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- [00:01]
Brett Meiselas
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- [00:59]
Jordy Meiselas
Hey prime members, Are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts? Good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcasts that's Amazon.com adfreepodcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Sorry Donald, but no matter how much you huff and puff, the Epstein scandal is not going anywhere. Yesterday, Donald Trump went on a completely unhinged social media tirade, posting videos of girls catching snakes. AI generated clips of Obama getting arrested and calling for other top Democrats to be jailed. But the American people are not buying the distraction. There is a growing bipartisan demand to release the Epstein files, while Trump and Republican leaders like MAGA Mike Johnson are doing everything that they can to keep them hidden from the public. Hmm, I wonder why there. Jordy. Meanwhile, Trump is lashing out at the press for covering the story. He's even releasing the files. Jordy. The MLK Jr files as a diversion. I mean, how transparent can you get? But guess what? His poll numbers, they are still sinking fast. Meanwhile, the Trump regime is already waving the white flag on their latest tariff stunt and in his lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal over that bombshell alleged Epstein letter. More bad news for Trump there as well. We're going to bring on Legal AF's Michael Popak to break that all down. All that and more on today's Midas Touch podcast. I'm Brett Meisellis here with Jordy Meisellis. Been at a little a medical emergency today. He turned 40. Just falling apart there, Jordy. But I want to let everybody know he's doing okay. We are sending him our love and hoping that he will be back very soon. Jordy, what's the latest?
- [02:51]
Ben Meiselas
Excited for today's show there be Yep, sending our love to Benji. He's doing just fine, y'. All, But I know he'd like me to say this. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the audio ve of the Midas Touch podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, Apple, Spotify, wherever, make sure you download that audio version of the show. Brett, I'm excited for today's show. We have a lot to get into. Where do you want to lead us off today?
- [03:10]
Jordy Meiselas
B let's just start with some of these polls, Jordy, because these, this news right now is absolutely devastating for Trump. And then we'll backtrack to show you just why things are going so south for Trump. First, let me show you the trend line here. Here is the new CBS YouGov poll and I just want to show you the trend in Donald Trump's approval. You could see it gradually sinking over these past few months. We' showing this graphic right now starting at February 9th of this year, 53% approval rating for Donald Trump. And you see that chip being chipped away month by month to now, that being at 42%. But that's not all. If you look at other polls of Trump as well, you see even worse numbers for Trump like this new one from American Research Group, the Trump approval at just 38% while 59% disapprove. And as you dig in even deeper, Trump is underwater, Jordy, in just about every single metric. On immigration, which was supposed to be his top issue, and especially on the economy where voters are just not buying what he is selling. We saw Trump all weekend try to go, oh, this has been six months of the greatest economy, six months of the greatest presidency. But guess what? When people go to the store and they see that things are more expensive, when they're getting laid off from their jobs, when they are struggling to find jobs, they know the truth about what is going on in the American economy. And no level of gaslighting can change that. So if we look at Donald Trump on the economy right now, we are also seeing this nosedive. Trump's approval on the economy. According to this ARG poll, a dismal 35% with 62% disapproving the national economy is people answered 64% said getting worse, 20% said staying the same and just 11% said getting better. Meanwhile, the question of is the United States in a recession? Yes, 52% no, 30%. And that is a 10 point change, a 10% change from January 2025. So we are seeing right now a major shift there amongst public perception of the administration based on the reality of what is going on. Meanwhile, there's this whole Epstein story now that Donald Trump just cannot escape from. You know, people like to say Teflon Don. He could sneak his way out of anything. Well, this story is deep. This story goes back now decades and decades and decades. Quite frankly, I think this is kind of the one story from Donald Trump's past that he never wanted being brought up, that he never wanted people to be speaking about. And you know, at the Midas Touch Network, we've been covering it just about every day now for I think like five years. We've been laser focused on this story. And finally, finally everybody is focused on this because Donald Trump made this promise that he was going to release the Epstein files. And then when it got a little hot for him, once they kind of looked at those files and we're trying to figure out what to do, suddenly they were like, I'm not so sure we should release these things. And I think we all know why. We'll dig into some of Donald Trump's past, his very dark past with Epstein, with actual substantiated evidence that we have that shows Donald Trump's ties to Epstein and I think shines a big light on why he does not want to see these files, release the light, see the light of day. But that's why Trump is trying to change the subject every step of the way, right, Jay? I mean, you saw these posts over the weekend. He's posting things like about arresting Barack Obama. He's posting things about arresting all these other Democrats. Like you could just see the desperation through the screen when you're looking at this. First in this flurry of posts, Jordy, that Trump was doing over the weekend. First I want to show you this bizarre one. He posted like some sort of highlight reel of people doing things. And like it starts off with this young girl in a bikini catching a snake. This is like one of the videos Donald Trump posted yesterday to try to distract from all this. And then he starts posting those AI videos of Obama and, and images of top Democrats and other people who Donald Trump doesn't like in orange jumpsuits. And he writes, no one is above the law. He was making accusations against Adam Schiff once again, saying that Adam Schiff should be arrested once again, trying to shift public attention onto these issues. But he is just really scared, I think, of these Epstein's This Epstein story continuing. And you could see Republican leadership right now kind of really afraid of this stuff continuing. Jordi, when you look at these posts, I mean, what is your opinion when, as you're seeing like all this coming yesterday?
- [07:41]
Ben Meiselas
Just an unhinged maniac right now, and he's always been one. But when you look at these posts specifically, like, I just want everyone to take a step back. This is the President of the United States of America and what is he doing? Brett, show those posts again for, for audio listeners. We're pulling up these posts. He's posting AI generated videos of himself and Barack Obama in the White House and Obama being arrested, arrested, taken out in handcuffs. And then he's also doing a weird sort of triptych. It's a play on the Brady Bunch with Obama and others all dressed up in orange jumpsuits called the Shady Bunch. This is why America's standing right now in the world is at an all time low. And it really pains me, you know, to say that because the person in charge at the highest level of government is making us look like complete fools. And it's no wonder why his polling is just tanking right now. There's no steady hand on the wheel. Say what you want about President Biden. I thought he was a very, very good president. Very, very good person. Steady hand on the wheel. When you look at Donald Trump going on these AI unhinged posts.
- [09:00]
Jordy Meiselas
Blackout.
- [09:01]
Ben Meiselas
Posting this right now is really embarrassing for this country and it has been for a while. And now you marry that up with Donald Trump's approval rankings just tanking. Well, it's because he's gaslighting even his own most loyal followers, Brett, day in and day out. And it's funny, that one poll that you brought up, I saw 38% approval. That's very similar to that 30, 35% of the Ultra Maga base that will always have his back. But what are we looking at there? That that swing of 15% of voters who are like, hey man, you told me you were going to release these Epstein files. Like, I got all behind that. And now what now? Because your name just apparently allegedly just continues to pop up on that. You're going to kneel the football on this and we're not going to talk about this anymore. But that's the whole reason I voted for you, Donald. So what's going on now? What else are you gaslighting me about? And then you look at his stance on the economy, Brett, it's no wonder why those approval rankings are tanking too. Because how is he tariffing right now? How is he deciding these tariffs? We wake up, it's, oh, 15% on this country, 20% on this country. And you go ask him about it, and he says, vibes. Mr. President, what sort of calculation have you come up with to figure this out? We heard the video that we played earlier last week. He said, you know, just a feeling on how they've treated America. That's how I'm calculating this. It is such a shame and utter embarrassment that this person continues to lead this country in the direction that he's leading it. And I just, I feel the resistance growing stronger day by day. And when I see the approval rankings collapsing in real time every month, month over month, you know, that, that, that gives me some hope here that folks are really opening their eyes to especially the gaslighting and just utter incompetence of Donald Trump.
