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- [00:01]
Ben Meiselas
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- [02:03]
Ben Meiselas
Donald Trump's approval is plummeting. The worst ever. The worst ever among independents. The worst ever in modern polling in presidential history across all polls. Whether you're talking about a Fox poll, a CNN poll, an ABC Washington Post IPSO poll, a Pew Research poll that they all tell the same story. The American people hate Donald Trump and It's the worst 100 days ever. Let's just talk about what just happened. What in the past 24 to 48 hours. Donald Trump humiliated the United States at Pope Francis's funeral. He violated the dress code. The only person there wearing a blue suit, and he seemed to continuously fall asleep during the solemn proceedings. Donald Trump continues to lie about having fake conversations with China and China's President Xi Jinping. Donald Trump claims that he's already done 200 deals already. He just doesn't want to announce it. He wants to build up the drama, folks. There's 193 countries and now Donald Trump's treasury secretary is saying, oh, Donald Trump meant 200 sub deals. The heck say sub deal. That's what they're trying to say now. All of this was taking place while freight volumes and trucking volumes here in the United States are absolutely collapsing. For those who are watching on screen right now, you can literally see all of the ships that are at, like, the ports in China, like the port in Shanghai, and you can see that there are almost no ships now coming into port in the west coast of the United States. This spells big trouble for Americans who are going to start to see that products are missing on the shelves. We've been talking about this for about three weeks on the Midas Touch network now, and it seems corporate news is now starting to raise the three alarm fire right now as well. Donald Trump today also attacked Canada on its election day, a big day in Canada. Donald Trump wanted to make it about himself and interfere with the election in Canada. Donald Trump continued to talk about how he wants to annex Canada, how he wants to conquer Canada, how he wants to be the leader of Canada, and he was basically insinuating that Canada should make him their dictator again. It's just so utterly despicable for a United States president to be behaving that way. It's also just utterly humiliating to see a leader of the United States behave that way as well. Also, the Trump regime's DOJ is now arresting state court judges in their own judicial chambers, in their own courtrooms, because the DOJ wants to run sting operations in state courtrooms when they can just do them if they want to, like outside the courtroom or wait until the person just leaves the courtroom. We'll break down the latest authoritarian machination of the Trump regime and more here on the Midas Touch podcast. I'm Ben Meiselas, joined by Brett Jordy. One more day of father duty for Jordy. But Brett, how are you doing?
- [05:24]
Brett Meiselas
I'm doing well, Ben. It sounds like we don't have that much to talk about today.
- [05:27]
Ben Meiselas
Right.
- [05:28]
Brett Meiselas
It seems pretty, pretty light day of news every day. Just an absolute, absolute whirlwind. And we've been discussing now for a while that Donald Trump's presidency would soon collapse. I think we are in the collapse phase now. I think we are seeing it play out before our eyes. The numbers are just horrific for Donald Trump right now and getting worse. So much so that at this point, he is now threatening to launch investigations against the pollsters because he doesn't like the polls. He's back to his typical whiny ways. He is now being seen by everybody as the paper tiger. He is as the emperor with no clothes, with all of his empty promises, his constant, oh, we're going to do that in two weeks. We're going to do this in two weeks. The scam is being exposed. Donald Trump is looking weaker than ever. And I also would be remiss if I did not shout out all of our Canadian viewers and listeners at the top of the show who have voted, who are voting. By the time the podcast audio listeners are listening to this, you probably know the results by now. But shout out, elbows up to all the maple Midas out there and thank you for doing your civic duty and for allowing us here at the Midas Touch Network to speak about Canada and expand our coverage into Canada. It's been. It's been exciting. Oh, and by the way, remember to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to get all these news updates all day in your favorite podcast steps. Ben, what's new?
- [06:51]
Ben Meiselas
You know, then soon after Canada, within the next week, we have the elections in Australia. There, where again, Trumpism, the kind of MAGA atrocities that we're seeing inflicted here in the United States, are having a major impact on the Australian elections. Right? They had a MAGA candidate who was the leader of their Liberal Party, Peter Dutton. Their Liberal Party is actually the Conservative Party in Australia. They just call it the Liberal Party. The Labour Party in Australia is like the Liberal Party. And this guy Peter Dutton is like a maga, is like a mini MAGA version of Trump in Australia. He was leading in the polls there. And now the current Prime Minister who leads the Labour Party, Anthony Albanese, has taken the lead in the polls there. So we're seeing Donald Trump having a dramatic impact internationally, as I think countries across the world are getting to see what this kind of maga, I don't even want to call it an experiment, what this thing has inflicted on the United States in 100 days. So as, as I've said before, it's like they get to do the Redo election that I'm sure lots of Americans want to have right now. Just, just think about it like this, Brett. What have we been calling this Trump regime presidency so far? We've been calling it the Ponzi scheme presidency, the rug pull presidency, because like a Ponzi scheme, they build fraud on top of fraud on top of fraud, and eventually they get caught at the end. And like Ponzi schemers and scammers and frauds, eventually the scam runs out. And by the way, Trump, in his past life and currently he's acting consistent with that low character. Trump is a fraud. Right. I mean, he is a criminal. He's actually a criminal. Not, not using hyperbole. Right. He's a felon. He was found by a jury in New York to be a felon and to have, you know, done fraudulent business records. Donald Trump was also found liable of fraud in a separate civil case. Donald Trump is a sexual abuser. Donald Trump is someone who's bankrupted a lot of companies he's been involved with in the past. Donald Trump destroyed Atlantic City. So is it a shocker that the guy who destroys Atlantic City comes back and let's say, does it again to the country, does it to Vegas. This is, this is who he is. He's a lifelong loser and a lifelong destroyer, and he uses the same fraud tactics that he does in his business here in the United States. I mean, he was asked this question in a Time magazine interview, Brett. He was asked, you said you would end the war in Ukraine on day one. Trump's response? Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration because to make a point, and, you know, it gets, of course, by the fake news unintelligible. We don't know what he's saying there. Obviously, people know that when I said that, I said it was said in jest, but it was also said that it will be ended. So now Donald Trump goes that he's exposed that he hasn't made peace in Ukraine in 24 hours, and he's actually made things worse. It was all a big joke. It was all one big joke. Well, let's just take a look at the tape of what Donald Trump was saying during the campaign and think, do you think this was one big joke right here, here, play this clip. End the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.
- [10:29]
Donald Trump
Yes. How would you do that? I know Zelensky very well. I'll end that war between those two countries in 24 hours. It won't even take that long. I will get the war ended. I'll stop all of those lives from being wasted and lost. And there'll be no more bombing of Ukraine, there'll be no more bombing of Russia, and everybody will be happy.
- [10:56]
Ben Meiselas
Not exactly something to joke about in general.
- [10:59]
Brett Meiselas
Hilarious. Hilarious.
- [11:02]
Ben Meiselas
So then he lands back in the United States after humiliating the United States at Pope Francis's funeral. More on the funeral in a little bit. And he still does the fraud like he can't, he can't help himself. This is all he knows how to do. So now his latest is that he's two weeks away from getting the piece done. He just needs two more weeks, he says. So he went from 24 hours and now that was a big joke to now we're recording this live on April 28th. And when he landed, you know, over the weekend, it was, you know, April 26th, 27th, and he was saying, two more weeks, this all gets done. Two more weeks. This is Donald Trump saying. And a reporter is like, two more weeks with what? What's happening in two weeks? What's the two week thing Here, play this clip.
