Loading summary
Transcript72 lines
- [00:00]
Ben Meisel
What is Dadication?
- [00:01]
Brett Meisel
The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona. We call him Dae Dae for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job.
- [00:22]
Ben Meisel
That's Dadication. Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the US Department of Health and Human.
- [00:27]
Jordy Meisel
Services and the Ad Council imagine you're.
- [00:30]
Brett Meisel
A business owner relying on a dozen different software programs, each one disconnected, more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be incredibly stressful right now. Picture Odoo Odoo brings all the tools your business needs into one simple platform. CRM, accounting, inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and more. All seamlessly connected. Everything works together, giving you the peace of mind that your business is running smoothly from every angle. Odoo's open source applications are user friendly and designed to scale with your business, saving you time and money. Say goodbye to juggling multiple platforms and hello to efficient integrated management. Stop wasting resources on complicated systems and make the switch to odoo today. Visit odoo.com o d o o.com and discover how Odoo can simplify and streamline your business operations. Odoo Modern Management made Simple Donald Trump.
- [01:30]
Jordy Meisel
Spent the weekend golfing and posting that former President Biden was actually secretly executed in 2020 and a robot former President Biden was created and that's who is existing now. The MAGA Republicans are saying that we shouldn't care that the big disastrous murder bill is going to potentially kill tens of millions of Americans who will lose health care. Because as MAGA Republican Senator Joni Ernst says, we're all going to die sometime anyway, so why does it even matter? Donald Trump's done zero deals in 90 days. He's announced a lot of fake deals. He's taking credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, which he had nothing to do with. He's claiming that when he caved to China that that was somehow a deal, which it was not. I guess he's claiming that there was some deal with the uk even though the memorandum of understanding says that this is not a binding deal. But Donald Trump is continuing to create chaos here in the United States as he's now announced that the aluminum and steel tariffs will be going from 25% to 50 50% across the world and that now has other countries, other blocs like the European Union responding with potential retaliation of their own. Meanwhile, you've had an incredible operation this past weekend, perhaps one of the greatest operations in military history by President Zelensky of Ukraine, who went deep into Russian territory and neutralized and destroyed somewhere in the range of 30 to 40% of Russia's strategic airplane fleet. About 41 airplanes were destroyed, costing the Russian army billions and billions of dollars. And Donald Trump's been MIA through it all. Just a complete non factor in kind of international geopolitical happenings right now as he's isolated the United States or even worse, made United States kind of an agent or an enabler, I should say, of Putin. You also have Elon Musk leaving the White House and now we see Trumpers and MAGA people throwing him under the bus. Elon Musk saying that he's not supportive of the budget bill. So you have a lot of conflict there. We'll break it all down on this episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. I'm Ben Meisel is joined by Brett and Jordi. Brothers, how are you doing?
- [04:05]
Ben Meisel
Everything's going great. Good to be here, Ben. Good to be here, Jordy. Good to be here. Midas Mighty. Everybody watching us live here on YouTube and everybody listening on Apple podcasts, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, make sure you check that. I did not know, fellas, that Taco Tuesday was coming early this week, but apparently it has. We are learning about Donald Trump caving yet again in new deals. You know, we see Donald Trump and his entire trade team right now just folding on all these claims that they made on past deals. Trump is trying to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. And really none of it's sticking because honestly, if you dissect like everything Donald Trump is doing here, all of his promises, even on things like immigration and deportations or if you go to his trade deals and, you know, Russia UK and you could pick any topic, you see how bad Donald Trump actually is at governing. And he tries to kind of fill in the void for how horrible he is by being really loud and doing everything with, you know, kind of a lot of flair and very in your face, this kind of shock and awe campaign. And the media likes to kind of confuse that with actual action, with actual getting stuff done. But we are seeing time and time again that Donald Trump is unable to get anything done. And we're going to break it down on all the fronts here on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Jordy, what's the latest with you.
- [05:22]
Donald Trump
I'm excited to get into the show. Why don't we just lead off? Benji, where are we starting today, big bro?
- [05:26]
Jordy Meisel
You know, you're right, Brett. I mean, he's not doing anything in terms of substance. It's all one big PR propaganda campaign. Right? And that's why he's basically made his cabinet and the other top staffers. He's, they basically have pulled all the people from Fox at this point because they're, they're not actually doing the things that you need to do. I mean, I want to address at the out the outset, you know, this horrific terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado, where this guy, Mohammed Solomon from Egypt injured, you know, more than a dozen people. It was a Jewish gathering and this was an individual with this anti Semitic, you know, terroristic hate crime. And individuals like that need to be treated with the full force of the law. Donald Trump's instinct, though, is to immediately blame Biden. Dude, you're the president right now. And I think what needs to be addressed and discussed is where is all of the money going that would normally be looking into avoiding terrorist attacks? Because what we've seen the Trump regime focused on is these horrible situations just even over the weekend and over the past several weeks where they're going to construction sites, they're going into well known restaurants and cities, they're waiting outside of the courthouses, hiding behind the bushes to go after people who are showing up to their court dates. Right. For all of this talk that they want to get rid of the people who are the terrorists and all of the, you know, people who are the criminals. It tells you a lot that the Trump regime has to go in front of courthouses and raid construction sites and raid restaurants for people who are actually contributing to this country. While I think ignoring the terroristic threat. Brett?
- [07:22]
Ben Meisel
Yeah, and like, I, I agree 100%. And, and this, you see the administration really flailing here because they talked a big game about deportations. And when you look at the actual numbers and the actual people and the processes by which people are being deported, you look at president, former president, and you look at former President Obama, they were actually deporting more people than Donald Trump is, but they were actually focused on criminals. They were focused on rooting out the most dangerous people and actually doing things through the proper channels. Donald Trump and his team, you know, they like to talk a big game on Fox News. They like to have these big kind of cops esque, you know, TV kind of made for TV kind of moments that don't actually end up making anybody any safer. They're just ruining communities, ripping families apart. And there was a damning article written in the Washington examiner, which is a right wing publication, by the way, about Stephen Miller. The article was called Stephen Miller versus ice the Fight within the Trump Administration. And some of the things inside of this article were incredibly, incredibly damning. Like this right here where they say, Stephen Miller came into ICE and eviscerated everybody, telling them, you guys aren't doing a good job, you're horrible leaders. He just ripped into everybody, said one official hashtag, quote, stephen Miller wants everybody arrested, quote, why aren't you at Home Depot? Why aren't you at 7:11? I think that's incredibly revealing into the psyche of this administration. Not to mention the leadership style. I think we've all had horrible bosses in our days, and you know that this sort of leadership style, you all suck. Everybody's the problem. It's not me, it's you. You're doing a bad job. It shows you that from the top. These people have no idea what the heck they are doing. And they are trying to target these soft targets. They're trying to rip apart the families. They're trying to go to the streets of San Die, and they're going into these restaurants, like this restaurant Buena Forchetta, which I've actually been to that restaurant in different locations in San Diego. And they're going there and they're trying to arrest all the workers who are just working hard and doing their job there. Meanwhile, you have Donald Trump just blaming the Biden administration for everything that goes wrong rather than take responsibility like Ben, with that attack that we saw, that heinous attack in Boulder, Colorado, which everybody should be condemning, by the way. We should be figuring out, how do we get to the bottom of this? How did this guy's visa expire three months ago? How is nobody monitoring the situation? Was the Trump administration's eye off the ball here? Because they were too busy trying to raid Home Depots and restaurants to actually go after people who are a threat to human beings, to Jewish people, you name it. That is the problem right here. Because when they do all these shock and awe things, they are worried about not the substance, but they're worried about the optics of how everything looks. And they know that the media will reward them far too often with the optics. They'll say, oh, look how much they're doing with these deportations. Have you seen the video of this arrest? The video of that arrest? I want to dive into the actual raw data of what's going on. And I think it should be of interest of everybody to figure out how do we solve these problems. And it's going to take compromise on both sides. Compromise, by the way, like that bipartisan immigration bill that former President Biden worked out with the most conservative members of Congress last year. Over the past couple of years, this could have been something that was actually solved. And yes, to solve that, you're going to have to a figure out who can be here legally, who cannot be here legally. You're going to have to figure out paths to citizenship for people. You're going to have to make sure there are protections for dreamers. You're going to have to ensure that people can get an education here if they're coming from foreign countries. There's a lot of complex things that need to be worked out here. But just to have this constant blaming back and forth, nothing gets done. And what ends up happening is incidents like we saw over the weekend where people get seriously injured or die. And we cannot have that be the policy where we just wait for things to go wrong and then just start blaming everybody. That's not leadership, that's cowardice. And that's exactly what they are doing right now.
