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- [00:01]
Ben Meiselas
Donald Trump announced a fake deal with the United Kingdom today, where essentially Trump partially removed tariffs that he put in place in early April. And he's calling that a deal while trying to manipulate the markets and telling people, I don't know, something good may happen with China. You may want to start to buy stock right now. We've seen this game with Donald Trump before, but let's face it, mainstream, real people are suffering right now. Unless you're in the 1% or the 1% of 1%. Inflation's on the rise again. Again. The deficits, trade deficits are actually getting larger. Our economy is shrinking. We'll talk about that on this episode. Also, a new pope was selected. The first ever American pope, now named Leo the 14th, was previously a cardinal in Chicago. One of the interesting data points is that the new pope had previously made lots of posts very critical of Donald Trump and J.D. vance. And also a bishop who was part of Donald Trump Pope's committee on religion had made a statement that he does not expect there ever to be an American pope unless the power of America is in decline. And if an American pope were to ever to be appointed, it would demonstrate the view by the Vatican that America is in decline. So you can ask yourself if that's a correlation, but this bishop who's part of Donald Trump's religious council is the person who made that statement. Also, the MAGA Republicans at war with each other over the reconciliation of the budget. You've got a lot of MAGA Republicans who want to gut Medicaid. Others are worried about the optics of gutting Medicaid and how that could impact their election in the midterm. They're calling this a big, beautiful bill because Donald Trump's making them call it that. But it is a big, massive disaster. And already MAGA Republicans in the Senate, like Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, are already saying there's no chance that a reconciliation along the lines of what the MAGA Republicans in the House are doing will ever pass the Senate. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about a lot more. And of course, Donald Trump saying, little girls, you get one pencil, one doll and shut up. Trump regime central planning is telling you what you can buy and not buy. While Donald Trump is getting ready for a trip to the Middle east to meet with countries whose sovereign wealth funds have put literally, what, $4 billion in Donald Trump's pocket in the past one, whether it's a resort deal with Qatar, Abu Dhabi using Trump crypto, Saudi Arabia having Trump resorts in Oman, and more. Donald Trump's family is the only person benefiting off of all of these, what I like to refer to as the rug pull Ponzi scheme presidency. Let's bring in Brett and Jordi. Guys, how are you doing, brothers?
- [02:56]
Brett Meiselas
Doing well. Trying to make sense of this all. Ben, Jordy, good to see you guys. Good to see you. Midas Mighty. Everybody watching here on YouTube, everybody listening on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get podcasts, make sure to add Midas touch podcast. Another day, another day of chaos. As always with Donald Trump, I like how these Republicans are always concerned about the optics. What if this looks, what if it looks bad that we're taking away people's health care? How about don't be so concerned about the optics and be concerned about the fact that you're actually trying to take away people's health care. How about we start there and not with how is this going to look to people? Because it looks pretty bad. Because it is pretty bad. And Trump now kind of just encouraging these shortages, saying that we're going to have to learn to live with less, that girls are going to have to have less dolls, fewer dolls. And what's his obsession with dolls anyway? Everything's about to get more expensive. There are about to be shortages of every single product under the sun. And Donald Trump just continues to sit there, manipulate the markets, do his same scheme, and honestly sound like a communist dictator. The way he speaks like Trump is like full on commie right now. The statements coming out of his mouth are what we've heard from communist regimes throughout history. Now it's coming from an American president. And the irony of the party who's always calling everything communist, the of that coming from them is just very apparent to me. I would say, anyway, good to be here with you guys. Jordy, what's the latest on your end?
- [04:17]
Jordy Meiselas
Excited to get into the show. Before I toss it over to Benji, I know everyone's on the edge of their seats. Yes, I do finally have power back after eight days. So super excited. Again, shout out Western PA man. Us Yinzers, man, we're. We're different.
- [04:31]
Ben Meiselas
We're a different breed. We're tough. We're tough out here.
- [04:33]
Jordy Meiselas
Benji, where do you want to start?
- [04:36]
Ben Meiselas
I was speaking at this conference this past week, and one of the things I was asked is, what do you think resonates about the Midas Touch network to your audience? And I said, we try to just break through, break things down. Not at a political level, but just kind of basic common sense when it comes to, you know, people and Facts and data. And we try to come with receipts and we try to come with common sense. So we all know that when the ships are not arriving at ports in the United States, that's a bad thing, right? The ships are supposed to come in. We're supposed to have healthy trading relationships. So to me, when Donald Trump is out there holding press conferences and he's asked the most basic of questions, are you concerned that ships are not coming into, say, the Port of Seattle or the Port of Long beach in Los Angeles or ports in Boston? Or does that concern you that these shipping volumes are down significantly? Isn't that going to result in scarcity and supply shortages? And it's a lagging indicator. But, but does that worry you? And when Donald Trump's response is no, I think it's a great thing because that means we lose less money, you think about that and you go, that makes no sense right there. So we can't normalize statements like this. Here's what Donald Trump said earlier. To that extent, let's play it. Because business has slowed down, as you mentioned. We're seeing, but we're see, as a.
- [06:09]
Jordy Meiselas
Result, the ports here in the US.
- [06:11]
Ben Meiselas
The traffic has really slowed and now.
- [06:14]
Jordy Meiselas
Thousands of dock workers and truck drivers.
- [06:16]
Ben Meiselas
Are worried about their jobs.
- [06:19]
Donald Trump
That means we lose less money. When I see that, that means we lose less money.
- [06:23]
Ben Meiselas
When I see that, that means we lose less money. We lose less money. What are you talking about? It means we lose more jobs. It means we lose trucking jobs. It means we lose the jobs of longshoremen and longshore women. It means that the products are not getting on the shelves. It means Americans can't access goods. And that's a problem that's causing harm to the economy. And by the way, the trade deficit is at record highs right now. So if this whole thing was, well, we need to reduce the trade deficit because America's getting screwed over. It's had the exact opposite effect as American companies have scrambled to try to import as much as possible before the supply chain completely breaks down. So that what we're showing to our audio listeners, just so you know, this is a headline from Newsmax. Don't get much more right wing than Newsmax. US trade deficit surges 14% to record high of 140.5 billion. And then you take a look not just at the trade deficit, but our overall budget deficits here in the United States, and you look at the GOP budget that is going to explode the deficit by trillions and trillions of dollars, like at a bare minimum, like 3 to 5 trillion dollars just on this alone. I think it's going to be more like 15 to 25 or even more trillion dollars because the Trump regime's basically fired all of the IRS auditors and they've gutted it to the point where I don't think we're going to be able to effectively collect tax revenue the way we did before. But while that's going on, here's what Donald Trump was doing at the same press conference. And again, he's using his position in the Oval Office and he's also using state regime media, known as Fox, because the Kyron. Did you all notice what the Kyron said there? It said, Trump going to have a good weekend with China. That's what it said on the prior Chiron. And this is all arranged together. Regime media works, basically, Fox, Trump, they're basically the same, right? Jeanine Pirro, for example, from Fox, she's being looked at right now to be the next United States attorney from Washington, D.C. after the Trump regime dropped that Ed Martin guy. After at least one MAGA Republican, Thom Tillis from North Carolina, said they wouldn't approve Ed Martin because he supported January 6th insurrectionists too much. There's a little bit of support for J6, which is okay, but just too much for the MAGA Republican in the Senate. But here, what Donald Trump then does with this press conference where he's announcing this fake UK Trade, trade deal is he goes and tells people, you better buy stock, you better buy stock. Then he combines that with using the term Palestinian as a slur to attack a Jewish senator, Chuck Schumer. Here, watch this.