- [11:57]
Brett Meiselas
Two weeks about President Putin.
- [12:00]
Donald Trump
What is two weeks?
- [12:01]
Ben Meiselas
Give us, what is the actual date?
- [12:03]
Brett Meiselas
What is the timeline?
- [12:04]
Donald Trump
Two weeks or less. And if it's a little more at the time, I say, but, you know, they're losing a lot of people.
- [12:10]
Ben Meiselas
So he continues now with the new fraud. He pivots, right? 24 hours. That was just. It was fake news for you to take me seriously there. Two more weeks, I'll get it done. And then in two more weeks, he'll say, two more weeks. Then he'll say it's the fake news media. That said two weeks. Just, this shouldn't be a Democrat and a Republican or Independent. Like, do you see what he's doing? Like, this is how Bernie Madoff ran his Ponzi scheme, right? I mean, he would rob Peter to pay Paul and he would tell people, just give me two more weeks. Don't worry, I've got this return coming. I got this, I got this, I got this. And you drag people along and eventually you bankrupt. The thing people find out that's why Trump's other businesses had gone bankrupt in the past, because he engages in deceit and he engages in misconduct and he hides the issues, he compounds the problems with lies, and then the things explode versus actually being dealt with. I mean, what, Brett, was it back in his first administrator, everything was two weeks. Two weeks for the health care plan. I promise you, two weeks. Two weeks for this plan, two weeks for that Plan. I'm going to have a big, beautiful plan. Give me two weeks. You know, one of the reasons why he hates 60 Minutes so much, in addition to the fact that they, at least in the past, have done fearless reporting, do you remember in 2020 when he was interviewed by 60 Minutes and he put together a big pile of paper and he said that this was his health plan? When Leslie Stahl interviewed him, it was all these binders with paper. And then she went and she said, let me take a look at it. And then on air, she looks at it and they were all blank pieces of paper and there was no plan, and it was just literally a stack of blank paper. There was no healthcare plan. What does Donald Trump been saying two weeks recently? Pretty much everything. Two weeks this, two weeks that. Remember the gold card? The Trump gold card that was going to make America so rich they were going to send these gold, they were going to sell gold cars to oligarchs in China and oligarchs to Russia, and we were going to get so rich off the Trump gold card, they could buy it and then they become citizens in the United states by paying $5 million. Well, that never happened. I mean, it's the most ridiculous and scammy and grifty idea and dangerous idea imaginable. But Putting that aside, April 3, what did Donald Trump say about the gold cards and when they were coming? I think we have tape for that. Here, play this clip.
- [14:36]
Donald Trump
5 million. For $5 million, this could be yours. That was the first of the cards. You know what that card is?
- [14:45]
Ben Meiselas
Gold card. Card.
- [14:47]
Donald Trump
It's the gold card. The trump card. Gold card.
- [14:50]
Tyler
Who's the first buyer?
- [14:52]
Donald Trump
Me. I don't know, but I'm the first buyer. It'll be out in about less than two weeks. Probably pretty exciting, right?
- [15:06]
Ben Meiselas
You ready for some questions?
- [15:08]
Donald Trump
Anybody want to buy one?
- [15:10]
Ben Meiselas
He's lying there and saying first off that he's the first buyer. Why would you. Why would you buy the gold card? It makes no sense. You're an American citizen. Is he saying that he's not actually an American citizen. So he. Is he a Russian oligarch who needs to buy the gold card? And by the way, I'm not exaggerating it. He did say about two weeks before that that these were going to go to sale to Russian oligarchs and Chinese oligarchs and people who wanted to buy citizenship into the United States. And then he said that was April 3, that it would be less than two weeks. And of course, that hasn't been released. But it's always these scams, right? The Doge scam, the Doge rebate check. Americans are going to get $5,000 from the government. Just you wait. You're going to get your. We know that we're destroying the economy and you may be losing your job, but $5,000 in the doge rebates going, don't worry, there's going to be no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. They haven't done any of that. You know, we're going to go into, where is it, Fort Knox and find the gold. We're going to find all of the gold out there.
- [16:18]
Brett Meiselas
I nearly forgot about that one. You're right. It's like a Russian ne doll of scams from Donald Trump. And he does one, then he says another, then he says another, and then he keeps dangling the various scams in front of his supporters. The supporters are the ones that are really ultimately getting scammed at the end of the day. You know, we have people on the team, and Ben's one of them right here, who get Donald Trump's emails that he sends out to everybody on a daily basis. Donald Trump perpetuates these scams via his email. I wonder, and Ben, I'm sure you would have some insight into this if, in a society where laws mattered, if this would constitute some sort of wire fraud at any sort of point. Because Donald Trump is constantly dangling these scams in front of people to get them to donate to his committees to then try to use in these congressional elections and whatnot. For example, he'll do an email. Do you want to see a doge $5,000 check? Well, donate here and you'll see what happens. Do you want to win this? Do you want the gold card? Do you want the whatever. He's constantly dangling these scams in front of his people like the crook that he is. Every single day his supporters are getting BL with these messages and then he's bringing this into our government where he is trying to just out scam himself in order to hide the last scam. It truly is a Ponzi scheme method, the way he is running the government. And this Doge thing, by the way, now that it's going to like be wrapping up, maybe not Doge entirely, but Elon Musk's involvement at the end of next month, which is mandatory, by the way, under. Because he's not a, a real government employee, because he's a special government employee. He's basically has to be out by the end of May Musk, Doge is going to end up costing us much more than it saved. It really hasn't saved us that much. And the things that they are dismantling, like, think about just the irs, for example. They are getting rid of the agents who collect the revenue for the country. Every agent they get rid of, they are losing, like, millions and millions of dollars of revenue, billions of dollars more. This is the worst idea ever. But, you know, I mean, I think when you kind of go down that rabbit hole, you realize, oh, perhaps it wasn't to actually make the government more efficient. Perh to raid the government for our data, potentially give it to foreign adversaries. Have Elon Musk, you know, be able to do whatever he wants to do with his private companies with this data. Like, there's, I think, a lot more nefarious things that work. But from a governmental perspective of, was this a successful program? Did it achieve the goals that it stated to the American people? That was a complete and total failure, perhaps the worst we've ever seen.
- [18:46]
Ben Meiselas
Federal spending is up. Federal spending month over month is higher than it was under former President Biden. And Trump and Musk engage in a hostile takeover of our federal government and wrecked it and destroyed it. I mean, I've seen estimates that say, on balance, Doge is actually going to cost American taxpayers 130 to $150 billion. I think it's multiples of that. I think it's going to be in the trillions of dollars. Because, Brett, as you say, there's not going to be a mechanism to effectively collect the taxes from the DECA millionaire.
- [19:29]
Brett Meiselas
That reminds me of the other scam, and I think we have clips of this that we could show later in the show. But Trump's other scam is just sit with me for a little bit and you won't even have to pay taxes. Taxes are going to be a thing in the past because we're going to be making so much money off tariffs. You know, we're going to be so rich off between tariffs and gold that you're not even going to have to file a tax return or pay a cent. These are the things that Trump is saying, never going to happen, never in a million years. Even if the best estimates of tariffs, they're going to come nowhere near to the revenue that taxes actually bring in. And remember that tariffs are taxes on the American people. So those are taxes that actually are regressive taxes that affect the lower and middle classes far more than they affect the rich. I mean, the whole thing is a scam from inside out. The guy is a liar. He's lied his whole life. That's why I do not understand all these wall people now who are having this sudden, like, oh, my God, wait a second. He's not good at this. Where have you been?
