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Benji
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Benji
See mint mobile.com Donald Trump is absolutely cratering. In a new Quinnipiac poll and all the other big pollsters out there. His overall approval right now is at 38%. That disapproval number at 54%. When you go through the various cross tabs like Trump on the economy, only 39 approved on trade, 39% approved on National Guard into cities, 42% approved on immigration, which Trump and MAGA claim is his best issue, 41%. As Greg Sargent says, Trump is weak, unpopular and failing treat him that way. And now Donald Trump is bringing the United States government to the verge of a shutdown. A shutdown will take place on October 1st unless an agreement is reached between Republicans and Democrats. But the key word there is agree. And Donald Trump has previously ordered Republicans do not speak to Democrats yet alone negotiate, have no contact. You know how a petulant child, no offense to petulant child, puts their hands on their ears and goes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I can't hear you. I can't hear you. That's what Donald Trump told Republicans to do. And, and MAGA Mike Johnson carried out the order and they need Democratic votes in the Senate in order to pass a funding bill. So what is Donald Trump out there now saying? Trans, migrants, crime. That's what Democrats want. It's not what Democrats want. The only thing that Democrats have asked for, and frankly, the real debate should be if Democrats should have asked for more, is Democrats said, look, the Affordable Care act tax credits are set to expire very soon. So we already know Medicaid has been gutted by the disastrous budget bill. Medicare is in jeopardy based on the disastrous budget bill. But the Affordable Care act tax credits for your premiums are set to expire very soon, meaning your monthly premiums are about to skyrocket. So it's a pretty limited demand that the Democrats have made. Again, who one may debate, should the Democrats be asking for a lot more? But they're not. And Trump saying, I don't even want to meet with you. Right. There was supposed to be a meeting to take place today between the Democratic leader Jeffries in the House, Chuck Schumer in the Senate, Donald Trump and Senator Thume, the majority leader in the Senate for Republicans, as well as MAGA Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and Trump just canceled it. Then Trump posted this long, rambling message and. And says, on further reflection, why would I ever even want to meet with Democrats? Their demands are outrageous. I'm not meeting with them at all. So he canceled the meeting. So I just want to get the facts out there. It's undisputed. Trump told the maga, republicans do not speak with Democrats. They did not speak with Democrats. Donald Trump posted. I'm putting up the post here, so if you don't believe me, you could read it for yourself. Cancel the meeting with the Democrats. We should not be meeting at the White House. Well, if you do that, this is the result. But you see, I think that Donald Trump wants the shutdown to take place. I actually think, and I'm not trying to be conspiratorial here, a lot of it's actually rooted in the Epstein file discharge petition. You know, Democrats now have their 218th signature on this. Frankly, it's a relatively bipartisan discharge petition in that it comes from Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna and Republican Republican from Kentucky, Thomas Massie. But Adelitra Gavalha, she is the Democratic congresswoman from Arizona. Congresswoman elect. She won this past week, by the way. She outperformed her late great father and outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris BY like, what, like, 25 points? Again, we're seeing Democratic over performance. She should be sworn in right away. Now MAGA Mike Johnson is saying, well, we may have to wait until we get the official results. Like, she beat her opponent in Arizona, the Republican, by like, 45 points. And now Maga Mike wants to change the rules about. About swearing her in because she signs the discharge petition, and then there would be a vote on the Epstein files to take place forthwith. So one of the reasons, I think, as well, is I think there is a connection there. I think that's part of the story. Not all of it. I think the broader story is Donald Trump realizes he's destroying the economy right now. He sees the indicators. He sees how unpopular he is, and he wants to go back to the playbook. You go back to the maga. Well, right, you go. You roll out your greatest hits, attacking marginalized communities. The Democrats shut it down because of trans. Because of trans. Transgender for everybody. Transgender for everybody. What does it even mean, transgender forever? What the hell are you talking? Just bullying a marginalized community. The migrants, they want to give health care to the migrant. No, Democrat, frankly, the people who are suffering the most right now are like a lot of Trump voters. Like farmers right now who are going bankrupt and Trump wants to do a bailouts for them. The affordable Medicaid rather, in a lot of these red states is going to be impacting a lot of Republicans and Democrats as well. The Affordable Care act is something that lots of millions and millions of Americans rely on. That's the Democratic s. But then Donald Trump and his MAGA sycophants are also out there saying, well, if there's a shutdown, we're going to fire lots of government employees. If you thought what Doge did in its first wave was bad, if you force a shutdown, we're going to fire more government employees. So they're also using it as a pretext to gut the government even more. And Donald's face it, Donald Trump wants to shut down because he just wants to operate as a full dictator with, without the government even existing just in Donald Trump. And he wants a convenient person or entity to blame. So he's going to say Democrats are the reason the economy suffering. I was getting us a golden age, but Democrats are the reason. So let me bring in Brett and Jordy. I want to bring out the receipts as well right here about what Trump is saying. I want to talk about what Trump has said in the past that the president, he was saying Obama's to blame if Obama didn't negotiate with the Republicans back in 2013 and and 2011. So I'll bring out those receipts. Then we should talk about a bunch of other stuff too. Trump bailing out Argentina Right now, the MAGA Libertarian President Javier Malay, who Trump said and MAGA said was going to be so great for the Argentina economy. So America is now bailing out farmers because Trump destroyed the livelihoods of farmers with this trade war against the world and the retaliation America has. And then Trump has the audacity like the Ponzi schemer that he is to now say we're going to pay the farmers a bailout package based on the money coming in from the tariffs, which is the cause of the suffering for the farmers. Then he misstates the amount of money, of course, coming in from the tariffs like a almost a parody of a Ponzi schemer. While we're bailing out Argentina, while Trump is talking about building UFC stadiums in front of the White House, while Donald Trump last week was gallivanting in the UK in golden carriages, the Trump family announcing a new Trump vodka is going to be reintroduced. They destroyed the Rose Garden. They turned it into a private club for rich Republicans called Club Rose Garden. And they rolled out Additional photograph markups of what the ballroom is going to look like. The 90,000 square foot ballroom may even be bigger now. It's like three times the site of the White House. The scale of it just looks ridiculous next to the White House. And I said someone needs to file a lawsuit to stop this ballroom. But I hope I'm a broken record on that. But I'm going to keep repeating it over and over again. Brett and Jordy, a lot to discuss, brothers.
