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- [00:00]
Benji
And we're live on matchday as Doug
- [00:02]
Brett
reaches for a buffalo wing.
- [00:04]
Ad Read / Sponsor Voice
He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too.
- [00:08]
Benji
What a finish.
- [00:09]
Ad Read / Sponsor Voice
There's no doubt about it.
- [00:11]
Benji
It just tastes better. Matchdays deserve Pepsi.
- [00:16]
Brett
By the time I hit my 50s, I'd learned a few things, like how family is precious, work can always wait, and 99% of people over 50 already have the virus that causes shingles. Not everyone at risk will develop it.
- [00:32]
Ad Read / Sponsor Voice
I did.
- [00:33]
Brett
The painful, blistering rash disrupted my life for weeks. Don't learn about your shingles risk the hard way. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist today. Sponsored by gsk.
- [00:45]
Jordy
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back.
- [00:54]
Benji
So I thought it would be fun
- [00:55]
Jordy
if we made $15 bills, but it
- [00:58]
Benji
turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.
- [01:03]
Jordy
Give it try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of
- [01:07]
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- [01:15]
Shannon Maldonado
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- [01:45]
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- [02:16]
Benji
We've got a lot to discuss on today's episode of the Midas Touch podcast, Donald Trump held a lunch with banks and billionaires and other oligarchs. He proclaimed that Nicki Minaj ran the Small Business Association. And he said everybody in America is, is experiencing a golden age and people are as rich as they've ever wanted to be. Their dreams have all come true. Except that's not true at all. Meanwhile, not only are people suffering here on the domestic front, internationally, the world has never been more dangerous and more chaotic, at least in recent history. China and North Korea testing nuclear capable missiles. No comment at all from the Trump regime. No comment at all from Hegseth or Marco Rubio. You have Russia escalating in Kiev, striking Kiev with ballistic missiles as Zelensky and Ukraine no longer have the necessary Patriot interceptors to stop the ballistic missiles, both because the Trump regime is withholding it and as a result of the Trump regime and Netanyahu's catastrophic war in Iran, which depleted those Patriot interceptors. Interceptors, you do have Zelensky striking back with a drone swarm at Omsk, which is Russia's largest fuel refinery over there. That's about 2,500 to 3,000 kilometers away. So that's a significant development. Meanwhile, in Iran, in Tehran as well as Qom, you have massive, massive attendance of Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral. This may be the biggest gathering of human beings like, in history together in one place. It's the biggest funeral in world history. And you have somewhere between 10 and 15 million people who are attending this funeral procession. Their Financial Times has also confirmed those numbers. And we've been sharing this footage just because it is a historic event in human history to see this many people. And I think it also makes us all reflect on what Trump and Netanyahu said were was going to happen on the ground. When you see all those people here, I think to myself, that's the place you wanted to launch a ground invasion against. That's the place where you said that Trump and Netanyahu would show up and be greeted as, as heroes and that they would be welcomed there with open arms. I mean, you see all of those signs going after Trump and Netanyahu and also America. Although you hear people on the ground, they're saying it's the American government that we're talking about here, not necessarily the American people. But their signs are there will be blood and go after Trump and kill Trump and things like that. Meanwhile, Donald Trump was out there making deranged social media posts. And just to show you how in a media cycle, the press just lets Donald Trump get away with basically anything. He posted that he wanted to get a restraining order against Giorgia Maloney, the prime minister of Italy. And it doesn't even register as like a story anywhere, right? The president of the United States harassing a female prime minister, a female leader of Italy, a NATO country, basically saying, she's stalking me.
- [05:52]
Brett
Right.
- [05:52]
Benji
Which is why I need a restraining order against, you know, that was the implication of that. It won't even be a story that's covered. And I can say, well, can you imagine if former president. And you can't. You can't. And it should not be normalized. And I think I could show you him posting about Macaulay Culkin or him posting weird photos of himself and Mike Tyson, or post with former President Obama and Michelle Obama on an AI Air Force One, where it, you know, says, you know, Black Lives Matter and graffiti and it has, you know, Islamic scripture and all of these things. You know, obviously, horror horrifying. It's just the very idea of saying that you want to get a restraining order because a female prime minister in another country that's integral to our national security here is like stalking you from somebody who's been found civilly liable of sexual assault here in the United States. It's horrific. And we shouldn't forget. Also, and I'll bring it up here at the outset, Donald Trump's financial disclosures, or the portion that he revealed which showed that there were billions of dollars that he made in 21,000 stock trades and crypto schemes, which over the weekend and throughout the day, the Trump regime's propagandists. Yeah, it may be unseemly, but it's just like what Hunter Biden did, or, you know, the way it's true, they tried to frame it in the Wall Street Journal and New York Post in order. Both sides it is. We weren't good when Hunter did it, so we shouldn't be good about it. When Donald Trump and his kids do it, it's like not even in the close universe of similarities, like, at all. And I've been covering that here as well. And then Donald Trump is railing on communists. We're going to go communists at that bizarre July 4th. That's their theme heading into the midterms. We're going after the communists. We're going after the Communists. And that July 4th event was the disaster we all thought it was going to be. The fireworks show became like a smoke show. Like, literally smoke. Like, you couldn't even see the fireworks because they just blew up all the fireworks all at once, so they can say they set the Guinness Book of records of the most fireworks polluted the air. You couldn't even see the fireworks. I mean, just objectively. And then the event was. Had a very weak attendance when Donald Trump spoke. And they tried it all. 415,000 people attended.
- [08:16]
Brett
Everybody.
- [08:16]
Benji
It was 415,000, but actually then 150,000. Just.
- [08:20]
Brett
It's.
- [08:21]
Benji
Enough is enough is enough. And let me bring in Brett and Jordy. We got a lot to discuss. And I think I start with this disclaimer because it's true. The next 100 days are among the most important 100 days as everybody gets closer to the midterm elections. And to me, this is the peak moment we've been warning about where exhaustion really starts to set in. It's like running a marathon, right?
- [08:48]
Brett
You're really good.
- [08:49]
Benji
Maybe early on you're like, should I run this marathon? What am I doing? What am I doing? I trained for it, but what do I do? Then? Mile five to ten, you're like, I'm good, I'm good. Then you get into mile 15, I am pretty good. Then 20, and it's hot. And you're like, what am I doing here? Am I going to be, you know, and that's when lots of people break, and that's kind of where we're at right now. And I know there's exhaustion that really sets in. This stuff starts to overwhelm you and feel like this is never going to end and we're never going to get out of this period. But that's when in the marathon, you got to trust your training, and here you've got to trust your values and principles, and you gotta. You gotta move forward, and you got to rally each other and you got to stay united during very difficult times. Brett and Jordy, how are you?