- [20:25]
Ben Meiselas
Felon's a felon. The abuser's an abuser. The fraud is a fraud. The bankrupter is a bank. We thought this guy was going, told me he was good at business. You know, it's. It's so funny. You know, when I used to. When I used back in the day, when I was a lawyer and I would do these transactional deals, you'd have all of these, like, hedge funds and private equity companies that would always be. They'd always say they care about the data. They were analytical. And really, that was just like a front, because the moment there was some, like, narrative or gimmick that, like, everybody was jumping on, they would just throw away their data and I would. And they throw away their analytics, and they would just jump on some, like, narrative and trend, you know, and you'd be like, what. But what about all the things that you talked about, your models, you're this and you're that, you know, and here, you know, with Trump, they just. They jumped on Trumpism. They jumped on maga. They saw. They thought that they were going to be the oligarchs in this system and that they were going to benefit, and they're getting destroyed right now. And you know what? Remember Kimberly Guilfoyle? The best is yet to come. The worst is yet to come right now. And we know that because we can see what's happening with the freight. We can see what's happening with trucking.
- [21:48]
Brett Meiselas
Man, I think you fancy yourself a bit of a freight expert these days.
- [21:52]
Ben Meiselas
Well, you know, there's a lot. There are a lot of freight experts. And I saw, you know, one, I think his name is, like, Chris Fuller. And he was on. And he's like. And by the way, I think he was a Trump supporter, too, and he voted for. So. So to be clear, he. He's like, I'm not whatever. He goes, I got. I got hoodwinked this time. Again, I got tricked by this. And so, you know, you have somebody like Fuller, he's like, you don't bring me out until, like, it's like Covid. And things are bad because you don't want to think about freight. You don't want to think about the stock futures, right? You don't want to think about, you know, what's happening in the treasury bond markets and what's the 10 year yield?
- [22:31]
Brett Meiselas
Wait, you mean, you mean before you go to sleep? You shouldn't be checking the Dow futures? You shouldn't be worried about. Oh, no, no, I never had to.
- [22:39]
Ben Meiselas
Do that Trump scam. Here is the negotiations are going Great. I've done 200 deals. 200, 200. Have you done 200 deals? Who are you doing these deals with? Why aren't you announcing them? You've completed 200 deals. Yes. Donald Trump told Time magazine that 200 deals are done. They previously said, by the way, that they were going to do 90 deals in 90 days. I call him no deals Donald because he's done no deals thus far. And who would want to do a deal with the, the countries that are speaking with him don't even understand what the Trump regime is asking for. And like, what they're even saying. Like, doing a deal with Japan should be relatively easy. Doing a deal with South Korea should be very easy. But like, even Japan's like, he wants like a bowling ball test and he's asking us to remove all bowling ball tests and bowling balls. He thinks we drop bowling balls on cars and that's why we're not buying American vehicles the way we do Japanese vehic. Like, what the hell is a bowling ball test? I mean like literally everyone. I mean, the European negotiators are like, why would we do a deal with him anytime soon? In South Korea, they've left and they said, you know, we probably need some more time, you know, maybe like, you know, June, July, and we could try to get back into it, but we had trading relationships with these people. It should not be hard to make a deal. So Trump's lying about 200 deals, not even 200 countries, number one. And then he's making up conversations with Xi Jinping and saying that he's speaking to Xi Jinping. And it's not embarrassing that Xi Jinping because don't worry, it's not embarrassing for him. It's not a sign of weakness that he's reached out to me. Of course we're having conversations and the embassy of China has to like repeat over and over again, we're not talking to them, we're not doing any discussions when they are making this up. It's the weird. As someone who teaches, I teach negotiations at law school, at a well known law school, I can't. You're making up that the adversary's having a discussions with you and you think that that's going to be A way to effectively negotiate a deal. It's the most ridiculous thing. Then he has Scott Bessant, his Treasury secretary. And again, Scott Besant at this point is basically, you know, Bernie Madoff. He's another version of Bernie Madoff. So Bessant starts each week by lying about conversations involving China because he knows that helps the market, you know, that it manipulates the markets. When oh yeah, we're doing good conversation. Yeah, I think we're in, I think we have frameworks, I think we have that. So here he begins the week, he's speaking with a reporter and he talks about how what's really going on here is we're doing bespoke deals. Bespoke deals. Here, play this clip. Probably you get the best reviews of anyone in the administration outside the president. Your thoughts about the, the US China standoff right now?
- [25:44]
Scott Bessant
Well, Brian, first of all, it's all the president, especially on the 18 important trading partners. We're doing bespoke deals and he's going to be intimately involved in everyone. Two weeks ago when we had the Japanese delegation come in, he started it in the Oval and then we took them into the negotiating room. So he laid the groundwork work, told them personally how important the relationship was, but also how important a fair deal for the American people is.
- [26:13]
Ben Meiselas
So, and do you see there that state regime, media, Fox, Brian Kilmeade goes outside of the president, you have the best reviews out there. Fox's own poll shows that Donald Trump is the least popular president in modern presidential history. So they start with that. Then Japan's economic minister Akazawa says there's no change to our stance. We are demanding the full removal of US Tariffs. Now because of Trump's behavior, he's actually made it very difficult to do an easy deal with Japan because now the opposition party in Japan is rightfully pointing out that the main party in power right now shouldn't shame Japan by letting Donald Trump bully them. And so that becomes the dynamic of the elections in Japan and whether or not there can be a no confidence vote that topples the government there. Because they're looking at this as a matter of respect and honor about all of these lies that are taking place right now. And we're seeing that across the world that people are like, why would we deal with this guy? Yeah.
- [27:28]
Brett Meiselas
And everything about that Fox clip was so incredibly embarrassing. I was cringing the second it started. And that's what Fox is like all day. People like, like it's just state run media being pumped into people's veins every single day. I also want to encourage everybody, too. By the way, if you haven't had a chance to read Donald Trump's Time magazine interview, do it. I know Ben did a report here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel and the podcast. You could go and check that out here and go through the full thing. I did a on it on our TikTok and Instagram account. When you read Donald Trump's words, especially in that interview, it's something that we noticed as well throughout the campaign and prior to that, that when you read his words, you really see how cognitively impaired that he actually is and how he doesn't ever know what he's talking about and how he can't string together coherent sentences. And I'd like you to just read that Time magazine article because his answers are horrifying, not only due to the content of them, but due to just the lack of coherence in every single word that he says throughout these pieces. I mean, it is truly frightening stuff. And then he tries to, like, do this thing. Oh, well, Biden was the worst. This is Biden's fault. Biden would never do a Time interview. And there's one point in the interview where the Time magazine reporter goes, biden did an interview with us. And Trump goes, when? When did he do it? He never did an interview. The Time magazine reporter goes, he did one last year. And then Trump goes, oh, that was a terrible inter.
- [28:55]
Ben Meiselas
Read that interview.
