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- [00:01]
Ben Meiselas
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Brett Meiselas
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Ben Meiselas
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- [01:00]
Brett Meiselas
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Brett Meiselas
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Ben Meiselas
FactorMeals.com listen50 code listen50 T's and C's apply 10 years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job to become the leader of a pack of dogs as the owner of her own dog rescue. That is a second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does and she can finally run with the big dogs and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp.org skills welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast. As someone who was a former litigator, I want to take some of these clips that I'm about to show you. I want to bring you the receipt to show you the anatomy of the fraud, the grift, and what's really going on here with the Trump regime. Let me bring in Bretton Jordy right now as well, because I want to watch you as we look through some of these clips together with the Midas mighty viewers and listeners. So the first clip I want to show you is Donald Trump being asked about, you know, the fact that the war in Ukraine is still raging. Vladimir Putin continues to escalate, while you have Zelensky talk about that he's agreeable to an unconditional ceasefire. So when Donald Trump's asked about his dealings with Putin, Donald Trump does his normal give me two weeks, I just need to. We'll see what happens in two weeks. Here, play this clip.
- [02:59]
Caroline Levitt
Mr. President, on Russia.
- [03:00]
Ben Meiselas
On Russia.
- [03:01]
Caroline Levitt
Mr. President, do you believe the Russians are being disrespectful when they say that your criticisms of Putin are simply an emotional response? And do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war?
- [03:15]
Donald Trump
I can't tell you that, but I'll let you know in about two weeks. Within two weeks, we're going to find out very soon. We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently. But it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks. We have Mr. Witkoff is here who's doing a phenomenal job.
- [03:34]
Ben Meiselas
Mr. Witkoff is a real estate guy from New York who's not doing a really good job. He's the guy who showed up. Was it his fourth meeting with Putin and he used the Russian intelligence officer as his interpreter and did not bring anybody from the United States Embassy to actually be there with him at his meetings with Putin. And Trump promised he would end the war. He in Ukraine in 24 hours within taking the office. And he said, in fact, it was so easy that he would be able to actually resolve it before he took office. But with everything, whether it's a healthcare plan, whether it's this or that, he always says two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, we'll release it, we'll do that. And then he never does it. The next clip I want to show you again, exhibit B is Donald Trump claiming that he brought back to the United States as though we have it right now, $5.1 trillion from his trip to the Middle east, where, mind you, the GDP of Qatar is 200 billion, UAE, 400 billion, I think Saudi Arabia, somewhere like 1 trillion. The entire GDP of all of those nations combined is like 1.5 trillion. So are you telling me you took 3x or more of their annual GDP back to the United States, which would represent somewhere in the range of 20% of the entire United States GDP. It's just more ridiculous lies. But watch for yourself.
- [05:07]
Donald Trump
Let's play this isn't my war. This is Biden's war, Zelinsky's war, and Putin's war. This isn't Trump's war. I'm only here for one thing, to see if I can end it. To save 5,000 lives a week and a lot of money. The money being much less important because I made that money. I went to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE and we brought back $5.1 trillion. So I made that money in about two hours, the money that we're talking about, but it's still three. Think of it. $300 billion we've spent with no checks, no balances, they just send cash.
- [05:43]
Ben Meiselas
So why $5.1 trillion? Why does he make up that number one? Con artists like to add like an extra number to make it sound a little bit specific, right? Like 5.1. But also the deficit. Under Trump's disastrous budget bill, they have to raise the debt ceiling by about $4 trillion. So he just picks a number $1 trillion above that to say, look, we're bringing the money back. So it doesn't matter that we're going to just blow up our deficit, because I brought back 5.1 trillion dol. Trillion. So therefore we've actually made 1.1 trillion, which is just total and utter crap. The next clip, Brett and Jordy that I want to show the Midas mighty and I want to show you and I want to react to all of this together was actually a good question by Fox host Peter Doocy, who asked Caroline Levitt, the chief propagandist of the Trump regime, why don't you just have Congress, the House and the Senate go and pass legislation that basically incorporates Trump's tariffs? Then it would be legal, because the tariff Authority in Article 1 of the Constitution's with Congress, and then there wouldn't be any legal issues. You control all branches. You control the House and the Senate. So do it. Watch this. So the courts are basically telling you guys, they think that the White House's policies, the President's policies, are in some.
- [07:13]
Jordy Meiselas
Way against the law.
- [07:15]
Ben Meiselas
So why can't President Trump ask the Republican that control the House and the Republicans that control the Senate just to make a new law?
- [07:24]
Caroline Levitt
Well, these laws have already been granted to the President by the Constitution and by laws that have been previously passed. I'll give you another example. For instance, we've been blocked in court for the revocation of visas from individuals who have the privilege of studying in the United States of America. Secretary of State Rubio has simply used his authority to revoke those visas, to revoke that privilege. And we've seen the courts try to block that. So if these judges want to be the Secretary of State or they want to be the president, they can run for office themselves. It should be the other way around. But all of the actions the president has taken rely on legal authorities that have already been granted to him by.
- [08:01]
Ben Meiselas
Our nation's existing laws, which is 100% false. Unless. And by the way, notice how she pivots away from the tariff question. Because what they're claiming is that these extraordinary emergency powers which are to really be used in the most punitive ways in times of like war or massive economic distress and turmoil, that Trump claims these emergency powers against the world. That's why he makes up that Canada is at war with the United States by sending fentanyl in to kill Americans. That's why Trump says that that's just what Putin does when he says denazification of Ukraine. Trump's version of denazification is that Canada is intentionally killing Americans from fentanyl and thus we need to attack under emergency powers, Canada with tariffs. And then he applies that concept to every single country in the world and says they are attacking us, so we have to retaliate with emergency powers. The next question for Caroline Levitt is about their Make America Healthy Again report. Maha is what they call it. And it turns out when you look at this report which they're using the magazine to justify really ripping away essential care for tens of millions of Americans and stop studies on things, it looks like it was written by AI. And why do I say that? The citations use real epidemiologists name but make up reports that the epidemiologist never even wrote before. And so they're made up reports with made up citations and made up data. 71 pages. That's just epidemiologists said, I never wrote a report. I never wrote for jama, which is one of these medical journals. I never wrote that. They're literally making things up. And hat tip to notice, they're the media that broke that story. But here, play this clip.
- [10:12]
Caroline Levitt
Thanks so much, Caroline. A notice investigation found that the Hallmark Maha Commission report that was released last week cites studies that appear to not exist. We know that because in part we reached out to some of the listed authors who said that they didn't write the studies cited. So I want to ask, does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted. Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at hhs. I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated, but it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government. A quick follow up. Can you talk about what tools or research goes into production of these kinds of reports? For instance, is it AI that's used to put together these reports? Now, I can't speak to that. I would defer you to the Department of Health and Human Services. What I know is just what I told you.
- [11:14]
Ben Meiselas
Let me bring in Brett and Jordi. And I wanted to go over those clips, particularly because they all highlight to me kind of a different area where this fraud and danger, these threats, this harm is being inflicted and caused. And I want to show you the strategies that are being used that are, frankly, worse than the worst stuff I read in 1984 when I read that in middle school. Brett?
