. Housing is not more affordable. All of Donald Trump's things that he promised were lies. And they want to distract you from it. Right? Yeah.
- [22:03]
Brett Meiselas
And Trump, you know, sent like, overnight something like 14 posts bragging about his appearance at the Daytona 500. Not a single post about any of the disasters. And, you know, from what I hear, also, like, I'm not sure they're doing the individual assistance either that people have become accustomed to in the past with this, with these storms. Remember, like, it was always the thing, the, the propaganda move that the Trumpers would always latch onto would be the HUL concept of, oh, Biden is only giving the people of North Carolina $750. What the hell, that's it. I'm sending X amount of dollars to Ukraine and you're only giving them 700. That was the law passed by Congress for immediate assistance for FEMA. Well, guess what Donald Trump's doing. Apparently giving them $0.
- [22:50]
Ben Meiselas
Nothing.
- [22:51]
Brett Meiselas
Nothing. Zero. Because when you go to the website right now for FEMA and you try to apply for individual assistance in these effective areas, it doesn't allow you to. And so congrats, I guess you went from 750 to 770 with the law at the end of the, at the beginning of the new year, and now it's down to zero. And, and no one's going to talk about that. Right. The. These right Wingers aren't going to talk about that. In fact, Donald Trump wants to dismantle FEMA entirely rather than actually use it to actually help the people in these places. And then just the nerve of the gaslighting and the propaganda just with all these events is going to be so ratcheted up. But I think we're going to continue now in these next few years, and I know that sounds like an eternity, but we're going to continue to see the divide right now between the hyper online kind of Trumpers on Twitter who are amplified by like Elon Musk's algorithms and actual real people in the world who have a true hatred for Trump and are being affected by him in their daily lives, including people who voted for him, like the Elon Musk, the Twitter. That's always going to be the same. But I think sentiment, and we're already seeing it, is going to continue to shift. The shift with Gen Z Ben is one of the most wild things that, that I've seen. Like you see right before the election, Gen Z sentiment about Donald Trump, like spike, spike. That's when Trump was on all those podcasts. He was out there post shooting all that stuff. Trump, Gen Z spiked after the election, plummeted plot like, like, like bottoming out and going down quickly. And I think it's just an interesting dynamic and it's also enlightening to kind of look at a new generation as well and see what their behavior patterns are. And I think we're seeing Gen Z appears to be pretty reactionary and, and they tend to, you know, they didn't know the Donald Trump of four years ago or eight years ago. They didn't grow up with that. Now they're getting to see what a Trump presidency actually looks like beyond the bluster, beyond the actual campaigning. And guess what? They don't like it. They don't like that all these advances that Biden actually made for them are now being taken away, whether it be student debt relief or whether it be these policies that they actually care about. I think they actually care about equality at the end of the day. I think they actually about, you know, prices. And they thought that Trump wasn't lying when he said all those things. And, and now it's, it's all just coming out to be just a total fraud.
- [25:05]
Ben Meiselas
Well, look, Donald Trump has made it very clear his priority is simply oligarchs and billionaires. The $4.5 trillion tax cut in the budget for the billionaires. There's nothing about no tax on tips in the budget. There's nothing about no tax on overtime in the budget. There's nothing about no tax on Social Security in the budget. $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid, 250,000 DOL. $350 billion in cuts to farmers and agriculture, 350 billion in cuts to education. Donald Trump trampling over the environment, which Gen Z does care about. And Gen Z feels like the rug has been pulled. There's reason for hope. I want to talk about that soon because I think that Donald Trump and Elon Musk thought by now they were going to bulldoze over all of us. They thought that at this point America would have submitted. They thought they controlled all of the media. I think they thought they would rule like dictators with their shock and awe plan. But they failed. And I think now their incompetence is showing. And they're also now playing on the battlefield of a off population of millions who are getting screwed by them every single day. Which is why you see the protests growing, why you see Trump's unpopularity rising. And I think it's going to hit a critical point sooner than even I expected. And it's important that we here at the Midas Touch Network remain part of the leadership of this opposition, of this resistance and being for something, for democracy, love, empathy and the truth. We're going to have a special Zoom meeting with our Patreons on Thursday after our Thursday show. So if you aren't already a member of our patreon, go to patreon.com Midas Touch and we'd love for you to be at that meeting if you ever wanted to ask me, Brett and Jordy questions. We can talk about how the Midas Touch Network just passed 4 million subscribers after our show from last Thursday. Feel free to ask us anything. You can ask Jordy some tough questions as well. In addition, Midasplus.com is where our editor in chief, Ron Philipkowski cooks. If you ever wanted to see one of the best daily summaries of the week's events, go to midasplus.com you can subscribe at first for free. We hope you become paid members because we don't have outside investors. So it helps with the growth of our independent media platform. So check that out as well. We'll take a quick break right now. We've got a lot of show left. Let's take our first quick break.
- [27:39]
Jordy Meiselas
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- [29:35]
Ben Meiselas
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- [31:35]
Jordy Meiselas
Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors links in descriptions of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. Let them know we sent you. There's an exit survey say the Midas Dutch brother sent you. We'd really appreciate it. Benji. Where to next?