- [10:46]
Jordy Meiselas
Jordy, they are the dog that caught the car, right? The dog that caught the truck. And when I say they, I mean Trump and the Republicans who have been pushing release the Epstein files, release the Epstein files for years and years and years, because now they're in a place to do this. And by the way, like you said, this is about everything. They lie about everything. So whether it's the economy, whether it's about ending the Ukraine war in 24 hours, every single thing that Donald Trump said, well, now he's in a position to do those things, and he is either failing or he is just refusing to do so in the case of Epstein because he is so clearly implicated in the whole thing. And just the stories, the drip, drip, drip, drip, drip of everything that is coming out. We here at Midas Touch have been digging up a lot of stuff from Donald Trump's past that he never wanted to see the light of day. There was a new New York Times story. There was, of course, that Wall Street Journal story of that alleged letter that Donald Trump to Epstein where they talked about their secrets. May every day be a secret. And it's really painting a picture here. And, and we're. We've learned in the past already from people like Jeffrey Epstein's brother, from recordings of Jeffrey Epstein himself that he did with author Michael Wolf, that Epstein and Trump were best friends. They were buddy, buddy for many, many years. They did everything together. They shared girlfriends. They did a whole variety of things. They partied together. We've seen footage of them partying together. And so what's Donald Trump trying to do right now? He is trying to silence the media. He's trying us and all the media out there to shut up and not report on the story because he knows how exposed he truly is in all of this. So today we are learning that Donald Trump is kicking out the Wall Street Journal from the press pool this weekend. Donald Trump is going to Scotland. And the White House has removed the Wall Street Journal from the Scotland press pool over their Epstein bombshell story. Here it is from Politico. The White House is removing the Wall Street Journal from the pool of reporters covering the president's weekend trip to Scotland. White House Press Secretary Caroline Le told Politico the move follows the Journal's report alleging Donald Trump sent a sexually suggestive message to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Trump has denied the existence of the letter and Politico has not verified it. And so we are watching this cover up in real time, which is not just protecting Donald Trump, but remember, this is protecting Jeffrey Epstein. This is project protecting all of Epstein's clients. The first thing that Trump did, like last week, what did he do? And this once I say this, I've said this last few episodes, it's just not getting enough attention. Donald Trump let all of Epstein's clients off the hook. He shut down the investigations into all of them. If that doesn't scream red alert to you, then I don't know what does. So MAGA wants to talk about letting people getting away with this stuff and demanding a responsibility, demanding consequences for those in the files. Well, then they should be quite upset that Donald Trump let all the people in those files off the hook. Remember Prince Andrew? Suddenly he's feeling like, oh, I could travel. I'm not under investigation anymore. There's a whole host of people in those files who are now breathing a sigh of relief because Donald Trump has just given them an out. Donald Trump has just said, hey, whatever he did with Epstein in the past, it's all good by me. No need to discuss this at all. And so, you know, we've been digging up this footage from Donald Trump's past because it's important that people actually understand what happened here and how close these ties were. This wasn't just a kind of tangential relationship. These people were as close as could be. They were basically tied at the hip, according to Epstein's brother. And all the, as I said before, all the recordings of Epstein. So first, I want to show you this footage that we found. This is from a 1991 look of the Year event. That's what it was called. This was held by Elite Model Management, which was run by a guy named John Casablancas. And we'll get into that a little bit more. But I want to show you Donald Trump judging at this event. It is a beauty pageant with young girls as young as 14 years old. And you could see for yourself just how creepy all of this is and what Donald Trump was very actively engaged in during these years. Check this out.
- [14:55]
Michael Popak
The 58 contestants participated in an exhaustive round of personal interviews designed to help our judges discover what makes each one special.
- [15:05]
Ben Meiselas
Your five nine reading serious, huh?
- [15:08]
Michael Popak
We made my short yet tonight before the candidates.
- [15:11]
Caroline Levitt
Okay.
- [15:12]
Howard Lutnick
Okay.
- [15:13]
Ben Meiselas
Thank you very much.
- [15:14]
Michael Popak
The concentration was intense inside the judging room.
- [15:20]
Caroline Levitt
And out.
- [15:21]
Ben Meiselas
I'm just so excited.
- [15:25]
Michael Popak
Each girl was considered not only for her beauty and poise, but also for her personality and that indefinable something extra.
- [15:33]
Jordy Meiselas
That makes a top model.
- [15:37]
Howard Lutnick
Okay, you want to pull your hair back One second.
- [15:44]
Jordy Meiselas
All right.
- [15:45]
Ben Meiselas
Thank you very much.
- [15:46]
Howard Lutnick
Good luck to tonight.
- [15:47]
Jordy Meiselas
Thank you.
- [15:49]
Michael Popak
When it came time to choose the 21 finalists, emotions ran high. Each judge express his or her opinion.
- [15:56]
Jordy Meiselas
And so a 2020 Guardian investigation into Elite's look of the year competition uncovered allegations from former contestants and industry insiders that the competition was used by founder John Casablancas and others to engage in sexual relationships with vulnerable young models, some of whom are teenagers. And this is documented stuff that John Casablancis had taken part in. And Trump was involved in all of this. Now, the Guardian report notes that Trump was never accused of anything. I want to be clear about that here. But you need to look at the people Trump was surrounding himself with and the nature of these quote unquote modeling competitions that lord in young girls with the promise of fame, of stardom, of you get to hang out with all these celebrities, you know, all the glitz and glam, the kind of Hollywood vibes, and they lured these girls in. And you had people like Donald Trump, you had people like John Casablancis, you had people like Jean Luc Brunel, who was another one of these model scouts who ran a top modeling agency in France, who died of an apparent suicide before his trial. He was charged, by the way, with the rape of minors by French prosecutors, and then he died in his cell. But he was part of their kind of crew of people who ran these modeling agencies. And Jeffrey Epstein was friends with all of them. And this was like their crew. This was their group that would. They would hang out with each other, hang out with all these very young models, these young girls, and kind of pass them around to each other. And the more we learn, the more disturbing it gets. And there Were some situations like this that is coming that came out in the New York Times just over the weekend and the Independent reporting on it as well, that's related to all of this, that Trump once hosted a party for quote, unquote, young women. This is their wording where Epstein was the only guest. Now let me read you this chilling, chilling report. As I said, these two were best friends. Buddy, buddy. This is what the kind of behavior that they were engaged in. Donald Trump once hosted a party with, quote, young women where the disgraced late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, quote, was the only other guest. According to a report, the President is under pressure to release all the files relating to the Epstein case, which he has so far refused to do despite a 2024 election promise. The anecdote is part of a New York Times piece on Saturday entitled Inside the Long Friendship between Trump and Epstein. It states that for nearly 15 years the two men socialized together in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida before a falling out that preceded Mr. Epstein's first arrest. The piece goes on to describe Trump hosting a party at Mar a Lago for young women in a so called Calendar Girls competition. And Mr. Epstein. Epstein was the only other guest. It states that the party was organized by Florida businessman George Harani. Mr. Harani recalled being surprised that Mr. Epstein was the only other person on the guest list. It states, I said, Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. Mr. Harani told the newspaper about the party in 2019. You're telling me it's just you and Epstein? So Trump told this Florida businessman, invite over all these girls, have them come to my our place and we're going to throw this party for VIPs. And it turned out that literally the only two people who were at this party, aside from all these girls who were invited over, were Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Now, I'll let you be the judge of what that means, but I think it is pretty clear as you dig in even further to all of this, right? We're getting footage recordings that we found from Maria Farmer. For those who don't know, know Maria Farmer, one of the very first, the very first victim to speak out about Jeffrey Epstein. This is before anybody knew anything about Jeffrey Epstein whatsoever. He was just some rich dude living it up in Palm beach hanging out with Donald Trump. But Maria Farmer, she was one of the first to come forward and she was recently profiled as well by I believe the Times as well. Now I want to show you what Maria Farmer said. She tells a harrowing story about Being in Jeffrey Epstein's office. She walks in. Who's there there? Donald Trump is there. Donald Trump starts giving her the eye, looking her over. She says, like, he is like a. Like she's a piece of meat, basically. And Jeffrey Epstein comes out and he goes, oh, Donald, sorry, that one's not for you. Yours is in the other room. And then Donald Trump goes in the room, allegedly with another girl or woman. Who knows? We don't know who was in that other room. And Maria Farmer recounts this story. Let me share this with you.
