Ben Meiselas (3:48)

Certainly a lot going on. Definitely a complicated day, the 4th of July this year. And. But I think we got to say, you know, fourth of July, what's it about? At the end of the day, it's about no kings. And that's what we are all fighting for right here on the Midas Touch Network. And that's what this pro democracy movement is all about. So I think it's good to be able to celebrate that element. You know, looking through the events of the past 24, 48 hours, from the tragedy in Texas to the Trump administration's response to the things that, you know, we've been warning about here at the Midas Touch Network with these doge cuts with, with what Elon Musk did, with what Donald Trump did by gutting these agencies, these important agencies which are needed in order to detect these storms, sound the alarm in order to react after there is a disaster. We've been speaking about FEMA endlessly now to see the callousness in which Donald Trump and this regime are do. Are handling this ent recovery. At first it seemed like Donald Trump did not even want to acknowledge that this was even happening in the first place, which is a strategy that he's deployed over and over again throughout this administration when our troops are killed. I know nothing about that. Oh, this is the first time I'm hearing about that. We hear that constantly. He constantly wants to try to avoid bad news. He thinks like during COVID you know, if you don't test for the cases, then they don't exist. Well, that's what Donald Trump is doing with every single tragedy that strikes this country. And it is just absolutely awful. We have to call it out. And of course, the Epstein list, this, I don't know, bombshell, this, this kind of lie coming out of the Department of Justice. Somebody's lying. That's all I got to say. Because how could Pam Bondi just a few months ago say in no uncertain terms, I have the Epstein client list and it is sitting on my desk right now. Her words. It is sitting on my desk and I'm going to review it. I have the client list. She specifically said that it was the client list and that it was on her desk. But now client list doesn't exist, actually. Case closed. No, no more questions. Nothing to see here, folks. It is just so clownish. And the way that these Trump supporters get duped over and over and over again. And such a bizarre thing to go all in on. The Epstein files. Jeffrey Epstein, when Donald Trump is, was Jeffrey Epstein's best friend. This, this is the ledge that you're going to die on. This is what you're going to do. All right, we'll get into it all. Jordy, what's the latest on your end?

Jordy Meiselas (6:14)

Look, we just have so much to unpack today. And that's why I love the Midas Mighty. That's why I love doing this long form podcast because, look, we could walk and chew gum at the same time here. Just because we're going to be talking about a couple of topics here early on doesn't mean that we won't address the other ones later. And look, I'm excited to get into the show. A lot of tough updates to start, but let's just dive into it. Benji, where do we want to go?

Brett Meiselas (6:34)

Shout out to everybody. Also protesting at the no Kings protests this past weekend as well. There were no Kings protests and I don't think those got really any attention on cable news. We covered it here on the Midas Touch Network. I want to remind everybody as well that on July 1st, Christine Oem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, posted the following alligator. Alcatraz will be funded largely by FEMA's Shelter and Services program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank. Then she goes on to spread a conspiracy for all these illegal immigrants and they were the ones who were benefiting from. Which is 100% false. But to be clear, the Trump regime, in their elimination of fema was also stealing the money from FEMA and giving it to build Alligator Alcatraz, which is a concentration camp in the Everglades in Florida, which is already basically flooded out and underwater because they built it in the Everglades. And a small storm came by and basically made it uninhabitable in what, less than 48 hours. And that's where our taxpayer money is going, and not to fema. I think an important thing as we start to show you some of the clips of these statements from the Trump regime, just so we can fact check in advance. There is a robust, large, powerful role that the federal government plays in emergency management. It is not the function of the state to run this on their own. They work in joint task force task forces with the feds. And FEMA has regional managers and offices in states, and then they have huge staffs in states to work and coordinate with state officials. And these federal employees, these federal workers, they do their jobs quietly. They're not necessarily praised and viewed as, oh, how great the work they're doing is on a daily or weekly or, or almost ever. They work quietly and they just do the job. Like in this specific area as well, where this, where these flash floods took place. The main meteorologist coordinator at the National Weather Service was forced out by doge. Somebody with 32 years experience, someone named Paul Euro was forced out. There were six vacancies at the National Weather Service in that area that was, that would have covered Kerr county and the surrounding areas where the flash flood has resulted in the deaths of so many people. But what the feds would do right away is not just even issue like an alert that just says, all right, 1:00am flash floods coming, 3:30, you know, you gotta make sure you move out, go to higher territory. And then the evacuation start later. The feds would be it. They would set up the task force right away. They would be calling all the local state management emergency people, developing the plan right away. You don't just shuff all of this to the state and to the local people. That's just not what they're used to doing. And so, you know, one of the things that, you know, the Christie gnomes and the Trumps, they say, but look, the National Weather Service did say at 1am on July 4 that there could be flash floods. And then they did say to go to elevated ground two hours later. And then they go, but this happened in the middle of the night when everybody's sleeping, as though that's an excuse. Yes, people sleep. I get that. But you're the federal government. Wake them up, you know, fly in Go make sure that you're doing everything you can. If you see this thing coming, it's more than just issuing like a bulletin. There's a whole process. And at what point in time did the emergency declaration get issued? You know, Texas requested one right away. Has a deck even been issued? You know, and how does that impact, you know, how Donald Trump is federalizing the National Guard and we're seeing images of that in la. You know, how quickly did that to federalize the National Guard. What you actually do in a situation like this is you federalize the emergency relief and you take the resources to go and start at a federal level to do life saving work and you put all your officials out there, you coordinate as the federal government with other states as well. Okay, does neighboring states have the resources? What can we do? You marshal them all together. And look, I don't want to jump to conclusions and give a specific causation verdict. I want to be very careful. But it certainly didn't help that the key National Weather Service people were pushed out out. That FEMA is absolutely gutted that our forecasting has been degraded and that the Trump regime consistently speaks about FEMA as though it's this horrible, horrible entity. Now I have just let me share some clips here, for example, just so everybody can see. I could show you dozens of clips of Kristi Noem, the dog killing cosplay Homeland Security Secretary, saying this, but here she is at a congressional hearing where she says that it's her view and the Trump regime's view that FEMA should be eliminated. FEMA should be eliminated. What a crazy position. You want to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Here, play this clip.

Ben Meiselas (12:13)

Well, thank you for your question and the discussion on this topic today. President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people, people. And that FEMA as it exists today should be eliminated. And empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government.

Brett Meiselas (12:32)

If you'll just, I can't even emphasize enough, what a crazy statement. It should be eliminated. And then let me share this with you because there was a guy, a MAGA guy named Cameron Hamilton who wasn't qualified to be the interim head of fema, but he came into FEMA and he at least took the job somewhat seriously once he had the job. And this Cameron Hamilton guy who ran for Congress as an ultra MAGA guy, this was a Trump bootlicker. Like, no, like none of. There's a lot of them. But that's who this guy was interim FEMA guy. So he testified a few months back and he was asked by a Congress, a Democratic congressman. So do you think what do you think should happen to fema? Should it be eliminated? And he says, I don't think it should be eliminated. Let me share my views. And then he kind of pivots and says, but my views may be a little bit different than what the Trump says, but of course I have to defer to the Trump regime. He gets fired, I kid you not. Within an hour, within one hour after this testimony. Here, play this clip.