- [09:37]
Brett
Gotta stay focused. Gotta. Gotta keep putting in the reps, right? Every single day. Gotta keep putting in the reps. It's good to be here, Ben. Good to be here, Jordy. Good to be here. Midas Mighty. I hope everybody had a happy 4th of July. Hope you're able to get a little bit of relaxation, spend a little bit of time with friends and family. I know it always feels, you know, a little weird when it's 4th of July as we are witnessing these incredible attacks on our democracy and as we see the most corrupt individual we have ever seen in the presidency right now. But, you know, I. I think that's really what America is all about. I think America is about criticizing those in power who are acting corrupt. I think it is about constantly fighting for a more perfect union. And I think that's what we all are collectively trying to do here every single day. Jordy, I gotta say, man, looking a lot better this episode. Last episode I saw. There are a lot of people worried about you because Jordy was a victim of this heat wave on the east coast. And Jordy was. He was sweating, he was drenched. Your face was red. Only because it was incredibly hot in your house over there and folks were concerned even though you told them, the only reason I look like this right now is because it's incredibly hot in my house and I don't have AC on right now. So. Jordan, how you feeling? You look refresh. You're looking good.
- [10:50]
Jordy
I'm feeling great. If you are an audio listener, I know we've been pushing people to download the audio version of the show, and please still do that wherever you get your podcast. It is helping. If you are only an audio listener, you should go back to last Thursday's episode just to get. I mean, incredible that the brothers even let me on air. Looking the way I looked. It was ghastly. That's. That's all I could say. I am looking and feeling great this episode. I'm excited to get in. I did just want to take a moment and sincerely thank everyone for the birthday wishes last week. I know I was talking to a lot of folks in the chat, but I didn't say so on the stream. So I just wanted to say thank you guys. Meant so much. The Midas mighty community is truly just like the greatest community that's, quite frankly, ever existed. I know I might be biased, but I'm being sincere. So, Benji, where are we going?
- [11:34]
Benji
I think the most important tool that a reporter has is where you focus your lens on. And it is always very notable to me where that lens is being pointed and where it's not being pointed as I reflect on the downfall of corporate news, which, frankly, traces the downfall of our democracy, which I believe is worth saving and can be saved. And one of the ways we have to do that is by building independent news. And so that's why at the outset, I say we should never normalize the fact that the President of the United States is saying he wants a restraining order against the Prime Minister of Italy by making up that she, like, is so obsessed with him and wants photos with him so badly that, you know, he needs a restraining order. And just to post that mockery of her, she's a far right wing politician in Italy. There should actually be a natural alignment between her and Donald Trump. And in fact, she was allied with him in pushing when lots of other European countries were saying you shouldn't be supporting him anymore. She was one of the voices in the room saying, let's be patient and things like that. And that's who Donald Trump goes. Donald Trump goes after her. And you don't hear a peep about that. And this is heading into the Ankara NATO conference that's taking place in Turkey. And it is notable as well, and not surprising to me, although perhaps surprising to my dogs, that you hear in the background, but not surprising to me that as we approach this Ankara event, you have Putin out, you have certain things that are happening around this NATO trip that are very predictable. And we've been talking about for a very long time, right. You have Russia escalating in Ukraine. And if you notice what's happening there, Russia is using a lot more ballistic missiles and a lot less drones. Why? Because Ukraine is capable of knocking out 90 to 100% of the Russian drones at this point, which, by the way, the US could have studied how you did that in the security umbrella in the Middle east, considering that the Russian drones are Iranian drones, are the shahed drones. But Ukraine's able to strike those. But Ukraine doesn't have the ballistic interceptors right now. So what's Russia doing? Obviously they're using ballistic missile strikes over and over and over again and Ukraine just doesn't have the interceptor. So just think about it like if you're Ukraine, you know, if you had the weapon, you could stop the ballistic missile, but you don't have it. So you literally just have to watch as the ballistic missiles strike your cities, whether it's the Pricia or Kiev or Kashan or, you know, any, any of these areas, while Donald Trump remains entirely silent about it. Now, I mentioned that the outset that Zelensky has been able to strike back at Omsk, Russia's largest fuel refinery, over there with drones. And if you follow the route that it seems these Ukrainian drones took, they actually reached about 3,500 kilometers. Now, the OMSK fuel refine was about 2500. But they took the drones through a very circuitous route to evade the Russian drone interceptors. And so you have that development. And I reflect on Donald Trump promising on day one he was going to bring peace after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I know them so well, it would be very easy to do peace. That's why you have, and we should have zero faith I wouldn't even want to use the word faith when it comes Donald Trump in the same sentence that this memorandum of understanding with Iran is actually going to result in anything durable. Because look what he promised on day one or before day one with Ukraine, it'd be easy. I'm going to get a deal. And instead, he started wars all across the world and he hasn't been able to resolve wars. And he just makes up that he's solved this war and that war and this war and that war, which he has. And it also doesn't shock me as we get closer to this NATO summit where in Ankara, in Turkey, you have Israel under Netanyahu and the Netanyahu regime escalating its attacks on Turkey, saying they shouldn't get any F35s. The security umbrella should be Israel controlling all of the major military weaponry in the Middle East. And regardless of what your perspective is on whether Turkey should or should not get F35s, what you can deny is that Netanyahu is escalating this rhetoric to affirmatively cause problems at the NATO summit that's going to take place on Tuesday. That's one of the goals of what Netanyahu is doing and trying to derail that. We shouldn't ignore the fact that you have in southern Lebanon and in Gaza, Netanyahu continuing to attack over and over and over and over again in violation of the memorandum of understanding as it relates to southern Lebanon and the purported ceasefire as a result, as it results in Gaza, as it relates to Gaza, rather. So you have that going on and we still have thousands of innocent people getting killed. Mothers, children, elderly people. That's not Hamas, that's not Hezbollah. I mean, those are elderly, mother, women, children over there. And then again, what's not being covered? That's how I want to. I want to start at the outset. What's not being like? What's not be covered? You know, I actually did see for the first time today coverage of what's going on in Tehran at Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral. I saw CNN had a crew. BBC was kind of early on having a crew. We focused on it on day one. And I'm not suggesting we're the only people who focused on it, but now I am seeing some coverage of this. And, you know, it's interesting as I see some of the criticism of covering it. Oh, you're propagandist for having a team embedded there to show what's happening and da, da, da, da. I mean, I don't think that's being a propagandist for the Iranian regime. The picture that you all that. That that was painted by Trump and Netanyahu and neocon war hawks and others was that this would be the scene right here after Trump and Netanyahu invaded you. They promised that after the invasion, and clearly that did not happen. We shouldn't forget Netanyahu and Trump being hacked on. Hacked into Iranian tv. They beam themselves as though the Iranian people would be greeting them as, oh, we saw what you did in Gaza. We saw the genocide there. We saw the genocide that you're doing in Lebanon. Yes, come on in. We want that here in Iran. But that's what was sold, right? That's what Trump and Netanyahu said was going to happen. That did not happen. And now what's undeniable is these images and what we're seeing and we can discern for ourselves what's happening. That doesn't mean that we are supportive of the Iranian regime. By showing you the footage, I think that it's hard to watch that and not accurately reflect on the size, scale and scope and the meaning of that, that there are so many people out there who are mourning and showing solidarity and support for this regime. And then people go, oh, Ben, there's just a small. First off, that's not a small group. People, they're being paid. Clearly, this is a propaganda operation. Okay, but didn't you all say that Iran doesn't have money and they're bankrupt and they're on their knees and you've destroyed their navy and they're begging for a deal and they don't have any money at all and they're basically bankrupt. So they're bankrupt. But then they've also paid tens of millions of people to show up and coordinate the largest public gathering in history. So I start with that. The things that we'll get to, all the other stuff, what's happening in the Oval Office, But I think we start the show with, here's what's not being covered. Those are your stories that should lead the news.