- [28:56]
Brett Meiselas
Terrible interview. So you just said that you'd never heard about this interview. He never did an interview. Biden would never be tough enough to do the interview. The reporter says he did the interview. Then all of a sudden, oh, you know everything about it. And it was horrible. By the way, also read the Biden interview from last year. Read Trump's interview from this week, and you will see the major difference in these two people's minds. While the press right now, you still have these reporters, like the Axios guy at the White House Correspondents Dinner trying to spend his time speaking about the decline of Biden. This is my. Buy my book. Buy my book. We covered it up and now we're being truthful about it. And they're ignoring all the stuff with Donald Trump while they try to go on with this Biden narrative. It is just completely embarrassing. And we also saw this stark contrast as well, Ben, at the Pope's funeral between President Biden and Donald Trump, where you saw people going over to President Biden. You saw people, like, rushing to see him. You saw him being cordial with folks you saw him actually being respected there and you saw Donald Trump being treated kind of like the piece of crap he is at this event and just humiliating the United States. Like that contrast to me was just incredibly not eye opening because we knew it, but it was quite the sight to see this weekend, I thought I.
- [30:15]
Ben Meiselas
Want to talk about that when we come back from our first break. I also want to make this big announcement here that tomorrow, April 29th, or if you're listening to this on audio, when it drops April 29 at 8pm Eastern Time, 5pm Pacific Time, the Midas Touch Network will be hosting the first ever Democratic governor virtual town hall on YouTube. It will be featuring Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul will be talking about Trump's disastrous first 100 days. That's April 29, 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific, right here on the Midas Touch Network. Brett?
- [31:02]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah. And if you want to submit your own question for this event, you could do that. And we're trying to get you involved. After all, this is a virtual town hall. So if you go to Midasplus.com our substack, you will see an article about this very event, about this Democratic governor event. It's the article is Midas Touch hosts first ever Dem governor virtual town hall this Tuesday. You click on that, there's an upload link right in there. You could record a quick video under 60 seconds to yourself. And we're going to pick the best questions and you'll get to have your question heard by one of the top governors in the country. And this is going to be the first of many of these events. You know, we would love to have every governor. We can't have 50 governors on the screen at once, you know, but we're going to do this, then we're going to get more governors at another point. We're going to continue to elevate the content here and just try to, you know, really make a difference here with this platform, elevate these voices, make sure that everybody's being held accountable to you. That is our goal here at the Midas Touch Network. So check that out. April 29th, Tuesday, 8:00pm Eastern, 5:00pm Pacific. Ben, I'm so excited about this.
- [32:01]
Ben Meiselas
Oh, me too. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss when we come back.
- [32:09]
Caroline Levitt
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- [34:45]
Ben Meiselas
Welcome back. Thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors right there. They help fuel this show. The discount codes are in the descriptions below. When we took that break, Brett, we were talking about Trump's Treasury Secretary, Bernie Madoff. Or I should say Scott Essence and how Trump has built this group of people, these grifts, these scammers around him, and Scott Besant is one of them for sure, who just lie over and over again and come up with the most, you know, ridiculous explanations for what's taking place. And the problem is, is this has the same vibes of COVID Like a miracle. It's all going to go away. It's not going to hit our shores. I guarantee you it's fake news. And then it hits and then everybody's unprepared, there's no plan. And then they just throw experts under the bus and then they blame the people who warned about it. That's what they're doing again here. And they're basically creating another version of that with these Trump destructive tariffs and trade war against the world. You know, so with all of the chaos that's being created with everything I've told you about the freight volumes and trucking volumes decreasing, the fact that major retailers are warning the Trump regime that they're not going to have products on their shelves soon as the major auto manufacturers are raising, you know, a red flag, as you have all of these people, all business leaders are basically saying the same thing, and Trump's ignoring it. You have Scott Besant, who previously talked about, you know, Trump's treasury secretary, who was talking about, we're doing, we're doing 18 bespoke deals. They're bespoke. I don't even know what does that even mean? You're doing bespoke deals? 18 of them. What about 90 deals in 90 days? Now you're doing be. Bespoke deals. And then what he said also is that actually we are intentionally, he goes, creating strategic uncertainty. That's their, that's their term. So one of them is bespoke. The next one is strategic uncertainty. And that, that's. And that's what this is all part of the plan. Strategic uncertainty. We're gonna say, Brett, I was gonna say, isn't.
- [37:05]
Brett Meiselas
Aren't all deals bespoke deals? Are there generic deals? Like you're making deals with individual countries? Of course they're bespoke deals. Just because you give it like some sort of fancy name doesn't make it anything different. Like, you're just like renaming your failure and it's like, it really, this is.
- [37:19]
Ben Meiselas
Like, are you gonna give the Mexico deal to Japan? Just give me that Mexican boilerplate language for the Japanese deal, please.
- [37:27]
Brett Meiselas
Like, of course they're bespoke deals. Yeah. Like, you know, Trump has a way of bringing, you know, people who may have been respected in their fields and high level in their fields down in the dirt with him into this lying grifting area. And Scott Besant is one of those people who had like a storied career as a respected guy among Wall street amongst investors. And that's why he kind of breathes through the confirmation process and all of that. And to see him speaking like a con man now, to see like Marco Rubio, all these people who just sell their souls for this crap, it just gets really depressing to, to see this stuff. And it really is like the COVID response. You know, we see right now, we are not in, you know, the time right now where you're seeing the bodies pile up.
- [38:07]
Ben Meiselas
Right.
- [38:07]
Brett Meiselas
Where in our. I'm comparing it to covet, right. We're in, we're in February, March, right now of that period.
- [38:13]
Ben Meiselas
Right.
- [38:13]
Brett Meiselas
Or earlier. But the warnings are there, the signs are there. We're seeing what's happening around the world. We're seeing the ships be stopped at the ports in China not coming here. We're seeing the trucks be empty. We're seeing the inventory decrease. We see and everybody knows what is going to happen here in a matter of months, if not weeks. And they are just ignoring the problem. Except this time, unlike Covid, Donald Trump gave it to the United States of America. Donald Trump unleashed this on us for no reason, no reason to do this whatsoever. We're actually doing quite well in a recovery, recovering economy that was destroyed from his last term. We were picking up from the guy, last guy who destroyed it, him. And now it's back in his hands and he's going to destroy it again. So let's check out some of these Scott Besson clips because I think like sometimes when we say it, I think sometimes people are like, he really said bespoke deals?
- [39:04]
Ben Meiselas
No.
- [39:05]
Brett Meiselas
Yes. Scott Bessant said that on tv. Here's Scott Besant speaking about his bespoke deals that he's done.
- [39:12]
Ben Meiselas
Probably you get the best reviews of anyone in the administration outside the president. Your thoughts about the, the US China standoff right now?
- [39:21]
Scott Bessant
Well, Brian, first of all, it's all the president, especially on the 18 important trading partners. We're doing bespoke deals.
- [39:28]
Brett Meiselas
Bespoke deal. So we showed that earlier and now we got to take it one step further.
- [39:32]
Ben Meiselas
Right?
- [39:33]
Brett Meiselas
So we went from bespoke deals. But it's not just enough that he was doing bespoke deals, but now how are you getting to 200 deals when there are only what the UN recognizes 193 countries, so you somehow have more deals than even countries that exist. Interesting, right? Oh, Scott Besson has an answer for that. Trump is making sub deals. Just nobody knows about it, but there are sub deals.
- [39:55]
Ben Meiselas
The time interview with President Trump, he.
- [39:59]
Brett Meiselas
Said that he has made 200 deals.
- [40:02]
Ben Meiselas
On tariffs, 200 deals. Who has he made deals with? Is there actually any deal at this point?