- [31:47]
Ben Meiselas
Brett? As you mentioned, Donald Trump gutting FEMA services. It should also be noted that in the great state of Georgia, their Republican Governor Brian Kemp requested supplemental FEMA assistance in the way of an extension of what Biden approved back in back in September of 2024 specifically for some additional debris removal caused by Hurricane Helene. So Kemp submitted it to Trump's fema. Surprise, surprise, FEMA denied it. Also, there's a ruby red town in Tennessee that just experienced a pretty devastating tornado recently and their leadership there has zero hope, hope that there'll be any exemptions or any way that the Trump administration's FEMA is going to help their town out as well. Of course, we're also finding out in all of these red states, or the red states are finding out. We were trying to tell them before, they depend a lot on federal aid. Whether it's the fact that the University of Alabama is the biggest employer in the state of Alabama. Whether for example, in Huntsville, Alabama, there's an important kind of rocket facility there that relies on a lot of federal funding and research grants and federal dollars. You can look at a lot of states that are experiencing this as well. You take a look at, you take a look at Louisiana, their workers, lots of federal workers losing their jobs there, lots of other workers losing their jobs. And so, you know, these Magas look at Washington, D.C. and I think the, the unemployment claims are like, skyrocketing right now in Washington, D.C. and you're like, yeah, we're owning the deep state. You're destroying your own. First off, those were important workers on critical areas as well, so those people shouldn't have been fired. But also, you're screwing over your own states in the process. And it's going to lead in a spike in unemployment, which I think we'll start to see as future unemployment reports nationally come in, which you can save the tape right here. My prediction is going to be as it looks like there's going to be months with job losses coming up, the Trump administration is going to try to stop those reports from coming out to prevent the data from reaching the people that the administration is losing jobs, which is going to create a situation. This is my prediction and my opinion. It's going to be even more harmful to the country because what's Donald Trump's view about everything? His view about everything is just if you don't test, if you don't do the research and you just listen to Dear Leader, then you don't find out the bad things and you just consume the propaganda. This propaganda that's spreading in the United States by Trump and Fox would make North Korea blush. I mean, it's some of the craziest stuff out there. Even Putin doesn't have his own national holiday for his birthday. And no one, I think, has proposed that they have there. But the MAGA Republicans come up with. Here's our new bill that we want to add Donald Trump's face to Mount Rushmore. Here's our new bill to have the national birthday day of Donald Trump. I mean, this group of spineless Republicans, then they have the audacity, these spineless Republicans, to go to Europe to meet with Zelensky and then give him a standing ovation. And people like Lindsey Graham and other MAGA Republicans, Republicans act like they've got his back while they empower Donald Trump. And then they try to gaslight us and just say, you don't understand. Donald Trump's doing the flattery of Putin as part of a grandmaster chess negotiating strategy. This is how the deals get done. No, that's not how the deals get done. By the way, earlier in the day when Europe just had its emergency meeting in Paris in France to deal with the fact that America is no longer really an ally to Europe anymore and Europe needs to figure out is it going to do a European army, are they going to put troops in Ukraine? They're strategizing right now. You have Elon Musk literally making posts praising Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. And Musk says this is what competence, leadership looks like regarding Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, as Sergey Lavrov meets with Marco Rubio in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, while Donald Trump is playing golf all day in Mar a Lago, our editor in chief Ron Filipkowski, I think had some great insight. Here he goes, what a coincidence that Trump announces the creation of a US sovereign wealth fund. Two, he says he wants 50% of Ukraine's rare earth minerals. Three, he tried to have Zelensky transfer all of Ukraine's rare earth minerals into a, quote, reconstruction development fund. And for the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund is part of the delegation with Marco Rubio in Saudi Arabia where Donald Trump and Putin are having their people meet and intentionally cutting out Europe and Ukraine from the negotiations. Here's how the Independent reports it. Russia and US to meet for talks on Ukraine's future after sidelining European leaders gather for emergency summit RT Russia's propaganda network absolutely loves it. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Saudi Arabia and expected to meet with Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov on Tuesday. Compare that image to the image of the leaders in Europe, like France's President Emmanuel Macron meeting with the UK's Prime Minister Kier Starmer. I show this picture as well. Right here, though. This is the photo of J.D. vance from college. Just just to look at this punk. If we have this photo of him wearing the CCP or wearing the USSR outfit, we'll try to get. I mean this guy's just a punk his whole life. You know, he's oh, I'm being funny. I'm being funny. This guy is an absolute punk. And I want to share with you what President Zelensky is saying today or over the weekend rather. Zelensky is making it clear that Zelensky, Ukraine and Europe standing by Zelensky side that they will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine if they negotiate without Ukraine in the room. Here, Play this clip that President Trump said this week. He did not say yes when he was asked if he sees Ukraine as an equal member in the peace process, he did say later that Ukraine would have a seat at the table. Have you been given any assurances that Ukraine will have an equal seat at the negotiating table? So I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never. And our people. Never. And our adults and children and everybody. It can't be so. This is the war in Ukraine against us and it's our human losses. We are thankful for all the support, unity between USA in USA around Ukraine. Support bipartisan union unity, bipartisan support. We're thankful for all of this. But there is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us. Meanwhile, you had J.D. vance at the Munich Conference just attacking Europe repeatedly, basically saying that European democracies don't support free speech. He tried to promote Germans, Germany's neo Nazi party, the AfD. And if there's some good news there, it seems the more Musk and J.D. vance throw their arms around the AFD, the less support it seems the AFD seems to get. In some of the recent polling we're seeing there ahead of their elections, we're also seeing something similar happen in the UK as it's expected the front runner of the Liberal part to take over from Justin Trudeau's, a guy by the name of Mark Carney, used to be a leader of top banks in Canada and elsewhere. The polling right now from Main street polling in Canada actually shows that the Liberal Party would be able to win the elections, party wide elections, if Mark Carney was its leader and be able to form a government. That was never going to be the case months ago. Let me just show you this clip of JD Vance and then Brett, I'll turn it over to you. Here's J.D. vance at the Munich Conference attacking Europe. We're at the point of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December remote Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I'd ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with. I think it was Two people who clapped there and that was the people who. J.D. vance brought along a humiliating display in Europe, triggering an emergency meeting of European nations to basically say America's done, America's lost, America's no longer a real ally, maybe an ally in fake name only, but Europe needs to be in solidarity with itself and bye bye America.