- [11:17]
Donald Trump
Exactly, Brett. And the folks that they are going after, to your point, exactly, I think exactly what you said is that they're looking for this photo op, this video moment where they look like these big tough guys with these ICE raids. They're attacking communities that, that have these folks back. They're attacking hardworking citizens that, that are doing their best to just make life better for their families and their communities. And so it's, I think it's actually having this sort of reverse effect that the Trump regime thinks is working in their favor when they go after these communities of folks or the Stephen Miller quote, let's go after the Home Depot employees and let's go to seven elevens. I mean, he just sounds like a complete lunatic in that article that you mentioned and the Washington Examiner. Brett, to your point. Exactly. It's not the most liberal of liberal.
- [12:04]
Ben Meisel
Papers out there, to say the least. And when you read about it, you really are like, wow. Like, like they are, you know, they're not these people like Stephen Miller and st. They're not just playing a part on tv. They're actually like psychopathic, sociopathic people and they think lives are expendable. And that's been a theme that we've seen also just throughout this whole Republican Party, which has basically turned into like this weird death cult between Joni Ernst and what Stephen Miller's doing and what Donald Trump is doing, like, the whole thing is very sick. And you don't have to be like a rocket scientist to figure out that what they are doing is, like, seriously ill stuff.
- [12:35]
Donald Trump
Well, it's the central ethos of the Trump regime. It's cruelty for cruelty's sake.
- [12:40]
Jordy Meisel
Ben, look, you take a look at what Donald Trump posted earlier today about this horrific Boulder, Colorado incident. And he says, yesterday's horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, will not be tolerated in the United States of America. So pause there. We all agree with that. Absolutely. It should not be tolerated. Then he goes, he came in through Biden's ridiculous open border policy, which has hurt our country so badly. He must go out under, quote, Trump policy, acts of terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. What I do agree with here is acts of terrorism should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But what is the Trump policy? Because as everybody knows, his visa expired March of 2025. So you're Trump. You've been so focused on separating families and arresting judges and arresting members of Congress on March 2025. Why didn't you arrest this individual? And why didn't you? Why weren't, why was his application still pending? The Trump policy was in place, but obviously you didn't do anything. And it's because they're entirely incompetent. So instead of doing the hard work, Brett, to your point, they go to San Diego, they raid a restaurant or they go to Tallahassee, they raid a construction site, they round up workers so that there can be this scene of people who are, you know, really upset about what's taking place. And then they go, look what we're doing. Look what we're doing, versus actually doing the hard work that's required every single day. And if former President Biden.
- [14:22]
Ben Meisel
Yeah, I was going to say, and I think it's just a time for moral clarity for all of us here. Right. Because we're witnessing things right now across the world that are just not okay. Right. And so whether you're watching what happened in Boulder, Colorado, over the weekend, you should be able to look at that and condemn that and say, that's heinous. And that absolutely, you know, Jewish people should be able to go out there and fight for the hostages to come home. That is totally legitimate. And how dare anybody take it upon themselves to make people feel unsafe, to throw Molotov cocktails, to burn people, to do all that? It's absolutely despicable. Heinous behavior. And we should all look down on that. We should all look down on atrocities that we are seeing in Gaza. We should all be able to look at kids dying, about people being ripped apart, families being separated, homes being leveled, businesses being leveled in the names of the religion, in the names of this conflict. We should be able to look at that and say that that is heinous as well. And we should be able to hold these various viewpoints at the same time. You could hold these various viewpoints at the same time. We need to be fighting for sanity. We need to be fighting for normalcy. We need to be fighting for a world where everybody is able to have free speech, where everybody actually has a right to live without feeling like they could be destroyed or killed no matter where they are on this planet. And I think that's important for us to lead with moral clarity on these issues and say that affirmatively every single day. And for Donald Trump to obfuscate and to try to turn this into a yet another political issue where this is Biden's fault and this is, you know, the left doing this and this group doing this, it's just honestly, like, atrocious to me that we have to go through this every single time an incident happened that we can't actually try to focus in on. What is the problem here? How do we actually solve it? How do we come together on those things that we agree upon and actually implement policy that is going to end these atrocities, that's going to end people feeling unsafe for just being who they are. That's going to end people getting killed or seriously injured on the streets, whether here or abroad. And we all need to be focused on that. How do we be problem solvers, not problem starters?
- [16:31]
Jordy Meisel
And in terms of the obfuscation of the clarity, one of the reasons why Donald Trump fits in the way he does and leads the Republican Party is he can throw out a thousand distractions a day while they engage in behavior that's very predatory and which basically, you know, steals from the rich or steals from the poor and gives to the rich and helps the oligarchs. So take a look at what Donald Trump posted this past weekend, and I'll just give you an example of how Donald Trump can say the most outrageous, outlandish, despicable, vile things and then how it gets normalized on the right wing media echo chamber. And so let's take a look at what Trump posted. He goes, there is no hashtag Joe Biden executed in 2020. Hashtag Biden clones And doubles and robotic engineered, soulless, mindless entities are what you see. Democrats don't know the difference. This was a repost by Donald Trump. He went and he saw this, you know, post, and he said, this is what I want to show the world from my official personal account. And it's a statement that is what you would expect, the rantings and ravings of an absolute lunatic. But when they talk about it on Fox, they'll say, well, clearly this was a joke. This was just Trump being Trump. And he really had some deeper meaning here that he was trying to point out. Watch how they deal with this on Fox. Apparently, Donald Trump reposted somebody's post on Truth Social claiming that Biden had been executed in 2020 and was replaced by a robotic clone. Clearly, President Trump did not believe that, but he put it out there. And here's what the New York Times wrote. Trump ambassador exemplifies another outlandish conspiracy theory. Biden is a robotic clone. President Trump reposted another user's false claim that the former president had been executed in 2020 and replaced by a robotic clone. I know Trump's sense of humor. I'm sure he was just trolling him. What do you think? Well, I would hope so. But I think also it gets to.
- [18:35]
Ben Meisel
The real heart of the scandal, which is, who in the world was president for the past four years if it wasn't Joe Biden? Was it a clone?
- [18:42]
Jordy Meisel
Was it a cable of White House officials? Was it a cable? Everybody? Was it a cable? That's what she wants to know. Was. Was it really. So she then amplified.
- [18:50]
Ben Meisel
Did she mean a cabal?
- [18:52]
Jordy Meisel
That's what she did. She did.
- [18:55]
Donald Trump
How do you even get there? Like, is she, like, legit? She must be reading from something.