- [40:09]
Scott Bessant
I believe that he is referring to sub deals within the negotiations we're doing. And Martha, if there are 180, but.
- [40:19]
Ben Meiselas
Those aren't actual deals, Martha, if there.
- [40:21]
Scott Bessant
Are 180 countries, there are 18 important trading partners. Let's put China to the side because that's a special negotiation. There's 17 important trading partners and we have a process in place over the next 90 days to negotiate with them. Some of those are moving along very well, especially the, with the Asian countries.
- [40:44]
Ben Meiselas
There's so much fraud packed into that as well. Putting aside China for a second. Why would you put aside China for a second? There's like $2 trillion annually in trade, right? And then obviously the sub deals. But you notice how he pivots away from that quickly, like he made his point. But then like any, like, liar like that, he starts, you know, trying to sound smart. Well, just think about it. There are. Let me explain to you why this, why this makes sense. Okay? There are 17 actual strategic part. Where, where are you even getting these numbers from? You said 90 deals in 90 days. Now there's what, only 17 deals that are apparently important. We were talking about sub deals and not actual deals yet. And what's going to happen? You know, maybe they do one or two. We're going to go right up to that 90 day deadline, right? That deadline's going to hit. There's going to be no deals that have been made. You know, maybe you make one or two performative deals, but you're not going to write a trade deal that takes many years to write, like overnight. And then you're going to be what, back to extending the deadline? Again, nobody takes this clown, Donald Trump, no offense to clowns, which is a real profession. Like just nobody takes him seriously anymore or they should never have taken him seriously. But he's demonstrated that this is all, that it's just weakness. And again, that to me should not be a Democrat thing, a Republican thing, an independent thing. Just you should look at this and go, man, that guy's just a con artist. This guy's just a grifter. Like, this guy's like a, a weak, pathetic scammer. Like, like this guy did not step into the role. This guy brought being a felon and a sexual abuser and having a manipulative personality and being a fraud, he brought that to the job. And it's just like, it's like people are like, okay, just, just pathetic. And don't get me wrong, he's got his 35, 37% MAGA mush brain. Maybe that drops a little, you know, they will drink the MAGA Kool Aid, you know, and until the end. But you know, you go to the polls where you see what the independents think, what Democrats think, what with people who are not political thing, people who were somehow convinced to shift towards Trump in this election, Latino community, 18 to 29 year olds, you know, and other groups, they're just repulsed by the Trump regime at this point. And so we're seeing real movement there. And again, all of the polls, all of them, from Fox to Pew to ABC to Reuters, Ipsos, Washington Post, all of them tell the same story. The worst 100 days ever really since polling has even started. And let me just show you this clip. So then Donald Trump lands back in the United States from that embarrassing trip to Rome where he was wearing the blue suit and like sleeping and, and no one wanted to be around him and, and I loved by the way in Rome that Prime Minister of UK Kier Starmer and Macron were right there with Zielinski. Like literally they had his back both figuratively and literally kind of just standing up to like Donald Trump. Trump was like slouching and looked fatigued and just, and just like beat up. So then Donald Trump lands and what does he do? He continues the fraud. Donald Trump says, you know, look, it's possible we do a complete tax cut. Maybe we don't even need taxes at all. Here, play this clip.
- [44:13]
Donald Trump
And we're going to make a lot of money and we're going to cut taxes for the people of this country. It'll take a little while before we do that, but going to be cutting taxes and it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax. Now we have a lot of debt that's been left to us, you know, unfortunately over many years. We'll take care of that. But the tariffs, if people only understood the tariffs, we're going to be giving people of this country a tremendous tax cut and we're going to start with people making less tax than $200,000 a year.
- [44:49]
Ben Meiselas
I have a question and may Maybe it's a stupid question, but there's such things as stupid questions. Why would you be negotiating trade deals to remove the tariffs if the tariffs are going to make us rich? If the things were great, if it was working right now and going according to plan, then why are we trying to make deals where the claim is we're using tariffs as a threat to negotiate trade deals with no tariffs? Brett, I'm just, you know, I don't know. I, I know I'm a professor at a loss, you know, but I, I may not understand the logic. You know, here. The tariffs are both the greatest thing and the worst thing. Apparently they're both both a tool to extract concessions and renegotiate trade deals and also the be all end all at the same time.
- [45:46]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, that's, there's no coherent strategy. I mean, that's it. There's no clearing strategy, except they're going to just lie in your face every single day if the tariffs are on. Oh, these tariffs are great. They're going to make you rich. Just get ready for the short term pain, folks. There's going to be short term pain, but you're going to be so rich when this is over, when the tariffs come off. Oh, it's the art of the deal. Donald Trump is so brilliant. Look how much richer he just made our country. Look how much fairer error our trade is. None of that's ever true. Manufacturing is going to leave the country in greater numbers than ever. These businesses are going to go more offshore. All of Donald Trump's intended, kind of even goals of these kind of tariff measures are going to end up backfiring and end up being actually just like, do the complete opposite of what he wants to do. I mean, the whole thing is also just like the biggest disaster imaginable right now. And just the fact that he's blowing up the economy with, with all of this just every single day, it's, it's actually insane.
- [46:43]
Ben Meiselas
We know what's coming. Also the way, if you just saw the way Covid was spreading when it originated in China, we, we knew what was going to happen, we knew when it was going to hit. Like, we could have taken preparations, right? We could have developed vaccine early, we could have developed a strategy. We could have studied how we deal with small businesses and big businesses and, and, and whether people should leave and masking, non masking. We, we could have assessed this, right? If we were at a leadership level given accurate information and we weren't. So when it hit, it literally was like, you know, it Was remember it was Tom Hanks. And then all of a sudden we were shut down, right? And everyone's like, what, what happened? And we, it was obvious if we were following the logic. But there's this fire hose of disinformation, you know, that's coming out. We know what is happening and they're pretending that it's not happening. And then it's going to hit us very, very soon that things are not on the shelves. And then it's going to be catastrophic and then it's going to be a big thing and everyone's going to be like, oh my gosh. And then there's going to be unnecessary situation could just be avoided. But one of the points I make, this is who this is. If you're like, how did the guy bankrupt all of these casinos and businesses? Same playbook. Tomorrow morning I'm going to drop a video on this as well, so check our feed. I analyzed what he did in Atlantic City and I go through the hype. I promise this, I promise that. But one of the things that the people were saying in Vegas was, why would you open up three casinos at the same time? Time they're going to all cannibalize each other. And then you took at these loans at such a high interest rate on three different casinos that of course you're going to have issues. What Donald Trump do, he made sure the whistleblowers got fired and he ended up actually settling a case with one of these whistleblowers as well when they were trying to warn Atlantic City, the guy's going to bankrupt Atlantic City. But what was he doing? He brought Michael Jackson there. The media was all there. The flat, the gold chandeliers, the this and the that. And within like a year or two, bang, the people stopped showing up. Bang. Bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy. And then he did multiple bankruptcies of his casinos. He was the only one who made money. And everybody was screwed. And you know what vibes that I get, you know so much of like using that exact example while he's doing this to us. Us, what was what? He and his family and his crypto czar, what were they doing this past weekend at the worst White House correspondence dinner ever? There was like no comedian and it was like these just journalists, like not funny talking about Biden. It was like the weirdest thing ever you had at the Willard Hotel, which the Trump people used as one of their insurrection staging grounds. Now it was used this week again by Don Jr. And White House crypto czar David Sachs to launch their new exclusive club for the ultra wealthy called the Executive Branch. It costs half a million dollars to join, but you get to join the Executive Branch club with Trump's cryptos are and Don the selective club, half a million dollars while the Trump family profits off. That's what they were doing this weekend. And it's a perfect parallel. You go back to his failures in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, you know, to the present. This is what they do. They inflict pain on others and they, and they, and they grift for themselves over and over again. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about that, but I also want to talk about Trump's attack on Canada on the day of the Canadian elections, saying that he should be the leader of Canada and how he wants to annex Canada. I want to show you Prime Minister Carney's response. I want to talk about a few more things. A reminder, everybody, that tomorrow at Tuesday, depending on when you're listening to this, April 29, 2025, we are hosting the first ever governor's virtual town hall, all right here on the Midas Touch network, featuring Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul. They'll be responding to Trump's disastrous first 100 days back in office. And we want you to submit video questions one minute in length. It can't be more than one minute. We're going to pick about six to eight questions to show here and to ask the governor. And go to Midasplus.com you'll see the story where we announce this incredible event that we're hosting.