- [41:47]
Brett Meiselas
JD Vance completely humiliated himself on the global stage and the entire country quite frankly. And the reception that he got, I've heard from other people also just in Europe that, that it was viewed just so negatively that people were mocking him, that people were deriding him, that it was like it's being talked about as if it were like, like one of the worst speeches ever given over there. Like, like of all time. Like, and, and it's also just incredibly offensive like to show up in someone's country, criticize them, note they never really have any criticism for Russia or any of her adversaries. But it's always attack Europe, attack these people in charge. And so it's just like a, it's a weird new dynamic that we are seeing. But we've talked about this alliance of the autocrats overseas before here and that's exactly what we're seeing play out right here. And I'm just going to say J.D. vance has zero right to lecture anybody about free speech whatsoever. I don't know how the, these right wing MAGA people got took this mantle of being like the Free Speech Party when they are absolutely anything but it. Like they are literally the opposite of that. They just want to be able to say like racial slurs all the time and not get in trouble for it. So they call themselves the Free Speech Party. It's such, it's such. When you actually just break it down to think about like any kind of comedy show, any TV show, any musician who has tried to get canceled over the past few years. It's usually Republicans on the side of doing the canceling. Even just over the weekend. There was the last night they did the SNL50 and they did a sketch with Tom Hanks where Tom Hanks played a MAGA character named Maga Doug, by the way, a character who he played in 2016. It was on their Black Jeopardy sketch. MAGA got so offended, like they were crying about this all night and day. I've seen dozens and dozens of tweets saying that NBC should be arrest, they should be arrested that Tom Hanks isn't a good actor, that they should. This is vile. They should be taken off the air. No one watches anyway. And you're like, okay, so who are the snowflakes you're getting mad about? Maga, Doug. That's that, that's, that's your whole thing. And then while you have them getting mad about cultural things like that, you have Elon Musk, who's working in our government, actually threatening news organizations with jail time because they're reporting on things he doesn't want them to report on. So we saw Elon Musk, even just within the past 24 hours. He had, he had a irony of two tweets back to back. The first was like, I want to see if I could find it. The first tweet that he wrote was something along the lines of, let's see, here it is. It was something along the lines of, like, hit. One of Hitler's first moves was to push was to purge, like, the free speech here. One of the first things Hitler did upon gaining power was apply aggressive censorship. So he did that. 20 minutes later, 20 minutes after sending that tweet, he sends this tweet, 60 minutes are the biggest liars in the world. They engage in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence. Just think about those back to back tweets and then just get a, you know, this isn't some random dude. This is a guy who is making major decisions about our government. Even if the Trump administration wants to lie to courts about what he's actually doing, he is obviously very intimately involved. He's also threatening basically all the politicians in our country and kind of blackmailing them in many ways. He's holding his money over them, threatening that if they step out of line in any way and don't go along with everything they're doing, that he's going to throw all their money at a primary, challengers and things like that. So you have these Republicans who are running scared, and it just speaks to the problem, honestly, with money in our country, money in our politics. If you think about it, you know, just allowing money to be in our politics in the way that is being used right now is going to go down in history as the worst decision ever. The Citizens United decision is going to, if it hasn't already yet. And this is something that back in the day, President Obama warned against, like, a lot. And he sounded the alarm, and he was definitely vindicated in sounding the alarm about this decision because it's, it's let the oligarch class, it's let people like Elon Musk use their money to dictate our elections, to control the outcomes and to threaten our politicians. And I don't think that was ever how this was supposed to work in this country.
- [45:55]
Jordy Meiselas
Thousand percent. Brett, you want to talk about weaponization? Weaponization of the government. You remember when Republicans were crying in that every day or every, you know, second, second look no further than what Elon Musk is doing. He quite literally bought his seat at the table, and that table just so happens to be in the Oval Office. I mean, when you look at Elon Musk taking questions from corporate media in the Oval Office, you know, standing next to Donald Trump as he did earlier last week, that's a terrifying sight. People, look, they may have voted for Donald Trump, right? Not by, not by 50%, less than 50%. But sure as hell, nobody voted for Elon Musk. And now Elon Musk is seemingly making every decision that's impacting every single American and is, quite frankly, you know, having devastating ramifications on this country and people's lives. It's terrifying to see play out. It's absolutely disgusting. And this has to be an indictment on the oligarchs and on Elon Musk. It's absolutely awful.
- [46:51]
Ben Meiselas
Got a lot to discuss. I want to talk about Donald Trump's awful annual stock report, which shows what a horrible business person he is. I want to connect that to what's going on in Argentina, maga's favorite politician, Javier Malay, who's embroiled in a crypto scam. Surprise, surprise, we'll talk about that. We've got a lot of other things to discuss as well. Want to remind everybody if you want to meet Brett, Jordy and myself on Thursday, we'll be holding our Zoom meeting at patreon.com Midas Touch P-A T R E O-N.com Midas Touch Also, if you want to check out some of the articles from our editor in chief, Ron Philipkowski, I often do a morning article as well. You go to midasplus.com for more there. We'll be right back after our last quick break of the show.