- [18:59]
Ben Meisel
Like, I just. I figured it would be a Ron Burgundy tyum. Ron Burgundy. But that seemed like just off the dome, she thought the word like, maybe she's only read it in the past, and she thought it was cable, not cabal. But that gets. That's besides the point here. That. That is freaking insane. And then even the way they. They begin that. And apparently Donald Trump wrote this. Apparently. I know his sense of humor. He must have been joking, right? Well, actually, maybe there was a deeper meaning behind. No, the guy is nuts. This is really 25th amendment territory. I'm tired of any time that Donald Trump does something crazy that people write it off and they go, oh, no, he's just trolling, you guys. He's just joking, you guys. He's the president of the United States, you know, whether you like it or not, I don't like it. I'm make my, my views up front here. But to have somebody with that sort of power posting these sorts of things that come from the most heinous of death cults, actual death cults like the QAnon death cult, and to be publicizing this and infecting our body politic with this disease, it is totally atrocious what we are seeing. And the fact that these people try to brush it off like this is just normal is just, it makes it even more appalling.
- [20:05]
Jordy Meisel
You know, I've been watching a lot of India TV lately because I've been focusing a lot on the international coverage we do here. And there's a host on a channel called Vantage and it's Palki Sharma and she's made a point about Donald Trump that I think is so true. She goes the when the delusions impact the policies, it's not a funny joke because it actually is harming people's lives. And so the point of pointing out that post by Donald Trump isn't just to, oh, he's crazy, let's mock it. It's to then take the next connection that needs to be made, which is, is this behavior impacting the lives of Americans and is it harming the lives of Americans? Because it absolutely is. They can say anything they want about former President Biden and try to defame him right now and try to distract people when he's no longer in office, which is a distraction from all of the issues surrounding Donald Trump. But we had a very kind of rational, predictable values and principle based order under former President Biden. He had clear views about how you deal with our allies, how you deal with NATO, how you deal with Putin, how you perceive free trade. Where then domestically, where do you stand on unions, where do you stand on climate, where do you stand on energy? And it was predictable and orders and values based. And we had 16.2 million jobs, jobs created, record low unemployment, more jobs creator than any president in the history. In the United States we had a manufacturing boom. We had 40,000 infrastructure projects taking place, additional members, two new countries joined NATO that were very close to Russia. And so we got that with Donald Trump. You know, he'll give a speech at US Steel, which then he'll lie and actually say that Nippon Steel is not acquiring US Steel, it will remain US Controlled and it's just an investment, which is false. It is an acquisition. But Donald Trump will make that lie and then he'll go out and tell the people that, well, you know, I've just decided 25% tariffs now, 50% tariffs against steel and aluminum nationwide. I've just decided 25 to 50, I'm picking 50% right now. And he says that, and then that has a real world negative impact on our ability to trade and on America's, you know, and on our economy. You know, we're seeing all of this data, you know, come in today and it's, you know, it's bad data. I mean, you take a look at the performance of stocks. So US Stocks have underperformed international stocks by a significant amount. The biggest gap gap in over 32 years. You take a look at the recent ISM manufacturing report. Manufacturing is significantly weaker. We now have contraction in manufacturing and there's no more manufacturing boom that was taking place under former President Biden. If you take a look at trade between the United States and China, it's coming to a halt again. The number of ships departing from China to the US over the last 15 days has dropped to its lowest levels since February. And if you exclude the Chinese New Year related decline in February, it's the lowest level in over a year. And so you take all of this data and you're saying this is not good at all for America and for the United States people. You see Donald Trump doing things like this. Trump taps Palantir, this AI company, to create a master database on every single American using AI to come up with a database on all of us. And again, can you imagine for a moment if former President Obama or Biden did an AI database on, on all of us? And I point all of this out because when we talk about Donald Trump making a crazy post or a, you know, an unhinged, deranged post, we could talk about it, but we have to then talk about how the delusions seep into policies that are really harmful and dangerous to us. And, and we're seeing it develop right there. Brett and Jordy.
- [24:42]
Ben Meisel
Yeah, And I'll remind everybody, Palantir was founded by Peter Thiel amongst other people, who's obviously very well connected to this right wing, technocratic, you know, big tech arm, very close with Elon Musk, JD Vance, all these people. And I think this is an issue where if, you know, Democrats and people in general want to be able to separate themselves from this regime, I think they should go big on this issue. This is an issue that I think I've even noticed a lot of people in MAGA are uncomfortable by this. I've kind of half joked around But I'm really not joking when I say that I think Donald Trump is like the first Communist president of the United States. I think he behaves like a communist ruler in this country. And I think this is just another example. I think this, when I see this, what he's doing with Palantir here and the government, it reminds me of what China does with their databases on their citizens. They're kind of that whole idea that people talk about of, like, kind of social credit and other things that, you know, happen overseas that people warn about. We cannot let that happen here. Well, these are kind of things that we're seeing happen here under this Trump regime. And it's appalling. And they should go and they should, by the way, compare him to, like, what they did under the Patriot act under George Bush. This feels like a move very similar to that. And this is a Republican Party that likes to distance himself and kind of wash their hands of everything they've ever done in the past and blame it on Democrats. Somehow. Somehow the shutdowns that happened were because of Democrats in 2020. Somehow. The things that the FBI did in 2020 were. Were Democrats, not Trump's FBI. Somehow everything George Bush did was the Democrats, not this Republican Party, who has just evolved into whatever the heck it is right now. Make the comparison right, make it clear that this is the surveillance state, this is the actual kind of deep state, and that it's coming from the Republican Party. This is. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Americans who appreciate their freedom and independence actually are very much against. And that, I think, transcends all parties 1000%.
- [26:32]
Donald Trump
And this is coming from the party, too. This Maga ilk or whatnot felt like the 5G towers were following them, or the vaccines, that there was a chip microchip in them and how could they ever do? But yet MAGA and the modern day Republican Party are okay with this. I mean, what's more, government overreach.
- [26:48]
Ben Meisel
They were okay with Elon doing the brain chips, the neuralink chips, actually doing it while they were accusing, like, Bill Gates and other people.
- [26:55]
Jordy Meisel
The.
- [26:55]
Ben Meisel
The liberals, they want to chip you. And Elon Musk is like, no, I'm chipping you. Literally. That's what I'm doing. Oh, that's cool, man.
- [27:01]
Jordy Meisel
That's cool.
- [27:01]
Donald Trump
Unbelievable stuff. I mean. No, but seriously, what's more government overreachy than this? Than literally compiling a database of. I mean, it's utterly dystopian. Ben, what do you think?
- [27:13]
Jordy Meisel
I think the American people get it. And one of the Frustrations, although opportunities, is that you still see cable news pushing narratives that people don't care about or that do not impact and affect people's lives. And they're not meeting the moment. In fact, they're harming the moment. But if you go, if you dig deeper into all of this polling out there right now, like the recent YouGov poll which says is Trump's age affecting his presidency, 57% of Americans say yes, 31% of Americans say no. If you look at the Atlas intel poll, which was the most accurate political pollster in the last election cycle, on a generic House of Representatives ballot poll, Democrats 51%, Republicans 42%. And then when you look at another part of that same Atlas intel poll and you look at net favorability, AOC has a plus 4 net favorability. Former President Obama is plus 10, while Donald Trump is negative 11 and JD Vance is negative 14. So you have real kind of record low approvals for Donald Trump and for J.D. vance and for his regime and people connecting that also to the way he behaves, his behavior, his cognitive issues. But corporate news never talks about that. We talk about it here all the time. Instead, they keep pushing all of these other narratives that are not actually attached to the fact that this budget bill is a real disaster for Americans. And I think Americans understand how damaging it's going to be. I want to talk about that when we come back from our first quick break. And going to we're and you know, you have Elon Musk even basically coming out against this budget bill and says that he doesn't think it's, he thinks that it's going to be bad. He says he thinks it undermines Doge. He thinks that it is, you know, going to harm businesses. You know, these guys, you don't get closer to Donald Trump than Elon Musk, who is basically the co president. But then you see the cult line up behind Donald Trump and say, oh, Elon Musk doesn't understand that. He doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the budget. When we see what this budget's going to actually do to the American people, that's their response. And I just think this is a moment where clarity is needed and not this kind of MAGA propaganda that's recycled on corporate news and fox. So let's take our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss. When we come back, I want to remind everybody to go to patreon.com Midas Touch go to midasplus.com as well, which is our substack. Go to store.midustouch.com, check out all our pro democracy gear that we have@store.minustouch.com and make sure you subscribe on our YouTube channel and subscribe on audio as well. Why don't we take our first quick break of the show? We'll be back with a lot more Midas Touch Podcast.