Brett
Clearly a lot to discuss. A lot is going on, that is for sure. Well, it's great to be here, Ben. Great to be here, Jordy. Great to be here. Midas Mighty everybody watching and listening. By the way, we've got a lot of people watching live on YouTube right now. I want every single one of you to go and add the Midas touch PODC podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify if you haven't yet. And if you hit, if you already did, leave a five star review. You know, Ben, we've seen the same strategy play out literally every time. First off, it feels like Groundhog's Day. I got, I gotta say that every time we go through this, these shutdowns and the back and forth, it's just like the same things over and over and over. And Republicans always go back to the, well, they always go back to the same strategy that they use every single time where they convince their own supporters to screw themselves, to gut their own health care, to remove benefits that they rely upon by saying, this is only going to hurt the illegals if you do this. The Democrats want to support the illegals and if you let them pass this, if you let, if you make them make us do these tax credits for the Affordable Care act, which are going to help you. Well, actually illegal immigrants are going to benefit. It doesn't matter that that's not true at all. The Trump voters, the MAGA voters, the Republican voters, they hear that and go, oh, we can't let that happen. And then they end up getting invol involved basically in this con. They get conned by the Republican Party in order to support things that are fundamentally horrific for their lives, for their families. It's the ultimate con that the Republicans have played for decades and decades and decades. But now they're just so much more brazen about it. Like they used to like at least kind of try to couch it and stuff. And now they're just like straight out with it. You see J.D. vance, Stephen Miller, they all go straight to the messaging. J.D. vance, Democrats are about to shut down the government because they demand we fund health care for illegal aliens. Stephen Miller replies to that. Defunding soldiers to demand free health care to illegals. Just completely false. This is just complete bullshit. Total lie. And it's unfortunate that we are dealing right now with a government full of liars, people that will just look you in the eye and lie to your face about literally everything, even matters of life or death. I'm sorry, Republicans, Donald Trump, maga, all you people. Guess who actually controls the government right now? You don't just control one branch or two branches. You control every branch of the government. You also control the House and the Sen. Control everything right now. So you could try to put this on the Democrats, but the reality is the way our system works is you have to work with the Democrats. It's what a bipartisan system is. There's a minority party, there's a majority party. At this point, you need votes to pass this thing. And as you said, Ben, Democrats certainly could have asked for a lot more. They're taking a targeted approach here focusing on the health care issue because it's obviously a very important one, and one that I think most Americans would agree with, is that they want their health care to be cheaper. And now, you know, Republicans right now are looking to, like, punish the American people all for political gain. We see it time and time again. It's playing out again here. Jordy, what's the latest? I know we got a lot to talk about, so let me toss it to you first.
Jordi
That was. That was great, Brett, Nothing to add there. I just want to tell everyone here, we do have a lot of folks in the YouTube tonight. So what's up, everybody? Please remember, subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel if you haven't yet. We're at 5.4 million subscribers. We're going to get by 6 by 26. That's the motto. Get to 6 by 26. That'll be 6 million subscribers on the YouTube channel. So hit subscribe if you haven't. It's totally free. Benji, where we starting off tonight?
Benji
You see, I just want a healthy information environment out there that's within my realm of control. Right. Running a media network like the Midas Touch is a healthy media information environment of what I can control. And I go back to my days when I was a trial lawyer and the rules of evidence applied and you couldn't bring in extraneous or irrelevant things to the jury or propaganda to the jury. Right. You had to stick with facts. And this is why, when Donald Trump is brought into a court, why he very frequently loses his cases. Because where you have a healthy information silo or environment that courts are often there to facilitate, by not allowing all this other irrelevant, false hearsay stuff to come in, Trump loses when you have people who are able to just hear the facts. So all I want to do, when we talk about the shutdown, when we talk about other topics, bailing out Argentina, bailing out farmers, talking about Donald Trump's tariffs against the world, I just want to stick to the facts. Like it's not a debate whether or not we've brought in $17 trillion from tariffs. We have not. That is a lie. And it's not true that we brought in $8 trillion from tariffs. What is true is that for this fiscal year, we've run a deficit in the United States of $2 trillion, which is more than under former President Biden. What's also true is that last month's deficit had $345 billion increase in the deficit in one month, which is more than the same and ago when Biden was in office on $650 billion or so in expenditures. So I just want to stick to the data because if we brought in $17 trillion, we would have a surplus right now of $15 trillion. And then if Donald Trump wanted to start talking about UFC fights and 90,000 square foot ballrooms, you know, maybe you start to, well, everyone's being taken care of. Farmers are thriving with groceries are actually down. Everyone's able to afford homes. All right, why don't we move up on kind of the hierarchy of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Maybe we could start talking about other stuff. Not that I would ever support 90,000 square foot ballrooms or UFC fights in front of the White House. But, you know, Donald Trump says, I've eliminated inflation. We're good, we're totally fine here. Energy costs in your home are way down. Everybody's living golden age. No, it's Trump's living a golden age with his family. They're announcing Trump vodka people. Even his granddaughter is getting in on a Don Junior's kid, Kai Trump. She's posting photos of her new clothing line using the White House as a background to sell $130 sweatshirts. The white House is the background for a clothing line of a presidential granddaughter influencer online. I mean, every aspect of this family. And I could go into which I've done on Hot Takes, the Trump family's World Liberty Financial getting what, like $2 billion from the United Arab Em at or around the Same time that Trump gave classified semiconductor technology to the United Arab Emirates, which they can then share with China, which hurts our national security interest. Just so happened, we gave that to the uae. The UAE gave the Trump family business significant amounts of money. So Trump's net worth is going up. The people around him may be having a golden age and they may be thinking, oh, where should we celebrate all of our money? Let's rip up the People's Rose Garden and make, call it the Club Rose Garden. Let's create a, a massive ballroom, 90,000 square feet. No, but people are suffering while all of this is taking place. So in a healthy information environment, let's just go through it together. This was Donald Trump on FOX where he said, I've told Republicans, don't talk to Democrats, have no communication with them. Just to remind you here, he says, don't speak to them yet alone. Negotiate. Play this clip.