- [20:23]
Maria Farmer
The time that is most memorable to me is the time when he hit on me because I was in the office. It was one of the first times I started working for Donald Trump's a sleaze bag. Okay? Yes, it was when I started working for Epstein, and it was 9:00' clock at night, and Jeffrey Epstein's office was totally empty. I told the New York Times this, but of course, they don't tell the whole thing. Right. Even though Mike Baker is amazing, but they. They would not allow him to tell the truth. So basically, I go into this office, it's 9:00' clock at night, and I sit down and a few minutes later, and I'm wearing running clothes, okay? So it was really weird. It's 9 o' clock at night and I'm wearing running clothes because I didn't have money. So I had to jog up there, right? And so I just struggled, you know, for so long. So I'm like up there in the office seated, and I've got my, you know, my running clothes on, so my legs are showing. And in walks this man that, when I called, when I reported him to the FBI, said that game show host Donald Trump, because I thought he was a game show host. Yeah, he's so cheesy, you know, but anyway, so I said. I mean, I said hello to, you know, he walks in and I just kind of acknowledged him, like a head nod or something. And he immediately starts. He speeded across. I mean, standing across the room for me, and I'm seating, feeding, and he's like, oh, Maria. I mean, no, he didn't. Sorry, I was just looking at something. He. He's standing across the room and he's looking at me and I'm like, oh, gross. You know, this guy's so gross. Anyway, he's just looking, glaring at my legs, like, yum. I felt. I told my sister, I felt like I was his dinner or his lunch, you know?
- [22:09]
Howard Lutnick
Yeah.
- [22:09]
Maria Farmer
The way he was looking at me. So Epstein comes in and by the way, I did not look good. I was like, not a pretty. I'm not exceptionally beautiful or anything like that. These are just gross people, you know?
- [22:19]
Jordy Meiselas
I mean. Yeah, yeah.
- [22:20]
Maria Farmer
So just like a normal person who went on a run and I'm seated there. So he assumed I was there for him. And this is how I know Epstein walks up to him and goes, no, no, she's not here for you. And they were smirking, and Epstein whispered something. He goes, go in there. And what? And so Trump at 9 o' clock at night, goes in the other room. There's someone in there for him.
- [22:41]
Howard Lutnick
Right, right.
- [22:42]
Maria Farmer
I don't know who, but Epstein said, no, no, no, she's not here for you.
- [22:46]
Ben Meiselas
And again, that was Maria Farmer recounting her personality experience with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, it doesn't. Doesn't get grosser than that.
- [22:54]
Jordy Meiselas
Look, Jordi, I want you to chime in. In a sec, but I just. I just want to also clarify. Like, this all existed. She's told this story prior to all this happening. So, you know, I know there'll be some people out there. Well, why is she. Why is she just saying this now? It's not that she's just saying it now. It's that people are just listening now. People are finally waking up to what she's been trying to get out there. What we've been trying to get out there for all this time.
- [23:16]
Ben Meiselas
She's Jordan. And that's such a great lead in here, Brett, because when Donald Trump now goes on a social media platform or to the press and says it's a hoax, the Epstein hoax, everybody, it's not just him protecting his buddies in the cabal. It's not just him protecting them. It's a slap in the face to every single child girl that was victimized, that was raped by Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile that he was, and that entire circle of people, that is a slap in the face to every single victim. And it should infuriate everybody when he calls it the Epstein hoax. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And with all of that, this is so important. I want to remind everyone how Donald Trump signed off that birthday card, because I've written birthday cards before. I'm sure everyone listening to the show has written birthday cards before. Have y' all ever signed off a birthday card saying, and may every day be another wonderful secret. That's not me making it up. That's it. It's the letter that Donald Trump wrote Jeffrey Epstein for. I think it was his 50th birthday. Allegedly. Are you kidding me? And may every day be another wonderful secret. Brett, when. When. When you see all of this play out, when you hear Maria Farmer's take what. When you. When you bring in that footage of Donald Trump judging this contest of teenage girls in bathing suits. Quick pause here for a second. What makes Donald Trump the expert on models? Like, what is the criteria there where this businessman, this alleged multimillionaire potential billionaire, he's spending his free time judging teenage beauty pageants, as the quote, unquote expert is. The whole thing is so freaking disgusting.
- [25:19]
Jordy Meiselas
He was certainly putting himself in places where he could engage in predatory behavior. He. Right. He was putting himself in those settings quite frequently during this time. So, Jordy, it's no wonder that you see Republicans kind of freaking out and trying to deflect the blame so much, and they still can't get their story straight, Right? So Caroline left Levitt held a press conference today, and she was asked about this because, you know, people are like, why don't you just release the files? Right? What they decided to do today, by the way, was they go, okay, we're releasing the files. Everyone's like, oh, interesting. Releasing the Martin Luther King Jr. Files. And by the way, they did not get the approval of the King family to do so. And so I know they weren't too pleased about that, but they're just trying to distract. And, you know, it's. It's like, okay, so if you can release those files, guess what? I guess you could release the Epstein files as well. So Caroline Levitt was asked about this, and she's trying to constantly shift the blame right now. And so guess where they're back to right now? They're back to blaming. The FBI just ordered the FBI to.
- [26:24]
Howard Lutnick
Release the full Epstein files.
- [26:25]
Jordy Meiselas
Just get it all out there.
- [26:27]
Scott Bessant
The President has said if the Department of Justice and the FBI want to move forward with. With releasing any further credible evidence, they should do so as to why they have or have not or will. You should ask the FBI about that.
- [26:38]
Jordy Meiselas
So you see, they're trying to pass the buck right now, pass the blame. Right? They're trying to throw it to this court needs to decide. It's the FBI's turn to decide anything to make it so. Oh, it's not Donald Trump making the decision. It's all these other people. Meanwhile, there was a report that came out as well over the weekend, over the past few days, that the FBI had been instructing. They had put thousands of agents, over a thousand agents sifting through the files in New York on the Epstein case. And they were instructed to find any incidents that incur, that included Donald Trump's name on this list and flag them for the top leadership in the FBI and at the doj. I mean, to me, that alone is quite the incriminating thing to ask for. And we already know Trump is in the list because we've seen Trump all over the, in the files. Because we've seen Trump all over the files. We've seen him in the, in the little block black book, we've seen him on the flight logs. He's in there seven times, he's in court depositions. But they specifically had the FBI go through this thing, waste a ton of taxpayer resources in order to try to locate Donald Trump's name. Caroline Levitt was asked about that as well, and here's what she had to say. There are reports that President Trump or the FBI agents going through the Epstein files were told to flag President Trump's name if it came up. Is that something the President was aware of or something that he directed those.
- [27:57]
Maria Farmer
Agents or the Department of Justice to do?
- [28:00]
Scott Bessant
I don't believe that's something the White House was aware of. You'd have to ask the FBI.
- [28:04]
Jordy Meiselas
Oh, you'll have to ask the FBI. The White House just wasn't aware of this whole scheme to flag stuff. Now the COVID up goes even deeper, right? You got Caroline Levitt, now you got the House leader, the Majority Leader. You got the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. He was appearing on Fox on Mark Levin show. Ben would have a great Mark 11 impression.
- [28:26]
Ben Meiselas
I could do the Mark Levin impression.
- [28:28]
Jordy Meiselas
Ben could have done a mean Levin impression. Right now I'm not going to do it myself, but here is what Maga Mike had to say on Mark Levin show. He said we just, we can't waste time on this Epstein thing.
- [28:39]
Michael Popak
We have a lot to run on and you have a lot to run against given the other party. But I will tell you this, we better be united, we better be strong, we better be focused, we better be articulated, articulate. We can't waste our time on Epstein and other stuff that are going on here that some people want us to focus on. Had it with all that stuff. We better focus on who we are, what we're doing, where we want to take the country and what they want to do to the country. Mr. Speaker, God bless you, my friend. I appreciate you very, very much.