Ben Meiselas (13:41)

Could you explain why the FEMA administrator was removed from his position this week? Ms. Look, this is a personnel matter in regards to the Department of Homeland Security. But my understanding is that this individual testified saying something that was contrary to what the President believes and the goals of this administration in regards to FEMA policy. And so of course we want to make sure that people in every position are advancing the administration's goals. But as for specifics, I defer you to the Department of Homeland Security. We leave it up to our great cabinet secretaries when it comes to personnel matters.

Brett Meiselas (14:12)

So now here was that testimony. That was Caroline Levitt explaining the firing. Just so you heard what she said. Now here's what the guy actually testified to yesterday.

Ben Meiselas (14:21)

The secretary testified. Secretary Noem testified. Quite honestly, I found her responses confusing and inadequate in response to my question asking her about whether or not this administration seeks to eliminate fema. This was her response. And I quote, President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumst has failed the American people and that FEMA as it exists today should be eliminated and empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support. A clear answer. Does this administration seek to eliminate FEMA and do you support eliminating female.

Brett Meiselas (15:09)

Mr. Chairman, would you like me to answer the question?

Ben Meiselas (15:11)

Please.

Brett Meiselas (15:11)

I'm not going to let you off that easy. Please.

Ben Meiselas (15:15)

No, I, I completely understand.

Brett Meiselas (15:18)

As the senior advisor to the President. Yeah. On disasters and emergency management and to the Secretary of Homeland Security, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Okay. Having said that, I'm not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination such as consequential as that should be made. That is a conversation that should be had between the President, United States and this governing body on identifying the exact ways and methodologies in which what is prudent for federal investment and what is not. They fired that guy right after him saying that I don't think it's prudent that we eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And you heard Caroline Levitt talk about why and how he didn't, that that was inconsistent with the regime's position. Now, Brett and Jordy, fema, okay? FEMA on a bipartisan. This was never an issue of oh, this is the Dems and this is the Libs, and this is, this is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. NWS is the National Weather Service, okay, noaa, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. These are entities that are, they work, they're not in the spotlight and they play critical functions. And Brett, you mentioned the Trump cover ups of a lot of disasters. Now there have been many, many natural disasters over the last 160 days that we've been covering here from like a lots in Kentucky and in Arkansas and in Missouri and Mississippi all throughout. And the Trump regime was slow, late or never activated. FEMA never mentioned anything. And we've seen over 100 deaths there as well combined.

Ben Meiselas (17:13)

Yeah. And do you remember throughout the Biden administration, what would the Trump people, the campaign, the propagandists, the same ones who were, you know, all in on all the Epstein stuff until it blew up in their face just a couple days ago or yesterday, what were they saying during the Biden administration? They would create all these lies. They would make up stuff about fema, they would make up stuff about Biden, they would say that he wasn't handling the situations appropriately. They would constantly go back to that same old lie where they said, oh look what Biden's doing. There's all this damage, all this chaos and all he is giving the people is $750. How dare you, President Biden, when that was the congressionally allotted amount that FEMA was actually allowed to give in immediate funds. It wasn't total amount of money and the total amount of recovery efforts. It was these specific immediate funds that people could get instantly so they could get hotel rooms and the like in those first few hours, those first few days. Well, what does Donald Trump done? He's like gotten rid of that. Now people are getting $0. They're not getting any sort of help from FEMA. And what, how is the way that they, they do it? Well, it's the same way that Trump kind of destroys everything and gets his people to eat it up. How does he get his people to accept getting less, to accept getting screwed? Well, he blames everything on the other. He redirects their attention. So what does Donald Trump do He says, what was the big lie during the Biden administration? He went, this FEMA money is supposed to be going to the people of North Carolina, but you know where it's going instead? Illegals, illegal immigrants. Biden's giving all your FEMA money to the illegals. That's what he would say back then. Not true in the slightest bit.

Brett Meiselas (18:47)

It.

Ben Meiselas (18:48)

But what has that lie enabled Donald Trump to do? We're going to shut down FEMA because we cannot let all this money go to support these illegals. Something not happening. Not happening. But Donald Trump used that as a way to strip away, to defund, to get rid of these programs that save people's lives. These people, Donald Trump realized, would rather be dead than even embrace the idea, even when it's fake, of money going to help brown people. That's what this is. And you talk about you could do this in kind of all subjects. Right. How did Donald Trump get his base to celebrate him taking away their health care? 17 million people on Medicaid at risk now because of this big garbage bill that was passed by the Republican Party, signed into law by Donald Trump. What was the lie that Donald Trump told? Oh, we're not cutting your Medicaid. We're cutting the Medicaid for all those illegals. 17 million illegals, yeah. I mean, it should sound ridiculous on its face, not to mention the fact that there aren't undocumented immigrants on Medicaid and federal money is only used in the rarest of emergency circumstances for undocumented people in this country. But that didn't stop Trump from lying and that didn't stop all the Trump supporters from repeating, oh, yes, no, it's not my Medicaid that's being taken away, it's the illegal's Medicaid. Yes. Okay, you could take whatever you want. It's the same scam run over and over and over because Trump knows that his base is gullible enough to believe it, because they believed it every time since then. So you got to watch the language, you got to watch what he's doing. You got to watch the redirect that is taking place. And you're really seeing right now, at the end of the day, the difference between the quiet work of actually governing like we saw during President Biden, and this, I don't know what you want to call it, disruptive, frenetic, frenzy of chaos and horrific leadership that we're seeing right now. I mean, those are the kind of two things that we're getting. And I think one is much More effective than the other. As we are seeing right now, the.

Jordy Meiselas (20:48)

Cacistocracy, the regime that is the Trump regime on full display right now. Just full on demented. Like you could tell by my fit, like I'm. This is a devastating situation that's happening in Texas right now. Devastating. Over 100 people dead or missing at the time of this recording, 27 + of which are children. I, it's, it's just so sad and it's just based on incompetence and, and I'm the expert mentality. We don't need real experts in government. No, it's, it's my way or the highway sort of. And even like the response to it has just from a human level has just been disgusting. Like Trump, you're, you're the president, man, the buck stops with you. Not every situation that happens while you're president is a one in 100 year development situation. Like it wasn't the pandemic, it wasn't this situation. There were clear signs, there were things that you could have done. There are things that, that just leaders take accountability for at the end of the day. And just seeing the like the response is just so disgusting or lack thereof has just been appalling to witness. And my heart goes out to everyone in Texas. I mean devastating stuff.