- [47:47]
Brett Meiselas
Muscles are vital for movement and play a key role in supporting the vascular system. The calves, often called the second heart, help pump blood against gravity, aiding circulation throughout the body. Body. By using a standing desk and incorporating movement accessories, you are more likely to engage these muscles, promoting improved blood flow and overall health. If you work in front of a desk like I do, you've probably experienced the frustration of sitting for long periods. I seriously thought this would be a lasting problem until I discovered this episode sponsor Uplift Desk Uplift Desk is at the forefront of ergonomic solutions promoting better posture and health through adjustable standing desks designed to help you live a healthier lifestyle. Plus, they offer amazing accessories to keep you moving throughout the day. My personal favorite the under the Desk treadmill, which I have right here. It's a game changer for staying active while I work. Standing while I work gives me more room to move, which gets my creative juices flowing and helps me stay productive. I'm more focused and I'm more alert and I've noticed I have so much more energy throughout the day. The best part Uplift Desk lets you customize your desk with more than 200,000 configurations to suit your style and needs. Their desk configurator helps you build a complete workstation including storage, seating and even wire management. Make this year yours by going to upliftdesk.com midas and using our code Midas that's me I D A s to get 4 free accessories free same day shipping free returns, an industry leading 15 year warranty covering your entire desk and an extra discount off your entire order. That's U P L I F T d e s k.com/meidas for a special offer only available at our link start 2025 right stand move Thrive with Uplift.
- [49:36]
Ben Meiselas
Desk I often get asked what's the secret to how Midas Touch has grown so fast. I said it's easy to the community, the Midas mighty. Number one. Then we have to make good content. Number three, we got to have the business behind the business business, the nuts and bolts that make it all work. And we use Shopify here at the Midas Touch Network. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. It's home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not so secret secret. With Shop pay it boosts your conversions by up to 50% meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going down. So if you're in to growing your business, your commerce platform, make it better today and sign up with Shopify. Join Shopify. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. So here's what you got to do. Upgrade your business the way we did and I want you to head to shopify.com midas that's s h o p I f y.com middle midas upgrade your selling today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period right here. If you go to shopify.com midas all lowercase that's shopify.com midas and get that $1 per month trial period right now. Thanks Shopify.
- [51:04]
Jordy Meiselas
For years, I've struggled with getting the sleep that I needed. It wasn't just about feeling tired. The next day, it started to affect everything. My focus was off, my energy was low and my mood. Let's just say it wasn't great and you didn't want to be around me. I tried so many things. Sleeping pills, gummies, even teas. But nothing seemed to work. And then I found Beam's Dream powder. Now I know that sleep is the foundation of whole body health. And when we get quality sleep, our minds and bodies perform at their best. It impacts every focus, energy, mood, you name it. And that's why dream is a game changer. Dream is a healthy, science backed hot cocoa for sleep that helps you ease into rest. It has flavors like sea salt caramel brownie batter, vanilla chai, and the original cinnamon cocoa. Each only 15 calories and 0 grams of sugar. Seriously better. Sleep has never tasted this good. What's inside dream is just as amazing as the taste. It's a blend of reishi, magnesium, L theanine, apigenin and melatonin. Natural ingredients that help you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up feeling refreshed. Now I'm telling you, it's made the difference in my routine and I wouldn't recommend it if I didn't love it so much. So if you're ready to upgrade your sleep, head to shopbeam.com midas and use code midas to get up to 40% off your order. That's shop shop beam S-H-O-P-B-E-A-M.com midas and use code Midas at checkout and get up to 40 off today. I just gotta say Beam is absolutely delicious. Use the links in the description of YouTube and the audio. Check them out, they're fabulous. That uplift desk, Brett, how you liking yours? Spoiler alert. The the B roll we show is actually Michael Kopak's uplift desk. So pretty cool.
- [52:54]
Brett Meiselas
Wait, wait, wait, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it.
- [52:55]
Jordy Meiselas
Wait.
- [52:56]
Ben Meiselas
Ah, no.
- [52:58]
Jordy Meiselas
Audio listeners. Brett is going up and down on his uplift desk right there.
- [53:01]
Brett Meiselas
Sure, I guess, I guess I should say what I'm doing so the audio listeners don't just hear me making roller coaster noises.
- [53:09]
Ben Meiselas
By the way, our audio podcast is at the top of the charts where either kind of one or two right after the New York Times daily. So if you can make sure our YouTube watchers subscribe on audio as well, it helps us in the audio ratings. All our audio listeners make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Thank you for everybody making the Midas Touch surpass 4 million subscribers on our YouTube channel. We now march to 5 and then to 10. And as I said, we lead with our values and our principles, with love, empathy, the truth. And we got to bring people together now more than ever. And just speaking of the truth, I'm an objective data guy. I love data because data just is the data. It is. It is what it is. So for all of the people who are like, oh, Donald Trump is a great businessman. I like him because he's a businessman. And they say it like that. I'm not sure what that I like.
- [54:04]
Brett Meiselas
That's adopting my impressions of men.