- [11:42]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah. When, you know, when the Trump administration is speaking about waste, fraud and abuse, I think it's all the time. The call is coming from inside the House, quite literally from inside the White House. The waste, the fraud and the abuse is coming from that lectern where Caroline Levitt is speaking. It is coming from the Oval Office where Donald Trump is speaking. And that's why, you know, a lot of folks are often like, you know, we get it, Trump lies. You know, it's just a part of life, right? Why do we need to continue to call it out? It's because his lies are dangerous and they have tangible effects on the world. You need to be calling them out because Donald Trump is taking the fraud that he has perpetrated throughout his entire life. Remember all those civil cases, Remember all those criminal cases, whether it be against him personally, against his businesses. He was known for just making up numbers, making up the square footage of his apartments, making up revenue numbers in order to secure certain bank loans, just making things up out of thin air. Now, this is the exact way that he is running the United States government. And too often reporters are taking his words as gospel and they are parroting them. Now, thankfully, there were some great reporters there. That story, by notice, was fantastic. The other question that we'll get to that really set him off. The. The taco question was. Was fantastic as well. But we need to continue to hold his feet to the fire on these things and to call out his. Because his bullshit is getting transferred over into real harm. For example, what. What are they doing with this Maha report, or however you say Maha, whatever. This make America healthy again. They are taking these fake citations they made up. It's clearly AI, by the way, what they did. They clearly used AI to write, like the whole report. And they are taking that and they are removing the recommend get vaccines who are healthy, healthy adults, healthy children, pregnant women. Stripping away those recommendations and you could say, okay, who cares if the government recommends it or not? Well, insurance companies start stop covering vaccines when that's the case. And so you're going to have people who are now unable to get the vaccine. There is now a barrier put up for folks to get the vaccine at the same time that we are currently seeing, and I'm not sure folks have heard about this, we are seeing outbreaks of COVID throughout the world right now that are getting people pretty worried. We have a government right now that is doing what it did last time Donald Trump was in office, which is just closing their eyes and covering their ears to the reality of what's going on. They also canceled a, a vaccine that was on the way for the bird flu, something that's obviously been a huge issue. Why did they cancel it? Because they cited their concerns over MRNA technology, which is known to be safe, which is what the COVID vaccines are, which is the at the heart of their conspiracy theories and their lies that we continue to spread. And that's why I think it's important that we constantly debunk this, that we correct the record. That's why I really like what we're here as well. Thanks to everybody for your support. We have the new Midas Health initiative that we are doing here on Midas touch with Dr. Vin Gupta. And he is bringing in the most preeminent experts in the field right now to inform the American people as to what is actually going on. Because right now, we are unable to tell what's going on with this government because they lie about literally everything. By the way, if you want to listen to those Midas Health episodes, they're on the Midas Touch podcast feed. You can just search them on there. But they're really, really fantastic. The Dr. Gupta just had Dr. Hotez on, Peter Hotez, you know, vaccine expert, few pediatricians. You need to listen to those episodes. They are really good, really in the weeds on this stuff. But Donald Trump's fraud has consequences. And the victim of the Fraud in this case is very much the American people. It's you, me, it's your grandparents, it's your neighbors. And you know, it's just very important that we continue to call the stuff out.
- [15:20]
Jordy Meiselas
George 1,000%. Brad 1,000%. And to your point, exactly. This idiocy that we're seeing from the Trump regime is having real world and real life consequences. It's, it's literally life or death for some people. And, and what Trump is doing right now is, is just flat out scary, like just basic scary shit that's coming out of this regime right now. It's a cacistocracy, right? Government run by the least suitable or competent citizen. Like this is what's happening right now and it's playing out before our eyes. That's why I'm so happy. We hear just, just play the clips so you all could see what is going now and to not be gaslit by others and think that any of this is normal because when you see Caroline Levitt up there, I mean, chief propagandist, it is, it is just striking to honestly see that. I give the press corps some credit there. I know I'm hard on them. Usually they asked some good questions, but then to see the responses from Caroline Levitt like what is what in the Kim Jong un?
- [16:14]
Ben Meiselas
BEN well, let me continue to make some of these exhibits even clearer to the Midas mighty to our audience. So next, Caroline Levitt lies and claims that the budget bill is not going to increase the deficit at all when on the low end it'll increase the deficit by 4 to 5 trillion dollars by its very terms of raising the debt ceiling a certain amount and will probably carry at least $2 trillion of additional annual deficits as a result of this. But I predict it'll be more like 20 to 30 trillion that will actually be added in the short, in the short term, five to 10 years when all is actually said and done. So here's Caroline Levitt lying from the podium and again just saying that we're not going to be adding to the deficit. And again, how do you know she's lying? Because she's talking here. Play this clip. CAROLINA One big beautiful bill. President says he's not happy with all aspects of it. What changes would he like to see be made? And can this bill be both big and beautiful?
- [17:22]
Caroline Levitt
It is a one big beautiful bill as the name rings true. And the president, as I said, is currently working with his friends in the Senate who have some recommendations for the bill. Those negotiations and discussions are continuing but the President's ultimate priority is to get this bill back to his desk for signature. And the President's priorities in this bill are non negotiable in terms of, of the tax priorities he wants to see in the large tax cuts in the border investments that are currently in this bill. He is not going to allow them to go away for the American people.
- [17:54]
Ben Meiselas
So then she goes, and by the way, even the questioning itself, this bill is both big and it's beautiful and the big problem here, and there's many ones, but it is masking the fact that there is basically this economic asteroid heading to Earth, heading to the United States that all the world sees right now. The Europeans see it, the Canadians see it, China sees it, Southeast Asia sees it. Africa sees it. Central America, South America, Mexico sees it. Eastern Europe, I think I mentioned Europe. See, they're all saying, got it. This Trump thing is weak and pathetic. He doesn't know what he's doing. He can be outmaneuvered easily. He's scared, he's outmatched. And he's surrounded by a bunch of yes men and women who enable the behavior that allows him to be easily outmaneuvered. You know, I had the opportunity to interview California Governor Gavin Newsom and what he told me. And you could look at the ports following Donald Trump capitulating to China. He's Trump's been called taco. Right. Trump always chickens out even though he capitulated in Switzerland to China. Right. He sent his trade rep, Jameson Greer, and he sent his treasury secretary, Scott Besant, to take the 145% tariffs and make them 30% tariffs. The shipping levels that we're used to seeing are not happening right now at the ports in Long beach and Oakland and elsewhere in the United States. It's not happening. Which means we're seeing the longshoremen, the dock workers lose their jobs, we're seeing truckers losing their jobs. And we're seeing a cascading effect on small businesses. The jobless claims for the past month, 241,000. That was more than what was previously estimated. And it was the highest level since 2021 before former President Biden was able to fix it and create record job growth. So basically Trump has created in under 150 days the Trump economy, the disastrous one that he handed over to Biden during COVID and passed. And now we have him manufacturing that again. And it's happening. It exists. And you have stupid questions. Do you think the bill could be big and beautiful? And beautiful and big while the rest of the world looks at us and is mocking us. But it's more than that. It's deeper. It's also, it's also the rest of the world, our former allies, are terrified at us because we can also be hurting them, even though they're figuring out how to develop international alliances that basically stop the United States or isolate the United States. But we're ignoring all of these things. I mean, let me just tick off some other data as well. Right now, student loan debt delinquencies are soaring because the Trump regime immediately just restarted collection efforts and wage garnishments and reporting people's credit scores. That means you have a ton of people whose credit scores are knocked down where they can't participate in our economy. Credit card delinquencies right now are at record highs as well, which is going to impact their credit scores, which when the credit markets start to collapse, there'll be a cascading effect. When we look at the 10, 20 and 30 year treasury yields combined with everything I just said, they paint a picture of a very unstable United States market. And we're seeing kind of quietly the United States now starting to print more money than ever before as well, which we know is also a cause for inflationary stuff. And then Donald Trump brings in today to the White House Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, basically to shake him down and to kind of bully him to lower interest rates such that the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, immediately after he left, by the way, I bet you when he showed up, he was probably thinking, are they going to fire me? What the hell's going to happen? He had to release a statement right away for the sake of the markets, for the sake of avoid. People don't. There could have been an economic collapse today, but he had to release the statement saying, I let him know. I reinforced that I'm not going to be basing my decisions on politics. And here's Caroline Levitt being asked about what was this about? Why did you call the chairman of the Federal Reserve? Here, play this clip that says the President met with the Fed chair earlier today when he can give us any readout of that meeting. The Fed also says that they discussed the economy. I imagine the President might have shared views on rates as well.
- [23:23]
Caroline Levitt
I can share with you that we saw. The President and I both saw the statement that the Fed put out after the meeting. That statement is correct. However, the President did say that he believes the Fed chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China and other countries. And the President's been very vocal about that, both publicly and now I can reveal privately as well.
- [23:46]
Ben Meiselas
Did he speak at all about his plans for that position, but whether he would seek to move Jay Powell out of that position or keep him in until his term ends?
- [23:55]
Caroline Levitt
No.