Brett Meiselas (22:02)

You know, there's no regional FEMA manager in Florida right now. I want you to think about that. We're into peak hurricane season. They don't have a regional FEMA manager. Now what would normally happen is the regional FEMA manager would be one of the main people working with the head of fema. And right now the head of FEMA has no experience in emergency personnel. The other guy didn't. But at least the other guy wanted FEMA to exist. The new FEMA guy doesn't want FEMA to exist. And then there's no regional FEMA manager. What do you think is going to happen when a hurricane hits right now? I spoke to Democratic Congressmember Jaron Moskowitz earlier and he ran emergency management for Florida before becoming a member of Congress. And he talked to me, he said, he's like, Ben, you know, go through the timeline with me of what went down in the Kerr county area. He's like, at 1am The National Weather Service, you know, issued, you know, a warning that there could be flash floods. Then a few hours later they said go to higher ground. And then evacuations look like they started sometime around 7. He's like, what was happening after 1:00am what was happening at 2:00am what was happening at 3:00am he goes, if I was in Florida and this was functioning the right way, the FEMA regional manager would be calling me right away. If I couldn't wake up. They'd be reaching out to a deputy of mine. We would all get together, we would kind of establish a war room together, the feds and the state side by side. We would then figure out, do we need to federalize some of the equipment to start, you know, preparing for disaster relief. Where do we pre position everything? What are we doing that's not just left, hey, state, good luck, call us when you need us. That's just not the way it works. And even what Kristi Noem was saying during her press conference, I mean, she made a number of admissions. One, she blamed Biden for things, I'm not even going to play you that. But here she talks about the role of the state is to run and manage the emergency. That's not true. There is a role for the state to play, but they're not the lead. They work side by side with the feds together in a joint operation here. Watch what she said.

Ben Meiselas (24:15)

Through such a time as this, and this tragic situation is something that is unprecedented. We recognize that at the federal level, we also recognize that when, when something like this happens to a community, happens to a state, that the best responders are those locally because it's your family members, it's your community members that are being impacted and you can respond quickly. And the role of the state is to run and manage that emergency. But the federal government needs to be here for the support and extra resources on the ground as well. And that is what we are doing and what President Trump has dedicated to continue to do.

Brett Meiselas (24:51)

Well, you called for, we just played the clips. You called for eliminating, eliminating those resources. And yes, the local first responders are necessary, especially with fast moving storms and very deadly situations that develop quickly. But the plan should be established at all levels. The local police, they don't have the choppers. The local police don't have the swift rescue boat, they don't have those resources. So you have to coordinate them all together and marshal resources outside. So Donald Trump was then asked over the weekend, are you going to do an investigation to find out if the cuts to the federal government left key vacancies and that that contributed to this. Are you even going to do a vet investigation? And Trump says, I already got the answer. No, that didn't happen. That's not what happened. You're unprecedented once in a hundred years. There's nothing we could have done. Here, play this. Okay.

Ben Meiselas (25:51)

Are you investigating whether some of the cuts to the government left key vacancies at the National Weather Service or the emergency Coordination?

Brett Meiselas (25:58)

They did not. They did.

Ben Meiselas (26:00)

I'll tell you, if you look at.

Brett Meiselas (26:03)

That, that what a situation that all is. And that was really the Biden setup.

Ben Meiselas (26:08)

That was not our setup.

Brett Meiselas (26:09)

But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either.

Ben Meiselas (26:11)

I would just say this is a hundred year catastrophe and it's just so horrible to watch.

Brett Meiselas (26:21)

The first instinct is to blame Biden, but then he realizes, wait, didn't we tell everybody that we had the equipment that we needed? And then the fact that he just. It should tell you everything, that he's basically ruling out the idea of an investigation. Brett, to your point, the testing, right. Just to find out what happened. We know there were key vacancies. That's an established fact. The question is, were the vacancies and were some of the other cuts to FEMA and the other cuts that have taken place to NOAA and NWS a contributing factor to the local and state government not being able to respond with the way they needed, with the federal support? We know from listening to the local state police and the local officers and the local officials, they blame the feds and they said we did not get the right resource, we did not get the right. The forecasting. We got said flash floods, but we never expected it to be of this magnitude. Now they may be just trying to throw the feds under the bus. I don't, I don't know. But I know that they're saying that. And while all of this is taking place, what is Kristi Noem posting? She's posting a poll on her Instagram asking what should be her governor portrait. Should it be the Miss Blondie version of herself or the Iceman version of herself? And Donald Trump was golfing this weekend and enjoying ice cream and like licking the ice cream in a very weird way as well. Now you go back and you look at storms, you look at tragic events like this. What would former President Biden or Obama or frankly anybody, what would they be doing? They would be in a situation room like setting. They'd be surrounded with all of their top people in like a war room. It would look like. And there are photos of Biden doing this, directly engaged and involved in every step of the way, not spending the. Could you imagine if Biden was golfing and licking ice cream cones and someone like Mayorkas was out there posting photos of himself saying, which one do I look the best? Did you like me as Ms. Blondie or Iceman. That's what they were doing. We've got a lot more to discuss on this episode. I want to talk about the Epstein files, which the Trump regime claims do not exist, never existed, even though they invited right wing influencers a few months back to the White House to hold the binder that said Epstein files phase one. I guess that was it. You've got Trump congratulating as well, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about Trump's failed trade war and more. I want to remind everybody our memberships here on YouTube are soaring right now and it's a major help in our growth. You can gift people memberships if you're already a YouTube member. Since we don't have outside investors, this is the way that we've grown and so become a member today. Gift people memberships. There's no limit to the amount of memberships you can gift. YouTube sends those memberships out to people who maybe can't afford a membership and would love to be a member. So you could gift memberships as well. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We've got a lot more to discuss.

Jordy Meiselas (29:53)

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Ben Meiselas (31:53)

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Jordy Meiselas (33:23)

Let'S go. Shout out to our sponsors links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Benji, where to next?

Brett Meiselas (33:33)

The Epstein files. Jordy, that's where to next. Which Donald Trump says don't exist, never existed, didn't have. There's no. Everybody.

Jordy Meiselas (33:43)

You're kidding.

Brett Meiselas (33:43)