- [54:07]
Ben Meiselas
That's it. So let's take a look. Let's take a look at the businessman with the data. So Trump's company that doesn't rely on, on NFTs or whatever, like, this is a business, Trump Media, which runs Truth Social. I'm not sure Donald Trump knows what a P and L A profit and loss statement is or a balance sheet, but let's take a look at it right now, because you'll see. Over the past year, Trump Media lost $400 million. 400. More than $400 million lost in fiscal year 2024 for its entire revenue, which dropped 12% from the previous year. If this is even possible. It's just $3.6 million. I'm not talking about profit. I'm not talking about net or net net. I'm not talking about ebitda. I'm talking about the entire revenue. All of the money brought in $3.6 million, and it lost over $400 million. Now, money doesn't just get lost. It goes somewhere. So we'll investigate and take a look at that. But when you take a look at Trump Media, is it any different from how he's going to run the country? When you take a look at the $4.5 trillion tax cuts, as I've predicted before, and then now some fiscal hawks are saying it as well. Well, this could cause over $25 trillion in debt over the next 10 years. Go back a few months. Because I said, oh, yeah, These economists are saying, oh, maybe he's going to add 10 trillion, which is pretty freaking bad, by the way, which was like, way more than anyone of the top economists predicted. Kamala would. I said, y'all are crazy. Trump's going to add 25 to $50 trillion of debt because he's gonna 10x what he did last time. I thought and last time he did $8 trillion. So to me, it wouldn't be shocking if last time it was 8 trillion and this time it's 80 trillion because that's what people like him do when they get away with it. The first time they do it again. Think about the arsonist. He lights the match, he sets the country on fire. Then he sees when the fire department, AKA former President Biden, tries to put out the fire. Whoa. You can just blame the fire department for the arson, huh? Maybe next time I'll strike a bigger match and do a bigger fire, which is the dumpster fire we're watching now. But take a look at this report. I read hundreds of pages of this report, so you don't have to. There are just a few parts of it that I found interesting. I'll do a whole other video about it in the morning, so make sure all our viewers, you're checking out the Midas Touch YouTube channel throughout the day. If you haven't figured out. We post a new video about every 90 minutes starting at, at 4:00am Pacific, 7:00am Eastern. And then we go in a 90 minute schedule. Sometimes we go on an hour schedule. You may have figured that out by now, but make sure you keep on checking back. Take a look at this. Trump's own financial report. Inflation and global supply chain. This is what Trump Sundays. Currently the US economy is experiencing a bout of increased inflation resulting in rising prices. And then it goes on to say, say although inflation had an impact us in previous years, for the years ending in December 31, 2024, 2023, in 2022. You mean the Biden years. Then it goes, we anticipate that inflation will have an impact on our business going forward, including through a material increase in our cost of revenue and operating expense in the coming years, if not permanently continued or permanent rise in core costs could impact our growth negatively. This is Trump's statement. Inflation did not hurt us in the years when Biden was in office, but now it's going to impact us in the years when I am in office, when Trump is in office. I, I'll do a whole other hot take on this. I don't need to cover now. There's a whole other section. A number of companies that were associated with Donald Trump have filed for bankruptcy. There's no assurances that Trump Media will not also become bankrupt. And it goes this one, bankrupt, that went bankrupt, this went bankrupt, that went bankrupt. And there's another section. A number of companies that had license agreements with Donald Trump have failed. And it goes Trump Stakes, Trump University, Trump Mortgage llc. Trump this.
- [58:36]
Brett Meiselas
I tried doing a tick tock on this earlier. Reading through the report, I thought it would be like a fairly quick read. It was like a five and a half or six minute TikTok. It was literally like listing all of Donald Trump's failures. Like, like this is one of the biggest self owns this document that I have seen in a while because it's.
- [58:53]
Ben Meiselas
A publicly traded company. There's a section that asks you, have you ever declared a bankruptcy or has another company you ran ever been shut down? So you have to respond, yes, or else you automatically get sued into oblivion. So Trump realizes, well, I'm just going to disclose it. And as he said, I can shoot somebody on fifth Avenue revenue and they'll still, you know, vote for me. So he goes, I'll still be able to basically grift off these people even when I tell them how bad of a business person I've been. That's their calculation. But you look at the Trump meme coin, it's down 45% in the past month since he's been the president of the United. You have to like try, I think to be that bad. If you're using the Oval Office and you're still failing at it.
- [59:38]
Jordy Meiselas
That's argument of Trump's a great businessman. Like, that's the one for me that has always fallen flat that like, if you're saying, oh no, he's a businessman, I mean, I guess technically, like he does business but not. Well, your argument can't be like the, like, oh, he plays quarterback. Yeah, well, he played peewee quarterback. Don't start him for Kansas City. It's unbelievable. I mean this is, this is.
- [60:01]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah. Or, or, or he has a, he has a quarter and he has a back. Hence he's a quarterback. But it's like, okay, but he doesn't actually play the sports. Like he's really.
- [60:10]
Jordy Meiselas
Our sports analogy. A little walkie on the show.
- [60:12]
Ben Meiselas
Exactly. So you know, it's improv, baby. That's what we do on the Midas Touch Network. Then the Smilania Bitcoin or meme coin, whatever the hell you call down 82%. It's called Smilania because it's dollar sign Melania and they were too dumb to even realize it's Smania. But could we go to the guy who was one of the backers of the Melania coin? It's this guy over here. Here. What's this? Davey? I'm trying to remember what this guy's name is. This is yeah, Hayden. Mark. Yeah. Hayden Davis is this guy's name. Here's the guy. So here's one of the guys who helped the Somalania coin and he's also one of the guys behind dollar sign Libra, which was this coin that was hyped up by Argentina's president Malay, which was a. Which appears to be another major rug pull poll where it went, went up to a 4.5 billion dollar market cap after Argentina's president says liberal Argentina grows. The private project will be dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small Argentine businesses and startups. The world wants to invest in Argentina. Long live freedom. Damn it.
- [61:25]
Brett Meiselas
I'm just gonna say, Ben, if I saw this, if I saw this on Twitter or social media, I would just assume right off the bat they got hacked, right? Like, because this is how the hacks look. They got. This person got hacked. Clearly a fake. Clearly somebody just scamming people. But it's stunning that this is now a legitimate thing that I guess all these MAGA leaders have to do. They all have to grift off their followers. So now you have the Argentinian leader Malay basically doing what Donald Trump did, and now he's embroiled in this massive scandal in his own country. There could be like impeachment hearings now on. On him out there because people are furious people lost their money. It's just like the fact that people throughout the world right now don't realize that they are being rug pulled by these greedy, grifty leaders is just baffles me. How do you fall for this con?