- [20:22]
Brett
Here's the thing. You shouldn't be mad at the people who are reporting on this. I mean, it's ridiculous. You should be mad at the people who have been lying to you about the realities of this war and about the Iranian regime and about the people in Iran. You should be furious at that, quite frankly. And, you know, as we look at all these problems, all those stories, to me, that Ben was just discussing have a pretty consistent through line that we have a narcissistic psychopathic, lying commander in chief. And that really permeates through everything. Whether it's Ukraine, Russia, whether it's the war in Iran, anything, every domestic issue, it's all lies and fraud all the way through. And we're seeing the consequences of this breakout worldwide and here at home. I've been watching this commentary and Ben was touching on a little bit, but from these MAGA commentators and these Netanyahu aligned commentators and the things that they are saying just sound way too familiar to me. And I bet they sound very familiar to you as well, right? What are the things that we've been hearing? Those crowds, they're AI. They're using AI. They're fake crowds. They're just there to make sure that he's really dead because they actually hate him. They're crying. Those are fake tears. They're busing people in. They're busing them in, actually. And they're paying the protesters. They're actually, they're not protesters. They're paying the people to be there. They're paying them, they're paying them. Doesn't this all sound like the exact same stuff that Donald Trump says about the no Kings rallies? Doesn't it sound like the exact same things that Donald Trump said about Kamala Harris's rally when she had massive crowds there? Isn't it kind of similar to what Donald Trump's been saying about vandals and the reflecting pool and all this crap? So the problem is he lies about all of this stuff far too often. There is a complacent, compliant media who is willing to parrot those things because it fits with a certain dynamic. But that's not the facts. And the issue at hand is people need to understand the facts and understand the war that we are getting into. Especially if somebody like Donald Trump is going to send our troops to the brave men and women in our armed forces into harm's way on false pretenses. That's the thing that should piss you off, not people showing you what's actually going on. And so I think this is incredibly revealing when you see this. And yes, there are a lot of people, of course, in Iran who are very against this regime. And we've covered that. We've covered the pro democracy protests across Iran. And Donald Trump gave those people a lot of false hope. Remember back in the day in February when he said, take to the streets, I will have your back. And then he did not have their back. But just like in all countries, right, there are people who, who don't like the I Mean, think about our country, right? Think about the United States. There are people who don't like their government and there are people who do like the government, and there's versions of that dynamic that exist throughout everywhere. And so if you are just getting one side of the story here, if you are just being fed one narrative, you are not being told the truth. And so I think this really breaks through, that BS and breaks through. And I even saw a lot of MAGA people today saying, wow, I feel lied to. I feel lied to. I'm looking at these crowds in Tehran and this is not what I was told about the Iranian regime. I was told we were going to be able to overthrow this regime in a night. I was told we were going to be able to walk in and it was going to be done. But no, it's a country of what, Ben? 1990 million people, I believe. And they had something like 15 million people out there protest. Not protesting, but out there, I guess they were protesting Donald Trump with those signs, very graphic signs about Donald Trump and J.D. vance, and they had signs about Laura Loomer. Like, when you see the signs about Laura Loomer, I'm like, oh, they're very red. They're paying attention. That's not someone I would say would be a household name. If they ask people, even in our country.
- [24:11]
Jordy
Country.
- [24:11]
Brett
But you're like, oh, they're deep in it. They're educated on, on what's going on in the United States here. It's just eye opening. And as you see also the stuff that Donald Trump was posting about Maloney in Italy, the Italian prime minister, like Ben said, that's somebody who Donald Trump should be best friends with.
- [24:29]
Jordy
Right.
- [24:29]
Brett
Some of they share a lot of ideology. You know, a lot of people don't like Maloney because she has a lot of these kind of MAGA escape beliefs. But Donald Trump is attacking her and he's attacking her on a. On a personal basis because she didn't want to, I guess, get involved in Donald Trump's war. And she had a stern talking to him. We all saw that footage at the G7 a couple of weeks back. And so Donald Trump wants to act like, she's obsessed with me. She's obsessed. She can't get enough of me. It's sick. And it's very predatory, by the way, from somebody who is an adjudicated sexual predator. And you could see the way that he acts as a predator, even on female leaders across the country. But I think it gives you some more insight into Donald Trump. Insight which you probably know, and that's that Donald Trump, even though he does have this, you know, very horrific ideology, and that is toxic and fills the political landscape both here and abroad. At the end of the day, Donald Trump is a selfish human being, and everything to him is personal. Doesn't even matter if you align with him on 9 out of 10 things. If you make him look bad or you go against him on one thing. Thing, he will go after you. The same way that he has gotten rid of all these other people in Congress who decided to vote to release the Epstein files, even though they voted with him 99.9% of the time, they became his public enemy number one. Because to Donald Trump, it's all about, you must respect me or you must flatter me. You have to constantly stroke my ego 100% of the time, and you fall out of line. I am coming for you. You. And that's the message that he's sending to Maloney and, frankly, other world leaders while he's doing this. But that's really where it comes from, this very selfish, narcissistic, sociopathic, and psychopathic mindset of Donald Trump where he just has to attack, attack, attack when he feels threatened, even if it's something incredibly reasonable or just a disagreement.
- [26:27]
Jordy
Absolutely. Look, the biggest reckoning in our lifetime, Midas Mighty Brothers, is going to be this idea of championing truth as a society again and not allowing yourselves to get played, not allowing yourselves to be lied to, and then not being willing participants to make the lies even louder. What's so frustrating, I think for so many, as Donald Trump has lied to his base so often and so many times and so loudly now that they're finally starting to wake up. It's just this whole idea that the Trump regime just. It doesn't deal in reality. Right. Why, for the Trump regime, would you acknowledge that there are that many people, you know, attending the funeral for the Ayatollah? Don't. Don't acknowledge it. Then. Then it won't exist. Why, for the Trump regime, should he acknowledge that China and North Korea have been testing nuclear weapons? Don't acknowledge it. It doesn't make it real. Just don't acknowledge it.
- [27:24]
Brett
It.
- [27:24]
Jordy
It's the same reason why Trump wouldn't sign the Housing Act. In my opinion, that would make the affordability crisis very much real. But if he doesn't sign it, doesn't acknowledge it. Not real. He lives in his own MAGA reality that he's crafted by. By putting all of these. Yes. People around him. Right. Why not Test for Covid in 2020. That would make it real. Donald Trump is all about just keeping his whole MAGA universe so pristine and pure. His MAGA universe, the golden age for Donald Trump and his regime and the people of Mar a Lago. It might be the golden age for them, but not for the American people. It is so obvious to me that his refusal to acknowledge that these things are existing is so intentional because then he has to try and address it, then he has to answer for it, then it becomes his problem. And he's the laziest person in the world. He doesn't want to do the work. He doesn't care about the American people. That's not why he's president. He became president to stay out of jail, and now he's using the office of the presidency to continue to grift and line his pockets with money. That is what he's doing. That is what he cares about. That's why last year he walked away with 1.4 billion in crypto earnings.