There is no such thing as the Epstein files anymore, according to the Trump doj. Despite the fact that one of their main issues is that they were going to release the Epstein files. Right? That there was these, these Epstein files and they accused everybody of it. Despite the fact that being on the list, despite that we all knew that Donald Trump is all over the files. And I can say without even being fearful for a moment, that I will be sued for defamation, that Donald Trump is all over the Epstein. Donald is on the Epstein files. Donald is on the. Let me repeat it again. Donald Trump is on the Epstein files. I dare you, Donald Trump, to file a lawsuit against me for. Say you hate me, Donald. Do it. File the big. You could do a $20 billion lawsuit again. Go for a tough guy. Do a 20 billion. Trump is on the Epstein files ever. Should I keep repeating it? Because if I keep repeating it, you could just add them up if you think I'm lying. Right. 20 billion. Why not go a trillion Kusumi for a trillion dollars? Why? Because you are on the files. And why can I say that? Because I've seen them. There's been a lot of files that have been released and guess where Trump's name is on them. He's in deposition transcripts of women who have been trafficked by Epstein, who said, yeah, Epstein was on the plane. He said he was going to Trump's Atlantic City Hotel. Virginia Giuffre recently died by suicide in Australia. Where was she found to be trafficked by Epstein And Epstein's trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was also close friends with Donald Trump. And Trump wished her well at her sex traffic trial. Mar A Lago. She was an underage girl. Virginia Giuffre, who somehow found a job at Mar A Lago when she was like 17. And she was picked from Mar A Lago by Ghislaine Maxwell to be sex trafficked by fc. You know why I can say that and not worry that Donald Trump's going to sue me? Because it's true. That actually happened. Trump has said that Epstein is a great guy who likes women on the younger side. Donald Trump's on tape partying with Epstein. Trump's on the flight logs with Epstein. Epstein's been on Donald Trump's plane. Trump's brought his kids around. Epstein. I could go on and on and on about these connections over and over again. Oh, Donald Trump. What was it, Brett? Doe 172 or 170 Doe 174 or 174. Donald Trump was a Doe in the simple cases involving Epstein at Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking case. A woman who was 14 years old at the time, who now was a Jane Doe as a woman, but was a little girl, said that she was introduced to Trump when she was 14 by Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. So it'd be pretty easy if I wanted to find the Trump Epstein stuff and I wanted to make them public, right? I know exactly where to look. I told you where it is. I would know the grand jury testimony, I would know the depositions. I would say release the DOE 174 stuff. All of that stuff is, is out there. And then it was the Trump and the people who were saying that there's an Epstein list. And I'm like, okay with this list, of course Trump's name has got to be, has got to be. If, if there is a list, of course Trump's names, we know he's all, he's on all of the other stuff that I just listed for you. So it would seem to follow, wouldn't it? I mean, wouldn't that be the case? So now. And also Cash Patel, Donald Trump's head of the FBI, and Dan Bongino, this number two at the FBI. These guys were like right wing podcasters before getting these jobs at the FBI that they're not qualified for. And they were the ones who were talking out Epstein this, Epstein that. Here's what the Epstein stuff, if I was the head, I'm going to release the Epstein files right away. Well, he picked literally the Epstein investigator. He picked, he picked the people who were talking about it more than anybody. But you don't have to just take my word for it, right? Take Pam Bondi's word for it back in February, right around the time where they did that stunt at the White House where they had all the right wing influencers hold up binders that said the Epstein files. Files. They held up a binder that said the Epstein files. And they weren't the files. They were, as I mentioned, the. All it was was the phone log of Epstein that had Epstein's phone numbers in it. And it was heavily redacted. But when you saw what was produced in the Civil case. Guess whose name was on it? Trump. Epstein had, like, all of Trump's numbers, all of Trump's key contact people. So that's all they released. But we had that information many, many years ago. So Pam Bondi took heed because she said, you were going to release this. And then. So she was going on the news, and she said, look, the Epstein client list is sitting on my desk. She said, okay, well. Well, here it is. Here's. Here's what she said. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen?

Ben Meiselas (38:38)

It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files. That's all in the process of being reviewed because that was done at the directive of the president from all of these agencies.

Brett Meiselas (38:52)

So. So have you seen anything that you said? Oh, my gosh, not yet. Okay, well, we'll check back with you.

Ben Meiselas (39:01)

And, Ben, let's just be clear about the language that the Fox hosts use. When he asked that question, what she was was responding to there. He specifically asked, not even broadly about the Epstein files, which I guess could give her a little bit of COVID He said, do you have the Epstein client list? And she says, yes, I have the Epstein client list, and it's on my desk right now. You don't get much clearer than that. And when I think about the situation, it truly is like the dog that caught the car, right? The dog that caught the truck. Because they've been chasing this thing the whole time. And I guess this was a great way to get their followers to, you know, they know their followers are many of them, like, kind of chasing conspiracies. And there is a lot of lore behind this story over here. And so they knew that they could dangle these Epstein files out to these people. Now, the thing that always baffled me about it is exactly what Pen's been saying. Why do you do that when your guy was literally Jeffrey Epstein's best friend? When the recruiting for Epstein took place at Mar A Lago, when Mar A Lago was roughly one mile away from Jeffrey Epstein's mansion in Palm Beach. These aren't just coincidences, people. So the fact that they kept floating this over and over again, it was only a matter of time before this all backfired in their face. I mean, how do you say that? It's on my desk, and I have it, and I've seen it. How do you go from that to saying oh, actually it does not exist. And I'm of the belief that, you know, there are of course, the Epstein files, thousands and thousands and thousands of of pages detailing the various behavior of Epstein and clients and people like Donald Trump and other folks. That for certain is a thing, the thing that I've always kind of been doubtful of personally, that there's just a one page list which I think a lot of people are envisioning, that says Epstein's pedophile clients and has a list of names. And you see the mag of people constantly spreading that that's the case. And they'll make up like they'll write on Microsoft Word. They'll just write people they don't like. Right.

Brett Meiselas (40:57)

That the Epstein list document Oprah, Jimmy.

Ben Meiselas (41:01)

Kimmel, Tom Hanks, Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus was there when she was two years old. I don't know what are you talking about here? But that's what they do. They use that to smear people. They use it to smear their political enemies. Yet when there's actual close ties between Donald Trump and the guy, they go, oh, that's fake news. No, actually my favorite of the lies is, oh no, Donald Trump was actually so close to Epstein because he was monitoring him and he wanted to make sure that he wasn't doing anything. Okay.

Brett Meiselas (41:30)

As he said.

Ben Meiselas (41:30)

So Trump is a secret agent actually trying to root out Epstein from the Palm beach scene. Got it. That makes a whole lot of sense. A. And so now we're in the situation where they, you know, here, here's the issue. Whether there's a list like that or no list. Pam Bondi stated unequivocally that she did have the list and that the list was on her desk. So now just a few months later to say no list and the investigations closed. Nothing else to see here. Please do not ask I ask me any more questions about this. That to me is a massive red flag that even the most MAGA blinded sheep should be able to go, that's, that's a, that's weird. I was kind of promised, it's kind of promised that all this stuff now it doesn't exist. Like, and you're starting to see a little bit of questioning at least from a few of the MAGA faithful going, this is weird. And, and of course they never blame Trump for it. They go, Pam Bondi needs to be fired. It's all Pam Bondi's fault. You understand what's going on here. You understand the protection scheme that you are playing a role in right now? You are the ones who are actually protecting these high profile people. And don't get me. Oh, but they just don't want. Cause they're the Democrats. I don't give a shit who else is on this supposed list, okay? Released the list, released the names. You won't, you won't let anybody know because you made up these lies and now they are coming back to haunt you.

Jordy Meiselas (42:58)

Well said, B. And I just want to add this, and I make no apologies for viewing these things under this light. And I implore our audience to as well. I feel like it should actually be a separate segment of the show.

Ben Meiselas (43:09)

Right?

Jordy Meiselas (43:10)

Imagine, Imagine if Biden did it. Imagine if Biden did this. Imagine if the DOJ and FBI under Biden just, just said like randomly one day over the weekend, over the holiday weekend. They're just like, hey, you know that Epstein thing that everyone's been talking about for, you know, the last couple, couple years here, there. By the way, there was no list. And also the guy died by suicide. All right, Happy Monday, everybody. Happy Monday. And they just kneel the football on this. This is insane. And this should actually really anger everyone. I don't. Again, just like what Brett said. I don't care if you were Democrat. I don't care if you're a Republican.

Ben Meiselas (43:43)

Like you should be.

Jordy Meiselas (43:44)

Should want to know if there is a list out there that exists that had these high profile people's names on it. We should be able to know who was on that damn list because those people are a danger to society. They have no place in the society. Absolutely not. Disgusting. And we need to know, especially if the President of the United States had a close relationship with this person. Especially if there's countless videos and photos and interactions, flight logs, where the president in this current situation was around this, this disgusting human being. It just speaks to the like the moral or the lack of morals that we're seeing from this Trump regime. They don't have any morals.