- [62:09]
Ben Meiselas
Do we have the video of this goofy dude? Brett, this Hayden Davis, he made a. He made a selfie video, this guy, and he's like, I do want to announce. I am the adv. I am the advisor to Javier Malay. It was not a rug pull. It was just. It did not go as planned. This is the guy who was advising the MAGA sweetheart, Javier Malay, who's overseeing a massive poverty rate in Argentina, who now may face impeachment in Argentina over screwing over his people. Here, play this clip. Hey, guys, my name's Hayden. I know there's tons of frustrations. I've had tons of crazy text messages on my phone. I'm here to set the record straight. Both because there were things that were in and out of my control. I was only a part of what's happened with Libra, but also I want to just shed a little bit more light and let you guys at least see my face. Because a lot of people that have been involved with this launch have gone either silent or are nowhere to be found. And I want to make sure there's A, accountability and B, a structure going forward so that people don't feel screwed over. And I do believe there's actually an amazing way forward if people are open to it. Before I say anything else, I am indeed Javier Milei's advisor. Obviously, I think most of you guys have seen that either on Twitter or some form of social media. I am working with him and his team on much bigger tokenization and really cool stuff in Argentina, and I absolutely back him. What happened with Libra? I think there's many things I could say.
- [63:40]
Brett Meiselas
There's only.
- [63:40]
Ben Meiselas
Only certain elements that I could control the launch. Definitely things didn't go according to you guys.
- [63:47]
Brett Meiselas
That's one of the most batch of things. It's the first time I actually watched the clip through. That's one of the most batch of things I've ever seen in my life. And by the way, if you're listening to this right now, try to check out the video podcast, because you got to see what the guy looks like also. It just brings the whole thing together.
- [64:02]
Ben Meiselas
Like Star Trek dresses like a Star Trek. Wait, are we. We back?
- [64:07]
Jordy Meiselas
So, okay, let me make it clear. If bullying's allowed when YouTube, it's all.
- [64:11]
Ben Meiselas
About saying, like Star Trek. That's actually could be construed as a compliment. I'm just.
- [64:15]
Jordy Meiselas
That's fair. Also look like his head is photoshopped on his.
- [64:19]
Brett Meiselas
Jordy, all I'm saying is that people should watch the video and make their own judgments about this individual. I'm not passing judgment. I'm saying, you watch this. I don't think that leaders of countries should have rug pool. Rug pool, crypto advisors. And has any of these meme coins ever worked out? Has anybody ever been like, I'm really happy I invested in that Hawk to a coin. That was a. That was a smart move by me. It's like, what you don't understand.
- [64:45]
Ben Meiselas
Brett, the token. Brett, the tokenization. You have to tokenize it. And then once you. Once you have the hybrid with Brett. Here's the thing. Jordy. Jordy, here's the thing. You take a little bit of Solano, you take your Solano, and then you merge it with a little bit of btc, and then you tokenize it, and then it's all about the tokenization economics.
- [65:05]
Brett Meiselas
By the way, this is the crap that the Biden administration was trying. Trying to stop, by the way. Like. Like when. When they try to act like the Biden administration, Democrats are anti crypto. There may be people who are anti crypto, but they weren't anti crypto like the Biden administration and top Democrats on this issue. They were anti doing this. They were anti scamming people. They wanted sensible regulations the same way that all markets have sensible regulations to prevent people from being scammed like this. And now we have a president who, and these presidents across the world now who are in alliance with him, I guess, who are now using scam tactics in order to steal money from people. I mean it's, it's the crazy, it's the craziest. That video is out of control.
- [65:51]
Jordy Meiselas
It's gonna be for like a very specific gen. But do you guys Remember like Instagram 1.0 when the you would get hacked and you would get those aviators like ad like, like click this link and get free aviators in my bio. Now we're just seeing this play out with politicians globally and these meme coins, Ben and Brett, they do work that people do get rich off of them. You know who though? The people doing the scamming and the people with the base that is foolish enough to all buy in and then they pull the rug and they make all the money and they're like, how did that happen? I can't believe what happened with this coin. Next time we're going to get it right. Gonna get it right next time. Just trust me. Smith.
- [66:34]
Brett Meiselas
I think one of the interesting things though is seeing like how the rest of the free world is reacting to the United States because we have our propaganda centers here and let's not get it twisted. I mean this is full on state propaganda. What we have right now, we have these billionaires owning these social media networks controlling the flow of information. We have Fox and Oann and Newsmax and all these, these channels. The corporate media isn't much better to be honest. It's a full, we're in like a, a, a country that is state TV country right now. But when people like J.D. vance and Donald Trump and when they go overseas and actually have to speak in front of people who haven't been affect infected by this disease, they look and sound freaking nuts because they are. And like the comparison I made when I was talking to Ben the other day, I said, you know what it reminds me of? You know, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the show you guys do. You guys, anyone who watches us watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, there may be a small sliver of overlap there, but it's and it's always sunny in Philadelphia. When they're crazy in the bar, it's one thing. And they feed off their crazy energy, right? Once they leave the bar and it's always sunny and go into the real world, that's when real pandemonium breaks out. And that's when the differences between their crazy and the actual normal world come to a head. And I feel like. Like, Donald Trump and J.D. vance are living this it's always sunny in Philadelphia kind of these episodes where they then go overseas and they look like animals. Like, they look like just psychopaths to these countries. Then they don't get applauded. Everyone gets offended because they're just, like, lunatics. When that propaganda structure isn't there, when they don't have Twitter to rely upon and. And all these various things, it really. It's an emperor has no close situation. And those clothes come off, like, very quickly.
- [68:24]
Ben Meiselas
Jordy talks about Instagram 1.0 with the aviator glasses. Frankly, I have no clue. That reference. Brett. I.
- [68:31]
Jordy Meiselas
That's why it wasn't for your gen.
- [68:33]
Ben Meiselas
I mean, I had Instagram version 1.0, I think, with those weird filters. I wasn't sure what I was taking photos of, though. And it was. Anyway, Brett. Brett, Sonny in Philadelphia. But it's almost like J.D. vance, like, walked into that room and, like, literally just took a crap in front of everybody. Like, and people were like, literally, like, dude, did you just crap on the floor in front of, like, you know, J.D. vance? Like, what. That's not what we do here. I mean, people were absolutely. Could be immature sometimes. Like, people were like, just, like, the F word. The. What did. He just. Did he literally just poop on the floor, right? Y'all see this? He just.