- [23:55]
Brett Meiselas
Okay.
- [23:56]
Ben Meiselas
And again, that interaction is not a normal, not a normal interaction that should not have taken place to try to bully the chairman of the Federal Reserve. And it should also be noted that what the Trump regime wants to do as well is they want to basically they call it take public, but it really means remove from the oversight and control of the government, Freddie and Fannie, which deal with really kind of guaranteeing the home mortgages that are out there. And so Trump wants to, this was in Project 2025, remove the controls that were implemented during the housing crisis and take those controls off. And he wants to be the person to kind of dictate the housing market. And so all of these things, just one of them can be a trap that could spiral the economy. Now, he's set hundreds of these everywhere on the health side, on the economic side, on the housing side, on the credit side, on the treasury side. And that's what we see now. And that just exists, not to mention the FEMA side where he's cut fema. As we head into hurricane season, these, all these things exist. And now what Trump goes into is scapegoat mode. Who, now that I've lied about 5 trillion, 8 trillion, things are going to be great. Now. Who do I shift the blame to? That's the next fate. Who do I blame? Who do I Foushee? Do I Foushee? Jerome Powell? Duh. Do I Foushee? Whoever was running fema. Duh. Who do I Foushee next, Brett? Yeah.
- [25:39]
Brett Meiselas
And when we see like Trump do all these erratic moves, it's as if he's following a playbook laid out by, you know, AI chatgpt. If somebody were to ask it, how do we create a 2008, 2009 style crisis? It's like he's following that playbook to a T right now. And it's going to be bad. It's set up for absolute disaster. I agree with you. And I also just want you guys to think about this split screen that we are seeing right now because, you know, it also gets lost in the mix of all of this stuff that is affecting all of us are these corrupt pardons that Donald Trump is rolling out every single day, whether it's that reality TV show family or the other stuff that he's doing. Donald Trump, one of the big themes about like nearly all of these pardons are these are people who are convicted of defrauding people, defrauding banks, evading taxes, stealing tens of millions of dollars and he is letting them off the hook. And while he's letting his rich buddies off the hook for stealing tens of millions of dollars and evading their taxes, he is ruining the lives of people who simply wanted to get an education by destroying their credit. Now, all the people, Ben, that you were speaking about over there, the folks who are now getting at the bad end of these, this credit reporting because they hadn't paid their during this pause and now Donald Trump has turned it back on and now the credit reporting is all screwed up for these people. They are going to try to get housing loans, to get car loans, they're all going to get rejected. They're not going to be able to do that. They're going to have high interests on all of their payments that they're making. It's going to send them further into debt. So he is creating this right now self destructive cycle that is really going to continue until this ship is righted. And it's not going to be righted under this administration and with this Congress. And we're seeing it right now, if Donald Trump wanted to codify all these things, as Juicy said, he could do things through the Congress, he could do things the normal way. But the fact is, when it comes down to it, Donald Trump and his people, this isn't the A team. These aren't the people who actually really know what they're doing. These aren't the people who care to learn how to actually do things in the proper way. Donald Trump just wants to scream emergency and then ram through all of his policies that way, take these shortcuts and just screw our economy, screw us all in the process. You know, we should also mention Elon Musk has officially announced that he is leaving the federal government. He's left the federal government. His time as a special government employee was up at the end of this month. And so he says that the Doge mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
- [28:17]
Jordy Meiselas
Elon leaving might be his most efficient move at Doge.
- [28:20]
Brett Meiselas
I'm going to say that Doge, you know, I'm going to put aside maybe the, the non verbalized goals of Doge, which is probably them stealing our data and all the other corrupt stuff that they did behind the scenes. But by its stated goals. Doge was the single biggest government failure maybe in our entire history actually ended up costing the United States money. And any sort of purported savings that they may even claim are completely reversed by this bill. And there weren't really any savings. They actually added a lot to the debt and the deficit by even just what they did with the IRS alone, taking away the folks who actually collected the revenue for the country. But this bill right here, for all those folks, all those Republicans, all those MAGA influencers who've been touting all of these savings all along, oh, look, we canceled, you know, so and so's Adobe Photoshop license and their, and their Outlook license, so they couldn't get them. Congrats. Because now you're adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. And even Elon Musk is speaking out against you all. Now even Republican members of Congress are speaking up against you. And so now you find yourself in a, in a weird place, huh? MAGA influencers, where you now need to decide, am I with Elon, this guy who I've been bragging about all these savings about, or am I with Donald Trump who's lying to my face and saying, this actually is a big, beautiful bill that's going to both save us money and it's going to grow the. It's bullshit. You're being duped, you're being lied to. And I've actually, actually seen in the past few days, surprisingly, some of these people go, oh, shit, they're reversing everything. Elon, did you know, a false premise, but actually acknowledging that, oh, maybe this guy Mike Johnson is bullshitting me, maybe Donald Trump is lying to my face. And I don't have a lot of faith in that. But hey, at least it's progress. And I think it's important that we do point out that these people talk a big game all the time about we need to cut the debt, we need to make government more efficient stuff, by the way, all of us agree on, but one person is lying about everything and is actually doing the complete opposite. And it's why a quarter of our debt in this country plus all goes back to Donald Trump. And it's why over the next four years that is going to explode, that's going to balloon even further, and then.
- [30:28]
Ben Meiselas
Everyone'S going to be like, whoa, how did that happen? Oh, my gosh. Wow. And it was like, yeah. Because hopefully now, given the fact that the Midas Touch networks, the most viewed network in the country, people are recognizing this more and more and more. But if you just Watch the corporate news narratives. It would be like what you heard in some of those questions that direct. So could the bill be big and could it also be beautiful? Could it be big and beautiful at the same time? I'm watching what even is that question? But I do want to give ad tip to the CNBC report and we'll talk about this when we get back. Who asked Donald Trump the question, what do you think about Wall street calling you Taco? That Trump always chickens out and you saw how angry he got. And then he, like, described, you mean, you mean I'm a chicken When I, when I negotiate and I make it 145% and then I say 100 and then I say 75 and then I say 30. Is that what you mean? You mean I'm a chicken? No one thinks I'm a chicken. Don't you ask me those questions ever again. To me, that moment will take on a bigger prominence. I actually think, historically, because you literally saw you were dealing with, like, no offense to babies, like, you were dealing with a little baby, like a little man baby there. And with all of his things, we just have to recognize that. No, no, no. Like, when he believes that stealth, there's the shapes, you literally can't see them. Like, he actually thinks that.
- [32:03]
Jordy Meiselas
Ben, you put a wing one way, put a wing the other way. Stealth, you know, stealth, put a wing this way or that way.
- [32:08]
Ben Meiselas
All right, we got to take our first quick break of the show. Reminder, Everybody go to Midasplus.com that's our sub stack. We're on our way to a million substack subscribers, so please subscribe there. Also subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're on our way to 5 million subscribers here on our YouTube. Next week will be on Patreon patreon.com Midas Touch. I wanted to do it this week. I've been having a lot of back problems lately. I had to get an MRI today, and I'm having a lot of back issues. So if you see me moving around, I'm not sitting in a chair. I got a pillow on the ground.
- [32:41]
Brett Meiselas
And I'll just say Ben is downplaying his injuries over there, and he is really working through it. So Ben. Props to Ben for working through the pain. And I promise you don't have to. I want to remind you we got a lot of people watching, watching the show right now, which is awesome. What's up to everybody? Everybody please go and add the audio podcast. If you're watching this on video, you can do that on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It really helps. It's really important to help us get the word out. So go search the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify or any podcast app you use. Leave a 5 star review Help us knock those Rogan and Maga folks who try to leave bad one star reviews on our page. Help them, not help us knock them off. Please check it out. I know you're going to love the audio and it's a great way you know when you're driving, when you're at work, you always get to stay up to date with everything going on going on at the Midas Touch Network. All right, we got a whole lot more to talk about here. We're excited to dive right in. But first we got one quick break and we'll be right back.