Ben Meiselas (44:26)

Right.

Jordy Meiselas (44:26)

They don't take any ownership for if anything goes bad. It wasn't me. I don't know. You have to ask them. I haven't heard about it. Oh, just, you know, that's a bad thing. Let's move on from this because the.

Ben Meiselas (44:35)

Goal is always to weaponize this against their political enemies. It's not to actually find the truth. Truth, yes. They like to position themselves as where these great truth seekers. Right. So we, we need this information. Well, the information is all kind of pointing in one direction, but so what do they do? They create the fake list and they go, oh, it's actually Oprah and it's actually Miley Cyrus, and it's actually, you know, they. They smear these people with these lies when the truth all points in one direction. And by the way, I will certainly say, just because somebody is on a Epstein flight list seven times, just because somebody, plus a dozen plus of Donald Trump's numbers are in Epstein's little black book. And I could go on and on and on because Mar A Lago was used as a. As a place to recruit younger, young girls. I'm not even saying that Donald Trump is implicated at this by any means. I'm not saying that that makes him guilty by any means. But I will say the guy has far more connections to this man who, who himself said that he was Donald Trump's best friend on recording. And Michael Wolff's recordings said that he was Donald Trump's best friend. And Trump would see it that way as well. When there are all those connections and you just don't give a shit about that, but you're using all this to try to smear other people, and then the truth comes out and you're just like, oh, like, okay, whatever. Then I realize that you actually don't care about the facts here.

Brett Meiselas (45:52)

And the facts are Donald Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse. Donald Trump is on an audio recording bragging about sexually assaulting women. And he says, when you're a rich man like he is, you can do it. They let you. They let you do it when you're rich and famous. That's what he said. And then he says, that's locker room talk. That's how. That's how guys speak. That's not how guys speak. That's how sexual abusers like. Like you speak. And he was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. Now, Donald Trump, though, and the regime realized that they couldn't release even a small portion of the files because the moment they released a small portion, then you go, okay, well, why are you only releasing that small portion? As I told you, I, as the lawyer in this case, would know exactly where to go to get the Trump stuff. I would know the grand jury testimony based on what's public. I would go to the DOE 174 stuff in the civil cases. I can tell you, based on. I know where a lot of the stuff that hasn't been released would be. Again, I don't know what it's going to say, but I at least know where. So the moment you release the little. You would then have you would then open yourself up for the broader cover up. Why'd you only release that? So they. And also, if you released a little, the people who are probably implicated are probably also Trump's buddies, You know, probably a lot of billionaire friends who support Donald Trump. So which portions do you release here? And then you would just have a never ending news cycle of it. So what the Trump regime hopes is that cable news will stop talking about this and that this will just go away and they'll have a few bad days of talking about it. And then Donald Trump will talk about invading Greenland or opening up crocodile Alcatraz after Alligator Alcatraz, or he'll move on to the next one, and then people will forget. That's why at the Midas Touch Network, I focus on this every other day. And you might be like, ben, why for the past six months? Frankly, I've been doing it for the past three years. I get it. Why do you keep running Epstein stories every two days? You know, because I need to keep it front and center for precisely the reason about what's happening now. And I think it's a civic duty that I am. That I am doing that also. One of the things the Trump regime released was a surveillance footage which purports to be taken outside of the area where the prison where Epstein died by suicide. And if you look at the timestamp below, it skips from 1158, 58 to 12. It just literally skips a full. A full minute. And there's really no explanation about why it skips a full minute. And remember, Epstein died during the first Trump administration. And remember then there were like two surveillance. Remember all the stories. Two of the surveillance cameras were broken.

Ben Meiselas (48:39)

And they said there was no footage. There was all.

Brett Meiselas (48:41)

There's no footage at all. So that's where we're at there. Now I want to move on to talk about Trump's disastrous trade war against the world, where he's done no deals and now he is issuing letters that look like they were written by, no offense to fifth graders. You would do a much better job. But if you were told to cosplay an idiotic president as a fifth grader, you would write a better letter than this. So he's sending letters to all of these countries seemingly at random, and including countries that we have free trade agreements with, like South Korea. And he's imposing these, these, these tariffs on them. 25, 30, 45. And he goes, I did a deal, everybody. I made a deal. Mommy, look what I did.

Ben Meiselas (49:27)

Mommy, I made a deal.

Brett Meiselas (49:29)

What you're sending a letter to countries. It's not a deal. What are you even talking about? And I, I just, when we get back, I want to read for you the letter and I want to role play with you of thinking if you're the leader of Japan, okay, and you get a letter like this, what you would do if I got a letter like this from, I don't know, I'm just trying to think of, you know, who sends me letters today, who sends letters anyway. So if I got, if I got a letter from anybody and I read this, I would be like, I would go to my wife and I'd be like, yo, is this person's like, unwell? Like, this is like, I can't even imagine what, like Prime Minister Asheba. Did you guys see what he just sent us? I'll show you that and more. I want to remind you all your memberships have played such a huge part in our continuing growth here at the Midas touch network on YouTube. So become a member. Gift memberships to others who maybe can't afford memberships. Unlimited gifts you can give. Don't worry, YouTube figures out how they delegate those memberships and that helps grow this independent media platform. So consider doing that also. You may be noticing I'm sitting on my chair. Let's go higher episode. That's big growth for my L5s. One herniated disc tear right there.

Ben Meiselas (50:49)

So if you missed some podcasts, Ben said a really bad back injury injury still has it, but we're making progress here. And the fact that Ben's been doing hot takes, literally on his knees, on a blanket, a pillow. What have you been using over there?

Brett Meiselas (51:00)

So we will be able to do a Patreon soon. Now that I can sit after the episode, give me like, let me recuperate for like a few more days, everybody, and then I'll be ready to go right from show into Patreon. I'm, I'm almost feel comfortable to, to do that. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show and then I'll show you Donald Trump's fifth grade letters.

Ben Meiselas (51:20)

Mommy, I made a deal.

Brett Meiselas (51:22)

Oh, boy.

Jordy Meiselas (51:25)

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Brett Meiselas (54:26)

Went from 90 deals in 90 days to 0 deals and Trump sending bizarre letters to countries further humiliating our once great country country I can't believe that we're reduced to this. And don't go, oh, Ben, I'm going to fact check you. He did a deal with the uk he did a deal with Vietnam. So he did. He did a deal with China. No, he didn't. Okay? Those aren't deals. A deal is 500 pages, a thousand pages. Trade deals are very specific. So don't tell me that those are trade deals. Okay? All we basically did with the UK Is give them preferential treatment for Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Land Rover over American car manufacturers, since American car manufacturers have manufacturing bases in Mexico and Canada and are tariffed at a higher price. Okay, Vietnam. All Donald Trump did was a social media post, okay, that said the tariffs went from, I don't know, what were they, 40%. They went to 20% and then they're 40% if you go for. From China to Vietnam. What that was about is Vietnam allowed Donald Trump to build a Trump resort over, like, graveyards there or something like, like in a near Ho Chi Minh City. And so Trump did a deal for his family to manage property, which they'll probably just collect a licensing fee and just make it. Make a ton of money. But then I like the way Trump's like, and now the markets in Vietnam will be open to all of our American products. We're going to flood Vietnam with all of these American products. You know, like all of these countries, like Myanmar, for example, which Donald Trump is like, we run a deficit with Myanmar. I don't even know what the trading relationship with Myanmar is, but I can pretty much guarantee you that Myanmar can't afford a lot of American products. That's why there are deficits with developing countries. They don't have. We can. We buy their cheaper products, and that's a benefit. And then our manufacturers take those. There's complex assembly lines that develop, that develop products. But a deficit is not a tariff on the United States.