- [30:25]
Donald Trump
Our next sponsor has been a game changer for my family and me. If you get nauseous, you absolutely must get our next partner Relief Band Relief Band is the original anti nausea wristband that quickly relieves and effectively prevents nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness, anxiety, migraines, hangovers, morning sickness, chemotherapy and so much more. Relief Band is legitimately a band you wear on your wrist to give you the relief from nausea and you can change the intensity depending on how you're feeling to make it stronger or weaker. It's 100% drug free, non drowsy, works quickly before or after symptoms start, and has zero side effects. Now I was recently on a ferry in New York, first time in a while and I used my Relief Band. It was a lifesaver. And ReliefBand isn't magic, it's science. ReliefBand's technology was originally developed for hospitals before being sold to consumers. ReliefBand is FDA approved and clinically proven and recommended by doctors nationwide. Now at first I was skeptical, but ReliefBand is the real deal. It actually relieves my nausea. Now I'm very conscious of what I put in my body. So I love that. I don't need to take any pills for ReliefBand to just work its magic. ReliefBand has sold over 1 million devices and is backed by thousands of 4 star and above reviews, making it a trusted choice for fast acting natural nausea relief. So if you want to cure your nausea problems fast, join the hundreds of thousands of people who are nausea free with ReliefBand. Right now we've got an exclusive offer for just the Midas Touch podcast listeners. Now if you go to reliefband.com and use promo code MIDAS, you'll receive 20% off plus free shipping. So head to R E L I-E-F-B-A-N-D.com and use promo code MIDAs for 20% off plus free shipping. As someone in my 30s, I'm taking steps to ensure that I keep living my best life. That's why I'm so happy that I found Timeline's First Ever Longevity Gummies Timeline's first Ever Longevity Gummies powered By Mitopure is a delicious, easy way to put more energy into your day and to treat yourself. Look, our body makes less energy as we get older, but now you can help recharge the batteries. Timeline's longevity gummies are the only clinically proven your lithium a gummy for strength, endurance and healthy aging from the inside out. We're living longer than ever, but are we living better? Truly ask yourself what if the key to not just adding years to your life, but life to your years starts at the cellular level. Timeline targets a key hallmark of aging. It gives you the energy to feel yourself again and deliver six times more Urolithin a than a glass of pomegranate juice. And it's also the number one doctor recommended Urlithin a supplement. These longevity gummies fit perfectly into my routine and I actually enjoy taking them. If you want to stay strong and energized now and as you age, then you have to try Mitopure Gummies. My friends at Timeline are offering my listeners a free three day trial of Mitopure Gummies. Head to timeline.com Midas Gummies to claim your free three day trial. That's timeline.com Midas Gummies. Your cells will thank you. Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, please let them know we sent you. Appreciate that. Shout out to our pro democracy sponsors. Benji, where to next?
- [34:08]
Jordy Meisel
As we continue to report how disastrous this Trump GOP budget bill is and we talk about how many people are going to lose their Medicaid, how many people are going to lose their health care, how it is an attack against Medicare as well. People are going to lose their food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The ability of women to access reproductive care will be severely, severely curtailed. People who rely on Section 8 Housing and Rental assistance, they're going to be screwed over. And the billionaires and the oligarchs, if you make over $4 million, you're going to basically get easily additional 400, $500,000 in savings, while people who make between 0 and $50,000 are going to lose about 1,000 bucks. And that doesn't even really include include the other amounts of money they're going to lose from the fact that they're losing their health care and they're losing food assistance and other essential programs. And so you even had Elon Musk say that he doesn't like this budget bill. So now you have the maga Republicans in the house like Darren LaHood saying, really, you can't listen to Elon when it comes to the budget. Even though we've told you that this guy's like a super genius who's right about everything when it comes to the budget. Don't, don't trust Elon. He's wrong about this. Here, play this quiz.
- [35:36]
Ben Meisel
Even an Elon Musk would say, I mean, he said it on tv, not happy. Well, I would disagree with Elon in the sense that he doesn't understand how the tax bill works. Again, look at the statistics from 2017, right? Higher wages, lowest unemployment, six and a half million people moved out of poverty. And think about the provisions we have in here. 199, 8 bonus depreciation, estate tax, R and D tax credit. This is going to be rocket fuel for the economy.
- [36:08]
Jordy Meisel
You know, one of the things that they're eliminating as well that was creating jobs were all of these climate related tax incentives by former President Biden. All of these jobs that were created, which MAGA Republicans mock and go, the Green New Deal.
- [36:24]
Ben Meisel
The Green New Deal.
- [36:26]
Jordy Meisel
I mean, they were employing, you know, millions and millions of people who are likely going to lose their job. Because Donald Trump's logic is, I don't like windmills. Brown, brown or coal is so beautiful, we gotta bring back coal. You know, there was all these other jobs that were manufacturing jobs that were being created. And as I mentioned, if you look at the manufacturing numbers, right now we're in a manufacturing contraction, it's reducing, whereas under former President Biden, we were having a manufacturing boom. You know, one of the things that really bugs me as well, at the end of last week, Donald Trump spoke at the U.S. steel factory. And Donald Trump, despite his campaign promise that he was going to block the acquisition of US Steel by Nippon Steel, Donald Trump now says he supports this acquisition, except he's not calling it an acquisition. So now the Trump regime, their whole thing is to say, and this is what the MAGA Republicans are going with is let's not call it an acquisition, even though it is. Let's just say that Nippon Steel is doing an investment in American company and it will remain American controlled. And then by the way, Donald Trump when he spoke at this factory is like, and you're all going to get $5,000 bonuses. You're all going to have so much money, you're not even going to get to know what to do with all that money that you're going to get. You know, and it just also reminds me, remember they said you know, and this will, you know, immediately fade from people's memories, but we don't forget about it here. Remember, they were going to give everybody $5,000 DOGE checks. Everybody you're going to get DOGE is going to save so much money that everybody gets a five thousand dollar Doge check. Doge added to the federal spending. It didn't reduce federal spending at all. And it will ultimately end up adding trillions of dollars to our deficit month over month. Federal spending higher now than under former President Biden. Oh, remember what was it a month ago where Donald Trump said that healthcare costs were going to immediately go down 80% to 90% because of an executive order where he declared that if pharmaceutical companies want to provide their drugs in the United States, it has to be done on a most favored nation basis, meaning they have to set their prices in the US at the same price that they set it at the lowest possible rate in a foreign country. And he said immediately your drug prices will go down 80%, 90%. You know, that hasn't happened. Remember when Donald Trump said that he was going to be able to eliminate the IRS because the tariffs against China were going to make everybody so rich you wouldn't need an IRS anymore, so there would just be an External Revenue Service because there was going to be all this money from tariffs? Well, that certainly didn't happen. And this budget bill will actually represent some of the kind of biggest tax hikes for people, for low income and, and, and working class Americans. And so when Donald Trump refers to what's happening in Nippon Steel not as an acquisition, but as something else, it also obscures what's taking place here. Now, we could have a fair debate. Should a Japanese company like Nippon Steel be able to acquire an American company that's very important, like US Steel? Does that pose national security challenges? But we should address it. And this isn't, it shouldn't be a political thing. From the perspective of, okay, here's what the deal is. Unbalance. Is this a net plus or a net negative? But by making all of these lies up about becomes a situation where there's no clarity. I mean, the United States steel workers put out a statement, they're like, we don't know what is this now? Because we knew at least what it was when former President Biden was in charge. We knew it was an acquisition and we're able to formulate a plan for our union workers if we know what it is. But now you're saying it's something different. Here's Donald Trump as He was heading to golf over the weekend and he was asked, is this an acquisition? Is Nippon Steel acquiring U.S. steel? And Trump goes, no, it's an investment. It's controlled by the U.S. but that's not, that's not true. Here, play this clip.