- [09:11]
Donald Trump
Yeah, you better go out and buy stock. Now, let me tell you this. This country will, will be like a rocket ship that goes straight up. This is going to be numbers that nobody's ever seen before. That's a very important element of all of this. You know, if we get that, if you don't, and the Democrats are fighting it only because they want to fight, they have Trump derangement syndrome. You know, with somebody else, they wouldn't fight. If you had a normal person, some stiff sitting behind you, they'd be fine. But they have Trump derangement syndrome. Senator Schumer's become a Palestinian.
- [09:45]
Ben Meiselas
Welcome.
- [09:45]
Donald Trump
I don't know when they're going to give him the ceremony, whatever the ceremony may be. It's terrible what's happened to the Democrats. So very, very important element of everything, of what we're doing, unrelated to today, but related in the sense that we'll do. If that passes, we'll do even more business with the UK. We'll have so much.
- [10:07]
Ben Meiselas
First off, all UK trade is under 2% with the United States, number one. Number two, the person laughing in the background there at what was just not funny at all was Commerce Secretary Howard Nutlik. I mean, Howard Lutnick. And you heard him laughing. Oh, he called him a Palestinian. It's not funny. Number two. Number three, when you talk about this UK trade deal that they announced, again, it's another part of the Ponzi scheme. It's not a trade deal. So any corporate news that refers to this as a trade deal, it is not that. First off, trade deals need to be approved by Congress, number one. Number two, Donald Trump declared an emergency, essentially war against the UK in every country, to impose emergency tariffs, which Trump never had the ability to do. He then reduced some tariffs, unlike Range Rovers and Land rovers from the UK basically, from like 20% or 25% to 10%. And then they kind of encourage the UK to buy American beef, which there's no guarantee of. That's what they're calling a deal. That's not a trade deal. Is that one of what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen calls a sub deal? This. This is not a deal that took place. Trump created a fire. He's the arsonist. He then tries to. He doesn't even try to put it out. He pretends he shows up with the hose, doesn't even put the fire out. And then he just says, hey, everybody, I put the fire out. Look what I did with the uk and then goes and says, you better buy stock now so that the market goes up on that. Because the past times, Donald Trump has said that he's announced something where he can move the markets up and then the markets go down. You need to understand, though, systemically, right, what's happening with our economy. What it means when the GDP is shrinking, what it means when mortgage rates are now 6.9 or 7% and housing is less affordable, not more affordable, and inflation's on the rise. I mean, you take a look at what Goldman Sachs, not exactly a lefty organization, Goldman Sachs. You take a look at what Ken Griffin, the head of Citadel, saying, what Mark Rowan, the head of Apollo Global, is saying. You take a look at these, you know, Republican donors and Republicans and Republican business leaders. They're saying that Trump has destroyed the brand of America. Basically. The value of the dollar has essentially been irreparably tainted. Our bond market has been irreparably tainted, and the impacts are going to be felt for generations. And then you see the day to day market volatility and again it just looks like the Trump meme coin, our stock market. And who's going to get screwed? Not Trump because he's getting Qatari money and Saudi Arabian money and Abu Dhabi money. You're going to get screwed. And you being the global you. Anyone who doesn't have private jets and yachts and people, including Trump supporters, they're going to get screwed.
- [13:25]
Brett Meiselas
Brett and Jordan, those wokesters at Goldman Sachs. Classic Woke Lib. Goldman Sachs woke up. Wokeman Sachs I think is what they're calling them now. Wokadel Wokalo. No, that one doesn't quite work. It was Apollo with Woke before. It didn't really.
- [13:41]
Jordy Meiselas
It was a good try.
- [13:44]
Brett Meiselas
Sometimes you got to shoot your shot once every few, you know, you connect. Yeah, this was totally embarrassing. And Trump hailed it as if this was going to be some sort of major trade deal. Last night, one of his classic all caps tweets, we did it everybody. It's like, what did you do? First off, once it came out that it was the United Kingdom, I couldn't help but laugh because we actually have a trade surplus with the United Kingdom.
- [14:07]
Ben Meiselas
Which the whole point of this is.
- [14:08]
Brett Meiselas
For the trade deficit. So it doesn't even make sense to begin with. Of course you're going to cut the deal with the one that we have the surplus with because your tariffs, by your own admission of the reasoning that you're saying these tariffs are being placed doesn't make any sense with the nation that we have a trade surplus on. And even with that they couldn't even get to an actual deal. It's a concept of a deal that we are working on right here. And it's just like everything thing they do is just a scam from start to finish. And quite frankly, I wish that there were a lot of aspects of this that could work. I wish that DOGE was actually an organization that was going in to improve the technology of government, increase the efficiency of government. But then I wish, you know, maybe they actually could actually lower the deficit or balance the budget. The fact is when they actually come into office, they complain about all that crap and then they do the opposite and they do it far worse than any of their major complaints. Like Donald Trump is going to explode the deficit once again way more than what the deficit or debt went up under Joe Biden, which was actually decreasing under Joe Biden the deficit. You see, with this whole Doge nonsense, Trump at or Elon Musk was promising over $2 trillion in cuts. Right. We're going to have $2 trillion in cuts to the government. Well, Judd Lagum did a report yesterday showing that Elon Musk is now on track to deliver just 5 billion worth of cuts. So 0.25% of the promised cuts, and that's him being generous to get to that number. And not only that, that doesn't take into account the amount that Doge is actually costing us. As Ben mentioned before, by Doge's actions in the IRS alone, it is going to cost the US more than $1 trillion. I think some of the estimates are 1.6, $1.7 trillion in costs to the United States. So Elon Musk said that he was going to save the federal government $2 trillion. In fact, he is costing the federal government at least that amount and probably more, while also causing chaos, while also causing mass unemployment, while also just disrupting people's lives. The trauma that comes with all this, the collective trauma that we are all experiencing here as Americans, it's just one scam after the next scam after the next scam with nothing actually getting done. And that's why we see when these Republicans actually have to do something or when Donald Trump actually has to do something, like, okay, fellas, it's time to pass a budget. This is your most basic of tasks. You gotta just pass a budget. This is what every Congress and president needs to do each year. Right. They cannot even do the most basic tasks of governing. That's why they're so focused on, let's rename the Persian. The Persian Sea. Or let's rename the Gulf of American Mexico to Gulf of America.
- [16:54]
Ben Meiselas
Want to go the Persian Gulf? They want to call it the Arabian Gul. No.
- [16:57]
Brett Meiselas
Like that. Yeah. So this is. This is. That's all they could do because they could only handle the performative crap. And they're not even that good at that. Like, even when you look at. I know I'm covering a lot right now, but even when you look at deportations, Trump's deportation numbers, despite all the chaos, despite all of his illegal actions, despite him deporting people, kidnapping people, abducting them, disappearing them, sending them to these death camps, these concentration camps, he's actually deporting fewer people, people than Joe Biden did, than Barack Obama did. Like, how could you be so evil yet so incompetent at the same time? But that is the name of the game with the Trump administration.
- [17:35]
Jordy Meiselas
Brett, you talk about this collective trauma that we're all going through, and I Just want to say that, that that's exactly what it is. Like, you're so right. It's just so deeply pathetic watching Trump field these questions. He's barely getting out sentences as he's responding. But is corporate media going to push back on that and say, hey, are you cognitively all there? I don't know if they will, but we certainly will here. And you got Nutlik in the background just chuckling it up like it's all just so honestly dystopian and like, what in the North Korea are we watching?
- [18:06]
Brett Meiselas
Wasn't that just so embarrassing to watch too, the way he was laughing? You know, it's a fake laugh.
- [18:13]
Ben Meiselas
It's like, okay, you're doing.
- [18:14]
Brett Meiselas
It's like Austin Powers when like the people around Dr. Evil are like, yes, that's so funny.