- [33:40]
Jordy Meiselas
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- [35:30]
Brett Meiselas
Let's be honest, most jeans out there weren't designed for guys of varying shapes and sizes. We're not all built like mannequins. We've got muscles, different waistlines, and zero interest in squeezing into something that feels like denim prison. I used to dread jean shopping. Either too tight in the thighs, sagging in the back, or stiff enough to double as armor. But then I found the perfect jean and no joke, these things changed the game. They come in six fits, 13 washes, waist sizes up to 50 inches, and lengths up to 36. That's over 5,000 combos, so unless you're shaped like a centaur, you will find your fit. I got a pair and instantly felt the difference. Stretchy, soft, no awkward pinch, and I could actually move. Even got a few compliments, which never happens with jeans. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off their first order order plus free shipping at ThePerfectGene NYC or Google the perfect gene and use code MIDAS15 for 15% off. That's me. I D A S15. And it's not just jeans, by the way. They've got buttery soft tees and polos shorts that give thick thighs some breathing room, and den khakis that look boardroom ready but feel like joggers. Now here's the deal. It's finally time to stop crushing your jewels and uncomfortable jeans. By going to these, Our listeners get 15% off your first order plus free shipping, free returns and free exchanges. When you use code MIDAS15 at checkout, that's 15% off for new customers at ThePerfectGene NYC with promo code MIDAS15. That's me I D A S15. After you purchase, they'll ask about where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Forget your khakis and get the perfect gene.
- [37:12]
Jordy Meiselas
Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Click the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Those are some fabulous products right there, Benji. Where to next as we go through.
- [37:25]
Ben Meiselas
The anatomy of all of the factors that make this Trump regime so dangerous, so idiotic, and so incompetent at the same time, I'll show you the next exhibit because these all highlight again different pieces of the overall puzzle of the overall story. So Caroline Levitt once again started attacking Canada. Donald Trump attacked Canada's sovereignty earlier this week after King Charles gave that speech from the throne, which didn't even mention Donald Trump by name, but represented that Canada would be looking elsewhere for friends instead of the United States and the turmoil that Trump has caused in Canada and in the world. And then Donald Trump, after King Charles spoke, he did the 51st state attacked the sovereignty of Canada thing again. And he was like, if you don't want to pay $60 billion with a big, beautiful golden dome, you got to become a state, then you won't have to pay anything if you become a state. And again, that rhetoric right there, there is not just trade war rhetoric in Canada, rightfully so. That's war rhetoric. That's attacking the sovereignty of Canada and the Canadian people rhetoric. That's Putin denazification against Ukraine rhetoric. That's how it's perceived there. Again, that's why tourism from Canada into the United States has dropped precipitously. And American states have to basically beg, please come back, please come back. We'll give you all of these discounts. And Canadians are like, nah, as long as you still have Donald Trump running this and attacking our sovereignty, you have a sexual abuser, felon, and despicable individual running your country. So. So, no, we're seeing tourism from Europe, Australia, just elsewhere, saying, we ain't coming to the United States right now, which is also harming the United States. But here's words have consequences. Okay? So when Caroline Levitt, speaking on behalf of the United States, says this, it causes real damage. Here's what she said about Canada. Let's play it.
- [39:31]
Caroline Levitt
The golden dome is certainly a significant investment in our nation's national security and homeland security to protect Americans, all of you in this room, from future threats.
- [39:39]
Ben Meiselas
Any readout on have the Canadians been.
- [39:41]
Brett Meiselas
Talking in good faith about paying to be in it?
- [39:44]
Caroline Levitt
I know that. Well, the president has certainly expressed to the Canadians how we are essentially subsidizing their national defense. He brought it up in his meeting with their new leader here. And as you know, we'll be traveling to Canada next month for the G7. So I expect that topic of discussion to come up on that trip as well. Sure.
- [40:02]
Ben Meiselas
Now, you think that that is how you're going to win over friends and how you negotiate, like, you think that's how you deal with other sovereigns. And if you look at the way Donald Trump has dealt with all of these other countries, he has zero respect for him, the same way he has zero respect for, frankly, anybody other than other than himself. And this is how he treats other groups that actually are needed and have an impact and, and. And were our friends, friends. He just destroys them, these relationships. And then when it comes to these deadlines that he imposes on himself, he either blows the deadlines or extends the deadlines and then backs down. So on Wall street, these investors were making billions of dollars on what they called the Taco trade that Trump always chickens out. We've been talking about the taco trade here for about two and a half weeks. Weeks on the Midas Touch podcast where we were saying, here's what they're calling it. And now everybody's calling him Taco. But go back two and a half weeks when we, when we reported that on the Midas Touch network.
- [41:12]
Brett Meiselas
Ben, I've got proof as well, so.
- [41:15]
Ben Meiselas
Oh, I want to show the proof first.
- [41:17]
Brett Meiselas
I come with receipts. So this was like a few weeks ago on our show when Ben was first hearing about Taco in his circles and he brought it up on the pod. Me and Jordy had no clue what the hell he was talking about.
- [41:28]
Ben Meiselas
But I didn't even know what it said for. I forgot that Taco has an O at the end also.
- [41:33]
Brett Meiselas
What's the E?
- [41:34]
Donald Trump
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [41:35]
Brett Meiselas
But, but this is from like two and a half weeks ago when we were away, when we were off site and you could see the. This taco thing percolating.
- [41:44]
Ben Meiselas
You know that Trump will cave, right? It's just getting him to cave at the right price at this point. Because Trump always caves. I. What would they call it? Taco. What was the acronym? Yeah, Trump always caves. What's the every time? I'm not sure. No. Oh, Taco. Trump always caves. I don't know.
- [42:00]
Brett Meiselas
Know.
- [42:01]
Ben Meiselas
He always caves. Taco something. They call him Taco. But I'll. I'll go back and think about whatever that acronym is. I forget what the O is. Trump always caves. Always. I don't know. It's your future self, Ben. It's your future self. There's no E and Taco. Ben. Hey, hey. I come from the future.
- [42:21]
Jordy Meiselas
We. That was the week we're in New York. Brent and I were in the same hotel room.
- [42:24]
Brett Meiselas
You were.
- [42:25]
Jordy Meiselas
You were in the hotel next door.
- [42:26]
Ben Meiselas
That's when my back really started. That's why I'm punched. That's when your back really.
- [42:29]
Brett Meiselas
I gotta say, it's pretty good that you know it.
- [42:32]
Jordy Meiselas
We'll let it slide this one.
- [42:33]
Brett Meiselas
But the point is, you were hearing about this taco thing for weeks now. And so, Ben, if you were hearing about this taco thing for weeks, then, you know, if you have a president of the United States with responsible advisers, you would think that somebody along the lines would inform the President of the United States about what investors are doing. What Investors are saying, but that is obviously not the case because we have a President of the United States who is shielded from all negative coverage. He has a team around him who lives in this propaganda, lives in these lies, who just lies to him, who prevents any of these bad stories from making it to them. A team that tells him when he loses a Supreme Court case 9 to 0, that he actually won the Supreme Court case 9 to 0. And sometimes it leads to moments like this where Ben, the reporter was from what cnbc, I believe, shout out to her. I mean, A plus. This is, honestly, this is a ballsy question. This is a really important question to ask. And you could see how Donald Trump crumbled or how is the taco crunches into pieces when Donald Trump is asked about taco. Asked about Trump and always chickens out.
- [43:45]
Ben Meiselas
I'll make a broader point, though. Notice that the ballsy questions usually, and the ballsy rulings and the ballsy this and that is usually coming from the people without the ballsies. Don't, don't we see that it's actually the people who hold, you know, these, these ridiculous felons and, and all these people accountable are the women. And I think, let me just make the case right now that if women were running our trade policy and our country, I think we would be in, in far better hands. And I can say that confidently right now, which is why the Trump men fear strong, independent women. That's just, that's me going on a little bit of a, of a side rant. But let me show you the moment. Moment that the CNBC reporter asked him about being called the taco player. Mr. President, Wall street analysts have coined.
- [44:34]
Caroline Levitt
A new term called the taco trade. They're saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that's why markets are higher this week. What's your response to that?
- [44:42]
Donald Trump
I kick out.
- [44:43]
Ben Meiselas
Chicken out.