- [29:07]
Caroline Levitt
You too, Mark. Thanks for all you do.
- [29:08]
Jordy Meiselas
God bless Magamike. Nodding along to that. And so, you know, that was Mark Levin saying that to him. Right. Well, well, today, Mag, Mike Johnson was asked about, okay, so will you hold a vote to release the Epstein files before the August recess? And his answer was for the August recess.
- [29:26]
Caroline Levitt
So here's, here's what I would say about the Epstein files. There is no daylight between the House Republicans, the House and the President on maximum transparency. He has said that he wants all the credible files related to Epstein to be released. He's asked the, the Attorney General to request the grand jury files of the court. All of that is in process right now. My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing. And if further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we'll look at that. But I don't think we're at that point right now because we agree with the President.
- [29:57]
Jordy Meiselas
So no, no vote on this resolution.
- [30:00]
Ben Meiselas
Let me just, let me just chime.
- [30:01]
Jordy Meiselas
In here for a second space, Jordy. They just need to give the administration some space.
- [30:04]
Ben Meiselas
They're, they're so close, Brett. They're just saying in two weeks we'll hold the vote or in two weeks we'll release the documents. I mean, how many times have we heard that for, from this administration? But I want everyone to listen closely to that Mike Johnson response and you could play it back if you wanted to, if you're listening. But what he says there is we want to release all credible files. Like we want all the credible files to be released. And I want to be very specific about that sentence right there. Of course we all want credible file. We don't want any bad reports coming out. They have the files though. The files are there.
- [30:37]
Brett Meiselas
There.
- [30:38]
Ben Meiselas
And so when he says I want all the credible files to be released, he's essentially saying if you, if you add up what Brett had said about the folks flagging Donald Trump's name and files, they're, they're essentially saying we're gonna release the files that don't include Donald Trump. Whenever, whenever we release files around this situation, you bet your bottom dollar that Donald Trump is not gonna be tied to it. Cuz the files that we release will not have his name. And so they're trying to buy as much time as possible right now in order to, and that's why we always say you can't trust anything that comes out of this administration right now. The Epstein files, I want them to come out in their entirety. In their entirety. But now my biggest concern is whatever eventually does come out is already going to be tainted because we know that this administration, that this Regime has a history of lying, Brett.
- [31:31]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah. And Jordan, you hit the nail on the head. They've also used the term, we're gonna try to release all the pertinent files. Right? They're using all this terminology to say we're gonna be very selective about what we. We don't want to incriminate our dear leader. And meanwhile, I want to talk more Jordy about this Wall Street Journal case. Obviously, we've been speaking about this alleged letter that Donald Trump had said to Epstein years ago. Donald Trump suing the Wall Street Journal suing Rupert Murdoch. And they just got some very bad news about this case. And it seems like it is already backfiring. And this whole thing does not bode well for Donald Trump. And it's important that the press stands up to the bully, because you notice every time they stand up to the bully, they fold. Or you could win. Those are your two options.
- [32:15]
Michael Popak
But you do.
- [32:16]
Jordy Meiselas
You should not fold. And that note, I also want to get thoughts on this Bob Woodward case, a journalist who did stand up to Donald Trump in one of these cases. He just got a big win over Donald Trump. And who better to discuss these legal cases than Michael popo of Legal AF, the Legal AF podcast and the Legal F YouTube channel. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube and make sure that you add the Legal a podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts, Apple podcasts, or Spotify. We're going to take a very quick break break right here. Then we're going to be back with our legal expert, resident Midas legal expert Michael Popak to break it all down for us. I am super excited to have him on this crossover episode of the year. It's going to be a whole lot of fun. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this.
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Ben Meiselas
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- [36:07]
Jordy Meiselas
Well we got a lot to talk about it. For those just tuning in, Ben is out for a little medical thing, but don't worry, he is doing just okay. Thank you for all your kind comments, and we'll send all your love his way. But it allows me and Jordy to take over the show, and that doesn't suck. And it also allows us to bring in some special guests, and we got a lot of legal news that is happening right now, and. And we got to bring in legal experts for stuff like that. So who Better than legal AF's own Midas Touch Legal A. Michael Popak. Michael Popak, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast.
- [36:38]
Ben Meiselas
Poke.
- [36:39]
Howard Lutnick
I am. Thanks, man. I'm. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm sorry that that is sidelined, but I am thrilled by you guys taking it over and inviting me to join and play the band lawyer role, you know, which I, I. It's great, but I don't know what you guys are complaining about. There's big news. Before we. Before I came on the Internet air, the files have been released, everybody. 60 years in the making. The Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination files. Yeah, that's what Tulsi Gabbard's been working on because they're out. That's what everybody's. That's what's been on everybody's lips.
- [37:12]
Jordy Meiselas
The people were clamoring for that mlk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His family didn't want it, but. But the Trump admin. But everyone else, apparently now, I mean, right?
- [37:21]
Howard Lutnick
You could hear Trump get released some. Something. What's laying around. Release it.
- [37:27]
Jordy Meiselas
What I was saying to Jordi is that it also exposes the hypocrisy because you're like, oh, we would release the files, but the FBI is doing this, and this is doing that, but you seem to be able to do this one pretty easy. So I think you actually just kind of exposed yourself.
- [37:40]
Howard Lutnick
Go with that. The Director of National intelligence, responsible for 17 intelligence agencies, took time out of her busy day to release the MLK files. And I listened to you guys, of course. Course. Leading into my big appearance, so. You're so right, Brett, about so many things. You too, Jordy.
- [38:00]
Ben Meiselas
Thanks, Pope. All right, I'm off. We should have got more often.
- [38:05]
Howard Lutnick
That's it for me. Donald Trump publicly announced that he, not the Attorney General, not Pam Bundy, was the chief law enforcement officer in his administration, responsible for setting law, law enforcing law. I mean, it's a scary thought, but he said it out loud. He also said, as part of the Project 2025 Federalist Society manifesto, that Heritage Heritage foundation manifesto, that there would be no independence of the Department of Justice and the FBI from the executive branch. That was the big mistake. That the Democrats always made having an independent attorney general and independent, independent FBI, which of course, ever since J. Edgar Hoover and Watergate, we've always wanted that. So you can't have it both ways. You can't. There is no separate entity called the FBI or the Department of Justice. The Carol Levette can legitimately claim is holding things up because this is a holistic right. This is a, this is, there is no independence of these agencies by design. So how can you then point to their independence as holding up a prophecy process?
- [39:19]
Jordy Meiselas
It's such a good point. You can't be Mr. Only I could fix it. I control everything. I am all knowing. I am all powerful to oh, I would. But those pesky folks over at the FBI just aren't doing. It's like you can't handle those two things anyway. When I saw this lawsuit that Donald Trump fired filed against the Wall Street Journal, you know, last week for this alleged letter that he had written to Epstein back in the day for Epstein's 50th birthday, I believe, you know, when we were speaking, all of us were like, like that was a mistake by him because a, you know, this guy's never going to let this get to discovery because it would be absolutely devastating. And like nothing good could really come of this for Donald Trump. He's clearly just trying to threaten them. Well, that flash forward just a few days and he's already gotten some bad news in the case with the judge assignment. Popak, what's the latest here and what could folks expect going forward?