- [69:10]
Brett Meiselas
Guys pooped on stage.
- [69:11]
Ben Meiselas
You see this? Like, it's a combination of, like, horrified dis. And, like, disgusting and, like, disgusted by him. All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna land this plane while they're still. I'm gonna land this plane while the FAA still has some people right here, you know, and. And try to. And try to bring it. And try to bring this home right here. But by the way, there is absolutely total chaos and pandemonium. And it's not a accident right here that the. In an accident, I guess I'll continue the pun right here.
- [69:44]
Jordy Meiselas
I was gonna.
- [69:45]
Ben Meiselas
Let me show you right here. Already this deep in this. Okay. These. It's not an accident when you put these people in charge. The horrific outcomes that we're Seeing right, inflation is already heating up right here. The Bureau of Labor Statistics right here are showing, like, just look at this stuff like these. This is awful data. Going back to the objective data, Inflation is heating up. Americans are down on the economy again. Again, households are bracing for another bump in inflation. America's now expect that inflation is going to go up to 4.3%. Retail sales are falling more than expected. Gas prices are going back up. In West Texas. There's a measles outbreak right now. And as you just look through other objective data, like, what's going on? What? They're firing people at the CDC right now. CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service workers are getting laid off right now. Like, literally like the disease detectives are getting fired right now. Over a thousand of the probationary workers are being let go. These are some of the epidemic intelligence services. These are recruits who are some of the brightest public health leaders in the field right now. No. And they're literally firing, firing FAA people over and over again. And in Canada, you know, shout out to the first responders in Canada who are dealing with another crash, but it just seems like every week we're dealing with like a plane crash. There's been four deadly plane crashes. I know there are some people in critical condition in Canada. So our heart goes out to, you know, some of the people there. And thanks to all the work of the first responders. Fortunately, at least as of this recording, I don't know of any deaths, but, but some serious injuries. And then you have headlines like this, Trump fires hundreds of the FAA despite four deadly crashes under his watch. Doge is now creating a Doge IRS account. And all of the agencies now have accounts like do. This is what it's like a public Twitter account. Doge is seeking help from the public. Please DM this account with insights on finding and fixing weight waste, fraud and abuse relating to the irs. Like, what the hell? Like, that's how we're dealing with like the irs. It's like people posting that on Twitter.
- [72:07]
Brett Meiselas
Is also the way to get like the correct, most batshit crazy conspiracy theorists, you know, who are Elon's people with this sort of stuff.
- [72:13]
Ben Meiselas
And this is as Elon Musk's team is gaining access to all of the private tax data, they're sending their team in. Like, literally the system that does the off audits, that sends out collection notices or when not to send out collection notices, that the Doge is seeking access to your personal taxpayer data. So, like, we know that Trump barely paid any taxes at all some years he paid no tax. Some. He paid the filing fee of $750. You know, we know that Trump fought not to have his taxes released. Like, let's give it to the billionaires who don't want to pay taxes. Taxes.
- [72:50]
Brett Meiselas
So you're going to raise. Trump tried to. Trump fought all the way to the Supreme Court to not release his taxes. And now he has Elon Musk and his people going rummaging through your. Rummaging through your financial data, rummaging through your bank accounts and all this stuff. And then there's the fiasco that happened late last week where he fired, like, 350 people at the Nuclear Security Administration. And turns out they're like the people who work on our most sensitive nuclear weapons and warheads and things like that. And then they were told after the fact, like, those are the people who, like, handle our nukes. And they were like, oh, really? And then they tried to contact them, and then they realized they didn't have their personal contact information because they shut off their email addresses. And then they had to rush to try to rehire them back. They rehired, like, all, But I think 28 people back. And, like, like we were saying earlier in the episode, the jobs like that also, they're not like, jobs in D.C. per se. Like, like, a lot of those jobs, 30% job.
- [73:39]
Ben Meiselas
Most of those were in Amarillo, Texas.
- [73:41]
Brett Meiselas
Amarillo, Texas.
- [73:42]
Ben Meiselas
Red District. Ronnie Jackson.
- [73:44]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, Ronnie Jackson District, Amarillo, Texas. And I think 30% of the people fired were fired from there. And they, like, work on our nuclear warheads. And so they had to, like, desperately work to get them back. And it's the, it's the thing with this whole Doge, you know, scam that they're pulling on people, you know, do you want a more efficient government? Yes. Like. Like, I think everybody should want a more efficient government. It's stuff that we pushed here in the past. Also, should. Could government agencies all be audited? Sure. That doesn't bother me whatsoever. Should just decisions be being made without even looking into what the issues are? Absolutely not. Should you just turn off the lights on people fire people, fire all probationary employees, when a lot of those probationary employees are either new hires who are going to be the future of these administrations, or B, are people who recently got promoted. So technically, could be like, your best people who just got promoted and are on a probationary period now, you're going to get rid of them. There's no thought being put into this. I know there's that Silicon Valley phrase that's something like move quickly and break stuff. And that's how they do things in Silicon Valley. But it's one thing when you do it on Twitter and all of a sudden you have trouble sending a dm. It's another when you fire the people who are overseeing our nuclear weapons arsenal. I'm not okay breaking stuff when it comes to that. How about investigate, do the research and then fine tune it? That's how this sort of operation should be. And it's not what we're seeing.
- [75:02]
Ben Meiselas
And then finally, what's really going on? Charlie.
- [75:04]
Jordy Meiselas
Sir, and to your point, exactly. Sorry, I said move fast and break things. That's the expression. And to your point, exactly. Doge, Right. This isn't Twitter. This isn't. When Elon Musk bought Twitter and then cleaned house and then Twitter, the replies weren't working. You couldn't link in tweets and you couldn't share things properly because the people weren't installed to operate because he got rid of everybody.