- [18:20]
Jordy Meiselas
That you were saying. I was thinking of, of an analogy like that. That's exactly what that is. It's the Dr. Evil when they're all around the circular chair like, like the extended. But, but it, but, but it hurts. Like, I wish it was funny, but it like genuinely hurts me as someone who deeply loves this country. And I know the Midas mighty in this pro democracy community. Like, it hurts you too. Like, you see these losers up there, these completely incompetent fools who are just destroying the country that we love and, and they're laughing about it on their way and they just look so evil and manipulative and it's just all so pathetic.
- [18:52]
Ben Meiselas
Pathetic, you know, and it's like whack a mole. There's so many things you kind of have to cover. Like at the same time they're like destroying museums in the United States. Like, they're like getting rid of artifacts from the African American History Museum, the Smithsonian, they're going after the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles and also museums like that across the country that celebrate diversity and inclusion of, of other ethnicities and other cultures. They're getting shut down. And like attorney generals across the country have to like file lawsuits, protect museums. You know, one of the things that they're doing too. I know we have a lot of supporters from Sweden here and the Midas mighty. So like this, I didn't even get enough attention. So the US Embassy in Stockholm, in Sweden is demanding that Stockholm itself, that the city stop all diversity and inclusion initiatives. The US Embassy is making an order to Sweden through the US Embassy that they don't support Sweden doing diversity and inclusion. And it just goes to show you, like, I can go to different countries, but just think about what the people in Sweden are thinking. Like, the US Embassy is telling us in Sweden that we can't support diversity here. Like, who are you? Like, no, we're going to do what we do in our country. And, Brett, you talk about the renaming of the Persian Gulf. They want to call it the Arabian Gulf. And by the way, you know, it probably went down like this. Trump was probably, like, on a call with MBS or, or the Abu Dhabi Fund or someone in advance. And, you know, he was probably like, you know, you know, which is like, you want something funny you want me to do? I'm going to go out, like, Gulf of America, mbs. I'm going to do. I'm going to call it the Arabian Gulf, you know? And I mean, oh, no, you're not going to do it. I'll go do it. I'm going to do it, you know, and, like, that's what our foreign policy has become. But what it really abstracts and obscures is what we should be focusing on, right? Like, what's going on in the Red Sea right now. We've lost at least two F18 Hornet jets just fell off airplanes while the Houthis are attacking. I think it's the USS Harry Truman. That's, that's, that's out there. We've lost at least what, seven or eight, but potentially more Reaper drones over Yemen. And this is, as we're also aware, that Department of Defense and State Department are putting the lid. They're preventing any information about US Casualties in Yemen from even being reported on at all. And we know that it was the communications about the Houthis and strike targets that were in the signal text threads between Mike Walls, the former National Security Adviser, and Pete Hegseth, the Department of Defense Secretary. And so do we have any trust or faith that the Trump regime is not covering up what the hell is going on? Like, why are we losing a combined half a billion dollars to maybe a billion dollars in military equipment in the past 100 days? Could you imagine if former President Biden lost nearly a billion billion dollars in military equipment in the, in the, in just the Red Sea, and there's no explanation, really for it other than the plane just fell off the ship. The Reapers, they just got shot down in the past 100 days we're talking about.
- [22:23]
Brett Meiselas
And I could tell you they'd be blaming, you know, dei, they'd be blind. They'd find some transgender person to pin this on, because that's what they do. They'd be blaming some black person because that's what they do. This is like, what. The hearings.
- [22:34]
Jordy Meiselas
They'd hold.
- [22:35]
Brett Meiselas
Oh, my God, there'd be hearings. How could this happen? How. This is wokeism. This is d. I mean, you know that, right?
- [22:40]
Ben Meiselas
With such. They would go, you know, they would go up there and they would grandstand, right? They would go, eight Reaper Jones drones. They would go, you know, and they would make it a big deal. This is treason. And they would say, just like, right. And then that would be on Fox. Treason, impeachment. And. And by the way, four Americans died in Lithuania. Trump and the regime said nothing about it. Two American soldiers died in the border of New Mexico. Nothing about it at all.
- [23:12]
Brett Meiselas
Like you said it, you know, their strategy is the COVID strategy, which is you don't test. There are no cases. And that's what they do in every single aspect. That anytime anything looks bad for them, they just don't talk about it. Or Trump says, I don't know anything about it. They don't report the actual facts. The fact that we are like, let's face it, like, we are at. At war in Yemen right now. Like, we are at war in the Red Sea with the Houthis. And I know people don't want to call it that, but that is exactly what is going on. And Trump's, you know, now claiming that there's some sort of ceasefire. Well, there has to be a tax for there to be a ceasefire. Like, there's a ceasefire. Everything's going great. We're saying it's a ceasefire. But even after Donald Trump said that, that's like, when a lot of these incidents continue to happen. And I believe, and this is my speculation, and it's backed up by facts at least a little bit, that we're not getting the full picture of what's going on because the Trump administration refuses to tell us what's actually going on in the Red Sea. So when I hear these stories of these fighter jets that are mysteriously falling off the USS Harry S. Truman, you know, I cannot help but think, did something else happen here? Then this ship just happened to miss the landing or it just happened to fall off? Like, those stories, just to me, they're not like, quite checking out as, oh, that makes sense. That's a usual thing that happens. Planes just roll off aircraft carriers all the time. And there's been like, multiple. Multiple instances just like this over the past few months. Multiple instances. And when you look at, like, you know, what. What is Pete Hegset saying while this is going on? You see, Pete, except like, yesterday, like, when we were learning about some of this new stuff with the Houthis, and we were learning about, you know, these wars breaking out between India and Pakistan. You see Hegseth posting things like, no more Woke bullshit in my military. Kiss my ass. And it's like, okay, talk tough all you want. Like, you're the worst. You're completely incompetent. Like, our shit, our. Our fighter jets are just being lost. Off, off, off our aircraft carriers. We're being attacked, the world is on fire, and you're complaining about Wokeism. Like, get over yourself. Do your damn job.
- [25:17]
Jordy Meiselas
You mean, Brett, you don't think we're getting accurate information from the slow the testing down guy? You don't think he's given us, us up to date details on everything?
- [25:25]
Brett Meiselas
I'm going to say probably not. I'm going to also.
- [25:27]
Ben Meiselas
Donald Trump said, it's also really weird, too, to like, very quickly enter into, like, a ceasefire agreement with the Houthis after talking so much shit. Like, just think about it like, you're the United States of America, right? You're talking, we're going to demolish them. We're going to do. We're going to F them up. I mean, right? They want everything. And then eight Reaper drones go down, we lose two F18s. And then Donald Trump said, he's like, you know, they're very. He called the Houthis honorable people. In a press guy, he goes, they're very honorable people. We trust them. We're doing this.
- [25:57]
Brett Meiselas
He was like, yeah, they took our. They took our hits very well. They were quite brave out there. I'm like, you're calling the Houthis brave? Like, what are you doing, man? Like, you're the Commander in Chief. Act like it.