- [40:08]
Howard Lutnick
Yeah, well, great. And it's funny, you, your brother and I on the Saturday a legal AF I said I don't understand. Although I have a working theory. I'll share with the Midas audience as to why when on the civil cover sheet. I'm going to get down to the minutia now of how you play the game, being a federal practitioner and one that practices in Florida for the last 35 years. When you file a case as the plaintiff, you have to check the box for the nearest division of that federal depart that federal rural district that's closest to like where you live or where the injury happened or the incident happened. Donald Trump lives in Palm Beach County. He lives in Palm beach when he's not in the White House at Mar A Laco. The closest division to that is just over the bridge about three miles, the West Palm beach division of the Southern District of Florida. You check that box, you have a one in three chance of getting Eileen Cannon. You do because middle Brooks, the other Judge is senior status. And Judge Rosenberg is, is that one judge. And Cannon who sits up in Fort Pierce but also does some work down in West Palm would be the other judge. But they didn't do that. They checked the box from Miami, which is 70 miles south of Mar a Lago in a whole different world. One that where I live and now work. And so I understand the lawyer for Donald Trump, Alejandro Brito, who keeps filing all these defamation cases, abc, cbs, and now Michael Coh and now here against the Rupert Murdoch in the Wall Street Journal. I get that his office is in Miami, but that's not the reason you filed there. And I said on Saturday they could get Darren Gales, who's the judge in the Michael Cohen case, where the Michael Cohen case for $500 million in defamation damages and breach of contract, of course got dismissed by Donald Trump right before his deposition, after he voided his deposition to earth three times. So they get Gales. This is the breaking news. And let me talk about Darren Gales because I happen to know this judge particularly well. Darren G. First of all, an amazing judge. Started on the state court, we're in federal court now, but started on the state circuit court in Miami Dade County. It's an elected position. He gets appointed and then he has to run for office. Full disclosure. And my law firm at the time supported Darren Gales when he, when he pulled it up, an opponent. We circled the wagons around him and raised money for him. I know Darren Gales personally. He's a remarkable human being. You guys are remarkable human beings, as your appearance at MSNBC just attested to. He is a remarkable human being, good human being. He, he's also, he's the, he's either the first openly gay or first openly gay black judge on the Southern District of Florida and takes pride in his diversity, if you will. He's also has a temperament very similar to Judge Merchan, the judge in New York who presided over the 34 count felony conviction of Donald Trump. Just low key. I mean, conceive and boil if he's, if he's crossed. But in terms of his, his temperament, just, just what you want in a judge. Of course, Donald Trump doesn't want that in a judge judge. And what he, what I think what, what this Obama appointee learned in Judge Gales in having the Cohen case is all the tricks up Donald Trump's sleeve about trying to avoid discovery. See, here's the thing that Donald Trump always miscalculates when he files. The other side is entitled to have him sit down for A deposition under oath. And he played games with Michael Cohen several times. And then the case got ultimately dismissed. But he's going to have to sit for a deposition now.
- [43:52]
Jordy Meiselas
I will tell you and sorry to interrupt, but didn't that he dismissed it like the day before he was after hours before he was going to have to sit down. So this is the game of chicken that Donald Trump plays. He acts all tough guy, right. And then the second it's like, okay, bet, let's get in the room. It's deposition time. Time for us to question you. He runs away scared.
- [44:13]
Howard Lutnick
Yeah. And I just said Michael Cohen on Legal AF will be putting it up tomorrow. And Michael takes a different position than I do. Michael thinks that the Wall Street Journal miscalcul going to fold and stroke a check. I said, I don't see that at all. There's no way that Rupert Murdoch, who is on record as saying he wants to make Donald Trump a non person and wanted his career to end with Jan6 and paid $787 million because of his close involvement with Donald Trump through Fox, did not think this through when they decided to run the front page 3 days ago Article that said and I don't know how they ignore the story once it was dumped in their lap that in a scrapbook birthday album created by Jazzay Maxwell, she solicited different people to contribute things to paste into this scrapbook. And one of them was a, I don't want to say body that sounds so, I don't know, like rville or something, some obscene pornographic sketch along with comments about Epstein being an enigma and leading a secret life, signed in pubic hair with a Sharpie pen by somebody that looks like it's Donald Trump. Now, others that contributed to that scrapbook, including Alan Dershowitz, have not been able to deny that. They also put in comments and little things in this book. Now, Donald Trump claims this is defamatory. He didn't make the card. It's not his card. He didn't cut and paste it. Michael Cohen just told me that he's reasonably sure he knows knows who in the Trump Organization sketched that for Donald Trump and had it submitted for the book. In other words, he knows who apparently all the executive assistants around Donald Trump were tremendous artists. This is Michael Cohen and he knows who probably drew that on behalf of Donald Trump. Right. But the point is not that this is a criminal. You can't prosecute Donald Trump for this card. But it puts a lie to Donald Trump's argument that he had no knowledge that Jeffrey Epstein, his wingman, is BFF for 15 years where they ran in Palm beach and ran and ran and chased women and girls in New York. It puts a lie to the story that Donald Trump had no idea what Jeffrey Epstein was doing then. Why do you call him an enigma? And why do you call his life a big secret? Secret? And that's why I think the Wall Street Journal and that just gave license. The New York Times is now running articles every day against Donald Trump, but all they're doing is playing catch up with Midas Touch and Ben. Ben's been running these exact same stories. There's only two people in this world that matter to me about the, about the Epstein story. Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, that blew this story wide open with years of dogged reporting. And Beth, I sell us on the Midas Dutch network.
- [47:03]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah, Julie K. Brown has done absolutely, you know, fantastic, fantastic work here. I also fail to see, you know, what's defamatory. It's obviously very damning what's defamatory about a birthday card. Like, a birthday card that someone like. It's not. It's. To me, it's like the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. And Pope, I just feel like time and time again over the past few months, we've seen instances where people fold to Donald Trump. They pay those big checks to the Trump presidential library or whatever it is. And then we see the opposite. We see kind of the law firms who stand up, the media companies, the journalists who stand up. And it looks like we're also getting more information about instances like that right now, which could also provide a bit of a blueprint for how the Wall Street Journal may handle this. I agree with you. I don't think Murdoch's the guy ate the guy, obviously. I think he's an evil man, and I think it's an evil empire that he runs. But I don't think he's the kind of guy who's going to back down here. But we saw legendary journalist Bob Woodward just prevail in a case where Donald Trump trying to threaten him. And I think it ties in with all this. So, Pope, what happened in that case?
- [48:09]
Howard Lutnick
Yeah, we have a win. We have a win for journalists, for journalistic integrity. Donald Trump, not a First Amendment case. It's a money grab case. Donald Trump sued Bob Woodward after Bob Woodward wrote a book. And in making the book, he also interviewed Donald Trump 20 times in 2016. And then later 2019 and 20, 2020. He kept the audio recordings, of course, Donald Trump asked him at one point, according to the suit that Donald Trump brought against Woodward, he said, you're using this for the book, right? He goes, yeah, I'm using it for the book. Like, like, I'm not writing a, I'm not writing an article about it. You know, I'm using it for the book. Okay, great. Donald Trump then claimed after Simon and Schuster, and there's an interesting connection between Simon and Schuster and Paramount I'm going to make in a minute because this would be a different story if Simon and Schuster was still owned by Paris Paramount. Simon and Schuster, the publisher then repackaged the audio tapes as the Trump tapes and made like $50 million, selling it at like 25, you know, $25 a pop, 2 million copies. And Donald Trump said, well, you, you eat my audio. I have the copyright in my own answers to my own interview. And they were like, what? So they, he sued the, he sued in Pensacola, Florida, because he wanted to pull a MAGA Republican judge. The case gets transferred back to New York where it belongs, gets assigned to Judge Gardafy and Judge Gardaffy, who's, who's really good but really slow, takes some years to make decisions. Finally made the ruling. Donald Trump argued, I own half the copyright of my own interview. He ran to the copyright office and filed a notice of claim that he was the author, along with Bob Woodward, of his own interview. Interview. Now, that's not how copyright law works. Copyright, fundamentally, I could bore our audience with hours about it. But fundamentally, the first to fix in a permanent medium, some creative expression. So the first to get it down on paper, to put it down on digital, to put it down on video or audio, that's who owns the copyright. And so they. The Simon and Schuster files the copy copyright, claiming authorship by Woodward. Trump comes in five days later and says, no, I'm the author. Copyright office says, we don't fix, we don't settle these things. You go to court for these things. So finally, the judge ruled based on the complaint that there is no ability for Donald Trump to argue that he owns part of that copyright and therefore owns some or all of the $50 million that was owed. He did give Garda, did give Donald Trump. Trump one more chance. This would now be his fourth attempt at a complaint. That's how he hasn't. He has his complaints have not survived three prior. Three prior motions. He has one more shot. The judge said, I think it's futile that you're never going to be able to make the allegations necessary because the copyright law is, is both A shield and a sword here. What I mean by that is, says this Donald Trump claims that he owns it under the Copyright Act. The Copyright act does apply to everything that is in dispute in the case, which means all of Donald Trump's other claims for contract breach or quantum merit or unjust enrichment fall by the wayside because the big fat Copyright act stamps them out. And so the judge is like, I don't see how you get around the Copyright act and you are not an owner. I'll give you one more shot. I'll give you one more month to do it. He's going to lose. He's going to lose at the Second Circuit and Simon and Schuster is going to be able to keep their $50 million. One little twist Easter egg here. Right before Donald Trump filed its case, Simon and Schuster used to be owned by Paramount, which owns cbs and they sold to a hedge fund. If Simon and Schuster was still owned by Paramount, Paramount, they would have cut a deal in this case, just like they cut a deal about 60 minutes and paid tens of millions of dollars in order to bless that transaction. But just completely out. Just, just dumb luck they sold it and so. And KKR doesn't. The owner of the Simon Schuster has. There's no love lost between the owners of KKR and Trump, and so they're not settling.