Donald Trump
What, what is, how does President Trump deal with the. Well, we have to get Republican votes. That's all. If we do, we have the majority. So we have to get.
Benji
But no, you have to get 60, don't you?
Donald Trump
No, we, we're going to do a probably continuing resolution or we're going to do something. So we're going to do something that. Here's the problem. The Democrats have. They're sick. There's something wrong with them. Schumer is, you know, at the end of the rope. He's, he's going to be defeated in the next election. Election. If you gave them every dream right now, every dream that they've, you know, they want to give away money to this and that and that destroy the country. If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it. That's how bad I told them, don't even bother, don't even bother dealing with them. We will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together for the first time in a long time. Look, we got the big. I caught the big, the great.
Benji
Well, he has no clue the way continuing resolutions work. You need 60 votes in the Senate. You have to work with Democrats. And then you notice he doesn't even actually give any examples or facts or stats. Like, when I speak to all of you on this show, I bring the, like, I'm letting you know the true facts that you could objectively fact check me. And it's important that I get it right. He just makes up a bunch of things. These are sick people. These are, this is supposed to be the President of the United States. And I think the American people would like to see the parties try to work together in order to keep the government funded. So there's not serious repercussions. And you know who was saying that back in 2013? Donald Trump. About Obama. This is what Donald Trump said in 2011 and 2013 when Trump was not in office, when he was failed business leader Trump or failed business person Trump. Here's what he said. Let's play it. First question, Donald.
Brett
We're having a hell of a time.
Benji
Trying to negotiate here in Washington.
Brett
So tell me, if you were president.
Benji
What would you do?
Donald Trump
Well, very simply, you have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. I hear the Democrats are going to be blamed and the Republicans are going to be blamed. I actually think the president would be blamed if there is a shutdown. I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. Candidates. He's the one that has to get people together. They're not going to be talking who the head of the House was, the head of the Senate, who's running things in Washington. So I really think the pressure is on the president.
Benji
There you have that. And then here's what, I'll show you a longer clip of where Trump says, you know, 100 years ago, people are just going to care who is the president? How did he not bring people together? Let's play it.
Donald Trump
You know, the interesting thing is in 25 years and 50 years and 100 years from now when the government is, you know, they talk about the government shutdown, they're going to be talking about the President of the United States, who was the president at that time. They're not going to be talking who the head of the House was, the head of the Senate, who's running things in Washington. They're going to be talking about during the Obama administration, it was a disaster. So guys like Boehner, who is in there working hard and he's got one of the truly hard jobs of the world, they're not going to be really discussing him, they're going to be discussing one person. So I really think the pressure is on the president personally in terms of his own, his own interest.
Benji
And you have all the Fox hosts there nodding, right? Brett and Jordan. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's Obama's fault.
Brett
Yeah, you have the most, I mean, you really realize every single day, more and more and more just how evil these right wing propaganda networks are. When you see some of the headlines that are put out by, you know, the New York Post or Fox or, you know, you know, I'm naming all these Murdoch properties beyond. They're just so deceptive. And they are all designed to kind of appeal to people's lizard brains and to make people as angry as possible. And I noticed this especially in the past few days with the whole Jimmy Kimmel saga, where Jimmy Kimmel, in my opinion, gave a. In his first monologue back I thought was really heartwarming. I thought he said some really nice things. It was funny. He didn't hold back. And then the headlines immediately from the New York Post, they were ready with their script of what they were going to say. And it was just to divide people and make. Make it so that all the people who don't actually watch him or, you know, we're never going to watch them, all they see is that headline from the New York Post that's trying to make it sound like Jimmy Kimmel somehow went after Republicans or went after Trump supporters or something. I mean, the whole thing is just. It's really. They are merchants of hate. And unfortunately, they are such a major, you know, component of why our country is where it is today. But here's the facts. Donald Trump is like, as. As his popularity is as low as ever. People do not support his policies. People know, fundamentally that he is the president. I mean, everybody knows that. Everyone understands that the Republicans are in charge of everything. I don't think they're going to be able to get away. Just like Donald Trump said in those old clips of blaming the minority party here and saying that it's going to be their fault, it just doesn't. It just doesn't kind of match up with reality, in my opinion. And then you see all these threats from omb, the Office of Management and Budget, like you said, Ben, where they're saying, okay, well, we're going to play hardball, basically. If you're gonna shut down the government, those employees ain't never coming back. And so do you want to be responsible for the firing of all these workers? So now you're using American workers as pawns in your sick political game. But I think it would be more impactful if they said, that may be the last time this happened, but the fact is they've been firing all these employees anyway, so what's the difference? You're going to fire more employees. Like, this is what you did. And guess what? You know what we're seeing now also. Big headline that came out in the past 24 hours or so. The Trump administration had to rehire hundreds of federal employees laid off by Doge because they realize that these federal employees are actually serving an important function. You can't just go in with a chainsaw like Elon Musk and Donald Trump did and get rid of all these jobs. These people are hardworking civil servants. They're not there to play politics. They are there to put their heads down and do the work of making our government work. And so I think it's disgraceful that they're making people pawns in this entire game. I think it's disgraceful that we're once again dealing with these continuing resolutions when they could just make a budget in the first place and pass this thing. Just the whole situation is just all. It's all because of the Republicans. And they just continue to make things worse and then try to make all these excuses by blaming other groups for it.
Jordi
Exactly. Exactly, Exactly. B here's the one thing I slightly disagree with you and I agree with you, that the onus should 1000% and will 1000% be on Trump and the Trump regime and the Republicans if the government shutdown indeed does happen. Where I'm worried is the fact that Trump and MAGA have all the control over corporate media seemingly at this point, that once it does happen, that they're talking points just from a pure corporate media standpoint and the nightly news of the world and those programs are just going to, because we've seen it time and time again, take Donald Trump's truths or Stephen Miller's tweets and post it as if that's the headline to run with and not the actual facts beyond it, that they're not going to take the time and do what you embed did so great here and break down those Trump Fox News clips, that that is really the reason with Trump urging his own party not to come to the table, not to talk to Democrats. That's what I worry about is yes, the onus 1000% should be on Trump and will be on Trump and the regime should there be a government shutdown. My fear more largely is that corporate media spin on this, that I worry that the American people at large might not necessarily realize that then. One more point. Playing those clips side by side of Donald Trump then and for audio listeners, Those clips were 2011, 2012, when we were playing those back to back saying how it's on the president if there's government shutdown versus the original clip that we played of Trump earlier, which was from a couple days ago when he was on Fox. That's striking. When you listen to Donald Trump Speaking this like there's no other determination that you could come away with other than the fact that this guy right now is cognitively addled beyond, beyond repair. He can't speak in full sentences. I'm not saying he was some bot with the words back in 2011 and 2012, but when you play those clips side by side, I mean, it is actually jaw dropping to see how far he has fallen in just that short of time period. Ben.