- [75:25]
Ben Meiselas
This is not Twitter.
- [75:26]
Jordy Meiselas
This is the government. And now this is what happens when you let the oligarch by their seat at the table. That happens to be the Oval Office and the seat at the, in the Oval Office. And it's unbelievable again to see play out on such a global scale that's having real world ramifications.
- [75:42]
Ben Meiselas
And I've said it like this before. I said what they're doing at Doge is very analogous to like what QAnon does with the Q drops. You just sprinkle some seeds. You get people to like, try to decode things. Oh, a new USA drop today. What is it? Condoms in Gaza. Oh, crap. Condoms in Gaza.
- [76:01]
Jordy Meiselas
Whoa.
- [76:01]
Ben Meiselas
You mean Mozambique that Trump was giving in 2019? You mean those? Oh, well, you know, it's still bad. Well, you know, Trump was doing it in 2019. Well, it was probably the deep state. And then you sprinkle more, you sprinkle new ones throughout. And what's going on? Donald Trump taking your money for his propaganda photo op. Speaking, spending millions of dollars, vacationing millions of taxpayer dollars, forcing the Secret Service to stay at his resorts, paying himself, all the while bringing the Republicans to pay him, spending all the government funds and claiming him for himself, basically flying around in Air Force One, riding around the track in circles like a little baby. You know, at the Daytona 500, going to the super bowl, the guy going to go to every sporting event on the taxpayer dime and just vacationing more than 50%. And meanwhile, let's get back to where we started. The billionaires and the oligarchs are going to get the $4.5 trillion tax cut, which could increase our debt by over $25 trillion over the next 10 years. While they take away your Medicaid, while they take away resources from farmers and while they take away education and then they screw over the veterans and they cut key jobs at nuclear facilities, and they cut key jobs at the faa and they cut, and just jobs in general of people who protect food safety, you know, and shout out to all the federal workers who have worked so hard and have been just treated and called all of these demeaning names, people who worked quietly in the government just trying to keep the wheels of this thing going, who are just not just being fired, but being stripped of their human dignity and their basic just being treated like they're disposable crap the way Elon Musk and Donald Trump treat people, people in their life. This all goes back to the fact that who's benefiting from all of this? Not we, the people, the, the, not even the one, even less than the 1% at this point, but the 1% or less. You ain't getting tax cuts if you don't make more than $360,000 a year, you're going to get screwed over by all of this. And with surging prices, housing less affordable, eggs reaching record highs, inflation back to soaring again, again, you're gonna get screwed. So again, whether you're a red state, blue state, independent, whether you're Republican, Democrat, whatever, just again, I'm just giving you the, the data and I ask you to think critically, to not just do your own research, but just look at some basic facts as well that's right there in front of us. And maybe because sometimes it's right there in front of us, front of us, we try to attribute a more complicated motivations or things like that. And sometimes it's all about just following the money, the money from your pocket to the pocket of the billionaires and the oligarchs. That's what's happening. The reverse Robin Hood, the Trump, the Musk, the Trumpyhood, the Musky Hood, whatever you want to call it, it ain't good for you. But we'll be by your side every step of the way on the Midas Touch Network on this show. Make sure you keep checking back in throughout the day on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. And we're gonna. Until they, as I said before, until they rip this microphone from my hand, we will speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To you, to we the people. That's what's needed right now. Fearlessness in the face of an authoritarian regime. And that's what we have here. Shout out to our international resistors, people in Europe, people in Canada, people in Mexico, people in Australia, people in New Zealand. Our warning to you as well as you see what Elon to Germany, you see what Elon Musk is trying to do or what he did here, he's going to do that in your country. So y'all need to unite to stop what has happened here in the United States. That's our call to you internationally. And we here in the United States, while we still have this mic, while we still have this platform. Platform, we will fight from within, from within an authoritarian regime here, a Kim Jong un like regime here in the United States. And we'll rally people each and every day here on the Midas Touch network. If you want to meet me, Brett and Jordy, we're going to be doing a meetup on Thursday. If you ever wanted to meet us in a more exclusive setting, go to patreon.com Midas Touch. Check us out there as well. Go to midasplus.com if you want to to access some of the newsletters that we have every day. You can even subscribe for free at.
- [80:38]
Brett Meiselas
First on my description's up right now. It's so good. I mean it's so good.
- [80:43]
Ben Meiselas
And, and we look, we'd love for you to become a paid subscriber obviously because we don't have outside investors, so it goes a long way to help. But just check it out, see it for yourself, see what's up and let us know what you think. Make sure you subscribe on audio and video YouTube and audio podcasts. For audio podcasts, just search my Midas Touch. Make sure you hit subscribe there audio folks. Go to YouTube. Subscribe to YouTube. Just thanks for everybody for thanks to the mods, thanks to the supporters. Thanks to the Midas mighty. Let's keep fighting together every day. We'll have continue to grow in our momentum and we're going to continue to stand up. We're gonna, we're gonna stop this. We're gonna get through this together. It's gonna be tough, but we're gonna get through this together. I make you that gambler guarantee. Jordy, take it away.
- [81:27]
Jordy Meiselas
Shout out to the Midas. My day. Love this video. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram. It's touch and help us grow slow past 750,000 followers. Like your favorite travel guide T Mobile's.
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Ben Meiselas
Network knows all the spots because T.
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Jordy Meiselas
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Ben Meiselas
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Brett Meiselas
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Ben Meiselas
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Brett Meiselas
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Ben Meiselas
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Jordy Meiselas
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Brett Meiselas
Learn more@t mobile.com keepnot Switch up to.
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Ben Meiselas
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Brett Meiselas
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