- [26:07]
Ben Meiselas
And when we come back, I want to talk about this too, Brett, because you. We've covered. We've covered, like, a lot of topics. Wow. You know, in a short period of time already. But I want to bring this, too, because we've gone from real credible scientists, people like Dr. Fauci who are out to now you have people who are in. And Foushee wasn't the Surgeon General, but, you know, but. But we had, you know, top doctors who used to be the Surgeon General. But right now, for example, Trump fired his prior Surgeon general pick, who was a Fox News host, but she was actually somewhat qualified, but she was pro vaccine, so that made her go the same way. Donald Trump fired the head of FEMA today, who was a MAGA guy, but he said that FEMA really needs to help communities. And so Trump fired the FEMA guy because the FEMA guy was too pro FEMA and the Fox host that he had as the surgeon general was too pro vaccine. So they bring in someone named Casey Means. Now, Casey Means is not a licensed doctor. She quit during her residency. She never made it through her residency. Which, by the way, you know, as I've said before, as it relates to Jim Jordan, he never took the bar exam. And I said, does it look I took the bar exam, does that make me a smarter person because I passed the bar? You know, I mean, I would prefer a licensed lawyer with experience to lead the Judiciary Committee. So the fact that you have a not a not licensed lawyer in Jim Jordan, I don't like that. The Judiciary Committee, someone who never passed the bar exam, you know, same thing, too. Surgeon General, let's start with you passed your residency and you're licensed as a doctor. We could go up from there. But I also don't like when the surgeon general said that the way she found love at the age of 35 was through shrines, full moon ceremonies. She talked to trees and then did mushrooms. And that was part of her plan. We've got a lot more to discuss on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast podcast. Although we covered a lot right there. We will be right back after a quick message. I want to remind Everybody, go to Midasplus.com support our substack. Go to patreon.com Midas Touch and we're going to have another zoom meeting with our patron soon there. And store.midas touch.com get that Midas touch gear. And for everybody in Canada, we got that elbows up Canadian gear, 100% made in Canada over there. And then the rest of the stuff is here in the US but we may have to make some gear for our Australian supporters. Albo's up and Anthony Albanissi's honor. Elbows up. Elbows up. Let's take our first quick break of the show.
- [28:58]
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- [29:27]
Ben Meiselas
Home too.
- [29:28]
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- [29:58]
Ben Meiselas
Going to regret it.
- [29:59]
Commercial Speaker
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- [30:39]
Brett Meiselas
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- [31:08]
Ben Meiselas
Done.
- [31:09]
Brett Meiselas
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- [31:55]
Jordy Meiselas
Let'S go. Shout out to our sponsors. Shout out three day blinds. Big update Benji, looks like you got some three day blinds behind now. Sorry to your neighbor but those are looking pretty fresh. Shout out to Graza. Look these sponsors are new this year and they've just been friggin awesome. So. So if you're in the market for that stuff, check it out. Links in description of audio and the YouTube, click the links, use the codes, let them know we sent you. Benji, where to next?
- [32:17]
Ben Meiselas
You know like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessens, the guy who came from Wall street, right, he knows what a tariff is. He knows that tariffs are bad. Like this. This. There are some things that we shouldn't even have to have debates over, right? We shouldn't have debates over is there due process or not due process. There is due process. That's the United States of America. If you are even having a debate over it, the debate is in bad faith because the answer is yes, there's due process, period. You don't like that, go to Russia, go to North Korea. We have due process here. Even for really bad guys, they get due process and then if they're convicted, they get thrown in jail. And we should be law and order, law is the first part of it and then order, law and order. That's what there should be. We shouldn't have to have debates again over, you know, is a tariff a good thing or a bad thing? We know what a tariff is. A tariff is a tax. It is a levy, quite literally on the importer in the United States, which is passed on the consumer. It's the biggest regressive tax in American history. That's what's taking place, that gets passed on to the consumer. That's what it is. Not a hard question, but people like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant who know better, lie. And the problem is it's this whole Covid mentality of like a miracle, it's all going to go away. It's not happening. Seven cases are going to go to zero cases. While a gathering storm is happening, while the shores are moving back and the tsunami wave is coming. We see it. And all that's happening in the interim is market manipulation. Which sucks because that's helping regular folk, which is why there shouldn't be a Democrat or a Republican issue. We see what's happening at the ports. We know what's happening. I don't think we need to play the clip. But the guy who runs the port of Seattle saying he doesn't see ships. The guy who runs the port of Long beach, which is in Los Angeles, I don't see ships. Less ships. We're gonna run out of supplies. They're telling us this. And Scott Besant is lying. Here was his testimony. Here's Treasury Secretary Scott Besant being asked a very simple question by a Democratic congressmember. Who pays the tariff? You don't get much more basic than that. Here, play this clip.
- [34:45]
Scott Besant
Who pays tariffs? Mr. Secretary.
- [34:52]
Ben Meiselas
No, no, no. Ask the.
- [34:53]
Scott Besant
Answer the questions I asked, please. I only have five minutes. Who pays tariffs?
- [34:56]
Commerce Secretary
Sorry.
- [34:57]
Scott Besant
Well, who pays tariffs? Sorry, Mr. Secretary, please excuse me. The question is very simply, who pays tariffs? Mr. Chairman, I'd like him to answer that question. Well, he wants to answer other questions.
- [35:06]
Commerce Secretary
Well, Congressman, if the Congressman, if the exporters, they dislike tariffs so much, why wouldn't they. If I think what you're trying to get me to say.
- [35:21]
Scott Besant
Did you remember the question? I'm not sure you did. Who pays tariffs that they.
- [35:26]
Commerce Secretary
It's a very complicated question.
- [35:28]
Scott Besant
Reclaiming my time. People pay tariffs, right? I'm Reclaiming my time, Mr. Secretary. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Secretary. Reclaiming my time. You clearly aren't going to answer. I'm not going to waste my time having you go, Mr. Secretary.
- [35:43]
Ben Meiselas
Rick claim to know what he was trying to say. If the exporters dislike the tariffs so much, just a barrier for them to do trade based on the levy that's being imposed on the. On the importer. So when they go, oh, well, they're going to. They're going to eat the tariff. What do you mean they're going to eat the. What do you mean they're going to eat it? What are we even talking about? They're going to. They're going to. They're going to eat it. No, they're going to. It's going to happen. What happened in China, where there's now basically a trade environment? No one's eating it. What are they talking about? I don't even know what.
- [36:18]
Brett Meiselas
I don't even know what eating it means, honestly. And I guess the only. If we really want to dig into this stupidity, and I don't know why I'm bothering, I guess the company can eat it and then pay the consumer to buy their product. I guess if there's 145% tariff, it.
- [36:35]
Ben Meiselas
Doesn'T make any sense.
- [36:37]
Jordy Meiselas
They just say, they just say phrases. You don't have the cards, Linsky, you.
- [36:41]
Ben Meiselas
Don'T have the cards.
- [36:42]
Jordy Meiselas
Fall. He doesn't, he had to fold. He didn't have the card.
- [36:44]
Ben Meiselas
They're going to eat it, they're going.
- [36:45]
Jordy Meiselas
To eat the tariffs. They just say shit. And their words don't have any meaning.
- [36:52]
Ben Meiselas
In that case when the importer be the one eating it. If they didn't pass it on to the consumer by eating it, you mean the exporter would need to make their prices lower. So when you still add the tariff to the lower priced good, it technically evens out to what it was. But then you still have the tariff.
- [37:12]
Brett Meiselas
And a lot of these tariffs are like the China tariffs over 100, it's like 145. So it's not even a possible thing. I, I want one of the things that we've seen also is that, and, and remember when it's a China tariff, that's like Ben saying a tariff on the imports coming from China that's being paid by American businesses, that's America paying more. That's the American consumer paying more. And it's pretty obvious why Scott Besant didn't want to answer that because he would be directly contradicting Donald Trump who continues to lie about what a tariff even is. Or maybe he honestly doesn't even know what it is because when we watched that ABC interview the other day, it showed that his mental capacities were at rock bottom. And so perhaps Donald Trump doesn't even know what this is. Who knows? But Scott Bessant definitely knows what this is and he's just trying to protect Donald Trump here by continuing to lie to the American people about what's going on. I think one of the interesting things that I've seen, I'm not sure if you gu have seen this, but on social media a lot of companies now are posting their tariff bills and a lot of these people are people, you know, small business owners who supported Trump. And I think it's actually a really interesting trend that we are seeing, whether it's on Blue sky or Twitter, on Facebook or whatever, people posting like their statements from DHL that says in order for you to take this package, you not only have to pay the price of the goods, but you also owe. And its prices are exorbitant. Like for, you know, goods that don't even cost that much, they're paying thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars that they now have to pay. And so when Donald Trump says we're getting rich, we're getting rich, maybe he's just speaking about himself. Because the people who are actually paying those fees are American businesses. And the American people.