Ben Meiselas (56:35)

We're a pretty big country. Like, we're much, we're much bigger than Myanmar. Like, just naturally there's going to be a deficit there, most likely. Right? We can all agree on that.

Brett Meiselas (56:44)

So, so, so Donald Trump starts sending these letters out and he's like, south Africa, you get a 30% tariff. Kazakhstan, 20. I don't know how he chose these countries. Kazakhstan, 25%. Myanmar. See, I wasn't making Myanmar up 40%. And he writes a letter to, like, the leader of Myanmar. Japan, 25%. By the way, Trump did a trade deal with Japan in 2019. There was a deal with them A Trump deal with them that said the parties would always work in good faith not to undermine the agreement. South Korea, we have a free trade agreement with Trump's tariffing them 25%. Malaysia, 25%. And then Donald Trump's like, you know, Japan puts all of these tariffs on US Automobiles, like, no, they don't. They just don't want to buy our automobiles. They don't put tariffs on us. It's based on all of these, like, lies and false premises also. And. And so he did those countries. What other countries did he put that. Tunisia, 25%, Bosnia, 30%.

Jordy Meiselas (57:47)

Doesn't it feel like he's just like. Like, like putting his hand in, like a hat and like, pulling it out names and numbers and like that.

Ben Meiselas (57:55)

He basically is right, because he promised 99, you know, 90 deals in 90 days. We're past that already. And so now he's trying to kind of run up the score and claim that he's made 90 plus deals, but all he's doing is posting letters on social media, which, by the way, look like they may have been generated with AI. I didn't. Like. They're. They're horribly. AI would do a better job, honestly. These are horribly written letters.

Brett Meiselas (58:17)

Let me read. Just. Let me. Let me read to our. I have to. To. I'll be brief with it. Let me re.

Ben Meiselas (58:23)

You've got. Ben, you've got no choice.

Brett Meiselas (58:25)

I have no choice. I am. I am cornered. Like, I am cornered. Okay. Dear. This is to Prime Minister Ashiba of Japan. How are. Now, I want you to think about it. If you were Prime Minister Ashiba of Japan and you got a letter like this, what would your response be? Dear Prime Minister, it is a great honor for me to send you this letter in that it demonstrates the strength and commitment of our trading relationship and the fact that the United States of America has agreed to continue working with Japan. Pause there. What. What are you even talking about? It is a great honor. We've continued to work with Japan, their country. What are you talking about? Now? Japan is the biggest investor in America of any country. They're the biggest employer of Americans from any country. They hold more United States treasury bonds than any country by far. The next closest is China. Japan holds like 400 billion more in treasuries than China does. We are continuing doing business. That's how this letter starts. Okay. Then it goes on to say the following.

Ben Meiselas (59:39)

Doing.

Brett Meiselas (59:40)

Despite having a significant trade deficit with your country. Nevertheless, we have decided to move forward with you. We've decided to move forward with you. What does that even mean? We've decided to move forward with you, but only with more balanced and fair trade. And trade is randomly capitalized. Therefore we invite you to participate in the extraordinary economy of the United States. And that's all capitalized. I'm not sure why the economy of the United States States the number one market in the world that's all capitalized or the first letters capitalized by far. We have had years to discuss our trading relationship with Japan and have concluded that we must move away from these long term and very persistent trade deficits engendered by Japan's tariff and non tariff policies and trade barriers. Our relationship has been unfortunately far from reciprocal and reciprocals capital. The auras. Starting on August 1st, 2025, we will charge Japan a tariff of only 25% on any and all Japanese products sent into the United States separate from all sectoral tariffs. First off, what the hell does that even mean? And then number two, you go on to you move the deadline from July 9 to August 1 and then you're not charging Japan. It is a tax on the American importer goods tranship to evade a higher tariff will be subject to that higher tariff. And like tariffs like randomly capitalize the T. Please understand that the 25% number is far less than what is needed to eliminate the trade deficit disparity we have with your country. As you are aware, there will be no tariff if Japan or companies within your country decide to build or manufacture product within the United States. And in fact we will do everything possible to get approvals quickly, professionally and routinely. In other words, in a matter of weeks. I can go on, but you get the point. What the hell did I even read right there? And this is why if you're Japan's trade negotiators or, or whoever, how do you do a deal with this? This when they view the essence of the fact that Americans are buying more from Japan than Japan is buying from America as a form of a tariff by Japan against the United States. And until Japan reshapes its economy and builds all of these factories in the United States, the US is going to impose a tariff on Japan and declare a trade war on Japan which is basically just attacks tax on the American consumer. And then you go to countries like you say, like a Brazil or an Australia where actually the deficits are in the opposite direction. America doesn't have the deficit, the other countries do. And Trump doesn't really treat those countries any differently either. You know, you look at South Korea where there's a free trade Agreement also the Trump, the Trump regime is speaking one incoherently, dangerously. And, and, and it just embarrassed. Who wrote this thing? And this shouldn't be again a, like, it shouldn't be like, oh, Ben, you're so lived out. Like, what a liberal man. I don't understand what the hell I'm even re. What I just read to you. That shouldn't be a Democratic position. You know, and, and then they go on. What do we have? Do we have. Do, do, do we have this, we have this clip right here of Peter Navarro. Do we have the clip of Peter Navarro? One attacking. I'll show you two Navarro clips. One attacking Federal Reserve Chairman Powell for a slumping economy, saying that the reason that our economy isn't doing good now is we told you this was going to happen. You know, he's gonna, they're gonna blame Powell first. Let's play this clip if we got it. Powell is doing the same thing he did with the first term of Donald Trump. He doesn't understand Trump nomics. He doesn't understand the supply side aspects of tax cuts and deregulation. He doesn't understand the importance of strategic energy dominance and the president's ability to dramatically lower oil prices. And he doesn't have a clue about tariffs. I don't know. First off, he does. He's like the only. And Trump appointed him. That was Trump's appointee. And here's Navarro. Our friend Carl Quintanilla asked Navarro. So 90 deals in 90 days didn't happen, huh? What happened? Was that a mistake? Was that more aspirational? And then Navarro. And here's why you can't have legitimate conversations with these sociopaths. They go, no, we did it. This is what we wanted. This was the plan the whole time. All right, I can't even talk to you people like, there's no having logical discussions with these people. Here's Navarro again. I've always, I've always wanted to ask you for the last 90 days about your comment on April 7th when you said 90 deals were possible in 90 days. We're almost up. And I just wonder was you're thinking at the time that it really was an aspirational number or are you kind of disappointed in two? For now, I'm happy with, with the progress we've had because every country that we run on a major deficit with is fully engaged. I think what we're learning from the negotiations is simply, Carl, how difficult it is for these countries to give up the advantage they have over us. And so therein lies the tale. I think the negotiations are proceeding well. And, and by the way, the tariff revenues are coming in and really helping this conversation country. First off, the tariff revenues are taxes on American companies and they're being passed on to consumers. Anybody had a barbecue or bought food for July 4th, you know that the prices are up. Despite the Trump regime saying there's no tariffs, that the tariffs are not causing price increase or there's no inflation. There clearly is inflation. We know that there that that inflation is rising. And then the one other thing, and then Brett and Jordy, I'll toss it to you, he goes with all of these countries that are gaining this advantage over us. America was the richest country in the world by far. The other countries did not have an advantage over us. They envied America's economy. They didn't envy all aspects of America. Let's be very clear. But there's a reason why the dollar was the reserve currency of the world world. And now the dollar is at its worst start since 1973. Why Taurus don't want to come into the United States anymore. There's a reason why foreign investors wanted to move their money into the United States and buy American real estate. And that's not happening. America's economy was the envy of the world. And there was a pretty simple pact that was made with the world after World War II. And it was America was going to basically provide security in the world and preserve and protect the free world. That's why the leader of the United States was called the leader of the free world. And kind of in response, America would be able to become one of the richest countries or the richest country in the history of the world, which America became. And as we became the richest country in the history of the world, we saw with a lot of Republican policies as well. But, you know, you could say a lot of policies in general, we forgot about the working class. We forgot about the people CEOs and billionaires got. They, they hoarded all of their money. This disastrous budget bill makes it the largest redistribution of all. But the richest country in the world was the United States of America. And now Donald Trump has violated the security in the world and the fact that America was the richest in the world by viewing all these other countries, which were not richer than the United States, as being the rich ones, which they weren't, and he's destroying our country. That's where we're at.