Brett
And wait, Jordi, let me respond because you disagreed with me, I get a response in this debate and I want to say I totally agree with you because I think our information environment right now, as Ben was alluding to earlier, is so toxic, especially social media, especially if you're on a platform like X where these algorithms that are controlled by Elon Musk are promoting the most insane conspiracy theories, right wing nonsense. It is really not an accurate representation of anything. And then you're right, Jordi. You have this corporate media that continues to capitulate to Trump that both sides all the issues that sanitizes everything that Donald Trump and the Republicans do. But I do want to bring up this poll. And now granted this is a couple of weeks old at this point. I would love to see some new data on this. But you see that a majority of Americans overwhelmingly in this poll from data for progress, blame Trump or Republicans for any sort of shutdown that may come. This is from September 5th to the 7th, so like I said, it's a few weeks old. I'd like to get some new data, but you could see here that among all likely voters, 59% would blame Trump and Republicans, 34% would blame Democrats for a shutdown. Importantly, when you look at the independent or third party voters, 54% blame Trump and Republicans and 31% blame Democrats. So I think that just gives you a little bit of a window into voters mindsets there that they're able to see through the bullshit. Because I think so much of it, you know, people worry about data and specifics and all this stuff. I think a lot of it sometimes comes down to vibes. And who are people seeing when they turn on the TV every day? Donald Trump. Who are they seeing when they go on social media? Donald Trump. So it's really something that's very difficult for him to separate himself from when people know that he is acting like a dictator controlling everything. And now you want to blame other people for the government shutting down. It's like, okay, buddy.
Benji
Well, you know how during the campaign when Donald Trump would do bigger events, whether it was the Madison Square Garden event. Those would tend to backfire. And when people would see him and the media couldn't be that filter for him. I think there was one of those moments again with Charlie Kirk where America actually wanted a unifier and a leader during something that was observed collectively was very visual and very traumatic to watch. You know, what went down and we condemn the violence immediately. And so many, you know, responsible, you know, outlets and, and, and all Democratic leaders across the board condemning the violence, but then seeing what was happening on the right wing, demanding a civil war, lying and saying there was transgender on the bullet, like whatever the hell that means, and then trying to come up with something that was transgender related to blame on the shooter and then to tie the shooter to Democratic leftist groups when there was no connection at all. Was white 22 year old guy from Amaga, Utah, religious family out there, gun toting family. I think Americans were saying, look, is this going to be a moment where a leader could step up if he was a unifying figure, despite how horrible he's been on everything, he would have undeservedly got a bump just for saying the right thing, even though all the other stuff that he's been doing is so horrible. Like, that's like kind of a strange reflection to make, but I think it's a reality. Had he given a unifying speech, he would have actually seen an undeserved surge by just faking it. But he did it. He doubled and tripled down and gave one of the most hateful speeches imaginable. And I think there was a lot of people who watch that who may not follow politics, or if they do follow it, they turn it on. And to your point, Jordi and Brett, they watch it through a corporate news filter if they're not getting their news from Midas Touch. And they promote like if you watched corporate news after the UN speech, speech, you would have thought he gave a great speech. It was the worst from American media. International media was like, oh my God, this is like a mentally deranged, psychotic individual. But American media, not so much. So when people. That's why, that's why my catchphrase is, let's show the clip. Let me show it to you. Let me show you the video. Let me show you the words. Let me show you the post. Because I have a great deal of faith that if you see it, if you observe it, I believe in you. Like, I believe that most Americans actually care and they want the truth. But I also believe that there's so much out there and life in 2025 is so complex and complicated that it's hard to get an accurate information environment. So Tuesday's episode, Moral Clarity, that was my theme. Thursday's episode is this inform healthy information Environment. That's going to be my two main themes of this week. So when we come back, I want to promote this healthy information environment here. We're going to take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, next week we are doing the Midas Touch Patreon. So if you wanted to ever meet me, Brett and Jordy, we're going to be doing that next week. We'll post the secret link on our Patreon patreon.com Midas Touch. While you're at it, become a member of our YouTube page as well. It makes a big difference. Well, we'll take our first quick break. We'll be right back after these quick messages.
Jordi
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Benji
Did you all see that bizarre presser in the Oval Office earlier with Turkey's President Erdogan and Donald Trump? So you had, you know, Turkey's strongman authoritarian leader there. You had Donald Trump looking like he was trying to impress Erdogan and it was very a strange sight. So leading up to this Oval Office meeting, you had Erdogan give a interview with Fox, our state regime media here. And he basically like bodied Donald Trump. Like he went after Trump and basically all but called Trump a clown for promising that he was going to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and promised that he would end the atrocities in Gaza in 24 hours. So this is what led up to today's Oval Office visit. He was basically just showing Donald Trump like, I don't give a crap, I'm going to. I know you're a wannabe authoritarian. I'm a real authoritarian. So here, take this. Here, play this clip.
Donald Trump
But he seems to take a shot at President Trump. Listen, I can only say this, Mr. Trump, you might remember he used a.
Benji
Term.
Donald Trump
He said, I will finish the Russia Ukraine war.
Benji
Did it end? It still goes on.
Donald Trump
I initiated that. Similarly, he said, I will finish the war in Gaza.
Benji
No, that means once we start analyzing.
Donald Trump
The issue, there are prices to pay.
Benji
And when we look at the hostage.
Donald Trump
Hostage exchange that was done, it goes on.