- [44:45]
Donald Trump
Oh, isn't that nice? Chicken out. I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number. And I said, you have to open up your whole country. And because I, I gave the European Union a 50% tax tariff. And they called up and they said, please, let's meet right now. Please, let's meet right now. And I said, okay, I'll give you till June. I actually asked them, I said, what's to date? Because they weren't willing to meet. And after I did what I did, they said, we'll meet anytime you want. And we have an end date of July 9th. You call that chickening out. But don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. Go ahead. To me, that's the nastiest question.
- [45:34]
Ben Meiselas
Yes, we call that chickening out. You literally described the chickening out part right there, that you said that 145% tariffs against China was going to make us so rich we weren't even going to need the IRS anymore. We were just going to have the External Revenue Service because China, China was going to give us all of the money from China and we were all.
- [45:58]
Brett Meiselas
Going to get rich.
- [45:58]
Ben Meiselas
Isn't that what Donald Trump said? We're all going to get so rich.
- [46:02]
Brett Meiselas
We weren't even going to be.
- [46:03]
Ben Meiselas
No more taxes, everybody. That's what you said. And then you sent the trade representative, Jameson Greer. By the way, go back and look at Greer's background. His whole thing is this term where he calls decoupling from China because the guy's a fricking weirdo. We need a decouple for his whole platform is like making China crumble. Like that's, that's why this guy was picked. Jameson Greer. So you send Jameson Greer, Mr. D. Couple go back and read his papers. We gotta make him pay. Tariffs will destroy him.
- [46:39]
Jordy Meiselas
Okay.
- [46:40]
Ben Meiselas
And you send Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant. I heard all the Fox people, including Jeanine Pirro, who was there because she was getting sworn in as the top law enforcement officer, the top federal prosecutor of Washington D.C. that's what that entire press thing was even all about. I heard all of them say, say no, this is four dimensional chess because we're going to destroy China. We're taking them down. China had like 5% GDP growth last quarter and China made all of these deals with all of these other countries are actually in a good position. And guess what, what's happening right now. Xi Jinping doesn't even want to talk to Donald Trump. He's talking to other people. He spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron. He spoke to Freida Mars of Germany. He's speaking with leaders of African nations. He's speaking with leaders of Latin American and Caribbean. He's speaking to people, he's just specifically not speaking to Donald. And here earlier today, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. And here's my Scott Bessant. You know, you know, they tend to be a little bit, they tend to be. I'm Scott Besant. I live in Barbie's pink 22 million dollar Malibu mansion. I live in a 22 million dollars home in Charleston. This is all going to Plan. Okay? They're not getting backed, they're not getting back to us, but it's all going to be for the better. Okay? Okay. Watch him here. Watch it. Let's play it. And what about China? Specifically China. And that obviously started in a different place. How can you characterize those talks now? I would say that they are a bit stalled. I believe that we will be having more talks with them in the next few weeks, and I believe we may at some point have a call between the President and Party Chair Xi. So stalled. There was a time when the President thought that it was moving forward pretty significantly. Again, I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other. They have a very good relationship. And I am confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his premises. No.
- [49:09]
Jordy Meiselas
Jeez.
- [49:12]
Ben Meiselas
What the beep? Did I just watch?
- [49:18]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah.
- [49:18]
Brett Meiselas
That's insane. What happened to 90 deals in 90 days, folks?
- [49:22]
Ben Meiselas
Just kidding.
- [49:22]
Brett Meiselas
LOL. We actually have no idea when the hell things are going to happen. We'll see.
- [49:26]
Ben Meiselas
We'll see about it. I don't even know what I just watched. I mean, I mean that sincerely, like, what I just watched. Right then there is like a. A broken individual who. I'm wondering if there was some Morse code going on with the blinking and if he was sending us an sos.
- [49:48]
Brett Meiselas
Honestly, like, if I were them, but I'm a rational, thinking human being, but if I were them, I would take this court ruling in the Court of International Trade, where they, you know, blocked Trump's tariffs. You know, it's. It's on appeal. They state it, we'll get to this in a little bit. I would take that and just be like, oh, there's nothing we could do. You know, the court blocked it, I guess. I guess we can't do these tariffs because. Because the markets actually like that. People are actually going to like the fact that the court blocked these tariffs. I would just, you know, Trump, who blames things on everybody, just blame the courts and stop this mess, because people are. People don't want this mess. The irony of that whole thing also is too, like, Trump just pissed off the entire world, only to be told that everything that he's done is completely illegal, and then he can't do it. It's just the most insane administration that we are seeing. And speaking of insane, I want to tell you, something happened to me just really quickly because we posted here on the Midas Touch TikTok account. You know, all These taco memes were going around the Internet and they're pretty funny. We should be showing this one throughout the show of Trump. It's like a tortilla that turns into a Trump face. And there are a lot of images like this AI images, you know, photoshopped images of people posting tacos and chickens and various things with Donald Trump. So we did a post on TikTok about this where I just went through, okay, here are some of the memes that are spreading right now about Donald Trump after he was raging about, you know, being called a taco. Here's this meme. Here's that meme. Well, let me show you this. TikTok literally took the video down, said we had a, gave us a community guidelines violation. If you could see that right there. And then when I clicked on it, I saw for why it took it down because it said harassment and bullying. As if I am harassing and bullying the President of the United States by speaking about taco memes. So I appealed it. I think, oh, it's probably just a bunch of MAGA people who mass reported it. That's usually how these things feel.
- [51:37]
Jordy Meiselas
Like a bot farm.
- [51:38]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, like a bot farm. So I mass report it and what happens? TikTok, within like a few minutes says that a human being watched at a tick tock and that they rejected my appeal and that they are keeping a strike on the Midas Touch account. So that could limit our reach, it could hurt us from posting and you get a few strikes. It could ban you from the platform and all because we posted taco memes. So I just want to call this out also, because that's a little chilling that you lightly criticize the President of the United States and you get put in Twitter in TikTok jail. And it's also reminder, you know, make sure that you're following us everywhere because you never know where what happens to these platforms. The good thing is we'll always have this podcast. So make sure you add the Midas Touch podcast on audio platforms, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. That way if anything does happen to us on any of these platforms, you're able to hear from us directly. But we're going to continue to fight back and we're going to continue to call Donald Trump a taco if we want to call him a taco.
- [52:31]
Ben Meiselas
Because.
- [52:31]
Brett Meiselas
Because it's deeper than just this. And we're, you know, we're going all in on this also. And I will say, if you go to the Midas Touch store right now@store.midas touch.com and you use promo COD code taco. Because I'm dead set on just, I'm. If, if this is really what's getting them and the oligarchs mad, I'm going to keep calling the guy Taco. So you can go to store.midas touch.com, use promo code taco. You get 10 off your entire order. We'll have that on through the weekend. And we got some really awesome new merch out there for summer. Some new truth is golden gear, some new Midas gear. So check it out. Store.midas touch.com. make sure you use that promo code Taco at checkout for 10 off. But I'm. We're going to stand up to these people because this is just, this is nuts. Honestly. Crazy.
- [53:13]
Ben Meiselas
Let's take our last quick break. Jordy, tell us about. Did Brett just do the taco? Did Brett just do the 10% taco?
- [53:20]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah. I'm so glad, I'm so glad you listened to the Brett talking about tacos Brothers, you know we're preparing for the next. Your back's hurting you, big bro. We're going to let it slide.
- [53:32]
Brett Meiselas
I'll give you a pass because you're in shambles over there. And I know.
- [53:36]
Jordy Meiselas
I just want to explain.
- [53:38]
Ben Meiselas
Just gave me a big tech strike. Hold on.
- [53:40]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah, that gets a strike in a lot of pain right now. And we're so happy he's doing the show with us. And so we'll, we'll all let Ben slide for that. Just everyone agree we're gonna let Ben slide.
- [53:52]
Ben Meiselas
All right. Check that out, Taco. Brett said it all. We'll be right back after, after our.
- [53:56]
Brett Meiselas
Last strike for Ben. Strike. Strike.