- [28:31]
Brett
Why?
- [28:31]
Jordy
Because he doesn't care about you. He doesn't. This isn't the point. Is you, the MAGA base, you, the American person, he could care less. It's all about how can I use this office and this power to benefit himself, his family and those around him if he doesn't acknowledge these things are happening, it doesn't exist in the MAGA reality. Ben and Brett.
- [28:51]
Benji
Yeah, and he uses the same tricks. And so we'll talk about this when we come back from our first break. But his post, he goes back to the Walmart trick, right? Remember during Thanksgiving when prices were significantly higher and he says Walmart 25% down under Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. Then he calls him Sleepy Crooked Joe Biden. We all know that for Thanksgiving, that was not the case. But he just goes back to it right now. Walmart bringing down the price of beef at least 15%. Other prices going down 25%. Everybody else, time to join. What'd he say two weeks ago? Freedom Gas Centers. I never heard of these in Eastern Philadelphia. Freedom Gas Centers, everybody. They brought down their prices 25%. It's going to be great for you. We all know inflation is rising and it's rising at an alarming rate. Not only is inflation rising at an alarming rate, you have jobs being lost at an alarming rate. So you have both aspects of what's called the dual mandate of the Fed under attack. You're losing jobs right now while you're having inflation rise. And that's a very, very serious issue
- [30:04]
Brett
that's taken place right now.
- [30:05]
Benji
That's the reality of what's happening out there. While Donald Trump says we're in a golden age, right? Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, as Jordy said at the outset, we'll keep on reiterating subscribe to the Midas Touch Audio. It really is an important initiative that we're pushing right now. We're trying to rise up those audio charts again and we need your help. So just wherever you get your audio podcast from, or if you don't, just go find out where you have audio podcasts available and then just find Midas Touch. Subscribe and we appreciate that and leave a five star review. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [30:45]
Brett
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- [32:18]
Jordy
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- [34:02]
Benji
You know, I often tease what I'm going to show in the next segment, like Walmart, the post about Walmart. Then I just end up saying it and I'm like, man, that's not a good tease if you just give the answer right away. But I'll just bring it up one more time that you know, Donald Trump posting great news everybody. I've just been informed that one of the biggest, best, smartest retailers at America, Walmart, will be lowering its prices to celebrate America's 250th they're going to reduce the price of a pound of ground beef by almost 15% amongst many other products. This is a huge deal for the many millions of Americans who smartly shop at Walmart, which is a truly patriotic company. I mean what are you trying to pump up their stock like you did with Dell today, right? You had Michael Dell standing behind him today. Dell stock rose, you know, I'll have to check what it is and I wasn't following it all day. But while Trump was there, the stock rose where the guy probably made quite literally billions and billions of dollars to then say how many times has he announced that he's doing this now?
- [35:06]
Brett
Like it ended around like 4.43% up and hit like 8% up right after Trump said that. And it should be, you know, in Trump's financial disclosures that he himself released by law, he has what, over $1 million in Dell stock. And this is not the first time that Trump has done this before we even knew that the financial, that was on the financial disclosure. Remember a few months back when Donald Trump was giving, I think he made it maybe in the Rose Garden or the, whatever it is now, the concrete slab in the, where the Rose Garden used to be or he was outside somewhere and he made a comment, you know, by Dell, now is a good time by Dell, by Dell. And then it was revealed that he had all this Dell stock. I mean the, the corruption that's happening is just mind blowing.
- [35:45]
Benji
By the way, I'll go back. I think it was over the same announcement.
- [35:48]
Brett
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was about the account, it was
- [35:51]
Benji
about the Trump investment funds that he's called.
- [35:53]
Jordy
It's literally the same. He, he.
- [35:55]
Benji
And it goes back to my Walmart point, right? Which is he did the Walmart announcement Thanksgiving. He just brings back the Walmart announcement. I don't even know how many times Dell has been in the Oval Office where they've talked about a philanthropic investment by Dell where he's putting in X amount of dollars into the Trump investment account. So it's going to be a tax write off at a corporate level and maybe even individually for, for, for Dell, depending on how it's structured. The so called Trump investment accounts by S and P and NASDAQ ETFs, exchange traded funds. So companies like SpaceX when they're applied to the exchange traded fund because they got them to like waive the 100 day requirement, you know, so, so the companies are putting money into accounts that invest in exchange traded funds automatically for kids that then pump up the market for the companies, you see what they're doing there. Because when they invest in these exchange traded funds, those funds that have to buy the companies that are at the top of the exchanges and then that pumps up the company. So it's like micron gave 250, so they get a deduction and they're putting it in something that should boost their own stock price down the line. That's part of the situation that's going on. You know, it's a thousand bucks, I don't think I want to be clear. I would like to see and make sure, first off, it shouldn't be called Trump accounts. I'd be interested to actually see how young people and babies can make more money or get money and be able to thrive and live. But if you talk about some of the major issues right now facing the American people, I don't think it's babies investing in the stock market right now. I mean, I think it's homes and affordability and dealing with the crises that most Americans are confronted with. That isn't for me to say. I can hold a complex thought and think to myself, how, you know, are there smart investments that you can be doing for children that grow over time so when they're adults that they can, you know, also participate in the market potentially? I want to know more about. But I think about what's needed right now and I also think about the market manipulation taking place before our eyes. But then you have the Walmart announcement. Here's what's going to happen. You know, Walmart bringing down its prices. And then, you know, it's like what he says with drug prices, right? You know that they're down 800%. It's the same, it's the same shtick. They're down 800%. Okay, so the drug companies are paying you 800 if the product's $1. Most favored nations. That's not happening. You're telling me that the drug companies are now reducing their prices so it's as cheap as the cheapest price of that same drug in a foreign country. That's just not happening. Like you could keep on saying we're doing most favor nations because most people don't know what that even means. Most favor nations means the same price as the lowest price that drug gets charged in another country. That's not objectively, that's just not happening here. And over and over again I can go and talk about, you know, each one of these schemes that he runs, mountains and it just, it just Lies. So you see that you get your hopes up and then like the manufacturing boom is taking place here. Manufacturing boom isn't taking place is quite the contrary. We've had some of the biggest job losses lately.
- [39:27]
Brett
I remember, you know, we were reporting on the manufacturing boom that was actually happening under the Biden administration and all the investments and if you remember those charts, I don't know if one on me right now, but like it was like a steep income increase in manufacturing investment under Biden and Donald Trump just
- [39:41]
Benji
reversed all of it.
- [39:42]
Brett
Like, just like shut it all down. And now he tries, tries to claim some sort of victory over that and tries to claim manufacturing gains when there really aren't right now the entire economy, like all the economic growth is basically when like hospitality and, or medical. I think it's a medical. Right. It's straight.
- [39:59]
Benji
Hospitality's losing.
- [40:01]
Brett
Losing. It's basically just medical. The medical health care, which is what probably a result of, you know, having a lot of older people, you know, in the country right now. And so that's, it's a lot of
- [40:11]
Benji
private equity investing in health care companies that, that actually then charge the government for Medicare and Medicaid related services. And interestingly, where. You want to know where the waste. Sorry, Brett, to interrupt you, but where the waste fraud and abuse in these systems come from is not at the individual level of people getting the treatment. It's oftentimes the private equity firms and people like, like a Rick Scott's company who's now, he's now the senator of Florida that would send and submit incorrect statements to the government for reimbursements in order to make all this money is where actually a lot of it's. And that's one of the areas where, where you know, where any.