Benji
Once you start analyzing the issue issues, there are prices to pay. There's deeper meaning than just those words right there, what he's saying. Once you stop talking like an idiot and you actually drill down on what's taking place. You'll find that these are complicated and complex issues. And Trump is not a smart guy, is basically what he said there without saying that. But then Trump brings this guy, Erdogan, President of Turkey, into the Oval Office and. And they're asked about, well, what do you think about Erdogan, perhaps brokering peace between Zelensky and Putin? Like, they're. They're still on that. They're. There's going to be a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, which we know is not taking place. But notice what Donald Trump says about Erdogan. He's like, you know, one of the things about Erdogan is he's neutral, I'm neutral. Like, we're both alike, right? Like, he's neutral, I'm neutral. And a broader point I want to make after showing you this clip is Trump just flatters or says who's ever in the room what he thinks is the right thing to get that headline. So, yes, at the UN later on in the day, and in a social media post, Donald Trump's like, yeah, I'm going to be more supportive of Ukraine, basically. But that's what he said that day when he was in the room there. He's going to change next week. And Trump's words are meaningless. It's his conduct and it's his behavior. And he promised he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. He did. And he promised he would end the atrocities in Gaza in 24 hours. He didn't. But watch what happens here. Trump on Erdogan, possibly bringing Zelensky and Putin to the table. Let's play.
Donald Trump
How do you see a joint initiative.
Benji
With President Erdogan to bring the President.
Donald Trump
Of Russia, Putin and President Zelensky to this? Well, I can tell you that President Erdogan is very respected by both of them. Everybody respects Erdogan. They really respect him. I do. And I think he could have a big influence if he wants to. Right now, he's very neutral. He likes being neutral. So do I like being neutral. But he's somebody that if he got involved, the best thing he could do is not buy oil and gas from Russia. If he didn't, if he did that, that would be probably the best thing. He knows Putin, like, I know Putin, I thought Putin, I saw settled as, you know, seven wars. And it's probably more than that, if you really want to know the real facts. But seven wars, and I thought this would be among the easier ones to settle. But I'm very disappointed in Putin.
Benji
Seven war, $17 trillion, inflation is defeated. He just makes up things. And he goes back to, you know, you have to understand his pathology as a liar, too. He goes back to the lie to cover up the fact that he's not doing what he's saying he was going to do, which is end the war in 24 hours. So now he goes, maybe I didn't end the war, but I ended seven wars, which he did not. He takes credit for ending a war in Congo. There's still ongoing war in Congo. He claims, like, a number of other things, like Kosovo and Egypt and things that, like, he has nothing to do with, which weren't even, like, wars in this term right now. And he claims India and Pakistan, he had nothing to do with India, but he just makes. Just makes this stuff up. And then Trump looks at. By the way, just watch Erdogan's body language while this is taking place in this bizarro Oval Office golden bordello. I must stink in there. I was like, the whole environment just looks gross. Like, it looks gross in there. And then Erdogan just, like, sitting there, like, what am I even watching right now? And he's being quiet the whole time and just kind of letting Donald Trump just say crazy stuff where Trump's like, this is a tough man. This is a guy who's highly opinionated. Here, play this clip.
Donald Trump
So this is a tough man. This is a. A guy who's highly opinionated. Usually, I don't like opinionated people, but I always like this one. But he's a tough one, and he does an amazing job.
Benji
Then he points to Erdogan and says, this guy knows about rigged elections. Right? That. That's what Donald. This guy knows about how to rig an election here.
Donald Trump
Played Turkey unfairly, as it turns out. Rigged election. You know, he knows about rigged elections better than anybody. But when I was in exile, we were still friends. That's always a good way to find out. Test of friendship.
Benji
Toss it over to Brett and Jordi. You see that he wants to be accepted by the authoritarian sitting next to him. And Erdogan is looking at him like, I'm more powerful than the United States. Like, that's not a look of respect. Like, that is a look of Turkey us. Like, that's what that looked like. Like, it's just objectively very weak.
Brett
It's just bizarre to constantly see Donald Trump suck up to these sorts of countries and then go and attack, you know, some of our strongest allies and some of the most prosperous countries. And free countries out there. And I guess that's the point because we know Donald Trump is a strong man wannabe. We see what he's doing with James Comey with this ridiculous indictment. We see how he's threatening to indict all these other people. I mean, this is a five alarm fire happening for our democracy. And Donald Trump is looking to these authoritarians overseas and he is saying, that's what I want here. That's the kind of control over the media I want. That's the kind of control over the justice system I want. And right now, he's kind of changed our system here because the Republicans have been so weak on Donald Trump the same way Trump is weak on these leaders. And they've let him just do this. They've let him just rip apart our system. The Supreme Court has let him rip apart the system. And the whole thing is just a disgrace to watch play out before our eyes when you could see that it is so black and white, it is so clearly a case of right versus wrong, and people just refuse to do anything about it.
Jordi
It's just so embarrassing seeing Donald Trump in these positions time and time again. I know it's a frequent theme I hit on, but it's a frequent thing that fricking happen when he's around these world leaders and he just embarrasses the US On a world stage. You look at Erdogan looking at Donald Trump and Ben, to your point exactly, that's not a look of, this is my buddy, this is my partner. We're in this together. It's a look of utter disdain. How are we the same position in our two respective countries? This man's an idiot. Donald Trump is a blabbering buffoon. And I don't say that to get clicks because I like saying names and things. This is the damn leader of the United States of America.
Benji
This is.
Jordi
This is the best we got. It's crazy to me every time we see this. Ben.
Benji
Well, then his son, Eric Trump announces that the family was launching a new vodka company. I mean, just think about that. I mean, imagine if Biden's family announced the Biden Vodka Company and that it wasn't and that it didn't even register as like a news story. Because that's just what you expect of them to do. I mean, how many cryptocurrencies and stable token things has this Trump family launched already? It seems that every week you either have Eric or Don Jr. Standing there in the New York Stock Exchange at the NASDAQ or The Dow ringing the bell with some company that wants to align with them in order to get whatever benefits perceived or whatever are out there. And then you have as well the news that Eric Trump was saying that his dad should get multiple Nobel Peace PR prizes. Let me show you this clip right here.
Brett
Let's play it.