- [54:02]
Jordy Meiselas
My cat is part of the family, plain and slow. Simple. So I want them to have the best food that money can buy. And I didn't realize that for years the cat food that I was buying had questionable ingredients. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. Now, if you're a listener of the show, you know that my cat cannot live without smalls. To get 50% off your first order plus free shipping, head to smalls.com and use promo code Midas. Smalls cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients that you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com name Smalls their best overall cat food. My cat's favorite flavor is smooth fish and my cats prefer Smalls way more than their previous cat food. I legitimately did a taste test, put two bowls side by side and they immediately went to Smalls. Since making the switch to Smalls, my cat has had fewer hair balls, more balanced energy, a healthier weight, a softer and shinier fur coat and a less stinky litter box. That's big. Still not a believer in Smalls? Well, New York magazine called Smalls the best cat food according to veterinarians. While buzzfeed said my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff, my cat's breath is much better and their fur is much softer ever since I switched to Smalls. Smalls also has a bunch of amazing treats and snacks that you can add to your order. And after switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. That's a big deal. Do you have a picky cat? Well, Smalls has a sampler so that your cat can try everything Smalls has to offer. And the team at Smalls so confident that your cat will love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they will refund you if your cat won't eat their food. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve. Head to smalls.com and use promo code MIDAS ME I D A S at checkout for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. That's the best offer that you'll find. But you have to use my code MIDAS for 50% off your first order. One last time. That's promo code MIDAS for 50% off your 1st order plus free shipping. I need to tell y' all about Mud Water and the balance, energy and ease that it's provided me recently. Now seriously, make sure you're listening to this Mud Water. It's a cozy mix of cocoa, chai, turmeric, adaptogenic mushrooms to help you feel focused and balanced and not weird. Now every single ingredient in Mud water's products are 100% USDA certified organic, non GMO, gluten free, vegan and kosher. There's also zero sugar and no sweeteners added. To use Mud Water, you simply drop the powder in your favorite mug, pour some water on it and give it a mix. Some go wild and add creamer, honey or even cbd. Now the best part about Mud Water is it provides sustained energy without the spikes and crashes of traditional coffee. Now there's also caffeine free blends that are available. Mud Water is available at Target and Sprouts locations across the US So it's never been easier to grab a cup of this friendly pick me up ready to make the switch to cleaner energy, head to mudwater.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal. Up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frost. Author when you use Code Midas. That's right. Up to 43% off with code Midas at M U D W T R dot com. Now after your purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please show your support and let them know that we sent you. Keep your energy natural and refreshing all year long with Mud Water because life's too short for anything less than clean, delicious energy. Foreign let's go. Shout out to our sponsors links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Shout out Smalls. They've been with us for a while now. Shout out Mudware. Mud Water. They've been with us for a while now. Use the codes, use the links. Let them know we sent you if there's an exit survey. Some wonderful, wonderful products that I could personally vouch for. Benji, where to next?
- [58:16]
Ben Meiselas
It's a great point though, Jay. Those pro democracy sponsors really help us. We don't have outside investors here. You spend a long time negotiating the discount code. They're great products and it helps us out when you support our sponsors because then they renew their sponsorships and then you've seen the growth of our network. Everything from building out the Katie Fang show to building out the Legal AF channel, the Gen Z Adam Mockler Channel, the Brando Channel, increasing our contributors here, Midas Health. You all see the growth.
- [58:49]
Brett Meiselas
And how about anything, you guys?
- [58:51]
Jordy Meiselas
I mean anything is incredible.
- [58:54]
Brett Meiselas
Unbelievable. You know, it's, it's great to have, you know, voices like that be an independent media people who are really fearless and unafraid to tell it how it is. And that's why it's so great that she's, you know, in this independent media space now doing her incredible reporting. If you haven't checked it out yet, make sure you do. Everybody. It's YouTube.com the@Symbol Katie Fang News. That's P H A n g YouTube.com ats symbol Katie Fang News. Honestly, her, her reporting is like second to none. It's, it's such an honor to have her as part of the Midas Touch network. And for her to be doing her thing right now, it's incredible.
- [59:31]
Ben Meiselas
Also check out Midasplus.com. that's our substack that goes a long way to help us as well. You can also become a member for those on the YouTube chat and get access to those emojis. All right, Dan Bongino, deputy White House deputy FBI director, which basically is deputy White House, whatever his job is, but he's the FBI deputy FBI director, used to be a far right wing podcaster. Now he's a far right wing podcaster who's also the deputy FBI director. Very weird, weird stuff. So he made a very bizarre appearance on Fox this morning where, where he just whined about his life. And I wasn't even sure the purpose of this interview, but he was there saying, it's just a really hard job.
- [60:15]
Brett Meiselas
Job.
- [60:16]
Ben Meiselas
It's really hard. And I don't see my wife a lot and it's very difficult. Well, it's very difficult for me to do this. And, and so it's kind of like I'm divorced from my wife, but not like a real divorce. I just don't see her as much right now. And it's just, this is a lot of work, guys. Here, play the clip. I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my, my wife is struggling. I'm not a victim. I'm not Jim Comey. It's fine. I did this and I'm proud I did it. But if you think we're there for tea and crumpets, well, I mean, cash is there all day. We share. Our offices are linked. He turns on the faucet.
- [60:50]
Donald Trump
I hear it.
- [60:51]
Ben Meiselas
He's there at like 6 o' clock in the morning. He doesn't leave till 7 at night. You know, I'm in there at 7:30 in the morning. You know, he uses the gym. I work out my apartment, but I stare at these four walls all day in D.C. you know, by myself, divorced from my wife. Not divorced, but I mean, separated, divorced. And it's hard. I mean, you know, we love each other and it's hard to be a part. But you're doing some great work.
- [61:13]
Donald Trump
You're straightening out the FBI.
- [61:14]
Ben Meiselas
You move in buildings. There's a lot of change.
- [61:16]
Brett Meiselas
Some guys would rather go on Fox News than go to therapy, I guess. Such, such a bizarre, such a bizarre phrase, you know, divorce from my wife. Oh, yeah, you know, you mean. I mean separated. Separated still means something if you're.
- [61:31]
Jordy Meiselas
I'm sorry, hold on. If you are listening to this episode. Thank you you for the audio listeners, but please go to our YouTube and watch that clip because he, he looks awful. Like, it looks like he is a wind gust away from a mental breakdown.
- [61:46]
Brett Meiselas
Dan, Dan, Dan. No other way to describe that, Mr. Bongino. No one's Forcing you to work to the spark. You could go home, go back to being a weird podcaster. I'd prefer it. Okay, I prefer you being a podcaster than for you to be controlling our FBI.
- [62:00]
Ben Meiselas
But.
- [62:00]
Brett Meiselas
But I digress.
- [62:02]
Ben Meiselas
I show up in the morning and then I work. And then Cash, I hear him, he's there working, and then he. The FBI director's working, and then he leaves at 7. And we want you to feel bad for us. What in the world am I watching?
- [62:19]
Jordy Meiselas
That's a great point. He's just describing work. He's just describing how everyone in society works like this. Yeah, it's. That's. That. What did you think? What do you think people do, Dan? What do you. What That's. They're so out of touch with the American people. It is just absolutely banana land.
- [62:39]
Ben Meiselas
And you know what? A lot of Americans, after they work that, you know, eight to seven or whatever, first off, they don't get to go to the gym and get to work out in. In the apartment or.
- [62:50]
Brett Meiselas
But surely they get to go to Fox News News.
- [62:53]
Ben Meiselas
Don't get to go to Fox News and whine about it. Okay? Then after they work that job, then they work another job until 4am in the morning in order to put food in the mouths of their children or be able to support themselves, and they can't even afford a house. But you're on Fox whining about being the deputy FBI director, and again, that's who they'll be like, yo, this guy's Alpha man. This. This is. These are some Alpha people. People. Him and Cash. But these are out. What are y' all talking about? This is. This is just some strange, strange behavior. And then Donald Trump will post a meme, God sent me. I've been sent by God. You know, with all of these disasters. He posts memes, I'm on a mission from God and nothing can stop what is coming. The hell are you doing? What. What even is that? And the fact that that will get literally zero attention. Zero. No one will talk about it. I've been here. Granted, our platform's bigger than the other platforms, but could you imagine. Could you imagine if former President Obama. I won't even use Biden, say former President Obama made a post with himself just once like that. I would guarantee you, just for that post, you could set aside Qatari jets and you can set aside the bitcoin. Just that post. Post. That would be the front page story of New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today. Oh, don't get me started on Fox. It would be the entire day of Fox. Oh, yeah, they would.