- [40:57]
Brett
Yeah, Rick Scott's Medicare fraud was something like $1.7 billion in fraud. Just a, just a massive, massive number. And so you should remember that as people like Trump and these Republicans work to remove coverage of Medicare and Medicaid and, and Social Security and all these services from people and they try to claim, oh, we just got rid of it for those illegal immigrants. It's not you, it's not you. We're just taking care of the fraud. Like, even if that were true, and let me reiterate, that is not true, that's a lie to cover from stealing health care from human beings. But even if that were, it pales in comparison to what the Rick Scotts of the world are doing. The people who actually own these conglomerates who are quite literally stealing from you. But that's the oligarch class, right? That's the class of people who they are working to protect. And I think that's a big issue that I have with so many of the things Trump does, because I truthfully, personally, I don't have an issue with the Trump account stuff, honestly, like, really at all. It kind of stems from an idea that was actually put forward by, if you go back, like Cory Booker and Senator Bob Casey had a similar idea. Like, it's not a, it's not a bad idea in and of itself. My issue is, is that which. What Trump ends up doing is he always picks winners and losers. And so on the one hand, you have these Republicans who are trying to, you know, put forward and, you know, just capitalism is amazing and, and we need unfettered capitalism because that's what makes prosperity. On the other hand, they're not actually, they don't actually don't want that at all. They actually want crony capitalism. They want a capitalism that is just. They essentially want socialism, but socialism for their rich buddies. And so you have Donald Trump constantly picking and choosing winners, trying to hurt and come after companies that he doesn't want it to. To succeed, and then striking all these deals and corrupt deals and, and, and doing all these, making all these efforts to pump up companies that he does like, like in that Walmart post, this great, incredible company. You got to go to Walmart. This is how business is done. Same way he treats everybody. Right? Because going back to the Maloney example, what does Donald Trump want? He just wants people constantly to be praising him like a dictator, like people do in these regimes across the world. That's what Trump wants. That's the energy he wants. And he doesn't want anybody to do anything else. So. So Dell, go buy a Dell, go to Walmart, go get your. I don't know, whatever these other MAGA companies are, I'm not gonna give them free advertising. Advertising.
- [43:21]
Jordy
Can I just say this, though, Brett, because I think you're onto something. I think at the baseline, like the Trump accounts thing, it could be a good thing. But I just think anything that Donald Trump touches and brands himself, you just have to be highly skeptical of it. Also, you know what does every good Ponzi scheme need to keep going? It needs more suckers. And unfortunately, these suckers are sucking on their pacifiers, buyers and thumbs, and aren't really willing participants in this as their parents opt them in. So, again, I am highly skeptical of anything Trump does, even if it seems like it's a good thing. And all of a sudden now he's starting to prop up all these other companies around. Why is he doing that? You just have to investigate.
- [44:00]
Benji
I don't mean to interrupt but let me give you the answer. It's what I said before. So what he's now encouraging these companies that many are worried are in a bubble, right? The semiconductor AI, you know, and lots of these companies that are propping up the market take some of your money and do a philanthropic investment into the so called Trump accounts, right? So it will be a right, a tax write off for you or a deduction for you depending on how it is classified. You put them into these accounts, the accounts then in are forced to invest in the S&P 500 to which you're listed on. So then those accounts then put those thousand dollars or whatever into the market and then these exchange traded funds, these ETFs that buy the market, then buy your company and when you do it at scale it props up the market. So that to me is one of the schemes behind it and one of your kind of late stage capitalism red flags, if you will is that a lot of these companies got a lot of American investment in it from the CHIPS act, which was a Biden initiative. Seeing that our semiconductor industry was good, was basically non existent compared to what was taking place in Taiwan and other places. So what was it, 40 to 50 billion dollars were invested in these companies. If they hit certain, certain metrics they would get lots of money. Like look at a company like Micron which just gave $250 million as a philanthropic investment to a so called Trump account. It's gotten subsidized to the tune of 3 to 5 to go back and look at what the number is. But like $3 billion of taxpayer money went to them which helped the company go from 60 billion market cap to like over a trillion like market cap. Go look at market, it's like, you know, and where do you think that those years came from? In my opinion it was CHIPS act investment which by the way could be good if you have the semiconductor industry, you know, actually being sustainable and doing the right thing. But then I think they do these Trump account things to focus on pumping up the stock versus pumping up the company itself to begin with. So anyway, that's what I think is also behind the Georgia in my opinion.
- [46:24]
Jordy
I think that aligns exactly with kind of exactly what I'm saying here, right? Like there, it just feels like there are more shady pretenses around this. And again, something that could be good. Anytime Trump touches something, it turns to shit. So I think just anybody has to be highly skeptical of what this looks like.
- [46:40]
Benji
Well, I'll, I'll, this is a segue. Then we'll go to the break because I don't want to, don't want to, I don't want to belabor this, you know, this point because look, obviously as an American, I still root for Team usa, okay. My, my, my wife's family's from Mexico, so I would root for Mexico as well. And, and they, they live here obviously now. They're also, they're citizens here in the United States, but they were born in Mexico. And, and so it was a disappointing loss, obviously to England, although England played great. And I'm enjoying the World Cup. I, I enjoy watching it. I hate when the politics are infused into it. I don't like the, I want to just watch sports, you know, and not make it weird. And you know, when Donald Trump did the, all of the bad comes from like the Peace Prize and the weirdness and the personal aggrandize. But if you just let sports fans be sports fans, people want to form bonds and be together. Like, I hated when you had Mark Wayne Mullen, Homeland Security Secretary, said I was dancing around when Iran lost in the world. Like, why are you dancing around? And why'd you treat the team that way? Or why'd you treat all of those teams that way when they, when they arrived here? But you know, when Donald Trump has so overly politicized this and then he calls up Gianni Infantino and, you know, and then tries to put his finger on the scale, you see the outrage internationally with Flo Baligan being, you know, you know, being allowed to play after the red card. It was the first time, by the way. I don't think it was a good call to begin with, but it was reviewed on instant replay. But you now, but because everything Trump touches, he infects with that. And then they were bragging about it today and like laughing about it. And Ted Cruz, like, thank you for doing that, Donald. Thank you for doing that. And, and you see why the rest of the world is absolutely livid. And I'll just say, obviously, if it happened in another country to, against us.
- [48:35]
Jordy
And
- [48:38]
Brett
I got to say my, the only thing I'm to going to say is I think it's very interesting that Donald Trump has spent his entire term railing against birthright citizenship only to call up the head of FIFA in order to help out the guy who is only on the USA team, right? Now and only a citizen due to birthright citizenship. So thank you, Donald Trump, for your endorsement of birthright citizenship. Glad that we could clear that.
- [49:02]
Jordy
And by the way, for the record too, I am stoked Flo is playing in the game. I think he gets us a huge advantage to win. That's not the point of this though. Is. Is just Donald Trump's his own corruption. It just knows no bounds and it just gives up jury.