- [38:49]
Ben Meiselas
Now, most employment in America actually comes from small and medium sized businesses, right? The big corporations are out there lobbying for their exemptions, but the small and medium sized businesses are getting absolutely screwed. And so when Besant or Lutnick say, well, look, I've spoken to a lot of corporations and they've already built up the inventory to be ready for this situation. Small and medium sized businesses are not. And what, what this all leads us to head towards, I've said it before, I've called it a Tom Hanks moment. Because remember when Tom Hanks got Covid, and by the way, Australia took great care of him after Donald Trump's lies, like a miracle, it's all going to go away. It's great. Everything's amazing. Tom Hanks got Covid. And then everyone was like, whoa, this is real. It's not going away. And then we had Trump lockdowns, remember? When is there going to be that Tom Hanks moment? Because Trump's entire life has been that. When the lies have caught up to him. And then there's been a catastrophic event that's led to a bankruptcy, right? What Donald Trump do in Atlantic City created three casinos right next to each other that cannibalized each other. He over leveraged it, he told everybody it was going great. And then one day, boop, bankrupt. Everybody loses their jobs, contractors don't get paid, employees get fired. It devastates all of Atlantic City. And there were so many people saying, dude, if you open up three casinos next to each other and you take and you're over leveraged the way you are, of course you're gonna go bankrupt. And Trump would try to get those people fired, the experts fired, right? That's what Trump did during COVID When the Ponzi scheme runs out, he blames the expert. And now he's trying to Dr. Fauci, the federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell. And so when things go bad, when it all blows up, they're going to blame Powell and you're going to hear, Powell did this. If he just lowered the interest rates, we'd be good. He would have figured it out. That's the campaign that they're running right now. Now let me show you this. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, like all these Trump regime members, they go on TV and they talk about because Donald Trump, Donald Trump says Alcatraz. They say Alcatraz. Donald Trump says tariff movies. They say tariff movies.
- [41:10]
Brett Meiselas
Movies.
- [41:10]
Ben Meiselas
Donald Trump said it's just parroting what he's saying. Donald Trump posts AI images of himself as the Pope. Oh, that's so funny. You know, isn't this guy the funniest ever? And by the way, just let me address quickly the idea of like Trump, them saying that this is a joke and just Donald Trump said that when he claimed that he was going to bring peace to Ukraine in 24 hours, he told Time magazine that that was a joke and he said it was in jest and if the fake news took him seriously, they shouldn't have. So Donald Trump uses the concept of jokes, which by the way, there's a time and a place for jokes. You know, a time and a place for a joke in the presidency. The White House correspondents dinner that Donald Trump never shows up to because he can't take self deprecating humor. There's places for it. But joking or saying you're joking about bringing peace to Ukraine in 24 hours, that's not a funny joke. We're not looking for, no offense to clowns because it's a real profession and circuses. I don't want to be to offend Donald Trump. We don't, we're not looking for that in a leader. You're, you be an adult, be grown, behave normally. Just stop with, stop with this crap. Anyway, I digress. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has to go out there and then say, so what Donald Trump, it has this like arrogant face to what Donald Trump really meant. What Donald Trump really meant when he was saying that you get two pencils, is that, that you're gonna, your life's gonna be much better, Much better to the girls. Little girls, little girls, you understand, have your pencil and your one doll here, watch this.
- [42:46]
Commerce Secretary
The other thing too is this reporter behind me was quite snarky the other day when President Trump talked about the girl having two dolls. And he said, well, what president didn't take the question, but he said, what would you tell that girl? I said, I would tell that young girl that you will have a better life than your parents. That you and your family, thanks to President Trump can now be confident again that you will have a better life than your parents. Which working class Americans had abandoned that idea. Your family will own a home, you will be able to advance, you will have a good education, you will have economic freedom. That's what we are advancing.
- [43:27]
Ben Meiselas
That's why you get one doll and one pencil and you pay more for it. Housing is less affordable right now, not more affordable. We're not moving towards a situation. And by the way, if tariffs are working great, then why are you trying to do deals that remove the tariffs? Of course, there's no intellectual consistency here because there's nothing intellectual going on. I'll show you this clip right here. Of course, the ultimate irony is. Let me show this video of these little girls that the Trump campaign and like the MAGA supporters put out there during the campaign or even just. There's always a clip for everything with Donald Trump, right? Where these little girls were like, he's gonna give us more Barbies and we're gonna get Barbies cheap. And that's like the message that right wing media was pushing over and over again. We're gonna get Barbies. And now literally Trump Central planning says, you get one doll and one pencil. Here, watch this. What do you want him to do? What do you want him to say today? I want him.
- [44:30]
Brett Meiselas
I want him to lower prices and lower the taxes and make Barbies cheaper.
- [44:39]
Ben Meiselas
Make Barbies cheaper.
- [44:41]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah.
- [44:41]
Jordy Meiselas
Tell me more about that.
- [44:42]
Ben Meiselas
Have they gotten expensive?
- [44:44]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah. And Polly Pockets, all my favorite toys are so expensive.
- [44:48]
Ben Meiselas
You know, Dollar Tree, by the way.
- [44:49]
Jordy Meiselas
By the way, real quick. I just, like, that's what indoctrination looks like. Like, I feel, I feel for those girls and, you know, they're just given talking points by their parents to say these things at these rallies. And it actually, actually breaks my heart a bit that I haven't seen that clip. Holy cow. There truly is a clip for everything. Un frigging believable.
- [45:10]
Ben Meiselas
Speaking of a clip for everything, then you have Cash Patel, who's somehow the FBI director. He shows up for a Senate hearing today on the FBI budget and he doesn't do his homework. Right. He doesn't hand in his homework, which, like, literally you have to turn over the budget so that the Senate can go through it and ask you about your budget. So the senators are asking him, where, where is it? You know, it was due by law. It was due and you violated the law. Are you going to follow it? Watch FBI direct. This is why this shouldn't be a Democrat or Republican thing. Right? Right. This is why this should just be an American people thing. And the American people thing says, wait a minute, you're not even doing your homework. You're not even submitting the budget. And then when he's asked, like, so are you just going to violate the law? He's like, I'll submit it to you when I want to submit it to you. Just think about that. Just think about where you work. Matt. You tell your boss. Did you hand in your thing? No. Why? No, I'm not going to do it. Do you plan on doing it? No. When? When I want to. Here, watch this clip.
- [46:13]
FBI Director
I have a timeline on that.
- [46:15]
Senator
It was due last week by law.
- [46:17]
FBI Director
I understand.
- [46:18]
Senator
And your answer is you just understand you're not going to follow the law?
- [46:22]
FBI Director
My answer is that I am following the law and I'm working with my interagency partners to do this and get you the budget that you are required to have.
- [46:30]
Senator
And you have no timeline?
- [46:32]
FBI Director
No.
- [46:37]
Senator
Well, we also need a full budget request, not a single paragraph full of wild talking points that we saw with the skinny budget proposal. We're now having a budget hearing without a budget request. So, Director Patel, where is the FY 2026 budget request for the FBI?
- [46:54]
FBI Director
It's being worked on, ma' am.
- [46:55]
Senator
Have you reviewed it? Have you approved it?
- [46:59]
FBI Director
Not yet.
- [47:00]
Senator
When will we get it?
- [47:01]
FBI Director
As soon as I can can get it from my interagency partners and get.
- [47:04]
Senator
It approved six months from now.
- [47:08]
FBI Director
I don't know, ma' am.