- [51:44]
Brett Meiselas
I'll put the link, by the way, also in the description to this video and podcast. So you can check the description. You'll go right to it. But you could also just go to the substack@midasplus.com.
- [51:53]
Ben Meiselas
We'Ll be right back after our last quick break of the show.
- [51:58]
Brett Meiselas
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- [53:21]
Caroline Levitt
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- [54:34]
Ben Meiselas
Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben and Brett here. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. The discount codes for those pro democracy sponsors are in the description below. And thanks to everyone who's submitting those virtual questions. Those video questions. Make sure it's one minute minute. Try not to go over one minute because we can show it if it's over one minute. One minute or less. 30 seconds is great. If you can do it in 15 seconds. Fantastic. Brett. So today's the Canadian elections. We've been of course covering that here. Elbows up for a long time. We are so absolutely great grateful for the maple Midas out there. The incredible Canadian community here at the Midas Touch network. It's such a, a major part of this network. The maple Midas. We made those maple Midas shirts, 100% made in Canada, manufactured in Canada, distributed in canada@store.midas touch.com so check those out as well. I see a lot of people's maple Midas gear was arriving just in time for the election. Of course, we'll be reporting on the elections as soon as the results start to, to come in. We want to be, you know, methodical. We know in Canada it takes a little bit of time for all the counting to take place. So what does Donald Trump do this morning, though? Attack Canada on election day? Try to make it about himself. He goes, good luck to the great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power for free to the highest level in the world. World. Have your car, steel, aluminum, lumber, energy and all the other businesses quadruple in size with zero tariffs or taxes. If Canada becomes the cherished 51st state of the United States of America. No more artificially drawn line, no more borders. All positives with no negatives. It's meant to be. America can no longer subsidize Canada with hundreds of billions of dollars a year that we have been spending in the past past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a state again. Let me be very clear. That's not just trade war language. That's war language. Just as Putin talked about denazification of Ukraine, which was a lie and a pretext to invade, Donald Trump is using the language of an invader. And people in Canada are going elbows up because Donald Trump is using the language of taking away Canada's sovereignty and inflicting suffering on Canada. They see how Donald Trump has wrecked the United States of America. Donald Trump wants to bring his fraud routine there. But again, the language of Trump right here is that of a Putin. And it is, you know, for us being here in the United States, you know, doing this podcast where Trump is, is leading this country, it is a great stain. It is deeply humiliating. And we stand in solidarity with everybody in Canada and the pro democracy community across the world against this tyrant. Let me be very clear. Donald Trump is a vile piece of trash. He's a vile piece of trash. We just need to be clear about it. He is a fraud. He is a felon. He is a sexual abuser. Okay? You need to stand up to a bully like Donald Trump. And Canada has shown the entire world how you do it. I am so damn proud crowd about what Canada has done in standing up to Donald Trump and showing the world how to do it. And I think you see in Australia coming up next, their elections are happening, what, in like less than five days in Australia, you're seeing the impact and by the way, I think Canada helped show how you do it. But the people in Australia are saying we don't want, you know, a MAGA person here. And Peter Dutton was the MAGA guy he was talking about woke this, woke that and gutting the universities using that same exact language in Canada. Their maple MAGA was Pierre Poliev, you know, really kind of leaning into all of that language. Elon Musk, boosting him, going on the right wing podcast. And we've seen this playbook now across the country and Donald Trump has now really damaged these kind of MAGA clones. And the people who have used, used that musk playbook, it's been turned against them now.
- [59:08]
Brett Meiselas
Brett, did you see Polly's post today by the way too? It's so funny because all these guys leaned into MAGA so much at first because they thought, oh, Donald Trump just had this win and we're going to ride this sort of anti democracy wave into power across the world, right? This, this is what like their plan was in every country kind of across the world. Then they realized how toxic Donald Trump was. And there was that one moment. Then we found out that there was a coordinated moment behind the scenes between Polly's team and Donald Trump' where he said, you gotta stop talking about me. Please stop talking about me. And then that's when Donald Trump did that interview where he was like, in fact, I think Mark Carney would actually.
- [59:45]
Ben Meiselas
Be better for me, actually.
- [59:46]
Brett Meiselas
And it was like what? It was like the most obvious thing. And so then Polly ev today posts, after Donald Trump's post, he goes, president Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. But clearly, you know, understanding how toxic wrapping the arm around Donald Trump has been that on the final day when Trump is making his final pitch to the Canadians, PollyV is like, no, no.
- [60:13]
Ben Meiselas
No, no, no, no, no.
- [60:14]
Brett Meiselas
Please stay away from us, I am begging you. Mark Carney, on the other hand, making it clear this is Canada and we decide what happens here. He released a video today. I'll play a clip of it right here.
- [60:28]
Ben Meiselas
I know people are anxious right now. The crisis in the United States States doesn't stop at their borders now. An imminent threat for Canada's economy, 5%.
- [60:37]
Donald Trump
Tariffs on all goods, beginning to feel like 2008.
- [60:40]
Scott Bessant
They can become divided and weak.