Ben Meiselas (68:01)

Brett Jordan, this is why I refuse to, you know, stop covering Donald Trump's lies and fact checking and to do what we do because, you know, I know a lot of people are like, we get it, he's a liar. So what? Well, as I say often on the show, the lies have consequences. And the way Donald Trump and this regime weaponize their lies is really no different than the way Vladimir Putin weaponizes his lies. And then he uses it to do really horrific stuff. And so for example, what did Putin say before he went into Ukraine? We got to denazify Ukraine. That was the thing that he would say constantly. That was his Trump esque lie that led him to actually invade Ukraine. That's what he did there. While Trump does that about literally everything. And then he uses those lies as predicate to do whatever he wants. And oftentimes those lies kind of force the regime to take action. That is just so awful and horrific because they now feel the need. Well, we said there was this awful problem. So we now have to act, to act like we are solving that problem that we completely fabricated and made up. And some things are just kind of red herrings, some things are just outright lies. But you could go through the list here. Like this whole trade deficit concept in which these tariffs are, are, are based on, to me is just idiotic.

Brett Meiselas (69:12)

In the first place.

Ben Meiselas (69:13)

You're going to have trade deficits with some countries. You're going to have trade surpluses with other countries. You know, not everybody is going to want to buy American goods. And Americans like buying goods from a lot of other countries. Of course, countries that don't have as much money of us from us are not going to be buying from the United States as much as we're going to be buying their cheap products. That's just how things are going to be. So Donald Trump hatches this entire tariff scheme to try to even the playing field, even though that's something that's never going to happen. And in fact, if Donald Trump just sat there, wrote out Biden's economy, guess what? We would be seeing interest rates come down right now. We would be seeing the housing market continuing to boom. We would be seeing the dollar continuing to be strong. All those economic indicators that were increasing would still be going in that direction. But the reason they're not right now is because Donald Trump reversed them all. When Donald Trump spread the lie about they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. He used that to weaponize it, to denaturalize U.S. citizens. He stepped in. That's why we're seeing these Haitian citizens being denaturalized by the administration. That's why we're seeing Trump go into these communities in Florida, Cuban communities. That's why we're Venezuelan communities. So we're seeing all across the country this denaturalization effort. It's based, once again on Donald Trump's lies, which are no different than Vladimir Putin saying, we need to denazify Ukraine. He did it just here in Los Angeles. I live in Los Angeles. Ben's here in Los Angeles. Donald Trump said that the city was. Was burning down because there are all these riots and the city is going to fall. The city is going to collapse unless I send in the military. I better send in the Marines. I better send. I better federalize the National Guard. All of that was based off of lies. But Donald Trump feels the need to both be the arsonist and the individual who puts out the fire. By the way, I could go to Foreign policy, too, and talk about Iran. And, you know, this. Iran is threatening us and there's about to be a nuclear war and they're about. About to attack us. So we now need to do an attack. He uses false information constantly. It's like that whole concept of the tail wagging the dog. That's what Donald Trump does all the time. I mean, I go back to the LA fires, but you get the point. Trump lies, and then he needs to take drastic action in order to say that he solved these fake problems that he's come up with. And 99.9% of the time, I might even put it at 100% of the time, he ends up making an issue worse. He does not solve the actual problems that a normal government official would actually be solving. And he terrorizes the people as he does it, and his base may eat it up. But I know people right now are feeling the chaos of this administration. I think when there's a through line through all the things that Trump has done, people just see chaos over and over and over again. Chaos, rudderlessness. When you see these tariff letters, that's just like an incompetent administration. And how humiliating to be writing these letters. And one of the letters, Ben and Jordy, like, he, he, it was a. A female prime minister, I believe that he was sending a letter to and, and he wrote. Or a president. And he wrote Mr. President on the letter. Like, these were not proofread. These were not edited. They were ridiculous. If I were a world leader and I saw this, I would just look at it and laugh and rip it up. It's just an embarrassing display of weakness on the global stage. Weakness that we've never shown As a country, usually our. Our strength was to be able to build alliances with other countries. Our.

Brett Meiselas (72:27)

Our.

Ben Meiselas (72:27)

Our strength was being a free trade partner with other countries. Our strength was being a global presence in the world and being respected with both soft power and hard power. Donald Trump has thrown it all away in just a matter of months.

Jordy Meiselas (72:42)

Well said for me, too. It just boils down to this. There are just absolutely zero redeeming qualities to this Trump regime, to this administration. I mean, they're the least competent, just, least patriotic administrations that I've truly seen ever on full display. They're only in it for themselves, and yet they use the military or. Or they use these communities as shields and weapons to only protect them. And for me, like, it's so upsetting to see, but that's why I love the Midas Mighty. That's why I love what we do here, and that's why I'm so thankful for this pro democracy community. So thank you guys for tuning in every single day, because we're going to hold truth to power here, here, and we're going to show you all of these lies, and we're going to take you step by step. And not one thing is going to get past us. And I know not one thing is going to get past y'. All. Like, it's too important. It goes back to what I said earlier in the show. We could walk and chew gum at the same time. We could talk about his disastrous handling of the flooding, or just no handling at all. No competency over there. We could also talk about Pam Bondi kneeling on the Epstein files in this. And then we could also go through these ridiculous letters that he's sending to these world leaders, just further embarrassing us as a country, as a people. It's ridiculous. And it goes to what Steve Bannon used to say, Brett, to your point, just flood the zone with shit. Just flood it. You know, they'll be too tired. People will be too tired to pay attention to anything. Maybe that was the case in 2016. Maybe. Maybe. But that's why I'm so grateful for all of our listeners and viewers here, because y' all aren't too tired. In fact, you guys love taking these receipts and sharing them with your communities, your families, your friends, your co workers, whomever you have in your circle. So please take of care.