- [49:15]
Brett
As you said, he gets a stank
- [49:16]
Jordy
all it gives us this kind of stank, like internationally.
- [49:20]
Brett
I do want to say though, anyway, can I say something positive though, just to go off the. I do think, I think the World cup has been incredible though. And, and I love these international events where everybody is tuned in because I think, you know, sports and whatever, even take away like all that stuff, just the idea of people over the world all kind of focused on one thing. And I think it's, I think it's very special actually. And it's one of the reasons I love the Olympics, no matter where the Olympics is. And I, I think we, you really actually see the best of humanity. That's why I hate all the stuff that Ben was saying with the Ted Cruz and all these obnoxious people and Crump getting all their stank all over this. But, but I think it's really cool and I think it's also cool that, you know, there are all these people from all the, all these countries all over the world right now who are in the United States, who are in Mexico, who are in Canada and are getting to experience, you know, things that they never had before. And there you see these videos online of them, you know, being amazed by things that we take for granted. Right. And things that are kind of quintessentially American, even though if we joke about them and write them off like fast food places or Costco or things like that. And so I think it actually is like incredibly, you know, special and a unifying experience. And to me it's been one of the kind of bright spots in a very dark time, quite frankly, which is
- [50:44]
Benji
why when we come back, I want
- [50:46]
Jordy
to add this one thing. Sports are the ultimate unifier. Sport. There's nothing like sport in this country. There's nothing like sport in the world. The fact that these things exist are incredible also. Flow should never have had the red card to begin with. I'm stoked he's playing let's Go USA
- [51:00]
Benji
will look at it. And it reminds me though, of, of how perverted Donald, I think that's the right word, the perversion of the July 4th celebration, which he ruined. I mean, he ruined America's 250. I mean, every aspect of it was odd and weird. And the rallying against communism. I mean, you had the so called Great American State Fair, which wasn't great and it wasn't even a state fair. And then the heat exhaustion, the bizarre fireworks just to set a Guinness Book of Records and to blow them all up at once without any rhythm or patterns or colors. Right? It was just all white and just blowing stuff up, you know, which is probably a parable for the Trump regime itself. You know, while talking about vandals and reflecting pool and tearing things and just, you know, it turned something that could have been actually very unifying into something that was, you know, ugh.
- [51:55]
Shannon Maldonado
Ugh.
- [51:56]
Benji
You know. And so there you have it. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder. Subscribe to Midas Touch on Audio Wherever you get audio podcasts, make sure you subscribe on audio. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.
- [52:10]
Jordy
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- [55:26]
Benji
Something I probably should have mentioned at the outset about these stories that are not getting the coverage they deserve. We should also be focusing on what's happening in Venezuela obviously few weeks back now, two weeks back or so, the back to back earthquakes there, the four quake and then the main quake, you know, so rare to have those happen, you know, right after each other that way. And then I think a very slow search and rescue operation that was held back by the authoritarian regime there of Delsey Rodriguez and d' Estado Cabello and lots of people on the ground were trying to, you know, get their loved ones or be able to actually, you know, do work. The United States said it brought In a hundred million dollars or 150 million dollars. And they made that the big announcement. 150 million dollars for search and rescue. But again, it's like when we talk about Micron giving $250 million to these so called Trump investment accounts after getting billions of dollars in subsidies from the taxpayers. You know, it's also like how much money did Venezuela to give to these opaque accounts that Donald Trump has opened up regarding Venezuelan oil? Billions of dollars, right, that we've taken or Donald Trump has taken. I'm not really sure where the money is. Right, but we know they've taken billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil and then it's like, we'll give you $150 million. But we took billions of dollars. Why wouldn't we rush billions of dollars of resources there and marshal everybody? And it seemed that what was most focused on by Delsey Rodriguez and d' Estado Cabello was the show. And I think the people in Venezuela know this, that a lot of the attention was like giving. This was the other day they gave medals to the American search and rescue team, you know, because they know that Donald Trump likes medals. And so you literally had Deli Rodriguez and d' Estado Cabello who are in the Maduro regime and the Trump, Trump regime labeled the Maduro regime narco terrorists and that the leaders of the narco terrorist ring, this is what they said about them were Delsey and Diaz Dado Cabello. I mean, we have a most wanted sign. Diaz Dado Cabello, $25 million. He was labeled this by the Trump regime. This is what they labeled him. And the Biden administration and this guy and her were given medals while there's still tens of thousand. What are you celebrating? Even if you think that the search and rescue team did a valiant job or a valiant effort, there are tens of thousands of people who are unaccounted for. Over 3,000 dead, tens of thousand injured. And when the death toll is counted, I mean it could be in the tens of thousands potentially. I also think an investigation is needed into some of the underlying causes of the earthquake. And again, I don't want to veer into a conspiratorial area. So I'm very careful with, you know, it's a natural disaster. I do want to say that drilling activity, fracking activity increasing, that has been known to increase or enhance seismic activity. That link has been proven before. I don't have the data to suggest, and I'll be very clear a cause and effect here, although I will say it is very Rare to have a 4 quake and then an earthquake back to back like that. But regardless, why are you doing. You know, there are tens of thousands of people likely dead. We know 3,000 are dead. This is a time of mourning. And you're out there giving medals like it's the FIFA or like it's, you know, like the Olympics. Like what. And in d' Estado is. And obviously, why is Delsey having Diaz Dado do it? Because it legitimizes the leadership in Venezuela when you have the. Basically the US Ambassador now to Venezuela there and Dios Dado is doing it. So think about how difficult it would be now. What, you're going to bring a criminal case against Diaz Dado in the future when your own ambassadors right there as part of the award ceremony with d'. Estado.
- [59:44]
Jordy
So do.
- [59:44]
Benji
Do you see how that was a move by Del C and D S Dotto to also insulate themselves from prosecution in the future or from any accountability there? And meanwhile, you have the Trump regime saying Maria Machado is doing some grotesque PR stunt and that she's trying just to show up there. And they're. They've basically prevented her from getting a visa. They stopped her. I think she. She traveled somewhere to then stop there and then fly into Venezuela and she was stopped from doing that. So I think that that's, Again, that story's not getting enough attention, which is why I'm covering it also.
- [60:25]
Brett
Yeah, no, I was gonna say, you know, add Maria Machado to the list of people who put their trust in Donald Trump and ended up getting screwed over by it. And Maria Machado, even if, you know, you remember she won the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump was bitter about it. And remember, I mean, she's a very impressive individual who. Yeah. And unfortunately, she really sold out all of her credibility. She took a big gamble, which I think clearly has not paid off on. Kind of just going to suck up with Trump and I'll give you my Nobel Peace Prize and all these things, at the end of the day, she ended up just humiliating herself. And now as she tries to see if she could even go back to Venezuela and have some sort of impact or do anything, now she's just getting iced out by the Trump regime, who's just like, nah, we're cool with the Maduro regime now. Like, we're tight. We're in business together. We're hanging out, we're. We're having fun, we're friends. I mean, that just shows you, you know, again, what Donald Trump values more, you know, than Anything. Donald Trump will screw you the second he gets the chance to, as long as he thinks that it's going to be better for him personally, not better for the Venezuelan people, not better for the American people. And it's why we were sounding the alarms when, you know, the people were pushing those images of Venezuelan celebrating in the street after Chavez's ouster. And they were like, look, they're so happy. How could you be upset? Look how happy they are. And I said, because I know how this ends. I know how this ends with people. I know what Donald Trump is going to do here. And now. If you look at all those polls, the people who were dancing in the streets, they're not so happy in here anymore. They feel oppressed. They are very disgruntled with their government right now. The Maduro regime, the same oppressive regime regime, right.