- [47:09]
Senator
Well, how do we, as Congress, do our budget and our work without that request and without the spend plan?
- [47:14]
FBI Director
Well, ma' am, I'm here. I'm doing the best I can. I can't make up answers. I'm going to commit to you to work on getting you the information you need.
- [47:21]
Senator
That. That is insufficient and deeply disturbing. No response.
- [47:28]
FBI Director
I've given my response again.
- [47:31]
Ben Meiselas
Can you imagine if Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary. Can you imagine if the previous FBI director under Donald Trump, who was competent, showed up and did that? Can you imagine what we'd be talking about here? And again, what the hell is that? This is where, again, I don't care what political party you're from. You watch that and you think about. Wait. These are the people who are making economic decisions. These are the people who are making decisions over war and peace. These people have access to military. These people are. These people are idiots, and they're dangerous and they're lazy, and it's not a political thing. And. And they're. They're just. They're just there to dismantle. They're not there to be efficient. If you want to be efficient, Department of Government efficient, maybe. Efficient to submit the budget. It's the first part of efficiency. We've got a lot more to discuss. I want to talk about Cardinal Robert Prevost becoming Pope Leo XIV and his posts and MAGA freaking out after they've looked at his social media posts. They didn't seem to like that at all. I'll talk about the big beautiful disaster that is the MAGA Republican budget bill reminder everybody go to store.midastouch.com during the last break there was a lot of people@store.midas touch.com I guess everybody's gearing up for the summer gear. Go to store.midustouch.com also midas plus.com the fastest growing substack in these United States and the world. Subscribe to Midasplus.com calm we'll be right back after our last quick break.
- [49:18]
Jordy Meiselas
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- [52:17]
Ben Meiselas
Shout.
- [52:17]
Jordy Meiselas
Out to our sponsors. Prolon is like super legit it by the way. Definitely love it. Links in description of YouTube and the audio Use the links, use the codes. Let them know we sent you one sec with those ad reads like a quick aside that's kind of funny. The hardest part for me is when you have to spell out the link sometimes, like on the scripts it's like spell out each individual letter of the vanity of like the special URL Trouble with letters I really like. I you could see me in the read. I am hyper focused on making sure I hit every letter in order. Benji's looking at me like, I'm so ashamed of you, little br. It's okay.
- [52:49]
Ben Meiselas
I'm just sometimes you do a really good Sometimes you nail the read and then at the very end you got to do the letters and then you're like, then you misspell them. Like I got to do. I got to do it all again.
- [52:59]
Jordy Meiselas
I didn't realize I had to spell during the reads that get that. It's like, it's like an NFL player who's like running to the end zone. He like does great 90 yards and then in 10 yards, he like drops the ball right before the end zone.
- [53:08]
Brett Meiselas
So speak Speaking of letters, I think we should speak about Trump's latest DUI hire, perhaps Jeanine Pirro, who is now going we mentioned this at the top, at the top of the show briefly, but it is like an official thing that Trump is actually doing. Trump announced that Judge Jeanine Pirro, that's right, the Fox host, AKA Judge Boxo Wine, will be appointed interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Trump, you know, goes on and on and on about her things. I mean he's appointing her because she's a Fox host. Trump actually had pardoned her husband for crimes, I believe. Was that during his last administration. Hard to keep track of, of all of this stuff. And like, you know, I remember, you know, people think this is like a meme. People think this is fake, but this is legitimate what Donald Trump is doing. Just adding to the complete and utter clown show. As Ben says, no offense to clowns, but the clown show of the Trump administration that we are seeing right here. This of course, after Ed Martin, the previous US Intro attorney for the District of Columbia was withdrawn from his nomination today because of his overall, it was just too crazy for, too even too crazy for the magazine. Ed Martin was the guy who actually he, he defended the January 6th insurrectionist. He defended the January 6th insurrection. If you saw a lot of the memos that we covered that Ed Martin has released while he's been interim US Attorney, it is straight out of authoritarian government, like, very scary stuff. He's the guy who put forth all of those various memos saying, like, if you criticize Elon Musk, we're gonna come after you with the full power of the Department of Justice. Like, this guy is a complete and utter lunatic. So he's gone and we got another lunatic, I guess in his place now. Judge Janine, Donald Trump picking again from the Fox News propaganda pool. Ben, your thoughts on Judge Jeanine as you U.S. attorney a very what used to be a highly respected position.
- [55:08]
Ben Meiselas
Well, just look at his cabinet and look at his hires. They're all Fox hosts, right? I mean you've got Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, was the former co host of Fox and Friends weekend show and a Fox News contributor since 2014. Sean Duffy, who got famous from the Real World Road Rules Challenge, was a former Fox co host of the show called the Bottom Line on Fox Business. And he was a Fox News contributor since 2020. You have Pam Bondi who co hosts the Five on Fox News three days in August 2018 and she was a guest who frequently appeared on the Hannity show and on Laura Ingraham and Jesse Waters. You know, and then the other positions, whether it's Dan Bongino or Tulsi Gabbard or you name him, I mean these people are, you know, he hires Fox hosts is why I call Fox state regime media. Because there is no separation between the regime media and, and, and the Trump administration, you know, and, and you know, there's Sean Duffy right there. I mean, you know, we, we've seen plane crash after plane crash after plane crash. You know, this guy like then takes like selfies of himself and he'll like be like, ooh, so good to be home on Friday for the fiesta. Hashtag Latino wife. She's making me tacos. And by the way, Sean Duffy's wife, I'm not making up like word for word a tweet that he sends hashtag, latina wife. And then Sean Duffy's wife is currently a host on the Fox morning show right now. You know, Lara Trump has her show on Fox. It's just a bunch of Fox hosts and it's a bunch of people who cosplay and they, they like, they dress up like it's Halloween, you know, or I guess for Duffy, dia de los Muertes. And they, and, and they, you know, and they're, they're, they're like pretending they're playing make believe. And politics has become so gamified by corporate news that we're like, these people are not, these aren't the people who should be in these positions. Again, stop. Republican, Democrat, I don't really think that we should have WWE wrestlers become actual like professional athlete. You know what I mean? Like, what's, what's, what in the world's going on here anyway? There's nothing to say about judge other than this is ridiculous, this is offense, this is embarrassed. It's an embarrassment right here. You know, maybe not quite as embarrassing of the secretary General or the surgeon general. That Trump's picking Casey means not actually being a licensed doctor and not passing her residency. But maybe it's tied or quite close. The big beautiful budget bill, that's what Donald Trump's calling the stupid thing which is going to gut your Medicaid, like $880 billion. They want to. One of their scams they're trying to do is shift the Medicaid financial burden to states. Many states already have trigger laws which would automatically stop state funding and Medicaid if federal funding shuts off. But then even states that don't have the trigger laws, they don't have the funds to fund Medicaid. Like there's a role for federal government, right? Like you need federal government to do certain things. States don't have the ability to coordinate natural disasters themselves. They can help. They don't have those resources. States don't. That's why our system of federalism relies on cooperation between the federal government and state governments. So Trump fired the FEMA guy who was a MAGA guy because the guy said he takes his job even though he's maga. He says FEMA needs to do a better job reacting to the states. See you later. Bye bye. That gets you fired. They walked him in and they perp walked him out today. Maga, FEMA guy just because he said he cares about FEMA. You have to be like a Linda McMahon who runs the Department of Education, who's willing to gut $2 billion in mental health money for mental health treatment in schools. That's what they're doing. Because she's so rich, it doesn't affect her. And she doesn't give a crap about public schools. They care about private schools and, and helping businesses run private schools. So Linda McMahon gets rid of all mental health treatment in public schools that she says, oh, I, I, she's so rich, it doesn't mean nothing matters to her. So she's like, yeah, I'm gonna fire myself, you know, so they try to destroy the Department of Education from within. Anyway, moving back to though, this, this, this budget, what they call the big beautiful bill that gets Medicaid. And it's not beautiful, it's a big disaster. You have MAGA Republicans at war with each other basically because, you know, one group of MAGA Republicans want to get rid of Medicaid, the other group of MAGA Republicans want to get rid of Medicaid. They just don't want people to know about it. And because you all have made loud noise, we've all exposed it. Democrats have exposed it. The people have exposed what they're doing. They tried to hide it, they tried to say, no, this is actually 800 billion getting removed from like the Commerce Committee. Everyone's okay. That means Medicaid. Okay, that means you're getting rid of Medicaid. So they got caught there. Now they're like, oh, crap, now we're going to get voted out for sure if we cut Medicaid. So we can't do that. So now you have this tension taking place. And then on the Senate, while this reconciliation's happening where the Senate has a bill and the House has a bill and they have to like blend them together through these markups and whatever. The MAGA Republicans in the Senate are already saying, we're not going to pass the House bill. Zero chance. You're all wasting your time. Don't believe me? Here's a pretty far right wing guy, MAGA Republican Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. Here's what he's got to say. Let's play the tax bill.