- [60:42]
Ben Meiselas
But this is Canada and we decide what happens here. Let's choose to be united and strong. Canada strong. You know, it's just such a wild thing. Could you ever have imagined it that the kind of main beat in a Canadian election, it's crazy, is that the United States of America is an imminent threat to their sovereignty. And that the platform right now, because it's, it's, because it's true, is that we need to save Canada from a United States invasion of Canada, a threat to the sovereignty of Canada. And I think Prime Minister Carney has really met the moment and spoke to that. I also want to give a shout out to Charlie Angus, a former Member of Parliament who I've become incredible, you know, friends with. I mean, it's been an incredible journey. You know, me and Angus, when we met, what now? Four or five months ago. And over time, Angus, before anybody was articulating it the way Angus was internationally, Angus was calling Trump a gangster because you never kiss that gangster ring. And I think Angus, one of the first leaders, he deserves a lot of credit internationally as well, I think for showing people across the entire world how to stand up. But Brett, from a perspective, whether you're in Canada, Australia, Europe, Africa, South America, democracies there that are, you know, that are watching this, you know, you see someone like a Secretary of State, Marco Rubio gives an interview in the past day or two, and Marco Rubio justifies the United States deporting US citizen children, 2 year olds, 3 year olds, 4 year olds, including some kids with cancer who need life saving treatment. When their parents, like when their dad would say, I want my son to stay here, he needs to stay here, he needs life saving treatment. What are you doing? And they would deport the kid with the mom who they were deporting and they would rip the family apart. They wouldn't even allow the dad or whichever parent, it was the due process, right, to file the lawsuit on time. And they shipped the kids to foreign countries. There was the story in Florida about the woman, the Cuban woman who was breastfeeding and was literally like, you know, literally, but was ripped apart from her kid. You know, her kid was American, you know, her husband was American. And she, she, you know, literally like after breastfeeding she like showed up at ICE because she would go about her normal, you know, I mean, her, she would show up and she would visit because she had to check in occasionally. And they Took her and threw her right back to Cuba. She didn't have a home in Cuba. She had nowhere to go. She's homeless now. There's no house. And she was here with her kid. And they separated the mom from, from her young child, like. And we're seeing stories about this over and over again. A Trump appointed judge in Maryland on a different case other than Abrego Garcia saying, you know, you need to facilitate the return of another migrant. We're hearing all of these stories of non of people who should not be, no one should be sent to concentration camps in El Salvador. I mean, they should be given due process and there should be the appropriate penalties under the United States Constitution. They should be getting due process. But sending what, 85% of the people, 75% of the people, no criminal history, who are in concentration camps with no due process. And the Trump regime's like, we don't owe them process, no due process. Why would we give them process at all? So let me just show you some of these, you know, headlines as well, and videos. If you're in a foreign country, if you're somewhere else, if you're internationally and you're watching this, like, imagine what you must think though, like, like of the United States. So here's what Marco Rubio said when he was asked about the Trump regime taking kids, including in one instance a kid with like stage 4 cancer and sending the kid to another country and like potentially killing the kid.
- [65:11]
Marco Rubio
Watch this on the headline. That's a misleading headline. Okay? Three U.S. citizens ages 4, 7 and 2 were not deported. Their mothers who are legally in this country were deported. The children went with their mothers. Those children are US Citizens. They can come back into the United States if there's their father or someone here who wants to assume them. But ultimately who was deported was their mother. Who's their mothers who were here illegally. The children just went with their mothers. But it wasn't like, you guys make it sound like ICE agents kicked down the door and grabbed the 2 year old and threw him on an airplane. That's misleading.
- [65:42]
Ben Meiselas
I mean, that's the United States of America right now. How about this? The Smithsonian begins removing exhibits, artifacts from the African American History Museum. I mean, with all of the news taking place, a story like this sometimes, you know, gets lost, right? A month after Trump's executive order to remove what he calls improper ideology from the Smithsonian Museum, artifacts of African American history are deemed improper ideology. That's happening in the United States of America. I mean, how many times have you heard stories now of tourists, whether it's the German backpackers or someone from Canada or tourists in general. I've seen a ton of these stories, too. Tourists from Asia who are visiting. I saw a story of a lady from Singapore who showed up. They get put into a holding area. Then it's determined, do we put them in detention centers where they get strip searched and cavity searched and basically put in a jail, or do you interrogate them, ask them questions and if they don't answer the question correctly? And some of the questions you get grilled with, how much money is in your bank account? And very kind of personal questions. People who are tourists. It's why tourism is crashing in the United States. And as I go over in my video I'm doing in the morning about comparing Trump bankrupting Atlantic City to the United States, how now Trump's destruction of tourism is destroying Vegas. And then, and then another story that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Lady, there's a person, a Las Vegas councilwoman named Lady Trump, is what they call her Lady Trump. Did you know the story, Brett, about Lady Trump?
- [67:24]
Brett Meiselas
I don't know anything about this.
- [67:25]
Ben Meiselas
Now late, I think her name is Michelle Fiore. Lady Trump. Fiore is her last name. She was a Las Vegas councilwoman. She was convicted because she took $70,000 that she said was going to build a statue for a police officer who was killed on duty and she used it for her own plastic surgery. She was convicted. She's despised in Vegas. Trump pardoned her. The Las Vegas Review, which is owned by Miriam Adelson, a major Trump donor, wrote this scathing op ed about, you know, Trump pardoning the council. That's a story that just kind of went under the radar also as well. But Brett, what was Caroline Levitt's big announcement today? That one of the big executive orders that she was happy about Donald Trump making sure that truckers, by the way, truckers are suffering right now. They're like one of the front lines of they have to speak English. And so she holds this conference in front of what she calls new media, which is all just like the right wing, the biggest propagandist. And she goes, and we have a great announcement. If you're a truck driver, if you don't speak English, we're going to make sure that you can't be a truck driver. This was tried in Tennessee. And they're like, you're just going to destroy the truck. You're literally going to bankrupt everyone. So this was their move today. Here, play this clip.
- [68:52]
Tyler
And then the Third executive order, which actually speaks to the heart of your question earlier about the Uber drivers, will be a order directing the Department of Transportation to include English literacy test for our truckers. This is a big problem in the trucking community that unless you're in that community, you might not know. But there's a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road with federal officials and local officials as well, which obviously is a public safety risk. So we're going to ensure that our truckers, who are the backbone of our economy, are all able to speak English. That's a very common sense policy in the United States of America. So the President will be signing that later this afternoon. You're welcome to the.
- [69:29]
Ben Meiselas
Back in the yellow, when she referenced Uber, right there, there was a question about why Uber drivers don't speak English. And one of the people asking the question was like, I've noticed since Trump not making this up, I've noticed that since when Trump's taken office, more of my Uber drivers are speaking English. So thank you for that. That was, that was the way the question started.
- [69:52]
Brett Meiselas
This quote, unquote, new media section that they have there, it's truly crazy. It's the craziest of the crazy, crazy people from the Internet who end up in the White House asking these questions that are. That would make North Korea blush, quite frankly, when you hear them. And, you know, it's that and so many other instances. They have a habit of fixing problems that don't exist. There's. There's no need. No, no, no. No one has any issues. She acts like this is some, like, huge issue that's been affecting truckers. No, you're just gonna actually now make a lot of people unemployed. And when we have too much. We had too much employment in the country was that the issue needed to just hit the truckers a little more while they were down, as you were taking away their jobs, because they're seeing the inventory decrease, they're seeing their orders drop, they're seeing what's going on. They're looking down to the orders from.
- [70:38]
Ben Meiselas
You know, one month down, two months.
- [70:39]
Brett Meiselas
Away, three months away. And they're seeing what you're doing to them right now. So, sure, just kick them when they're down. Great job.
- [70:46]
Ben Meiselas
Former President Biden created 16.2 million jobs. There was record low unemployment. There was GDP growth that was leading the entire. We were number one. We were leading the entire world in GDP growth. Right? So, like, let's just assume this was like the Olympics. Do you want the gold medal or do you want to not even qualify for the Olympics? Maybe that's how I should explain it to the new media, Brett, that's in that room right there that the Trump new media. Do you want to be number one or now last with Donald Trump is.
- [71:17]
Brett Meiselas
I don't even think. I don't even think it's that. I think it's like, do you want to be number one or do you want to, like, break your. Your neck walking down the street?
- [71:24]
Ben Meiselas
Like, it's, like it's not.
- [71:26]
Brett Meiselas
You're not even in the competition.
- [71:27]
Ben Meiselas
You know, it's.