- [62:07]
Benji
It's a puppet.
- [62:08]
Jordy
It's.
- [62:08]
Benji
Trump runs it now, basically.
- [62:09]
Brett
Yeah, they're Trump puppets. And so they're, they're now furious. A lot of them are furious at Donald Trump. This is building resentment. And in my opinion, this is a powder keg that will explode in the future. You know, there's always a reaction to an action, right? There's always something that is going to happen. There's a butterfly effect, so to speak week. And when Donald Trump does these things, you may not see it right away, but down the road you are going to see a lot of unrest and you're going to see a lot stemming from this. I mean, because what more of a humiliation is there for a country than for you to let your country become a total puppet of the United States of America? You don't think that's going to build some opposition? You don't think that's going to enrage people against the United States, against, against leadership? And we're already seeing more, more than the seeds now we're seeing that already starting to grow.
- [62:59]
Jordy
Brett, you just said something right there. I don't know how you didn't just belt out laughing. Well, I guess I do know because of how serious the topic. But you go, she as a Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize and Trump was bitter about it. Like that was verbatim what you just said. I mean, what an insane friggin timeline that we're living in. That that could be a true statement. She won a Nobel Peace Prize. So Donald Trump got super, super mad at her her because he thought the Nobel priest Prize should have went to him. I mean, just out of this world bonkers that we've just at Least Trump
- [63:27]
Brett
got the FIFA Peace prize. We know that organization's on the up and up.
- [63:30]
Benji
So, you know, like, I think, look, Donald Trump is a dystopian reality TV president or, or dictator. And what happens in reality TV shows, outcomes happen fast. There's like a challenge, there's an outcome. It looks, it appears to be real, but it's fake, right? It's usually scripted by the producers in advance, but it has the trappings of reality and something happens. And so when we, when we talk about the cause and effect, Brett, where you actually play something out to its logical conclusion, maybe it doesn't happen that day, but in Trump's reality show, that episode is over. We move on to the next episode, but the world hasn't moved on to the next episode, right? Like we're now a year and maybe more out from Trump's so called Liberation Day. And yes, the inflation didn't surge on day one right after the disastrous announcement, but now we're experiencing it because things in the, in real world, not reality tv, in real world, they, they take time to develop. And that lag is often what MAGA has kind of used to attack the other. I mean, if you think about the most significant example is that a lot of the impact of COVID financially, economically hit when Donald Trump left, right, he destroyed the economy. The PPP program where they printed all of this money and they gave it out to mostly rich people. The way supply chains were destroyed and of course the deaths taking place when you had to reopen the economy with all of that and you had to take the bandage off, it turned out it was gross, it was ugly and there was a lot of inflation and that's why lots of people predicted Great Recession. And it was tough for Biden. And Biden was old school and he really couldn't message it. You know, he was about uniting and let's get past it. And, and while he was taking the steps to fix then he was being blamed as the firefighter for what the arsonists were actually doing the same thing here. Brett, you look at Venezuela, okay, on day one, yes, Trump did the invasion, he put del C in. But now we're feeling the systemic impacts and the consequences of what's actually happening. And that's going to be felt long term. And outside of Venezuela, what it has enabled, going back to what we talked about is the law of the jungle, the law of the strong. Where China feels a certain way about Taiwan now in a different posture, and China's doing nuclear capable ballistic missile tests, where Russia feels Completely free to say, okay, we'll do whatever. I mean, you're just. You're invading Venezuela. We got this. North Korea feels a certain way. Other countries, you know, feel a certain way. We're not even talking about. I mean, look at the. What they're now rebranding as the African Core. That's in Mali right now. I know people don't give a lot of attention to the developments in Africa, but Russia has a lot of troops in Africa right now, where it's out there, you know, working with. I mean, you have to think more globally and geostrategically about these things that, you know about these. These things that are happening. A few other points I'll mention, though. You know, it's interesting, as you also see these MAGA Republican Congress members from southern Florida, many of them come from families that are Cuban. And they're there, and they've been basically saying, we need Machado. Why? You know, Delsey Rodriguez needs to go. And it's like you're out there pumping up Trump. Like, where. Where do you think this is coming from right now? I mean, obviously that's where it's coming from. It's your guy in Donald Trump. And then to make the episode go full circle, because I know my dogs want the episode to go full circle as well, you think about Machado. And Machado thought, okay, the way to endear myself is, I'll give him the Nobel Prize. I'll suck up to him. My path is through obsequiousness to Trump. And what she saw is, nope, he'll just take and take and take more from you when you do that. Like, that's not the way to. Whatever. The same thing we saw with NATO. NATO appeased Donald Trump for the first year, and what did he do? Betrayed NATO every step of the way. And you look at someone like Georgia Maloney also as well, and how.
- [67:54]
Brett
And you.
- [67:54]
Benji
You can make these parallels everywhere. So if you're Iran, which model do you follow? North Korea? Do you follow China? Do you follow those models if you're Iran? Or do you look and you're like, oh, yeah, I'll make a deal with him.
- [68:11]
Brett
It'll be great.
- [68:12]
Benji
It's interesting because you have Witkoff and Kushner who are saying to Iran, look, look, look, you're going to be super rich. You just can't do tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. Just trust me. You don't want to just give up control over the Strait and things will be great. And Iran's like, you killed Our leader, the Ayatollah, you. Every time we've been in negotiations, you've blow. You've literally started invasions during negotiations. Not only do we not trust you, we were not even in the same universe of even thinking about trust. What are you talking about? You know, and then you start to read and research your history about Iran. I've done videos on this over the weekend. And you start to also look at incidents that probably don't get enough attention anymore. Like Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988, when a United States tanker that was in the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran and Iraq war, this tanker, the Vincenzi, shot Iran Flight 655, killed 290 passengers, innocent Iranians aboard, and then just did not, like, blame the pilots when we just blew up an Iranian flight in the Strait of Hormuz. And I bring that up because I'm sure a lot of us don't even know, but of course they know. What do you think they know that in Iran, that happened on July 3, 1988 as well. And so they don't trust. And when it's like, just trust us, man.
- [69:38]
Brett
We'll be good.
- [69:39]
Benji
We'll be good. Well, I just want us all. And I'll throw it to you, Brett, just to have a realistic understanding of the world and here to be better informed about everything. That's the goal that I want to empower everybody to do here with this network is to be informed about everything.