Benji
What about your president, your father on Mount Rushmore? I know patriots will want me to.
Brett
Ask that because they love that idea.
Benji
Nobel Peace Prize notwithstanding. But Mount Rushmore, it just seems like after everything you all have been through, everything that he's endured, it just seems to follow.
Brett
He deserves it. Yeah, he deserves it. And he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize so many times over. I've literally been in that office. I was in that office for one conversation where he literally stopped a war. In fact, I was.
Benji
I was in the office recently for.
Brett
Another one where he stopped another one. I mean, the amount of children, and I say children, young kids right now.
Benji
That are running around the world who.
Brett
Are alive based on the fact that he stopped conflicts that otherwise would have spiraled out of control. There are moms and dads out there who have their kids based on calls that he's made and conflicts that he's ended kind of before they really got out of control.
Benji
And they have probably zero appreciation that.
Brett
Many of their children and many of the people they knew would not be there had it not been for him. I just want to emphasize that this is the kind. I just want to let people know Jordi had to run to deal with some daddy duty sort of things. So he'll be back on the next show. He's doing great. This is what happens in authoritarian countries. And I think people are kind of watching this happen before their eyes, and they're like, oh, Eric Trump, what a goof. What a idiot. This is what they do in countries like Russia and countries like North Korea and countries like Saddam Hussein's Iraq like that. You get all your family members out there. They become like the people who are on the tv. You get your propaganda networks, remember, they've like, ousted a lot of the real media from, like, the Pentagon from all these various aspects of government right now, so that they can't be watched, so they can't be reported on. They're having all these new rules at the Pentagon, which maybe we'll get into in a little bit, where they're, like, forcing the press to sign these agreements that they're only allowed report on authorized information, the information the government authorizes the public to get, even if it's unclassified. Information you need to run all your stories by the government. I mean, talk about authoritarianism. Are we going there? Are we close? I mean, you're staring it in the face. It's happening right before our eyes. And I don't know how you could watch that clip of Eric Trump and whatever station he was on, Real America's Voice, which is like Steve Bannon station, and think anything otherwise when those are the people now, now asking the questions in the press briefing rooms. When you turn on Fox News and who's the person giving a glowing review of how great Donald Trump is doing? You have people like Lara Trump on there and she's like, oh, he's the best president ever. It's amazing. Then you have people like Maria Bartiromo and Trump, like bailed out her husband for crimes back in the day with a pardon. Like it's all this kind of criminal syndicate that we see connected of oligarchs bailing each other out, giving each other favors, doing each other's bidding. And it's a really sick place to be as a country. Country.
Benji
When we come back, we got to talk about ex FBI Director James Comey being indicted right after Donald Trump called for his DOJ to indict Comey. Comey has officially been charged with making false statements and obstruction. I want to make sure we get all the information out there and then we'll of course do more follow up videos on that as well here on the Midas Touch network. But a very dark day as well. Full fledged authoritarianism here in the United States where Donald Trump makes a social media post, indict someone I don't like James Comey. And James Comey gets indicted after Trump replaces the top federal prosecutor in Virginia with his own personal criminal defense lawyer and personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan. And then they bring the indictment against Comey me. It's going to be important to watch what the federal judiciary does there. We know based on Trump's statements. I mean, Trump will most likely become a major witness in that case as well based on his statements. It'll be interesting to see how, how Comey responds as well. How if there will be mass resignations in that Virginia prosecutorial office where the former Republican head of the office office, a Trump pick, said there's no evidence to support this, but they brought it anyway. A dark, dark, dark day in American history. We'll come back and we'll discuss that. We'll discuss Pete Hegseth summoning 800 of the top generals and admirals as well. We'll cover that all when we come right back.
Jordi
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Benji
We are back. Shout out to our sponsors right there. Discount codes are in the description below. Support our sponsors. I want to talk about the knowledge that we know right now about the Comey indictment. Of course. Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted on two of three counts sought by prosecutors. That means one count it appears the grand jury did not approve of, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. Now, this follows Donald Trump forcing out the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, Republican, that Trump previously picked, someone named Eric Siebert, who wrote a memo saying that he did not have sufficient evidence to put this in front of a grand jury. Prosecutors have a lot of power before bringing charges before a grand jury to get an indictment against somebody because the other side doesn't show up. So you can't rebut it with any evidence or defenses. You just say, hey, hey, this is the statement. This is false. Please indict. So it's pretty easy to indict somebody on something like this. Now they have to actually prove the case. But Eric Siebert, a career prosecutor, said they don't have enough evidence. So Trump forced him out. Siebert resigned. Trump puts in place Lindsey Halligan, his personal attorney who he had previously put in charge of dismantling the museums. She was one of the people who said they talked too much about slavery at the African American Museum. We played clips of her before. So she now was in charge of that office. Earlier when Donald Trump held a press conference in the Oval Office, when he was asked about James Comey, he kind of looked at Pam Bondi and he was like, pam, what do you say, Pam? And she's like, I can't comment. They knew they were bringing that case before the grand jury, obviously, and that was kind of their sixth sadistic enjoyment in going after his political opponent, James Come Comey. It should be noted as well, too. You know, James, perhaps nobody contributed more to Donald Trump becoming president than James Comey breaching all of that protocol and announcing things about Hillary Clinton right before the election as well. That was against all FBI procedures. Like, in many ways, if you wanted to say what was some of the key factors that let Donald Trump win, it was Comey talking about investigations into Hillary Clinton that were frivolous. Frivolous. That again, the rules say you're not supposed to mention, especially if they're frivolous. But that was a major factor. But, you know, Comey was an FBI guy who was there, head of the FBI under Trump. Trump has despised Comey's FBI, you know, and Trump said that they were going after him for Russia, Russia, Russia and this, that and the other. And now Comey, after the office in the Eastern District of Virginia, found no evidence whatsoever. James Comey finds himself being criminally indicted after Donald Trump sends a social media post. Pam, I want you to indict him. So I think that we could assume New York Attorney General Letitia James will be indicted next. I think we could assume Senator Adam Schiff will be indicted next. You could assume that we're going to see one by one by one, Trump's political opponents now being criminally indicted, indicted and brought into that Eastern District of Virginia court. Right. I mean, when do you think Letitia James gets indicted? In the next. I would say in the next few weeks, we'll probably see that same thing with Senator Schiff. I think all these cases are going to be thrown out, but this is what he's doing.