- [64:31]
Brett Meiselas
They would call Obama, sarcastically, the Messiah because they would say that he was always acting like a king when he was president when he wasn't at all. And so now Donald Trump literally says things like he's sent by God, like he's the king and stuff. And it's just radio silence from their part. You know, I was on TikTok doing a tick tock live yesterday before they gave me a strike.
- [64:55]
Jordy Meiselas
Don't get two more strikes, otherwise you can't do those TikTok lives anymore.
- [64:57]
Brett Meiselas
I know. I was doing the live and I was talking about the story about these corrupt Trump pardons, and there was a Trump troll in there. And the. The Trump troll was like, oh, I love seeing the libs cry over, you know, over these people getting pardoned. Ha ha ha. He should do it more. And I just took a moment. I usually ignore, like, comments like that, but I just took a moment.
- [65:17]
Ben Meiselas
I was.
- [65:17]
Brett Meiselas
I was like, Honestly, I was like, I feel bad for you. Like, you are right now cheering on. Just look, think about what you're cheering on. I want you to look at your life, okay? Look to your right, look to your left, look at your bank account. Do whatever you got to do. You are cheering on right now. A billionaire who is bailing out millionaires who defrauded people to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars, who committed tax fraud, who stole money from people, and you are going, ha, ha ha, we owned the libs while you suffer and while this rich guy bails out some other rich people. Like, I just feel bad for you that you think that that is like a cool thing, honestly. And this whole entire brain rotted MAGA culture where they just celebrate everything Donald Trump is, no matter how corrupt, I think all of it will eventually, one day, I'm not sure when, but it will catch up to them and it will be like, you know, I don't know, defending, you know, the Bush administration, like, for Iraq or something. Like, people will just be so embarrassed, embarrassed by this, by them. They're. They're cheerleading of billionaires, by them, cheerleading of oligarchs by them, cheerleading this utter and blatant corruption that they are seeing. And so I just, I had to call it out because it's just, you know, so, so outrageous. You know, I think one of the interesting things with Patel and Bongino, Ben and Jordi is they're like the dog that caught the car with all of this stuff. Because for the past few years, what have they Been doing well as podcasters. They could say, you know, they've been saying whatever they want and they've been push all the, you know, Epstein didn't kill himself. They've been talking about all these Epstein theories. Now one of the interesting switch ups that they're experiencing is, well, now they're in the positions of power, they have all the information, it's all falls upon them. So if there is indeed a cover up going on, the ringleaders of the COVID up are them. And so now after spreading all this stuff over the past few years, everybody's asking, so what actually happened to Epstein here? What actually is going on here? But like the dog that caught the car, they don't know what to do now. So now they are trying to placate their base and they're trying to say, oh, actually he killed himself actually, you know, we're not withholding anything actually. And now they're at the whims of their own conspiracy theory. So I'll play just a couple clips of this. Here's Patel saying that he's not going to withhold anything from the people. But it's interesting to see these people now with their backs against the wall after they were accusing, you know, the Department of Justice of bad behavior previously. But watch this.
- [67:45]
Ben Meiselas
The other thing on the Internet is the Epstein fight files. What's the answer to that? The answer to that is the same as everything else. I'm not going to withhold information from the American public ever. But I'm also not going to rush to get it out there in a format in which they can't rely on it. So on the Epstein matter, any other matters, we are diligently working on that. And it takes time to go through years of investigations, years of political maneuvering and years of COVID up to get the American people what they deserve. And that's what I'm going to give them. On everything, they said that these files.
- [68:21]
Brett Meiselas
Were on Pam Bondi's desk and she was ready to release them that day. And then suddenly something changed and they ended up releasing documents that had already been released years and years ago. Documents, by the way, which contained Donald Trump's name numerous times. Documents that showed Donald Trump, Trump in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book, not only Donald Trump, but just about every emergency contact Donald Trump has ever had. Donald Trump's bodyguard, his nanny. Is this chef, is this every number that you could ever want to reach? Donald Trump and other members of his family were in this little black book. I'm not saying that that means that he did any bad behavior. I am just acknowledging that this is in the files. Donald Trump also in the Epstein flight logs at least seven times from the publicly released, released files. So now we are seeing an FBI that was previously like, oh, yeah, we got the files. They're on the desk.
- [69:11]
Ben Meiselas
We're about to release them.
- [69:12]
Brett Meiselas
All of a sudden the heat gets.
- [69:14]
Ben Meiselas
A little, it gets a little too.
- [69:15]
Brett Meiselas
Hot in the room, I think, for Donald Trump. Right? He catches up to them, they go, oh, no, we can't release them. Oh, wait, Doe 174 in these Epstein cases, which is Donald Trump. You could Google. Who is Doe 174 in the Epstein cases? Donald Trump. Who? At what place did. Did Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell recruit their victim? Victims? Mar A Lago. Donald Trump lived like a mile away from Jeffrey Epstein's house in Palm Beach. They were literally best friends by Jeffrey Epstein's own admission on those tapes to Michael Wolf, tapes that we have played here on the Midas Touch network. And we interviewed Michael Wolf extensively about those tapes. He has hours and hours and hours of recordings. And so now to see Trump's FBI be the ones who are involved in this sort of COVID up now because they know that their boss is pretty closely tied to what's going on, it is quite the scene to behold. I'll just play this one other clip where Cash Patel wants to assure all the MAGA folks out there that Jeffrey Epstein definitely did not kill himself.
- [70:17]
Ben Meiselas
Watch this truth. But there is a lot of conspiracy theories out there. There are. The Epstein thing you dealt with, Maria, you said as far as you know, he killed himself. I'm telling you, he killed himself. Now, it was people, people like Cash and Dan Bongino who were the purveyors of a lot of the things that they're now saying didn't take place. Right? They, they were the ones pushing it. And by the way, when he said, no, it's taking a long time because of all the political maneuvering. Well, who was the Attorney General of Florida when Jeffrey Epstein was sex trafficking in Florida? Who. Who was the Attorney general? Oh, wait, it was Pam D. Bondi. It was Pam Bondi. Who were the federal prosecutors? Oh, wait, it was a federal prosecutor who was in Trump's first cabinet. Who. That's a little bit. Didn't Donald Trump say that Epstein is a great guy who likes women on the younger side, Virginia Jiu Frey, who was underage and trafficked and she died by suicide recently in Australia. The way that she was trafficked was Ghisain Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking, trafficking, found Virginia Giuffre at Mar a Lago and brought her over to Epstein. She, Virginia Giuffre was working at Mar a Lago at Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking trial. There was a witness, someone who's now a woman at the time was 14, who went by a Jane Doe pseudonym who said that she was introduced to Donald Trump by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. So we actually do know like where those files are and it would actually be fairly easy to release them then.
- [71:53]
Brett Meiselas
Who was president while Jeffrey Epstein was in prison? Who was president when Jeffrey Epstein reportedly died by suicide in prison? Donald Trump. And that's why like all of these conspiracy theories that they push, like they go immediately to, oh, this is a Clinton hit job and all, Trump controlled the prisons. Okay. It's the same way that they try to act like Trump wasn't the president during COVID who did all the lockdowns and they try to pin it up all on like Democrats and, and other people. Trump was the president then. Trump oversaw the prisons. Trump did all the things that you guys are apparently all mad about. But you try to blame it on other people. You try to go to your conspiracies, you try to go to your, It's Soros fault, it's Clinton's fault, it's this person's fault, it's that person's fault. Instead of looking inward at your, your Taco Emperor over there and saying something looks a little crunchy over there, I'm not so sure about it. But instead of looking at the this, you continue to deflect. While you, the MAGA influencers are the purveyors, you are the ones who are pushing forward these lies and covering up for all of these bad people.