- [52:29]
Jordy Meiselas
That's bonkers. It's actually wild. I didn't know that fact. And it really like adds, you know, and it's almost shows you like, you know, you could kind of map it out in your head like the what if? But you know, what if they did fold? What if they didn't fold? Right. And we've seen though now many examples. It's not really hypothetical, I think. And are you seeing this pattern that I'm seeing as a layman here, popak of and the lessons that others could learn about actually standing up to Donald Trump before you decide to go unfold and give him a bunch of money. I think we've seen it quite consistently.
- [53:00]
Howard Lutnick
And not just domestically in lawsuits internationally. I was away for a couple of weeks, although hopefully people didn't realize that as much video content as I made while I was away, our co producer said he looked at some of our numbers. He's like, were you on holiday? Look at these numbers. Yeah, I was, but I was reading a lot of international newspapers and media and, you know, the way they're reporting, like the tariffs, like every country is folding to Donald Trump. I don't know why I'm doing this. Voice. Every country is folding and paying billions of dollars and there's no resistance. I'm not sure that's actual actually true. They keep bragging about the tariffs. Howard Lutnick is bragging about the tariffs. The commerce secretary as recently as Sunday, while his own company, his former company, is betting against the legality of those tariffs by, by buying people. Yes, I just did a hot take on it. The cannon.
- [53:56]
Jordy Meiselas
Hold up, hold up, hold up. Yes, Rewind. Popak, I want you to just say that again and explain it for the people because this is true. Truly nuts.
- [54:03]
Howard Lutnick
Tanner Fitzgerald, which Donald, which Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who is the chief ambassador for tariffs, his own company that he sold to his 28 year old former DJ son is running a business now where they're buying people's potential refunds for tariffs once the tariffs are declared to be unconstitutional. So they'll, so you come to them. I had to pay $10 million in tariffs. They'll say, we'll give you $2 million for that. Give us that piece of paper in that claim and then we'll benefit when the tariffs are struck down. So people affiliated with the inner circle of Donald Trump are already betting that his tariffs will be struck down by the courts and benefiting from it.
- [54:52]
Jordy Meiselas
Watch what they do, not watch what they say. And I think it tells a tremendous, tremendous story. Pope, before we let you go, I want to, I want you to let the folks know what you are doing with this Legal AF channel because it's my favorite. It's where I go for all my legal updates. And you know, I just love seeing this Legal AF brand that we all started now, years ago, just blossom into this own kind of massive network of its own. And you guys have so many of like the best legal minds out there every single day doing all these takes. And before you get into what's going on on the YouTube channel, everybody make sure you add the Legal AF podcast on Apple Podcast on Spotify. Of course, make sure you had the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcast Spotify. If you like this show or that you're watching and listening to right now, you will love the legal show, Legal af. So check that out. But Popak, what's going on in the legal f YouTube channel right now?
- [55:43]
Howard Lutnick
So we're doing 12 new videos a day at least at the intersection we used to say law and politics. It's really the defense of our democracy. And I've got, along with me, I've got about a dozen contributors. We've got, and, and look at this Lineup. It's like, you know, the CBS used to be the Tiffany network. Of course, they trashed that by making the settlement with Donald Trump and throwing 60 minutes into the wood chipper. I consider us to be the Tiffany channel whenever it comes to law and politics. We've got Sidney Blumenthal and, and Sean Wilentz, who run a show on our, on our channel called Court of History. The guest that they bring on is just phenomenal. Julie K. Brown is going to be a guest for them. They just had Michael Wolf on, on there. Sidney Blumenthal, of course, was in the Clinton administration and an amazing author and journalist. Sean Wallen is a presidential historian. And they're just, they're just our resident historians. We've got Court Accountability Action led by Alex Aronson and Lisa Graves. They bring on a lot of politicians, a lot of public interest groups like the ACLU and other groups for interviews as well. We just added two new. I don't know if you call it. I hate using labels. Gen Z. All right, two new people. Rachel Cohen, who stood up against big law and then joined one of the major firms that's up against the Trump administration. She and Tiara Mack, who's a state senator from Rhode island, do a show called Pragmatic Optimist. We got Asha and Renato, who joined us to bring their show. It's Complicated. They're both national security experts. One at Yale, a Yale instructor. The other one, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor. And they do that great show. We got Shad Wu, former general counsel for the Attorney General, Dina Doll doing regular work for us. Dave Aronberg, Florida law man. I mean, and the list. List. Oh, we, we just added Civil Action. Shant and Brian. We're doing like four videos a day. Dope. Yeah, it's crazy. I just, it's just crazy. We're so excited. We crossed the 200 million view barrier about a week ago. We're up to 720,000 subscribers in less. In much less than, than a year. It's really been my distinct professional privilege and honor to curate that show and do a lot of the, a lot of the videos there and still do it, of course. All my work for Midas Touch.
- [58:04]
Jordy Meiselas
Well, let's get that to 1 million subscribers, everybody. YouTube.com theat symbol legal af mtn. Go and check that out. Now. Make sure you subscribe to the might to the Legal AF podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Make sure you check out the Midas Touch podcast as well on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Popak, thank you for filling in with this legal segment. Very informative. A lot of bombshells. Love the vaudevillian accents that you bring into it. Loving it all. Thanks so much. And speaking of those tariffs that you were talking about, Popak, when we get back, I do want to talk about some of the backtracking that we are seeing on the tariffs from the administration now that so called August 1st date. Well, doesn't seem like it's all of a sudden all that important. We're going to talk about that, that and more. Don't you go anywhere. Michael Popak, thank you so much for joining us. We will be right back. Don't go anywhere.
- [58:56]
Ben Meiselas
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- [62:07]
Ben Meiselas
Let'S go. Links in description of the YouTube and the audio. Shout out to our sponsors. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. And Brett, I just wanted to add one thing. I didn't want to interrupt Popo's flow, man, he was on a roll. So don't you see the theme here too? It's like the folks that stand up to Donald Trump's in the courts continue to find success. You know, whether that be Cohen or Eugene Carroll or Bob Woodward. And it's the folks that give him an inch, right? What do we always say on the show? You give Donald Trump an inch and he takes your life. I mean, there's no greater example than this than with Paramount right now, right? They settled, what, the 60 Minutes lawsuit? That was a totally frivolous lawsuit. Then they caved on Colbert. Like, he just, he's a taker. He, Donald Trump is a taker and he wants to see how much he can get away with. He's no different than any high school bully, if you will. Right? What happens when you stand up to the high school bully? Backs off. He backs off. And so it's the folks that are showing that, that, that fight, that resistance that are continuing to see success. And the folks that are caving, that is paramount. They're going to continue to lose and lose and lose and it's going to be at their own expense. Brett.