Brett
Yeah, it's. I mean, he, he has his hatchet man, or rather woman in this case, Lindsey Halligan there running this office, and he's getting to do what he has always wanted to do and what he said during the campaign that he was going to do, which is take revenge upon his political opponents. Donald Trump tries to equip. He tries to act like people coming after him for his actual crimes that he committed for trying to overthrow the government and everything else. He always pretends that that's lawfare and he thinks that all is fair in love and war and that he has a right to now go after his political opponents because it's no different. Obviously, that's not the case. Hey, I'm not a person who has exactly warm and fuzzy feelings towards James Comey. And I'm sure a lot of our, our viewers and listeners feel the same way about James Comey, but this isn't about James Comey. This is about a brazen weaponization of the government. Everything that Republicans pretended to care about, once again, we learned, once again, that it was all bullshit. They are weaponizing the government for their political ends. There was a whole, they did an investigation on this. We learned as like this earlier, earlier today that there was a two month investigation. Federal prosecutors in Virginia were unable to gather sufficient evidence to support bringing any sort of criminal against James Comey. So what did Trump do? Trump swapped out the prosecutor, brought in his personal hatchet woman, and here we are. And Ben, I agree there's gonna be a lot more of these going forward. We're gonna see probably Letitia, James and all the other people that Donald Trump mentions. As of now, our Justice Department is run by, run by Tweet or Truth Social Post at this point. It's a really disturbing and dark day for the United States of America. And I hearken back, Ben, to the end of the Biden administration when Biden did all those pardons at the last minute. And all the media and all these people were so outraged. How dare he? How could he possibly do something like this? And here's the thing. President Biden knew exactly who Donald Trump is. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Donald Trump was saying it the entire time. So the fact that the whole media complex gave President Biden shit, shit for doing those pardons, for issuing those pardons the last minute, which are without a doubt indisputably the right thing to do, I mean, shame on the media. It just goes to show you once again that time and time again they try to treat Donald Trump like he's a normal politician, like these are normal times, like we're still in the same democracy, the same United States of America, and we're not. And until the media accepts that, we're going to have a lot of issues because they're going to continue to lie to the American people. They're going to continue to hold the parties to far different standards. You have to treat this like the threat it is, like the danger it is. Trump is showing us. He's screaming it in our faces every single day. So stop the damn both sides.
Benji
You know, Brett, as, as we will, I'm going to do another hot take, another whole video on that. So after this video ends, you'll see another. After the show ends, you'll see a video that I'm going to do on the indictment. You saw this, Brett, today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett summoned hundreds of the US Military admirals to gather on short notice at Quantico, the Marine Corps base over in Virginia, on Tuesday. No one knows what they're there for, but he about 800 Admirals, Generals other top leaders are summoned that they have to show up. This was reported first by Washington Post Dan Lamoth. He Lamoth refers to it as a highly unusual direction sent to virtually all of the military's top commanders worldwide, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter. But Lamoth then says this. The Pentagon voiced no objections to the Washington Post reporting about this story or reporting about this meeting. That to me deserves a lot more attention as well. Like you have to now might even.
Brett
Be a bigger story than like the story which is weird and creepy enough and is sounding all these alarms. Alarms. And people are like, well, why are you, why would you gather all of our top generals and commanders in one location, let it be known where everybody is going to be? Isn't that a threat to our national security? But I agree, Ben, that's a chilling line. And is this what we have for now on for any national security stories, for any stories of public import, are we going to have to have a disclaimer from reporters that said the government approved of their reporting? Because if that's the case, we're not doing reporting anymore. You're doing government propaganda. And that's why this whole idea of the Pentagon on Pete Hegseth requiring journalists to sign this, what is it? Sign this contract essentially saying that they are going to run their stories by, by Donald Trump, by the Trump administration. That right there is one of the most appalling things to happen to our country in a very, very long time in a list of other appalling things. And the fact that the press does this instead of going, absolutely not. We are not signing that crap. We're the free press. We have a 1st a.m. right? We're going to report, do what you may, but we're going to stick to our principles. But instead, I understand they want to do their reporting, they want to get in the rooms, but you got to figure out like, is it worth doing that kind of reporting if the stuff you're reporting out every day has to be approved by Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth? To me, I don't think that's a trade off that I'd be willing to keep. I don't think you could have the integrity in your reporting if you are bending the knee in that sort of way.
Benji
I want to talk about some domestic foreign policy issues as well that are all interrelated, related. Farmers right now on the verge of bankruptcy. Many have gone bankrupt. Donald Trump's trade war against the world has resulted in retaliation. Just by way of example, China has not purchased Any soybeans at all from the United States and they represent one of the biggest markets. The accounting for what is it close to like half of soybean exports go to China. So without China as a marketplace for soybeans, beans, our farmers suffer. And it's not just unique to soybeans. It is corn, wheat, cotton, A number of I could keep going on and on and on. Countries like China, Europe, Canada, elsewhere, they're looking to Brazil, they're looking to Argentina. More on that in a moment. They're looking to other countries to replace the United States and they could find replacements. So they're working on fair trade deals and reducing the barriers of trade as the United States is putting barriers of trade on. Donald Trump is more focused on trying to extract a TikTok deal from China to have his right wing oligarch buds in the United States run a subsidiary of TikTok with very kind of unclear and undefined terms. And we've sat so our Senate banned Tik Tok and it was signed into law. One of the things that are bipartisan, you could say what you want, but it was a bipartisan bill. And then Trump has sacrificed all negotiating leverage with China to fight to then have TikTok controlled by his right wing oligarchs. But what would they control versus what would China control in the algorithm? Meanwhile, at the expense of American farmers, Farmers, the trade deal that should be focused on with China is helping the farmers, helping Americans and figuring out how to balance fair trade while also focusing on anti dumping provisions. You know, they still need to make sure that China isn't exploiting the US Market, but helping Americans because Americans farmers are suffering. But you have Brooke Rollins over here talking about now admitting, you know, but she's like, this is all part of the plan. This is going how we thought. Soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton. This is what we would expect. It's part of the transition. Here she is.