- [60:53]
Commerce Secretary
Will we get it before Memorial Day?
- [60:57]
Ron Johnson
No, no, there's no way. Because again, unfortunately, President Trump chose the one big beautiful bill. What he should have done is the multiple step process. I suggested three steps, get the border funding. Second step, just extend current tax law. So we take an automatic will we.
- [61:13]
Commerce Secretary
Get it before the end of the year, quickly.
- [61:16]
Ron Johnson
Not if we don't come down with a reasonable pre pandemic level spending. There's enough of us in the Senate that will not agree to that.
- [61:21]
Commerce Secretary
Boy, that's bad news. Senator, thank you for that.
- [61:24]
Ben Meiselas
Appreciate it.
- [61:25]
Commerce Secretary
Have a good weekend. Appreciate you coming on.
- [61:27]
Ben Meiselas
And again, this is like, don't look up. Right. Like we know what's going to. You don't believe him there. He said it again today. Here, let me show you him saying again today. Here, play this clip.
- [61:38]
Ron Johnson
Arguing over additional tax provisions and getting down to a reasonable pre pandemic spending level. But that's not the path we chose. So I think the sooner we acknowledge the fact that this current effort is doomed to fail. I'm sorry, I've got to disagree with the president on this. It's doomed to fail. I'm not going to vote for it. I know a number of senators who will not even come when I'm contemplating. This is this monster right now, as it's being written, we would actually increase the deficit.
- [62:06]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah.
- [62:06]
Ron Johnson
I don't think many people realize that we would actually increase the deficit. That's a complete non. Starter. So, no, we're, we're not even close.
- [62:13]
Ben Meiselas
So as I was saying before, you know the movie don't look up. Right. The comet or the asteroids coming and everybody's acting like it isn't. So we know what's happening at the ports, we know what's happening with this bill, we know what's happening with inflation. We know what's happening with the fundamentals of the economy. We know where that's moving. So as I said, this Tom Hanks moment where it's like, ah, that should never happen. Leadership should avoid that from happening. That may mean when you're a leader, you have to be honest. You have to confront the situation. You have to explain things. You have to let people know. You have to, you have to alter your strategies if they're not working. But Donald Trump's like a miracle. It's all going to go away. Not what you're happening this. Tariffs are the greatest thing ever. Things are amazing. Gas is a dollar in 89 when it's not. Eggs are down 87% when it's not. We've solved inflation. Inflation's up, which is not. That's just not how you run things. And they just want us to use our logic and our basic humanity, you know, and common sense to say, we know where this is headed. We know where this is headed. Brett, I want you to talk about The Pope, if you can. Because, you know, that was an interesting pick today when we found out, right, that it was going to be an American Pope. And so there was a lot of. Of. There was a lot of people wondering, you know, who. Who is Cardinal Robert Prevost, Right. He's someone who was. Spent most of his time in Peru, but he is American who was in Chicago for quite some time. We saw this from the guy who sits on the White House's Commission on Religious Liberty, someone named Bishop Robert Barron. And he said, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope. Pope. He was citing a Cardinal George of Chicago. You know, he goes, because the Vatican doesn't want America to have a pope while it's running the world politically, culturally, and economically. They don't want America running the world religiously. But one of the signs of America declined by the Vatican would be to pick an American Pope. And so it seems that it was actually sending a message here as well to the United States. All right, we'll give you your Pope now because that's like. Because he wasn't the front runner, you know, from. You know, and by the way, this guy's, by all accounts, this Pope seems like, you know, he.
- [64:46]
Brett Meiselas
He's.
- [64:47]
Ben Meiselas
He's gonna facilitate some of the good stuff that Pope Francis did, but he wasn't the easy pick. But then when you explain it like that, you're like, oh, and Mag is freaking out, Brett.
- [64:57]
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, Mag is losing it. I mean, just to kind of, you know, get back to the beginning here, just the basic facts, you know, this morning, I think we all saw the white smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel chimney that signifies that a new Pope has indeed been elected in conclave. By the way, the timing of that movie, I mean, my God, did they get lucky? But we saw yesterday there was the black smoke, which meant that, you know, that there was no Pope elected. And some people thought that this was going to take quite a bit.
- [65:26]
Ben Meiselas
It.
- [65:26]
Brett Meiselas
And then I think everybody was shocked when all of a sudden the white smoke was coming up today. And we then learned about, I don't know, about an hour or so later, that the person who was selected is Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost. He is from Chicago, of all places, the first Pope from the United States in history, the 267th Pope. He has now taken the name, you know, the popes take. Take other names. He's taken the name of Pope Leo the 14th. And immediately, you know, our researchers started looking him up and found his Twitter account. Right away, he tweets not. But when he does tweet, he's quite intentional about it. And so, you know, his tweets are honestly the kinds of things that you would expect somebody who embraces the tenants of Christianity to be speaking about, right? Speaking about, you know, positively about immigrants, speaking about, you know, caring for thy neighbor. When you look at his tweets, it is like the fundamentals of Catholicism, of Christianity. But I think the funny thing that kind of happens in these moments, and it happened all the time with Pope Francis. And by the way, Pope Leo XIV was actually very close with Pope Francis, shares a lot of his beliefs about things, is known to be kind of centrist, but more progressive on a lot of these kind of key social issues. One of the things I think we realize when there are these moments is how contradictory the MAGA ideology and the Republican notion of Jesus in the United States is to that of the actual church. And when those come into conflict, MAGA doesn't know how to respond, react. And so they lash out. They call him a DEI pope, they call him a Democrat, they call him a woke lib like they call him. They try to just throw all these words out here to try to smear the person who is simply just speaking about the tenets of his religion and somebody who hasn't even said much, even in English, at all. I don't think at this point about his papacy. And so when you look at his old tweets, I think they're very revealing about who he is, as in individual. And this is one of the reasons why MAGA is so furious right now, because you look at his tweets, you see some of the ones right here recently. This is in February 2025, he wrote on Twitter Pope Francis's letter, JD Vance and what the gospel asks of us all on immigration. One of the other tweets he posted around then was, J.D. vance is wrong. Jesus does not ask us to rank our love for others. A very recent post from him was about Donald Trump, Trump sending immigrants to these prison camps in El Salvador. You know, he was harshly critical of Donald Trump on that and was retweeting other people who were being critical about that. He retweeted Senator Chris Murphy on gun control in 2017. He's tweeted in the past about Donald Trump, you know, going back at least we saw, going back at least to 2015, about the things that Donald Trump has said about migrants being highly critical of his. Him there. And you could just go through kind of all of his Tweets, you know, go through the things that he was saying about COVID 19. You see November 2015, sign the Catholic Climate Petition. So, you know, you have all these things that are happening. And so you have the typical MAGA folks, the MAGA propagandists, once again lashing out because the concept of faith and their ideology, where they. Their religion, let's face it, is maga. Their religion is Donald Trump. That is their God. And so when anybody, especially in a role like this, goes against their God, they don't know how to react. And so we saw just all these deranged posts. Laura Loomer called him a woke Marxist pope. She was, like, leading the charge against the new pope. We saw this guy, Joey Mannarino, saying, pope Leo XIV is not an American, he's a Democrat. Just read his Twitter feed. That's very revealing. Also about the way that they view Democrats in this country. One of the comments to that person said, another MAGA wrote this bolstered the New World Order fight against Donald Trump. And the American people feeling discouraged. I mean, these people are. This is like mental illness that we're seeing right here. Laura Loomer was just on a rampage today. She said, this is the new Pope. His name is Robert Prevost. He's the first American Pope. He's anti Trump, anti Maga, pro open borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis. Catholics don't have anything good to look forward to. Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican, Sean Davis, another one of these maggots. The new pope seems to be anti Trump and pro open borders. It's just so pathetic when you see this, like, every kind of moment, they just have to, like, view everything through the lens of what does Donald Trump think about this? I must be loyal to my leader. I must be loyal to my God, Donald Trump. And it's just so incredibly embarrassing when you see it like that. This reaction was no different, you know, but, you know, obviously a big day, you know, for. For Catholics, a big day for the world out there and a historic moment to have a. An American Pope. I think it's just, you know, a crazy thing. And I mean, just to think about from Chicago, who graduated from Villanova University. I mean, that's kind of wild. No, he's. I know he spent, like, what, 20 years, I think, in Peru, doing a lot of things in Peru. He speaks, like, eight languages, you know, obviously, like, you know, brilliant dude. And. And, yeah, you know, I mean, what was like the second.