- [63:19]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah, 100%. And like what Popak was saying, it's not just even these court cases, it's international. Internationally, people are realizing that when you stand up to the bully, you win. And we are seeing this in this tariff situation. And so Donald Trump has been unable to secure these deals. He's trying to tout things that aren't deals as deals, whether they're like intent to discuss possible trade in the future or whether it's just Donald Trump literally sending really poorly worded letters on his social media app and posting them and saying it's a deal. My, my, my post on Truth Social. That counts as a deal. No, it doesn't. But you're seeing now Europe wising up. You're seeing Asia wising up. You're seeing countries all over the world being like, this guy is not an honest broker. We're not going to participate in this mess. Meanwhile, the economy continues to have troubles. And, and basically the only person right now who's kind of keeping this thing afloat seems to be Federal Reserve Chair Powell, Jerome Powell. Which is why now you also see Donald Trump and his allies now trying to, to attack Powell in various ways, trying to demand he decrease the rates. Of course, everybody wants lower interest rates, but not at the expense of collapsing the economy. But Donald Trump and his allies don't care. They need another villain as they see the economy continue to crater as all these warning signs continue to develop. So they are looking to create an enemy. They are looking just like during COVID Donald Trump needed someone to blame and he blamed Dr. Foushee. Well, now he is blaming Jerome Powell. Now let me go back to some of these polls that we discussed earlier in this episode. Jord, as we see, we see everybody souring on the, the Trump economy, the approval of the economy, disapprovals at 62%. 64% of Americans say the national economy is getting worse. 52% of Americans say the US is in a recession. That's up 10 points since January. And if you look at the trend lines of all this, it's all going in a very particular direction. More warning signs for the economy. LinkedIn is now processing 11,000 job application submissions per minute. That is a 45% surge since last year. Year, per the New York Times. Not a good sign when the job market is being flooded by unemployed people trying to seek employment. We are seeing all of these signs all over the place. But the White House, the Trump regime wants to just continue to deny reality. So these tariff things aren't working out for them. Right. Trump sets this August 1st date. And I also want you to take note. I'm going to play you a couple of clips of the contradiction between these two statements that I'm about to show you. So first, I want to show you Howard Lutnick over here, who we've obviously talked about a whole bunch on this show. Howard Lutnick and the Trump administration. He says that they're going to be trade deals. Remember that 90 deals in 90 days. Well, that may have passed. There may be no deals. But guess what? They're going to be some deals in, you guessed it, two weeks. They're going to open their markets or they're going to pay the tariff.
- [66:12]
Howard Lutnick
And if they open their markets, the opportunity for American Americans to export, to grow their business, farmers, ranchers, fishermen. This is going to be the next.
- [66:22]
Jordy Meiselas
Two weeks, are going to be weeks.
- [66:24]
Howard Lutnick
For the record books President Trump is going to deliver for the American people.
- [66:28]
Jordy Meiselas
Just scam on top of. These are going to be weeks for the record books. Weeks for the record books. As long as they all open their trade, it's going to happen in the next two weeks. Believe me, you're all going to get very rich. You're all going to get very wealthy. Oh, you're all going to get these Doge show it happened to those Doge checks, huh? Everything is a scam with this administration. And as Popak saying, he was talking about Lutnick before and his firm, his firm is literally betting against the tariffs from actually going into effect. He's betting that the courts are going to knock down the tariffs. And so you actually see, once again, what they say versus what they do. So you have Howard Lutnick right there. He's saying two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks. Like the fact that they could even utter the words two weeks and not just embarrassing. Yeah, just die of embarrassment. You know, I don't know. But let me show you Scott Besant now, the Secretary of the treasury, and he's saying, because he was asked about this August 1st deadline that is now rapidly approaching, approaching the new deadline that Donald Trump has set. Scott Besson says that that date is actually not important. It's not. We don't actually care about the dates anymore.
- [67:28]
Ben Meiselas
Any progress that you can report on some of our big trading partners.
- [67:33]
J
Look, Joe, talks are, talks are moving along, but the important thing here is the quality of the deal, not the timing of the deals. And President Trump has created, created maximum leverage as only he can do. And what we are seeing is these imbalances built up over 20, 30, 40 years. And we are more concerned with high quality deals than getting these deals done. By August 1st. Our trading partners were Told that the rates could boomerang back toward the April 2nd levels. We can continue talking then, but, you know, again, we're proceeding apace with the negotiations, but we're not going to rush for the sake of doing deals.
- [68:21]
Jordy Meiselas
Jordy, the man just exudes confidence.
- [68:25]
Ben Meiselas
You know, he looks pretty stiff up there, let me just say. Like, you could tell he's kind of lying about something. Just the way he speaks.
- [68:33]
Jordy Meiselas
Everything.
- [68:34]
Ben Meiselas
Everything. Just everything. We said this about McCarthy. He gives off a very, very similar vibe. Every time he opens his mouth, it just feels like a little bit of his soul is leaving his body. Having to do this weird damage control for Donald Trump, it's. It's utterly embarrassing and humiliating and to see again, the top folks in our government just, Just string people along in such a pathetic way that. That maybe in the past people would, you know, would have bought it. You know, the two weeks thing. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah, we'll see it in two weeks, too.
- [69:03]
Howard Lutnick
Yeah.
- [69:03]
Ben Meiselas
Okay, great. Oh.
- [69:04]
Jordy Meiselas
Oh, it's good.
- [69:04]
Howard Lutnick
Coming.
- [69:04]
Ben Meiselas
Oh, awesome. Oh, you guys. Oh, you. You're just planning because you need it to be perfect. Oh, okay. Okay. And then nothing ever materializes from these things again. That's why Donald Trump's approval ratings now are tanking at a rapid pace. It's because even his most loyal supporters are sick and tired of getting gaslit every single day over every single issue.
- [69:27]
Jordy Meiselas
The European Union is calling bullshit on all this as well, and they are preparing for retaliatory measures. Here's a new article from roy.eu to ramp up retaliation plans as US tariff deal prospects dim says the European Union is exploring a broader set of possible countermeasures against the United States as prospects for an acceptable trade agreement with Washington fade. According to EU diplomats, an increasing number of EU members, including Germany, are now considering using wide ranging anti coercion measures which would let the block target U.S. services or curb access to public tenders in the absence of a deal, diplomats say. Accordingly, the move has pivoted among EU countries, EU diplomats say, and they they are more ready to react even though a negotiated solution is their preferred option. The EU has one package of tariffs on 21 billion euros of U.S. goods that is currently suspended until Aug. 6. The block must still decide on a further set of countermeasures on 72 billion euros of US exports. Discussions have also increased on using the EU's wide ranging anti coercion instrument that allows the bloc to retaliate against third countries. That put economic pressure on member states to change their policies brought in more with China in mind, it would now allow the bloc to hit trade and US US Services, in which the US Has a trade surplus with the eu, limit US Companies access to financial service markets and to public tenders in the EU. Public procurement in the EU is worth around 2 trillion euros per year. Possible measures also include restricting US investment and limiting the protection of intellectual property rights and restrictions on the ability to sell US Chemicals or food products in Europe. So they are considering some serious action here that was designed for their adversaries. But I want you to think about that, that they have all this in their back pocket in China tries to screw them over, right? In case an adversary of the EU tries to screw them over. But I don't think they ever expected that they would have to use these things right now in order to go against the United States. But that's where we find ourselves.
- [71:23]
Ben Meiselas
And that stresses me out there too, Brett. It's because it not only, you know, is Donald Trump gaslighting his own supporters and gaslighting Americans, but the ramifications of this entire Trump regime on a global level, like the United States standing in the world has never been this low. And it's just, it's utterly pathetic that we are where we are as a country. And I get personally stressed out because forget this regime and forget this administration for a moment. I'm like, I have kids and I want to expand my family. I'm worried for the America that they're going to be living in with us, the United States of America, just looking like absolute clowns on just such a global stage. Like we, we were once such a reckoning. And I'd love it, I'd love it if we could get back there. There's nothing I want more than to get back there. But where Donald Trump is leading this country, I mean, it is just utterly embarrassing.