- [40:49]
Joni Ernst
All steel workers, is it an acquisition?
- [40:53]
Jordy Meisel
Is keep on acquiring U.S. steel investment.
- [40:56]
Joni Ernst
It's controlled by the United States. And more importantly, they're spending the money on brick and mortar. You can't take it. What are you going to do? Pick it up and move it to Japan? That's not going to happen. And you know, I rejected this about four times now. And when they finally got it right, I liked it a lot. And you could see how happy the steelworkers were. More importantly, you could see from the union standpoint, the union loved it.
- [41:21]
Jordy Meisel
Again, that's not true. That's not true. And then show us the deal, show us what it is. Let's all be able to read through it and take a look at it. Because the 2024 deal was indeed an acquisition. And there are concerns that Nippon Steel is not going to make the investments that it promised, that it's not additional investments, that it's what it requires to operate anyway. And will these jobs become non union jobs and what's going to be the impact from it? You know, Donald Trump was asked in that same series of questions what deal he's most proud of. And he says the deal he's most proud of is brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan by dangling trade and doing a trade deal in front of India. The problem is that that didn't happen. Trump had nothing to do. Zero. And I've showed video clips before of the India's Foreign Minister and others saying Trump had not to do with this. And it's pissing off the people of India that Trump keeps claiming that he negotiated the ceasefire because it's a point of national pride and dignity. And so each time Donald Trump does stuff like that, he makes it difficult to actually negotiate a trade deal with a country like India because he keeps on making it more difficult with these lies. Here's what he says here, play this clip.
- [42:40]
Joni Ernst
I want to very much make a deal. I think the deal I'm most proud of is the fact that we're dealing with India, we, we're dealing with Pakistan. And we were able to stop potentially a nuclear war through trade, as opposed through bullets. You know, normally they do it through bullets, we do it through trade. So I'm very proud of that. Nobody talks about it, but we had A very nasty potential war going on between Pakistan and India. And now, if you look, they're doing fine. I was getting very bad. I was getting very nasty. They're both nuclear powers. The Pakistan representatives are coming in next week. And India, as you know, we're very close to making a deal with India. And I wouldn't have any interest in making a deal with either if they were going to be at war with each other. I would not.
- [43:30]
Jordy Meisel
And I let them know, you know, and the problem with those lies is that, okay, you want to try to trick your MAGA base or American corporate news and cable news will do propaganda and just post what he says. But the people who we're negotiating with internationally know that everything he's saying is not true. And they're recognizing that the United States doesn't stand behind its word, that United States is not stable, that Donald Trump is a taco. He always will chicken out at the end. They've been saying that this deal with India and Japan and numerous other countries, they said it's happening. It's about to happen this week. It's going to happen this week. It has not happened thus far. And even when they do announce it, it's not going to be a trade deal. It's going to be some memorandum of understanding, like with the United Kingdom that says this is not a binding trade deal. That's literally what it says. Or it'll be like some consensus with China that literally is just Trump caving on the tariffs from 145% to 30%. And this, all this stuff has deteriorated the United States so much. And honestly, what it just kind of feels like now is that we are now no longer in a world where America is a superpower, but in a multipolar world with different poles of strength, whether it's the European Union, China, Russia, the United States, you know, and then, and then, you know, maybe kind of Canada, Australia, it's kind of more Eurocentric or kind of part of the Commonwealth. The United States feels like the weakest of the, of the polls at this point. And it just feels now that, not that we've settled into anything, because with Trump, it's always chaos, but to me, the broader narrative is that no one takes them seriously, no one takes America seriously anymore. And it's really just weakened us throughout the world.
- [45:33]
Ben Meisel
I think one of the most revealing comments that I heard in the past few days was over the weekend. Howard Lutnick was on, whatever network he was on, you know, Trump's trade guy. And Lutnick Made a comment, they were like, so where are all these deals? Are you going to have any of these deals? You know, he said 90 deals in 90 days or whatever it was. And he was like, well, let me tell you, you know, if Donald Trump says he's just going to say a number, and that's the deal. Okay, If Donald Trump just says the tariff deal, deal's made, boom, that's a deal. He's made a deal. So they've sort of gotten past the part where Donald Trump is actually going to make a deal, and now they're just kind of like, oh, yeah, Trump is just going to post random stuff from his social media accounts and he's going to call it a deal. He's going to say, okay, I raised steel tariffs to 50% this day. That's a deal. I made a deal deal. It's not a deal. This is just more, you know, maniac behavior that you are doing that is just going to disrupt markets, make it so there's more uncertainty. And I've seen lots of people in these industries also you know, writing, I can't do business like, how am I supposed to do business in this industry if one day a tariffs this number, another day a tariffs this number, the next day Trump's caving on the tariffs. And while Trump's caving and we all laugh about the taco thing, and I, you know, I think it's great as well. You know, I like when Trump caves because I think it's better for consumers and I think it's better for people when he caves. I think it's a good thing. I think it's something we should celebrate, Trump caving. But we forget in the midst of all this sort of stuff that despite all the caving, there is still a lot of damage that Donald Trump has done and continues to do. And there are a lot of tariffs that are still in place, which if just said in a vacuum, without all of his back and forth on all of these issues, each one of those things would be a devastating thing in a massive news story. But they kind of get lost in the fact that he does so much and then pull some back and then make some go that you forget what's actually out there. And to Ben's point about, you know, China, I think one of the things that folks aren't quite realizing to this extent is that America's soft power across the globe, it's gone, it's over. It's. Those days are over. And it used to be actually one of the most effective things that the United States government did with programs like usaid by doing these humanitarian efforts in other places, not only was it the right thing to do to keep people alive and to help, you know, know, children who were suffering from diseases and to help literacy and to run all these programs across the world, but it made America a trusted partner who these countries, you know, could rely upon and knew that, you know, we had a place in this world as a global superpower. Now, the interesting thing that we're seeing right now, and Ben's done a lot of reports on this, like deep dives over the weekend on this very topic, is in America's absence, in the United States absence, you know, who's filling that void right now? It's China. And China has basically created their own version of usaid, and they're going to Africa, they're going to Latin America, they're going all across the world. And we're saying, if the United States doesn't want to help, we'll help you. We could help, you know, create schools, we could help fight disease. We could help do all, all of these things, right? And we're seeing in all of these various regions, including in places like Latin America, when given the choice, these countries are saying, who do I trust right now in this world, world? Do I trust the United States? Do I trust China? Do we want to partner with China? Guess who they're choosing? Guess who they're picking. They're picking China. And so the United States ends up being Donald Trump's America first policy, ends up putting America last, and it's putting all of us in a very devastating position that's going to have impacts. And these are kind of like those landmines that Trump set a lot of these up in his first term as well. But these are the sort of Trumpian landmines that he places that are going to blow up and are going to continue to wreak havoc on this country for like, like decades to come, like, irreversible damage, you know, already from what we've done. And we can't lose sight of that fact.