- [70:34]
Ben Meiselas
Second.
- [70:34]
Brett Meiselas
Second day of them doing the voting and. And he's in there.
- [70:37]
Jordy Meiselas
You have it so wild. I don't know if this is going to come out correct, but it's just like MAGA attacking the Pope. It's chef's kiss, like, just pure comedy. What.
- [70:51]
Ben Meiselas
Where.
- [70:51]
Jordy Meiselas
What timeline are we living in? These people are so sick. Like, please, Maga, go touch. Go touch some grass. Go outside, take a breather. You're attacking the. The Pope.
- [71:04]
Brett Meiselas
It's utterly rejected. Think about how much they smeared former President Joe Biden, right, and his religion. And he was a devout Catholic, a practicing Catholic, somebody who went to church every Sunday. And how they hold up Donald Trump as this beacon of religiosity and piety when he represents, like, quite literally every sin. Donald Trump.
- [71:26]
Jordy Meiselas
But you did nail it.
- [71:27]
Ben Meiselas
It.
- [71:27]
Jordy Meiselas
The maga, their God is Donald Trump.
- [71:31]
Brett Meiselas
And he is infallible to them. And so those two things are in contradiction at the end of the day. And so, I mean, you see it play out, but that's why we always say here that this whole MAGA movement, it all kind of. The only way it can operate is when there are no facts, right? The only way it could operate is when they live in this alternate reality. So. So, Ben, you were speaking before about, you know, like, what a leader would do is tell the truth, right? What a leader would do is say, these are the. These are the things that are going to be happening. There are going to be these shortages. It is going to be difficult. Donald Trump, you know, but I think what they learned from. I think they always learned the wrong lessons. They learned that you got to lie more from COVID They didn't learn that, oh, we should have been more prepared for this disease. We should have been more open with the American people. We should have tested more people. No, if you ask these MAGA people, people right now, they double down on everything they did in Covid. They say that, oh, we were actually right during COVID Actually, Covid wasn't really that bad. Even though millions of people died, it actually wasn't that bad, people. You know, it was just, you know, everyone was. Went crazy, and it was just like a little cold. And why did everybody freak out? And they refused to ever step back for one second and say, you know what? Maybe, just maybe it would have been better, you know, if we actually acknowledged the reality of the situation, the gravity of the situation. They just know that if they continue to steamroll with their propaganda networks and their lies and they just keep going, that they will ultimately be able to bring those MAGA die hards along with them. On this fake reality journey that they have, that applies whether we're talking the Pope, it applies when they were talking Covid shortages, you name it. It's all propped up by this house of cards of lies.
- [73:10]
Ben Meiselas
Again, if the tariffs are working so well against China, China right now, and we're crushing it, why are we rushing to try to make a deal? Like, why is Besant even talking to them? Isn't this winning, right? I mean, isn't this what they say is great? I mean, what if tariffs were so great? Why don't you do 500? Why don't you do a million percent? Right? Like, if, if that's the correlation. I mean, obviously, because the tariffs aren't so great. And then let's just assume there, there's a pause on the tariffs with China and that that's viewed somehow has a deal and a win. Like, I just want everybody to think about, like, just the framework of the win. For Trump, this is how much he's babied by corporate news, that it's viewed as a deal or a win when he slightly backpedals on a disastrous decision that he made. And whereas former President Biden has to be perfect with everything. And then even when he has 50 to 60% returns in the market to 60, 16.2 million jobs, 40,000 infrastructure projects, record low unemployment, energy independence, the most drilling ever, while focusing on climate change, bringing the semiconductor industry here to the United States, even when you do all of that, that's, that's doing all of, that's never strengthening NATO. Two new nations joining NATO, you know, you know, countering Putin's aggression. Like, you can do all of that, but your view negatively. And Donald Trump can do the most disastrous things for corporate news and then slightly unwind a disastrous thing that he did. And then that's viewed as like, oh, look, wow, he did a deal. He didn't do a deal. Stop it. He didn't do a deal with UK with all of these 90. A trade deal takes three and a half years to negotiate a comprehensive trade deal. So the fact that Donald Trump ripped up the usmca, the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement, ripped up a deal he did with Japan, ripped up prior deals with the uk, ripped up a trading relationship with the European Union, I could go on and on and on and then slightly adopts something that was part of a deal that was already in place, a deal that does not make. Okay, that's not called a deal.
- [75:22]
Brett Meiselas
The problem is the incentive structure, though. I think that's in our media and in our financial system where. Which is completely backwards, which is when Donald Trump does backtrack on something a little bit after making everybody suffer, you know, and then he cuts the tariffs from, okay, instead of 100%, it's 95%. When he does these little stupid moves, what happens? You get a quick stock market pump, right? You get the news making all these headlines that they made a deal like that whole machine turns on. And what Trump, I think, is savvy enough to know through all of his batshit crazy moves is that he can manipulate the media easily. He can manipulate the stock market easily. He can manipulate all of his followers easily. All he has to do is do one little sort of thing and they go, oh, my God, this is amazing. Oh, my God, he didn't do anything. He's made things so much worse. Everything is still on. There is no deal. Let's get back to reality, folks. I know that's what we're trying to do here at the Midas Touch Network, Ben, like you said at the Milken Institute in your speech, like, we just got to look at these things and go, like, what we're watching right now is nuts. This is crazy. And we can never accept what we are looking at as normal. So stop being gaslighted. Whether it's by the media, whether it's by billionaires, Wall street, tech, bros, you name it, we all know what is going on. It is very obvious, okay? It is very obvious. And that's why they are working overtime and that's why these billionaires are working overtime to propagandize all day long to try to hide the simple facts from the public.
- [76:52]
Ben Meiselas
Jordy, take it away, bud.
- [76:54]
Jordy Meiselas
Shout out to the Midas mighty the.
- [76:59]
Brett Meiselas
Standing strong against the fascist we sing our song.
- [77:14]
Jordy Meiselas
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