- [69:58]
Brett
You need nuanced perspectives on things, on everything. Even things that may seem simple. Oftentimes when you look below the surface, they're a lot more accommodating, complicated. And what Trump tries to do is he tries to simplify everything into these catchphrases and to Ben's point, these reality TV kind of moments that he thinks sounds good and he knows are easy to propagandize the people, but aren't actually good. And they don't actually work. And that's why things keep falling apart. You think it's by accident that the out that the pool turned green? No, we told you that it was going to turn green weeks before the thing turned green. It's not because we're psychic. It's because when we analyze the situation, when we spoke to scientists, they told us the pool is going to turn green due to the conditions that Trump is creating. It doesn't make us brilliant or clairvoyant, but Donald Trump tries to package these things in these statements, and then he just knows that he could just lie about it after the fact and go, oh, it was vandals who did it. It was vandals. He does this about everything. The fireworks show. When we heard about this fireworks show for July 4th, which are actually like July 5th, 5th fireworks, because Trump rambled on for so long and ended up speaking to a nearly empty crowd, despite Trump claiming that there were over 150,000 people there. We did reports, we showed you the footage, we showed you the receipts of all the empty seats there because people had to return back through security after they evacuated the premises. But during that fireworks show, the July 5th fireworks show, it was a disaster. And we knew it was going to be a disaster because we knew Trump's plan was just to blow a bunch of stuff up all at once and that it would look ridiculous. It would look ridiculous. You wouldn't be able to see anything. I'll play you this short clip of the fireworks first, which also, by the way, resulted in the air in Washington, D.C. being more toxic the next day than like anywhere in the entire world. But watch how stupid this looks. This is idiocracy in real life. It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And I've already given you a few examples. But here's another example of Donald Trump trying to say things in platitudes and not taking a nuanced approach to anything or trusting experts. I mean, this was like day, back to back days, okay, where Donald Trump, one day, his energy secretary was bragging about getting rid of renewable energy. I don't know how this is a brag. How is it a brag that you are making things more expensive for people? But he proudly posted. Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrote, as we approach peak electricity demand in the 13 state Mid Atlantic region, at 7am this morning, less than 6% of electricity generation was coming from renewables. Over 91% of generation is coming from gas, nuclear and coal. Keeping our air conditionings blasting, our air conditioners blast. Keep them blasting, folks, keep them blasting. We don't have any of that silly renewable energy. We took that away. You got gas and oil. Keep Those, keep those ACs blasting. This is the worst messaging. It obviously flies in the face of science. So they post that one day, then literally the next day. Oh, by the way, and then he was specifically, he showed a chart of the PJM energy grid which powers this, these 13 states energy. And the following day, literally the next day, the Trump administration had to alert PJM to cut their electricity use because outages, overloaded transmission lines and extreme heat were pushing the system towards blackouts. And so as a result, Reuters reported that PJM escalated their emergency actions as a result. I mean, that's a direct cause and effect right there of the Trump regime saying, we don't need that stinking renewable energy. Were getting rid of it proudly, essentially saying that they're raising your bills and, and relying on nonrenewable energy. And then the next day, the next day, a federal alert. We need to conserve. And by the way, remember, they were saying every day they were going on about Mamdani's repeating the same request that is made in every single state and city virtually across the country to keep your ACs at 78 degrees to conserve energy. And then when the Trump administration does it, suddenly it's not socialism, but it was socialism and communism when Mamdani was urging people to conserve. I don't understand. And meanwhile, you know who gets screwed? The American people, because they're paying higher bills. And also the United States of America as a country, as a global power. Because Trump continues to lie to people also about what other countries are doing in this space. Trump tries to pretend. He goes, oh, China learned long ago that they shouldn't do anything with wind. They, they don't do anything with wind. It's not even remotely true. China is the world's largest wind power producer, over 220,000 wind turbines in operation. Yet Donald Trump says this is an exact quote. China makes almost all the windmills, and yet I haven't been able to find any wind farms in China. Do you ever think of that? Now they actually do use them. They use them much more than the United States. They also use solar. China has installed thousands and thousands and thousands of heliostat mirrors across an 8.61 million square foot field at the world's highest solar thermal plant and duo to show, scheduled to commence operating in October. That's just one solar project out of many solar projects that they've been doing. Because China understands, even from a selfish level, that this is going to make our energy grid stronger. This is going to make us less reliant on nonrenewable energy. It's actually a tool to have in our arsenal. It's going to allow us to provide a better quality of life for our people, make us less reliant on the Middle east with all these disruptions, with wars in the Middle east and everything that's going on. Takes that off the table when you have this there. So Donald Trump's attack on this and the fact that they are attacking, like, brag about it. They brag about the Idiocracy of it all as they're hurting people and they get the MAGA people to cheer them on. Yes, my bills are going to be more expensive. Thank you, Secretary. Secretary Wright, thank you for taking away renewable energy. The whole, it's, it's just, you got to point it out and you got to really just explain to people what's actually going on here. And when you look, the thread between so many of these things is that it's all to enrich the oligarch class. It's all to enrich this Epstein class. And you see this coordinated effort across all of Donald Trump's schemes to get people distracted on lies and kind of branding and his con, his cons while he pickpockets them and gives the money to the wealthiest Americans. You're seeing wealth distribution quite directly from the people who need it the most to the people who need it the least. I mean, even when you look at Donald Trump's stock and crypto earnings, right? It was literally like almost a direct one to one line between the amount Donald Trump made off his Meme coin and the billions of dollars that people lost investing in Donald Trump's Meme Coin. I don't think I've ever quite seen it, wealth transfers appear that direct to the American people. But yeah, that's, it's crazy, crazy stuff, absolutely.
- [77:26]
Jordy
Look, and I'll just end with this. We just celebrated our 250th anniversary as this country. If we want 250 more, heck, if we want 50 more, we have to do exactly what Brett just said there and again, that's this reckoning within our lifetime about propping up people who tell truth, who use facts and data to assert their arguments and get these lies and these liars and these grifters just, just out of here, man. It just, it just cannot be the way of the future if we ever expect to continue this great experiment that we're all living through right now. I know there's a trillion dollar propaganda operation out there that is, you know, infecting our loved ones and our neighbors and the people of our communities. And it's very hard to get them out of this zombification that they're all kind of going through. But I just think it is so necessary that we as a community, we as the Midas, mighty and just people who love this country, these pro democracy folks out champion and truly, truly champion truth, honesty, integrity, these should always be the qualities that we look to instill in the next generation within ourselves as we go forward. Here because again, we just celebrated the 250 if we want 50, if we want 20, if we want 15, five more. Those are the qualities that we're going to need together as a country in order to make sure that that happens.
- [78:49]
Benji
Everybody, it's been been an honor to be here with you today. Whether you're watching on video or listening on audio, thank you for all of your support. We're grateful for you and we'll keep on fighting for you every day. For those who watch on YouTube, can you try to subscribe on audio as well? It helps. Even if you don't plan on listening on audio, you never know. So go to whatever audio app you have, subscribe to Midas Touch and leave a five star review on audio. It'll take you 30 seconds.
- [79:21]
Jordy
It's free.
- [79:21]
Benji
It's free and we'd be really grateful for it. Thanks everybody for watching. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Jordy, take it away.
- [79:29]
Jordy
Shout out to the Midas mighty.
- [79:38]
Brett
Against the fascists we sing our song
- [79:45]
Jordy
we will get. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack at midasplus.
- [79:53]
Benji
Com.
- [79:53]
Jordy
You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski,
- [79:56]
Brett
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- [79:57]
Jordy
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