- [71:27]
Brett Meiselas
It's like you're. You're not even playing the game. I don't even know what the heck he's doing. It's just everything's designed to be as destructive as possible. But, you know, if I think if I could, like, find one silver lining in all of this, there is. There's a poetic aspect about this, that Trump, this wannabe dictator, authoritarian, the epitome of greed and ignorance, who thought he could just destroy democracy by turning America into corrupt, authoritarian playground, that he's accidentally reignited the very thing that he tried to destroy while he tries to take away our freedoms here, while he tries to attack us here, to strip apart our democracy around the world. After years of rising populism, of autocracy around the world, we saw all these movements forming. Remember when there was the 2024 election? The shift that we saw in this country mirrored the shifts that happened in countries across the world, these rightward shifts. It wasn't just a US Issue, a Democratic Party issue, it was a global issue. But after years of that happening, people are finally waking up. And it's because of Donald Trump, because they're seeing this grotesque individual out there, this wannabe strongman, just destroy everything. And they're going, we don't want to want any part of this at all.
- [72:51]
Ben Meiselas
This is.
- [72:52]
Brett Meiselas
That's disgusting what is going on there. We don't even want to be anywhere near that. And so you are seeing right now the ground shift beneath our feet. Whether you're talking about Europe, whether you're talking about Asia, whether you're talking about Latin America, whether you're talking about North America, there is now a rising pro democracy movement that is, for the first time in many years, growing. And in an odd way, in a poetic turn of events, we kept Donald Trump to thank for that because of how grotesque and horrific he is.
- [73:22]
Ben Meiselas
And by the way, that's one of the messages that Charlie Angus had in my kind of last interview with him. Before the election, he goes, I just want to say thank you, Donald, because you've really united Canada and you've made us recognize that, like, why are we sensuating our differences when we should be united against, you know, this authoritarianism and this fascism? And just one more thing I, I just want to point out, though, on this episode, to make sure we pack all of information into this, we've done a lot of individual videos focused on Judge Hannah Dugan, the Milwaukee County Circuit Circuit Court judge who the Trump regime's DOJ and FBI arrested in our courtroom. I just want to mention it here kind of one more time. You know, at the end of the, at the end of the show, I mean, you know, she's a, a judge who presides over criminal cases, and the individual who was in her courtroom, you know, shows up under a compulsory process that has to go through a metal detector, so doesn't have weapons, is in the courtroom for a proceeding. And as soon as that proceeding ends, if the Trump DOJ and FBI wanted to arrest this guy, they could arrest him outside, they could arrest him in the hallways. But to arrest him in the courtroom during a judicial proceeding, where the judge, the state court judge, Judge Dugan, is trying to administer justice, state court law, and you want to interfere with that. That's never happened before, ever. Okay, don't let the Trump DOJ try to normalize this. Oh, she obstructed this. This has never happened before, ever, in the history of the United States of America. The feds go into state court proceedings and all. If you, by the way, read the police report, that's why we read the things here. We read them to you. If you read the complaint that was filed by Trump's own doj, they don't talk about some. They, like, make up. There was a chase and the guy had to be chased. Traced Trump's own doj, The FBI was right next to this guy at multiple points in time on an elevator, in the hallway. They were next to him. They didn't have to do what they did in the courtroom. They were doing it on purpose to create this scene. I mean, if you read their own complaint, they could have arrested the guy. They were, they were with him in the elevator. Just arrest the guy there. What are you doing? And all the judge said, just don't arrest him in my, this is my courtroom. You want to do it outside? You know, let me see the warrant. It wasn't even a judicially signed warrant. It was an administrative warrant, not like a federal judge signed off on it, it was like an immigration warrant. The judge is looking like, what are you signing a warrant to enter my courtroom. And by the way, you know why they got an administrative warrant? Because a federal judge or a federal magistrate judge would not have signed off on that. They knew that. That's why they didn't go through the normal process. So what we're going to see here, let me just tell you what's going to go down. They're going to bring this case in federal court. A federal judge is going to look at it and go, what the hell is this? The case is going to get dismissed or the judge is going to be found not guilty or whatever it is. And the Trump regime is going to whine, oh, unfair judge woke judge, Leftist judge, judge. But I hope that you see from the beginning of this episode now until its conclusion, what we're showing you is not even necessarily a Democrat thing or Republican thing. It should not be this way. The behavior by Donald Trump is consistent with his past behavior. And it's sad to see that the Republican Party, when we needed two healthy political parties, has just become a party of mass maga, which is an enabler of a sexual abuser, a felon and a fraud. And Trump's behavior in office is the behavior of an abuser, a fraud and a felon. That's how he's acting. And, you know, there's a reason why people like Trump should be in jail and not out on the streets and certainly not running a country. And we're seeing why. He's dumb, he's an idiot. You know, he's, he's not smart, he's not a deal maker, he's not a builder, he's a destroyer. He's fundamentally a vile and just bad human. Like, literally the worst person for the position. Someone with zero experience who just did nothing would do a much better job. He's literally the worst person possible for the position. And we're seeing it now. I think the American people, by and large are getting it. That's being reflected in the polling debt data. And I think, Brett, to your point, there's been an awakening internationally of what's happening here. And my hope is that generationally, there's going to be a lot of rebuilding, but generationally, we could build from this moment and make the world a better place for future generations not to make this mistake. A reminder to everybody, Midas Touch will be hosting the first ever Democratic Governor virtual town Hall Tuesday, April 29, 2025. It will be taking place at 8pm Eastern 5pm Pacific Illinois Governor Pritzker, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul. They'll be responding to Trump's first 100 disastrous days back in office. And make sure you submit your questions. Take that selfie video question, submit it by going to mikesplus.com less than one minute. Questions will only be the ones that we look at and we'll try to pick a few to show the governor's bread. Anything you want to say before we go?
- [79:16]
Brett Meiselas
No. Thank you to everybody and keep up the good work. Stay hopeful out there. I know sometimes in a sea of darkness it is hard to find the light, but stay hopeful. You know, everything is, you know, I would say the opposition is strong, the resistance is strong, and that is thanks to you. I'm excited for you all to tune into that town hall. It's going to be a really special event, I feel. Please remember also to add the Midas Touch podcast on any podcast apps that you have. So so if that's Apple podcasts, Spotify or any of the other podcast apps, add the show. If you have an option to leave a five star review, please do that as well. It really helps us out. It helps us to get out to even more people and I'm excited to get back to doing some more Instagrams for you guys. TikToks Ben's going to do some more hot takes and thanks for watching everybody. This has been a good episode.
- [80:03]
Ben Meiselas
Shout out to the Midas Mighty the stand strong.
- [80:13]
Brett Meiselas
Against the fascist we sing.
- [80:17]
Ben Meiselas
Our song.
- [80:24]
Caroline Levitt
Can'T get enough Midas. Check out the Midas plus substack for ad Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com.
- [80:44]
Ben Meiselas
Shopify helps you sell at every stage of your business.
- [80:47]
Brett Meiselas
Like that.
- [80:47]
Ben Meiselas
Let's put it online and see what happens.
- [80:49]
Marco Rubio
Stage and the site is live that.
- [80:52]
Ben Meiselas
We opened a store and need a fast checkout. Stage thanks. You're all set that count it up and ship it around the globe Stage this one's going to Thailand and that Wait, did we just hit a million orders? Stage Whatever your Stage Businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial@shopify.com. listen.