- [72:18]
Jordy Meiselas
And this party, you know, there's this Trump and the Republicans, they've just, they have honestly just taken the economy off a cliff. And they're like, you know, they, they, they pretend to care about spending and fiscal responsibility, and then the second they get into power, they increase the deficit by a ton. They increase the debt by a ton. They do everything that they accuse Democrats of, right? It's always projection with them, but then they act like they don't. Like they just try to create their own kind of, you know, version of reality, which just isn't true. So you had MAGA Mike on the Mark Levin show from the clips we saw earlier, same interview, and he was just touting how the Republicans are the fiscal, fiscally responsible party. I mean, check this out this, check out this gaslighting.
- [72:55]
Caroline Levitt
But as I said, we're just getting started. There are multiple steps to what we're doing doing here. We're trying. We're the party. The Republican Party is the party of fiscal responsibility. And we are demonstrating that day after day because of the President's leadership in the White House and what we're doing here. We just passed, just on Friday, of course, on Thursday night, late Thursday night, early Friday morning after midnight, we passed the first rescission pact.
- [73:17]
Jordy Meiselas
Okay, the rescissions package barely made any cuts, but it did totally destroy funding for public information like PBS and NPR and, you know, things people actually, actually care about. You took out very small amount of funding from the budget for that. But you know what you did do, Magamike? You added $3.4 trillion to the debt. And this is new information as of today. They just kind of, they just redid. The Congressional Budget Office just redid the estimate based on the final version of the bill. They are projecting that the bill will add $3.4 trillion to the debt. So miss me with the gaslighting MAGA, Mike Johnson. But you know, like all regimes, this needs to be the line that all everybody around the regime has to tout over and over again. So Caroline Levitt today, she was also talking about how this was such a fiscally responsible bill. Watch this, Caroline. The Congressional Budget Office released updated estimates today about the big beautiful bill.
- [74:12]
Caroline Levitt
Now that it's law, they estimate that.
- [74:13]
Jordy Meiselas
The deficit will grow by $3.4 trillion by 2034 and that 10 million people will lose health coverage by 2034? I know you guys are critical to of the CBO. More broadly speaking, is there any concern from the administration that this bill, now that it's law, will increase the deficit in any way or remove anyone from health insurance that they have legal citizens?
- [74:34]
Scott Bessant
No. Look, this bill was a great bill for the American people. It was the largest tax cut for middle and working class families in our nation's history. And the president wants to see this country get our fiscal house in order. That's why this was a fiscally responsible bill, one of the most fiscally conservative pieces of legislation for its size that has ever crossed through Capitol Hill. And the President wants to cut our deficit. That's why he's effectively using tariffs to bring more revenue into the United States to ultimately pay down our debt that has been created by presidents on both sides of the aisles for many, many decades.
- [75:09]
Jordy Meiselas
The gaslighting this is a fiscally responsible bill. Let me flash this on the screen one, one more time. Trump's big, I'm going to say disastrous, horrific bill is Projected to add $3.4 trillion to the debt. Budget Office says $3.4 trillion. Remember that rescissions package that Mike Johnson was bragging about? Do you know how much that cuts? 9 billion with a B? 9 billion compared to 3.4 trillion. And did you know what they felt the need, need to ram through Congress? You know what they felt the need to remove, where while it doesn't even make a single dent at all in the debt and deficit, that cut $7.9 billion from programs like developmental assistance, the economic support fund, global health programs. I'm sure that'll be great. Migration and refugee assistance and international disaster assistance. I'm sure none of that will end up backfiring. I've said that sarcastically, obviously. They cut $1.1 billion from public broadcasting, effectively ending federal funding for NPR and pbs. List goes on. But you could see right here that they are trying to pretend like they are actually doing things, when the things they're doing are just things that hurt people. And they're not actually doing anything to lessen the deficit, lessen the debt. On the contrary, they are putting, they are putting the burden of all this debt and increased deficit on Americans for years and years and years to come. That's what we are seeing. So as they set all of these time bombs, all of these traps in the economy. Right, because let's. This is just data, right? This isn't going to end well. It's. I'm sorry, it's just not going to end well for things. They're already trying to pick their villains. We were talking about this earlier, but I want to show you some specifics. By the way, listeners of the Midas Touch podcast know that we've been calling this out here for months that their villain was Jerome Powell and they were going to make stuff up about him and they were going to try to do things to try to force him out. There was a rumor last week that he was going, that Trump was going to fire Jerome Powell. The markets went down. Trump then said, I'm not firing him right now. The markets went back up. There was a lot of trading that happened in the period in between those announcements that I think is quite fishy in my opinion. Now we're seeing, though, Trump, while he seems currently too afraid to actually try to fire Powell, which many say is out of his authority, which he should not have the Right to do. They're trying to force him out by other measures. And like the banana republic that we live in right now, they are threatening drama. Jerome Powell with criminal charges. I kid you not. Like I said, this is a stuff out of banana republic. So we're seeing this kind of full court press right now. We're seeing Treasury Secretary Scott Bennett saying, we need an investigation. We need to review the entire Federal Reserve. So that's the language that Besant is using. Then you have Representative Anna Paulina Luna, whom, by the way, was one of the leading voices to push for the release of the Epstein files until they kind of realized, oh, this is actually going to hurt Donald Trump quite a bit. Maybe we shouldn't be asking for these things. Well, she's found her new cause right now, and she has formally referred Jerome Powell to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation, accusing him of lying to Congress, accusing him of overusing taxpayer funds. You know, they just throw all this garbage at the guy because they are trying to do everything they can to try to force out Powell so that they could put in one of their stooges who will go in and not look at the data. But we'll just do what Donald Trump says. We'll lower the interest rates and we'll essentially crash the economy. I think that's what everybody is worried about. That's what everybody is watching, and that's what you see Trump and his allies trying to do. So I just want to put together the pieces for you. As you see all this stuff come out. And you see they lie about everything, right? They always lie to distract, and they lie to try to kind of just push their, you know, ideas across, to try. Try to force people to do what they want to do. So we discussed all the distractions in this episode, or a lot of them. We discussed the Obama thing. So now you see the fake stuff they're saying about Obama and the 2016 election. And if you talk to MAGA right now, they're like, oh, what Epstein files? Obama's getting arrested. Like, these people are completely deranged. You have Anna Paulina Luna basically calling for Jerome Powell to be arrested. You have Donald Trump yapping about the Washington commanders, complaining about the team name. You're just seeing all this stuff. But that's why we here at the Midas Touch Network, you all continue to remain focused on what's important, on what's going on. And we are not going to get off these stories. We're going to continue to report on the Epstein story. Donald Trump's ties to it. We're going to do that without any fear. We're going to go back. We're looking through every piece of footage we get. We are following every lead we get. We're going to follow every disastrous part of the Trump economy, everything that he's doing, the effects of it, the things that he is lying about and gaslighting about. Because you deserve to know the truth. Truth. Jordy. Any other thoughts?
- [79:57]
Ben Meiselas
Hey, I just want to thank everybody for listening to this episode of the Myest Touch Podcast. If you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch podcast on audio or wherever you get your podcast. And seriously, thank you guys for showing up every single day, every, every time we put the show on. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for sharing these receipts, the videos and the tweets and the stories that we bring here with your communities, with your closer knit community communities as well. It goes such a long way. It goes such a long way and we're all in this together. Like Brett said, we're not backing down. This community, this pro democracy community, it, it, it stands the test of time. Y' all are the absolute greatest. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. Shout out to the Midas.
- [80:40]
Howard Lutnick
My day the.
- [80:44]
Caroline Levitt
Stand.
- [80:49]
Jordy Meiselas
Against the fascist we sing our song.
- [80:59]
Ben Meiselas
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