- [49:13]
Donald Trump
On a lesser note, too, something that I'm personally interested in just from an optic standpoint and a general vibe standpoint, is what happens with TikTok. I'm just. I'm really curious because that became such a central issue for Trump at a certain point, at least early in his administration. Oh, how he saved TikTok. Well, China certainly has the upper hand in any negotiations that are happening right now. Now, my personal prediction, I think TikTok is as good as gone in the United States as we know it. We'll wait to see how things continue to play out, but that's going to impact a lot of folks on the ground, especially folks who rely on that platform to make a living.
- [49:47]
Ben Meisel
I don't think anything with it is the honest thing. I think he's going to keep kicking the can down the road. He doesn't want to actually make a decision that could be politically unpopular in either direction. So he's going to ignore the law and he's going to keep saying, oh, we'll see what the deal is. We'll see what the deal is. Let's push it back two weeks. Let's push it back 90 days. That's, that's, that's my thought on what's going to happen with TikTok. Nothing.
- [50:05]
Jordy Meisel
I was going to keep going. I forget which. It may have been on another episode that we did together, or it could have been a hot take. I was doing where I said when I was, like, in third grade and I'd have to go into elementary school and I would set my alarm super early because elementary school started at like, like 7:26am it was always, like, a weird time. Like, that started. And my alarm would go off at, like, 5:50 and I would tell my mom, Five more minutes. I need five more minutes. Come on, Ben, you got to go to school. All right, give me 10 more minutes. Just promise I'll get up. Give me 10 more minutes. I mean, that's kind of what taco is. You know, Trump chickens out. He's created all of these, like, all of these arbitrary deadlines that he then can't meet. He doesn't meet the deadlines, or he caves before the deadlines. And we set, we saw that right at the outset. We have to go back to, you know, when he threatened Canada and Mexico right away and they kind of held firm. That was his first taco, but his whole policy is taco, and it's taco and international affairs. He's, you know, oh, I don't like what Putin's doing. I don't. You're being very mean. You're not the Putin who I knew. I may have to consider additional sanctions. And then he doesn't. Then he doesn't do it. And even, like, Ukraine, which launched this, you know, incredible special action, which special mission which will go down in the history book as being one of the most incredible kind of military operations in history, this spiderwebs operation as, as they call it, they didn't Even have to like go to like Trump is such a non factor that the way Zelensky deals with it is he's like, I'm just going to deal with it. I've got my friends in Europe, the coalition of the willing. You know, Donald Trump's going to be out there playing golf. Why do I need to get him permission? And also if I show Donald Trump our plan, then he's probably going to leak it to Putin anyway. And so Ukraine went on with this plan. I'll talk about it more when we get back. And they took out over 30% of Russia's strategic air force fleet, you know, and Zelensky was asked by a reporter, are you worried that Russia is going to retaliate? And Zelensky's like, why would I worry? We're under attack right now. Every night Putin is sending or every day Putin is sending drones and, and, and, and ballistic missiles killing innocent Ukrainians. Like, we gotta fight. We, we gotta defend ourselves. That's, that's the situation that we're, that's the situation that we're in right now. And it's just, it's just odd to observe the US as such a non factor in all, like in all of these happenings. It's just as just someone who's like where or if anything, enabling Putin. So let's talk about that. That I want to talk about the MAGA Republican mantra that we're all going to die. So who cares if it's now? That's apparently what they're running on.
- [52:54]
Ben Meisel
And quite the messaging, huh?
- [52:55]
Jordy Meisel
Quite, quite the messaging right there. Let's talk about that and more. I want to take our last quick break of the show. Just a reminder, Midasplus.com check it out. That's where you can check out Our substack@midasplus.com There's patreon.com Midas Touch we're going to hold a zoom meeting soon and excited to do that for everybody. We'll announce the date and time soon. I've had a bad back lately so I just have to figure out when I can do it and store midas touch.com check it out for all the best pro democracy gear. Let's take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to talk about Ukraine. I want to talk about MAGA Republicans saying that everybody's going to die. Anyway, we got a lot to discuss. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Oh, you know I had to do it. Moink4 companies control over 80% of the US meat industry. China now controls the largest portion of US pork. These companies are using mobster like tactics to crush American family farms. And with the additives that they're putting into our food, Americans are stuck with sketchy meat. So what can we do about it? Let me tell you about a company that's coming up swinging on behalf of American family farms and your family's food security. It's called Moink. I said at the beginning, Moink. Moink. The business is simple. Moink's meat comes from animals raised outdoors where a pig is free to be a pig. Their farmers are given an honest day's pay for an honest day's day's work and they deliver meat straight to your doorstep at prices that you can actually afford. Born, raised and harvested right here in the United States. Support American family farms and join the Moink movement today@moinkbox.com Midas Touch right now and get Free Wings for Life. They're the best wings you'll ever taste for free, but for a limited time. Here's how you spell it. And M O I n k box.com Midas Touch that's moinkbox.com Midas Touch in.
- [55:07]
Donald Trump
Business, they say that you can have better, cheaper or faster. But you only get to pick two. Now what if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what some of the world's most innovative brands and AI tech companies have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Cloud Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second. Cheaper.
- [55:48]
Jordy Meisel
Cheaper.
- [55:49]
Donald Trump
OCI costs up to 50% less for compute, 70% less for storage and 80% less for networking. Better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com midas that's oracle.com midas okay, real talk.
- [56:25]
Ben Meisel
I looked in the mirror the other day and thought, where did all these grays come from? The grays in my hair, both on my head and my face were showing up like uninvited guests. And I'm not trying to throw a full science fair in my bathroom with all those messy drugstore dye kits. You Know what I'm saying? The salon. Way too much time and money. I needed something simpler. That's where Simpler Hair Color came in. This podcast is sponsored by Simpler Hair Color, the easiest way to eliminate grays. Modern men deserve better and Simpler delivers safer, gentler ingredients with no mixing, no dripping, and no more running to the drugstore. I used Simpler Hair Color just a couple weeks ago before a big meeting and boom, gray's gone in minutes. I used the dark brown shade and applied blended perfectly with my natural color and it didn't irritate my skin at all. Simpler was started by Snehal Patel and Mitch Brown, two guys who'd had enough of harsh chemicals and complicated dye routines. They created a formula that works for your hair, beard and touch ups all in one can. And one can gets you up to four times the uses of drugstore dye. Simpler Hair Color is made in the USA with over 9,500 five star reviews. It's clean, it's effective, and it fits, fits right into my routine. No more drama. Just pump, apply, wait, wash, say goodbye to grays the easy way with Simpler Hair color. Head to simplerhaircolor.com Midas and use code Midas M E I D A S for 15% off your order. Once again, that's simplerhaircolor.com Midas M E I D A s for 15% off. And make sure you use that promo code Midas so so they know I sent you.
- [58:00]
Donald Trump
Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors links in description of both YouTube and audio. Use the links, use the codes, let them know we sent you. Brett, your hair is looking awesome with Simpler Hair Color. That looks really good, big bro. Benji, where to next?