Brett Meiselas (74:22)

Take.

Jordy Meiselas (74:22)

Take the receipts that we brought in this episode back to whomever you think you know needs to see them. I'm really grateful for y'. All.

Ben Meiselas (74:29)

And by the way, let me just show you quickly some of these Comments that somebody just sent me this. These are from Truth Social, and these are comments about the Epstein stuff. Like I said, this was something that the Trumpers were fed constantly. You know that we're going to release these files. We promise. You know, the government's hiding something from you, and we're going to be the ones to release it. And now we're looking at Truth Social comments to Donald Trump. Trump, Donald Trump's own social media app, and they are not very positive. We're seeing comments like this. We're not buying into the whole Epstein issue right now, boss. If there was no list evidence guilty parties, why then is the G Lady Ghislaine in prison for trafficking? Why is your D Another comment? Why is your DOJ and FBI protecting pedophiles? Another person? Where is all of the evidence? Another comment from Patriot for Life. We were lied to again. And so you see this going on and on and on. So this is actually one of the. Those stories in the Epstein situation that actually does appear to be breaking through on the mag side of things.

Jordy Meiselas (75:23)

I haven't seen comments like these, Brett, since the Elon. The Elon rift.

Ben Meiselas (75:28)

Yeah. No, no, that's doing waves, no doubt about it. Yeah, this, this, you know, there are certain things that they can't kind of propagandize their way out of because they've propagandized their way into them a little bit too much. There are a few issues like that. This is one of them, because you could argue in many ways that Trump got in a weird, sick way that he was able to weaponize this issue to get into power. And it's just a bizarre thing to me because if there's anybody who is more tied to this thing, you know, it's him. And so the fact that he could kind of try to flip this and act like he is like the protector of the situation is crazy to me. But when you see, you know, all this sort of evidence back to back to back to back, should at least raise some eyebrows and have people saying, hmm, that's kind of weird. I know, it's kind of weird. Also, you know, why did Trump randomly send out a post praising Dan Bongino and Cash Patel today after the Epstein case was deemed to be done like this kind of a weird timing to all of a sudden write how great Dan Bongino and Cash Patel is? Here was a Trump tweet today. The FBI, under the direction of Director Cash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, is back to basics. Locking up criminals and cleaning up America's streets. We have the greatest law enforcement professionals in the world. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's all to say, you know, don't worry maga. They're focused on the real, don't worry about Epstein stuff. They're going to be focused on the real things. They're going to be getting the criminals. I think some MAGA people are even seeing that right now, or going, that's not what I was promised. That's for sure.

Brett Meiselas (77:00)

One last thing I want to talk about is the Trump regime sending a militarized ICE and federal agents looking like they were going to war through MacArthur park, which is a park in Los Angeles that's frequented by a lot of immigrants, people who are here lawfully and potentially people who are undocumented. But it's a vibrant area in the community, regardless of, I don't question who's here, whatever. I mean, it's where people play sports, play Frisbee soccer games, summer camps. There are vendors that set up around, that set up around the area. People bicycle around. I go there. It's a, it's a nice, it's, it's a nice park, you know, and it's an area where people hang out, especially in the summer. And there's a lot of immigrants who work nearby and in the surrounding shops and stores. And so the Trump regime sent, you know, these ICE agents dressed up like they were military. I mean, right out of a horror movie or right out of a scene you would expect to see in, in like Iraq or Afghanistan with, with American troops being there and just, and just did this like military walkthrough and parade to try to harass and intimidate and, and threaten the, you know, the community and, and to terrorize Los Angeles? I mean, that, that's what Donald Trump's doing to today threat and turn, terrorize la. It's, it's going to your point, Jordy, this regime is fascist, authoritarian, idiotic, all, all wrapped into one. And the world is looking at. Could you imagine if that was a scene from another country, what we would say about that other country if that was happening in Canada?

Ben Meiselas (78:48)

Can you imagine the MAGA reaction going back to what Jordy said? Can you imagine the MAGA reaction if President Joe Biden was sending in the military into Texas like this and kicking kids out of parks while they're playing in parks wearing full military garb, saying that we're in charge now? You think those states rights people would be okay with that? You think they'd be cheering them on the way they're cheering them on. Right now, Donald Trump has got the quote unquote states rights. People, people. And I always knew this was bullshit. So don't, don't be like, oh, there were never states rights. I know that, okay? But Donald Trump has gotten all these people to now root for a police state, to root for a militarized police state, to root for a government that is putting Palantir in charge in order to go through your data and assemble this AI data on you. They're rooting for Elon Musk to put chips in your brain like this has to be. These people need to be laughing their asses off that they were able to convince, convince the stay off me government people to have chips implanted in their brains and have military on their streets and have their services cut. They must be laughing their off about how easy these people were to dupe. And so if you don't realize it yet, maga and you happen to catch this broadcast, let me tell you something. You are the mark. You are the mark in the Jeffrey Epstein situation. You are the mark with that big beautiful bill that Donald Trump calls it. You could say, oh, the bill was passed. Guess who's getting hurt? People who need health care. I'm sure a lot of that is you, okay? So keep laughing all you want. Keep celebrating. You're not really winning, okay? You know who's taken this all the way to the bank? The billionaires who are manipulating you. You are doing their bidding and quite frankly, it's embarrassing and you gotta snap out of it.

Brett Meiselas (80:32)

I wanna remind everybody that the Midas Touch Network has grown with zero outside investors and we've been able to grow because of you. One of the best ways you can help is by becoming a member of this YouTube channel. YouTube makes it super simple. You just click the member button and then you can gift memberships to other people who maybe can't afford memberships if you're already a member. Unlimited amounts of memberships that you can gift. It goes a long way to help our independent media network and we are grateful for all of your support support there. Also check out Midasplus.com that's our substack and we've got a lot of great articles there run by our editor in chief, Ron Philipowski. Also leave a five star review on the audio podcast if you're watching this on YouTube. For those listening on audio still, leave a five star review. We have a lot of those Joe Rogan fans who like to go in there and give us one star reviews to bring down our rankings. So if you can give us a five star review, it really goes a long way to help. Subscribe on audio end on YouTube and go to Store Midas Touch to get that Midas Touch gear. You never know when Jordy will randomly do a sale and not tell Brett and me about it. Not yet, but I expect one may be coming in a few in a few weeks. Store.midas touch.com thank you everybody for watching. We're going to keep leading. All cable news, all news, all independent news, you name it. We're beating Fox, we're beating Rogan. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to your memberships. We're appreciative. We're grateful.

Ben Meiselas (82:05)

Grateful for it.

Brett Meiselas (82:06)

Keep checking in on the YouTube feed as we head to 6 million subscribers. Obviously you know new videos keep getting uploaded throughout the day. Jordy, take it away.

Jordy Meiselas (82:14)

Shout out to the Midas mighty.

Brett Meiselas (82:18)

Standing strong.

Ben Meiselas (82:23)

Against the fascist we sing our.

Brett Meiselas (82:26)

Song.

Jordy Meiselas (82:33)

Can'T get enough Midas. Check out the Midas plus substack for ad Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com.