- [72:59]
Jordy Meiselas
On a human level, real quick to just like a Brett Baer perspective, this is someone who like thinks of himself as, as like a serious reporter for Fox. Like he plays that role like I'm the serious Fox News reporter. I'm going to ask the real questions. Like what do you think he's thinking to himself when he's got Cash Patel there asking these in this Q and A back and forth. I mean the guys, it's such a sham.
- [73:21]
Ben Meiselas
I'll tell you what he's thinking, Jordy. He's got like a 25 million dollar mansion.
- [73:25]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah, exactly. He's thinking, kaching, Kaching, I'll get my.
- [73:30]
Ben Meiselas
Cash, I'll deal with cash. I get my cash and I don't care about the Ramifications of how I do it because I'm gonna go back to my mansion. I think he lives in Florida. I'll have to go. I know he lives in like a 20 million dollar home.
- [73:43]
Brett Meiselas
You gotta look out for those brets with one tees guys. It's never a gig to be a Brett with two T's.
- [73:48]
Jordy Meiselas
You know, should we do a psa? Because we see sometimes in the comments, sometimes people, folks like to call you Brett with one T. And you know.
- [73:53]
Brett Meiselas
I, I did a report on here, you know, video a few weeks ago and Brett Baer was in it and everyone was like oh Brett is the worst. Brett sucks so much. And I opened the comments and I was like hurt until I realized they were all talking until I realized they were talking about Brett Bear. So Brett with one T is him. Okay. I'm the two T guy and we're very different people.
- [74:11]
Jordy Meiselas
There you go. Good PSA.
- [74:13]
Ben Meiselas
Brett recently sold his Washington D.C. man mansion for $25 million to Howard Lutnick who was named Donald Trump's nominee for commerce Secretary. The Bear family previously listed the property at 29 million. So they gave Lutnick a 5 million dollar discount and the sale was the most expensive home sale in the district. The Bears moved to Palm Beach, Florida where they purchased a 37 million dollar mansion. The 16,250 square foot mansion mansion in D.C. was inspired by some French architecture.
- [74:48]
Brett Meiselas
Doesn't that even that small little anecdote that you just read tells you everything. Sum up the incestuousness of this Fox News Trump world one, you know, millionaire, billionaire selling his house to another millionaire slash billionaire. You know, they're just all in these same circles, just you know, hanging out, cashing out, just living the dream. While they pump all this toxicity into our country while they further divide the people, while they encourage their viewers to vote against their own interests so that they could get more tax cuts while their Medicaid is stripped away. It just, it's the epitome of evil when you really break it down and you see all these links like that.
- [75:28]
Ben Meiselas
You know you bought your house when it was sold. Too hot when you, when you bought it for a bad price. Let me buy this is London. Let me buy it for you. I'll buy it for 25. But don't worry, the 4 million is going to be offset. You move to fly Florida, you're not going to pay state income. Florida declare that as your residency for 51 of the time you're going to save $4 million. Murdoch will increase your salary concomitantly. Buy those $4 million. I'll get the discount on the house. You'll be paid more money. You'll be saved the personal income that you know. Look, you want to know how it goes down? I don't know for a fact it's this one, but it's some. Let me explain to you the way it works in that world, okay? It's some variation of what I just said. Rupert will pay you more. Give me that house. I gotta be by Donald. And then you move to Florida. I got a great house for you. You're not going to pay state income tax. Murdoch will help you out. I'll scratch your back. You scratch my back. And then I'll go around and I'll tell people that we're going to move the manufacturing from China.
- [76:37]
Jordy Meiselas
China.
- [76:37]
Ben Meiselas
And we're gonna move it to here in the United States so that generations of families will work in the factories for the oligarchs. You understand? We're gonna be so rich, you're not gonna even know what to do with it. I'm Howard Lutnick. It's my Howard Lutnick impression right there. Let me give you.
- [76:52]
Brett Meiselas
Fantastic. That was great.
- [76:53]
Jordy Meiselas
Thank you.
- [76:53]
Ben Meiselas
Let me give you my final. Give you my final assessment, though, of what went down in court, just in case there's any confusion. Multiple federal courts. Now, the Federal International Trade Court and a federal court in Washington, D.C. both invalidated Donald Trump's tariffs against the world. What happened from the Federal International Trade Court ruling, though, is that the Federal Circuit Court stepped in and issued a temporary stay, allowing Donald Trump's tariffs to remain in place and blocking this three judge panel order. Because in the Federal Court for International Trade, which is like the District Court, it's actually heard by three judge panels. So you had a Democratic appointee on that panel, but you also had a Trump appointee and a Reagan appointee. So of that three judge panel, two were Republicans, one was Trump, one was Reagan, one was a Democratic appointee. And they all agreed that Trump improperly invoked emergency powers to declare these emergencies against the world and tariff the world. So it wasn't some leftist radical court, okay? Which. Which is not what these decisions are in general. So anybody goes, oh, my God, the left of court. No, it was a Trump judge, it was a Reagan judge. It was, frankly, any judge who looks at the facts. Now, the problem, though, is, is that you have these federal courts and these circuit courts and the Supreme Court. Oh, don't get me started on the Supreme Court. But they apply this we're in normal times. So what they go back to is, what's the status quo? And they go, well, we need to preserve the status quo before the lawsuit. So the status quo before the lawsuit were tariffs against the world. When in my view, if you want to preserve the status quo, it's before the unlawful act, not before the lawsuit. The status quo was there was not tariffs against the world. And we've seen this time and time again with these Court of Appeal appeals, which super supervise the federal courts and the Supreme Court, right? Whether it's the issue of the Trump removal of key people who work in all of these agencies, right. The different chairmen and chairwomen of the agencies, the Supreme Court will be like, well, we need to stay the ruling of the lower court because Donald Trump already removed these people. So the status quo is their removal. Now they got to spend a year and a half, two years, years fighting to basically go get over the hurdle to get what I think is the status quo, which is to have their jobs back. So even though this stay is temporary, Donald Trump now has until at least June 9, based on the briefing schedule, where these tariffs against the world remain in place. Then who knows if the court actually rules on June 9th or if it rolls over to July Lie. But to me, the status quo that you're saying that you're supporting when you stay is Donald Trump's implementation of the unlawful act versus to me, the status quo is rewind before the unlawful act because that's when it was normal. And they try to be like, procedurally, well, you know, we have to do it before the lawsuit. And again, that to me, has these major ramifications where they normalize Trump's behavior. So right now, the status is, is that Trump's tariffs basically can remain in place because the order from the Trump judge and the Reagan judge blocking it, that's been stayed instead of Trump's underlying conduct, which is clearly unlawful based on what that judicial panel said. We'll be following this every step of the way here. But you better believe that foreign countries are looking at us and saying, saying, whoa, we, how do we. What the hell is going on there? This is not a reliable trade partner. This is some crazy instability. And no matter what, what these judges doing, what the media is doing, you know, who's, what, what, what Trump's doing, what the MAGA Republicans are doing in the House and Senate, all that's doing is hurting the people and seriously hurting the people in the long, in the long term. And that's a real big problem. And that's why, why for me right now, it's simple. You fight for the people. You fight, you listen, and you fight for the people. That's what it is. And that's what we're going to do every day on the Midas Touch podcast. So thank you everybody for watching. Brett, anything you want to say or should we hand it off to Jay?
- [81:24]
Brett Meiselas
No, do not everybody just remember to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Leave a five star review. Thank you for everybody's support. And no, we're just really grateful. Join us on substack midas plus.com as well. Ron Phil Lipkowski does those daily recaps there. So if there's anything we ever miss on this show, you could be sure that they are in Ron's daily recaps. But that being said, we packed a lot into this show, fellas, and and I'm really happy with it. And thank you to everybody watching and listening. We are so incredibly grateful.
- [81:54]
Jordy Meiselas
And then Last quick reminder, store.midas touch.com Use code taco through the weekend. 10% off your entire order. Code taco store.midas touch.com Shout out to the Midas.
- [82:08]
Ben Meiselas
Standing strong.
- [82:12]
Brett Meiselas
Against the fascist we sing our song.
- [82:23]
Jordy Meiselas
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@middlemidasplus.com.