- [58:12]
Jordy Meisel
Before I play the clip of Joanie Ernst doubling down on her statement that everybody's going to die, so why do you care if the budget bill is going to kill you sooner? You know, you see this play out in the policies of the Trump regime, right? I mean, you see it with them gutting Medicaid. You see it with them gutting people's ability to access health care and gutting people's ability to get food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Turning a lot more people into unhoused individuals by not providing rental assistance, just generally making us much less safer. Firing people at NIH and the cdc, preventing people from getting vaccines, I mean, and spreading all of these lies about infectious diseases. But you know, you saw this story today from Reuters Exclusive. FEMA staff confused after its head. The new head of FEMA said he was unaware of US Hurricane Season sources say. So FEMA fired its prior leader, who was this kind of ultra MAGA guy, and they fired this other guy because he said that he at least thinks that FEMA should exist. And the Trump regime wants FEMA to be destroyed the same way they are destroying the Department of Education. So there's a new FEMA head who came in and on day one, he's like, I'm not going to be nice. You're going to listen to me, you're going to obey me. It was like a very weird meeting that just like made people like, who the hell is, who the hell is this guy? He doesn't know that. Hurricane season just started as we approach June, and I keep on saying fema, FEMA over again, because the other thing, because the Trump regime doesn't believe in climate change, same way they don't believe in hurricane season. One of the reasons that we have worse hurricane seasons each year is because of climate change. And we're expecting to have a particularly bad hurricane season this year. And we've already seen FEMA not respond to major disasters in Missouri and Kentucky and Indiana and Mississippi and Arkansas and not approve supplemental assistance back from Hurricane Helene, which former President Biden immediately approved. The new FEMA refuses to approve it in North Carolina and Georgia and elsewhere. This is who we're dealing with here, though. People who, whose job at FEMA is to lead it, and they don't even know what hurricane season is. Brett?
- [60:46]
Ben Meisel
Yeah, this isn't speculation when we speak about the climate. We all need to understand that these severe weather events are going to only increase and the hurricane season, this season is expected to be worse than ever. And so when you see these Republicans with this bill and they're trying to repeal all these provisions from the Inflation Reduction act, which not only help the climate, but also provide jobs, by the way, mostly jobs in, in red states as well. So this is now a wedge issue that Democrats are trying to kind of use, you know, as this bill makes its way through the Senate because it's going to cost states like Georgia and North Carolina, like, tons of jobs. Just the complete denial of the climate in this whole process and just the, you know, constant politicking of we're just going to try to take away, you know, everything that kind of helps the world and gets people jobs simply because former President Biden did it. I think this sort of destructive behavior is really what's wrong with our politics and what's wrong right now with this Republican Party that we see leaving. It's all just to Kind of own the libs. It's all just to spite other people. And they're not looking at the real world effects of these issues. But I think people, you know, overall when we're looking at the polling that exists right now, I think they're seeing through it, there's support for repealing the Inflation Reduction act through these measures. Right now for my new Data for progress poll, 58% of Americans oppose that. Only 28% support that, and the rest of 14% of people are unsure. So people actually like these provisions. People actually like the jobs that come from them. People actually like the, the environmental provisions in these bills. So you should talk about them proudly and you should be able to confront this administration when they continue to lie about that and put people's lives at risk. And this FEMA thing is just so egregious, especially after, after months and months and months of these same people attacking former President Biden over what happened with FEMA on his watch and what actually happened with female or his watch. They, well, they actually got to work and helped people and did their best to help people while these MAGA Republican influencers and the people in the White House now were the ones who were spreading all this disinformation and were trying to downplay the actual efforts that were being undertaken. Well, now they're given $0 to people. Now they're trying to strip away, you know, this, these essential services. And in fact, the people that they're putting in charge of the climate and putting in charge of disaster relief don't know anything about the climate or about disaster relief. And to me, that's a big problem, especially as you're heading into hurricane season with a guy who doesn't even know what hurricane season is, when it is that it even exists. Like that's at minimum we should all be able to agree, once again, I don't care what political party you're in, that, that is an issue, okay?
- [63:28]
Jordy Meisel
And that's so well stated because these issues shouldn't be political. FEMA should exist. We shouldn't be attacking research universities. It's not a zero sum game. We can support research in universities and top universities like Harvard and we can also support trade schools. We don't have to steal from one to give to the other. But doesn't that so perfectly show you the way MAGA thinks about everything? It's a way to try to divide, always try to divide. We want to give your money to this money and then pit people, pit academics against trade schools. And then you actually look Though, what former President Biden was doing, and he was actually supporting trade schools and investing a ton in trade schools and in manufacturing and also doing important research that's going to save lives out of Harvard. You can do both. You can do all of these things at the same time. Time. You know, when I think about what Joni Ernst, the MAGA Republican senator from Iowa, you know, said, in many ways, the refreshing aspect of what she said, whether she intended for these words to come out, it's just how the MAGA Republicans feel about everything. I felt the same way when we were talking about COVID how they really wouldn't care that, you know, millions of people were dying. They didn't care about it. It, you know, and when you take a look at this bill, it does. It's going to kill people. I've seen, I've heard people, including people here on our network, so I refer to it often as a murder bill, because what do you think is going to happen when people can't afford health care and they're kicked off of their Medicaid and they can't afford food? What do you think's going to happen to these people? What do you think has already happened as a result of Elon Musk Musk cutting programs from usaid? Like, how many kids have been killed by the United States who we made commitments to look. And. And perhaps if you wanted to phase out usaid, which to me is still incredibly cruel, maybe you phase it out and you go, okay, we're going to be out, but here's our warning. 60 days, 90 days a year, we're going to phase it out. If anybody else wants to come in, please, you know, so maybe the international community should step in. But literally, like, ripping away medication, ripping away food, ripping away, like, supplies to keep people alive. It's just the heart of cruelty. But then you hear Joni Ernst, this MAGA Republican senator, say it out loud when the people in the audience were saying to her, the people in her town hall were saying, we're scared. We're worried. If we lose Medicaid, we can die. And here's what she had to say about it at the town hall. Let's play it.
- [66:16]
Kristi Noem
So people are not well. We all are going to die.
- [66:25]
Jordy Meisel
And then if you watch it, too, I'm going to play it one more time for our audio listeners. Go check out our YouTube. But she takes glee in it.
- [66:37]
Ben Meisel
It.
- [66:38]
Jordy Meisel
She smiles at it like she was at her most comfortable looking at the audience and saying, well, you're all gonna die. And Smiles. Watch that clip one more time.
- [66:51]
Kristi Noem
So we people are not well, we all are going to die.
- [67:00]
Jordy Meisel
That's when she smiles. Then she makes another video about it it at a cemetery. And she's like, well, we're all going to die. But. But if you want eternal salvation, you need to believe in Jesus Christ. That's what a senator of the United States is saying. Do we have that clip? If we do, let's play.
- [67:22]
Kristi Noem
Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. See, I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member when a woman who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, people are going to die. And I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize and I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
- [68:27]
Jordy Meisel
Now, doesn't that just perfectly define though, what the Republican Party is all about? And to some extent, not that I appreciate what she says, but at least she's out there not pretending that this bill is not going to do the things that we know it's going to do. You know, she says, you're going to die, we're going to kill you, and you know, sorry, what can we do for you? And at its most basic level, I just don't even get how you become that.
- [68:59]
Ben Meisel
Just think about how sick you have to be to first make those comments in the first place. When people are terrified for their lives, their own constituents are terrified for their lives based on the actions that you are taking with this bill. They have real genuine concerns about what's going on. And you mock them to their face and say, oh, we're all going to die. Then your next move a day or two later is instead of, I don't know, trying to explain yourself or, or to apologize or whatever, is to drive to a cemetery. She did that. I want to remind everybody. She did that at a cemetery. I took a screenshot just so everybody could show you. You see the tombstones behind Joni Ernst here? She was at a cemetery when she said this. And then to once again double down and mock the folks. You know, I've said that. You know, when I see somebody like a Joni Ernst who has been kind of held in the Media as like, she's like one of the moderate ones. She's like, you know, one of the normal Republicans and she's kind of always kind of claimed that mantle for herself. When you see a video like that, I see like somebody who's severely disturbed and somebody who is sociopathic. And if that's an example of a quote unquote moderate or normal, normal Republican, then there's no hope for whatever the hell's going on there. There's like something that happens to these people and even these so called moderate Republicans, it happens to them as well. But I've said it reminds me of like a zombie apocalypse, like a zombie movie where one by one these people like get bit and then become zombies and they become these like soulless, bizarre, weird freaks, these ghouls who do not care about life and do not care about, about people. And they just try to say things to try to enrage people and to say the MAGA line and appease Donald Trump. And you just see these people kind of get infected one by one and you're looking around like, you're like, is everybody becoming a zombie? Like, what the heck? What's happening here? But that's how I feel when I see like Joni Ernst. It's just, it's, it's, it's incredibly disturbing. Jordy, what are your thoughts when you're watching all this?
- [70:58]
Donald Trump
I mean, I mean, it's incredibly ghoulish behavior. I mean, she's just going to become a real life troll. Her constituents are genuinely scared and terrified about what's in the bill now instead of just addressing it like a normal human being, you know, she makes her comment there at the town hall. It was a disgusting comment. And then like, instead of like clarifying, hey, I know folks are scared, but here's my position. And to your point, Brett, like the mod, like, let's be a moderate Republican and it doesn't even, it's so clownish, doesn't even exist. She drives to a cemetery. Her solution was to drive to a cemetery and do it for the gram. Let's go on, let's go on Instagram. Let's go into a cemetery. Let me strike this incredibly patronizing tone about and bring up the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and oh, you're scared, my constituent. I mean, like, like totally ghoulish behavior. My jaw dropped when I saw the video of her at the cemetery because I'm just like that, that's the response. Like, you're supposed, you're supposed. You branded yourself as A serious person. And so everything that you do is in direct opposition with that. Are you kidding me? Joni Ernst Absolutely pathetic to me.
- [72:16]
Jordy Meisel
Ben I want to talk about just a few things in international news as well. I think some bad news out of Poland that the kind of of more Putin backed MAGA backed candidate, a guy by the name of Dr. Carol Noraki became the new president of Poland. Although the president of Poland has less power than the prime minister and the prime minister is someone who's more pro EU kind of pro democracy is still a bad day for democracy in Poland that this Dr. Carol Naraki won and Trump sent his cabinet member Kristi Noem dog killer cosplayer and the Americans. Well, the CPAC in America, the conservative political action committee, hosted events throughout the week leading up to the election to try to push the Putin backed Maga back candidate Dr. Carol Noraki who won by a small amount but pulled out a victory. And just also weird to see the United States sending someone like Kristi Noem to tell people to vote for the Putin backed candidate there. It's very, very strange. I reported on that over the weekend. Another big deal. We're learning more about the US Nuclear deal with Iran. And apparently the Trump regime anxious to get any deal done with Iran they're offering to allow Iran to enrich uranium at low levels, doesn't include a complete dismantling of the nuclear facilities. As our editor in chief Ron Philipkowski writes. This combined with Reuters report that Iran was about to reject Trump's previous proposal indicates that Taco Trump has made an appearance at the Iran nuke talks and he is caving. I just think world leaders say, look, this guy just wants a deal so badly so he can say I did a deal, deal, deal, deal, that it's easy. You just kind of wait, you embarrass him a little bit and then you're able to extract whatever terms that you want as long as he gets to say it's a deal. And then he gets favorable coverage in the United States for deals that are either not advanced, not advantageous to the United States or not deals at all. And finally I just. Sorry, Brett.
- [74:41]
Ben Meisel
Oh no, you can continue. I was just going to say it seems like he's circling ultimately back to the Obama deal that he blew up. Obama had a, there was an Iranian nuclear deal, remember it was done in 2015 under the Obama administration. In 2018, Donald Trump backed out of it and now he's been scrambling to try to kind of recreate that deal or a version of the deal. That he says is going to be better. But ultimately he's now just coming back to, to what the previous deal was after a lot of fanfare. And you know, I think it's, I think it's very telling, like Ron said that there was the report that Iran was going to be backing out of this deal. They were saying we're not accepting this proposal. And the first thing Trump did like within hours after that story coming out and the public finding out about it was just to give them everything they wanted. It really gives you a window into his psyche and to how he's trying to figure out how to negotiate. I use that term very loosely. You know, kind of negotiate these, these, these, these deals. And his back's up just against the wall in all of these because he's been a total failure at every single one of them. Like he's zero for, he says there are a thousand countries or something. He's zero for a thousand, even though there aren't that many countries that exist.
- [75:48]
Jordy Meisel
Let me read to you finally what President Zelensky posted a little bit earlier today. He says when asked by journalists whether yesterday's operation might enrage the Russians, I responded that just a day earlier Russia had launched a massive overnight attack on Ukraine. Over 480 drones and missiles. They struck civilian infrastructure, residential buildings. There were casualties, people killed and injured. This happens every single day. Sometimes there's a short pause and to be honest, we now call it a pause if there's just no one killed that night. But even then, drones still fly and people still get wounded. These so called pauses just mean fewer attacks than usual. But we're still talking about dozens of drones and cruise missiles. So no, no, no one cares whether Russia is angry. What matters is that Russia must move toward ending this war. And as a global community, we must all do what we can to stop them. We are very much awaiting strong steps from the United States. We hope he will support sanctions and push Putin to stop this war, at least to take the first step toward ending in a ceasefire. These are critical things. I believe that from the position of the US we will be able to achieve this faster. We await a strong response. You know, and Zelensky saying we've been strong, where are our friends, where are our allies? We've been standing up, protecting Europe, protecting the rest of the world from Putin because Putin's going to come to eastern other places in Eastern Europe and then Europe proper next. Where are you? Be stronger. I think those are powerful words, you know, and to see Zelinsky from a position of strength and Donald Trump kind of flowing. I think it's a. I think it's a powerful point to close this show on where we are. Trump golfing on the taxpayer dime, sending weird messages that President Biden's actually a robot and he was executed in 2020 from QAnon accounts. The head of FEMA not knowing what hurricane season means, you know, and then you have, you know, someone like Zelinsky, truly brave and courageous, you know, and showing how you lead and how you fight. So that's all I got. Brett, anything else you want to say before we go?
- [78:08]
Ben Meisel
I got nothing. I think you've summed it up quite well and I think we packed a lot of the. A lot of chaos that's happened over the weekend and today into this episode. So. So it's been great. I want to remind everybody to make sure that you add the Might as such podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you've already done that already, please leave a five star review. It really helps and it really helps us push back against all the trolls, you know, these MAGA people that get them all upset when we do well. And so you go there, it's. You just go to the Apple. You know, when you're on Apple podcasts, you just scroll down, you'll see like five stars is rating there. If you like the show, please support the show by doing that. Remember to check out our sponsors in the description. They help us, you know, continue to fuel this show and grow this network. Hope all of you have been enjoying all the various things that we've been doing. The expansion. Expansion that we've been doing. The Katie Fang YouTube channel@YouTube.com 80Fang News. That's P H A N G. Katie is fantastic, fearless reporter. It's an honor to have her on the Midas touch network and she's been doing some great reports, so make sure you check that all out. Great episode, brothers. Great episode. Midas Mighty. This was. This was a good one. Great discussions here, Jordy. Anything else?
- [79:11]
Donald Trump
I just want to add. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. 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@midmidasplus.com.