Brett
Play this clip that alongside of course, the President's effort to realign America around American products and making all of these new deals. We are at a point where we're looking at the harvest, where we're looking at our soybean, corn, wheat, sorghum, cotton farm farmers who are facing very, very difficult times. We are currently in conversations here at the White House across the government on a farmer aid package in our current, our current programming. Right now we've got about $13 billion moving out under ECAP, which is our old farmer payment system based on losses from last year and the year before. So this would Be in addition to.
Benji
That, in partnership with our colleagues and.
Brett
On the Hill, we should have an announcement very soon, perhaps in the next couple of weeks.
Benji
Notice when they lie, they do like weird things with their hands also. And why are farmers facing very difficult times? Brooke, why are farmers facing very difficult times? Brook, I made this meme.
Brett
You, you like this meme?
Jordi
I made it myself.
Benji
I, I like that meme, you know, but then, then the counterintuitive things like one of the places that China is going and other places are going to buy soybeans and other produce is Argentina, Argentina, Argentina suffering. But they're also undercutting the American farmer market. Right? But America is now going to be bailing out Argentina even though Trump and MAGA said their libertarian president, Javier Malay was this economic genius who was restoring Argentina's economy to excellence and that everybody should invest in Argentina. A lot of MAGA people did invest in Argentina, which is why they're bailing out Argentina.
Brett
Also.
Benji
Also, there's also lithium mines in Argentina which Elon Musk needs for his Teslas and satellites and things like that. But America first now means bailing out Argentina. Like what? And, and, and they'll go. And for our audio listeners, we're showing photos right here of all the MAGA people saying I recommend investing in Argentina and all these accounts, right? With like and wokeness one of these right wing MAGA influencer accounts with all these followers. Followers. Holy. Argentina just elected Javier Malay as their next president. History has been made. Elon Musk. Prosperity is ahead for Argentina. And then here you have Kevin Hassett, Donald Trump's National Economic Advisor, on with Maria Bartiroma. Just watch this. Let's play it. That's what has done very careful math about. And so anybody who thinks that they.
Brett
Can cause a panic at Argentine markets.
Benji
Understand it has to understand that the.
Brett
US is going to be a firm backstop to that. This is not that we're trying to put our finger on the scales of an election.
Benji
We're trying to just make sure that market manipulators don't influence the election.
Brett
So should we have a confidence then that the US will support Argentina? Yes, the US 100% will support Argentina and of course support the will of the voters.
Donald Trump
But, but again, there have been times.
Brett
Where there are people who do things.
Benji
Like they call them naked short attacks.
Brett
And so on, where market turmoil can.
Benji
Be created ahead of an election by.
Brett
You know, people who like maybe don't even care, care so much about the.
Benji
Country as much as the short term.
Brett
Profit that they could make from massive panic.
Benji
So, all right, thank you. We're not going to let that happen. Thank you for that. It's the naked short sellers before a midterm in Argentina. America's battling the naked short sellers, Brett. I mean, as Americans right now here in the United States, States can't afford groceries, can't afford their rent, if they're lucky enough to have a mortgage, can't afford that. As health care is being ripped away, as we're approaching a government shutdown, as all of these government programs have been dismantled, they rush to bail out Argentina and tell the people that that's American first.
Brett
And the whole thing is, I would say, shocking. But nothing is shocking anymore with this administration. But just to like, just think about like those messages we showed you, Elon Musk, and you can go, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of messages from Elon Musk alone. You can look at all of these MAGA influencers, big MAGA voices, Republican politicians taking pictures with Javier Milei basically saying, like he's the second coming, that he's about to save Argentina. His austerity policies are going to make everything great. And they held that as an example of what they should do in the United States. And one of my fears right now is that we're seeing what play out in Argentina right now. And our reaction to it is that the United States is sort of in a similar point as well where Javier Milei came in, he did all this crazy stuff, he wiped out all these departments, he fired a bunch of people, he consolidated the government. And for the first couple months or so, things were looking like, okay, like things were like, oh, maybe things are going to bounce back. Who knows, you know, there's still a lot of poverty there. Things aren't looking totally great, but like, you know, we were in a bad situation and they started spiking the football. You started seeing Elon Musk and all these other folks saying how great Argentina is. And then reality hit, reality struck and now it is devastating in Argentina. They are in utter turmoil because the chickens have come home to roost. And I think that's something that we're going to see here in the United States, quite frankly, with this kind of house of cards that Trump and these economically, economically illiterate people like Asset and the other people who Donald Trump has around him. It's a, it's a dangerous cocktail right now that is going to completely backfire on our country. And I just can't, I can't fathom how these so called America first people are okay with this sort of bailout of a foreign country like Argentina simply because they fit into your worldview. Your worldview that was just shown in real time. They ran the experiment, okay? They ran your dream playbook and it collapsed the economy, it crashed everything. And now they're coming to beg the United States. And you have Donald Trump going, oh, yeah, I'll give you some money. Because all of these billionaires had invested, they bought into their own bullshit as and put all this money into Argentina. It's just the latest example of corruption in plain sight that we see with this administration. And just the total failure of their policies when you see them actually put into action.
Benji
You know, we have to really be alert about what's going on. We have to have, as this episode's theme has been, a healthy information environment. And that's becoming increasingly more difficult with a very sick democracy that has now officially gone into authoritarianism. That's what it is. And a, a very sick media environment, news environment that is either full fledged state regime media or state regime adjacent at this point with aiders and abettors and capitulators. And so it's important that we the people stand up. Donald Trump, going back to where I started this episode, is deeply un unpopular. I mean, he is not. These policies are not winning the hearts and minds of Americans. A lot of times in authoritarian regimes early on, when they consolidate power, at least for a short period of time before the house of cards falls, sometimes you do see mass support for the authoritarian because they're making things more efficient temporarily or whatever. Like, that's not what's happening here. What's happening here is the. That Trump's making things much worse for people's life. More and more people are despising and detesting this regime and all it does, its divisiveness, its chaos and the harm that it's inflicting on 99% of the country right now. And we're seeing people who are in leadership positions capitulate during critical moments as well right now. And so it is incumbent upon we the people people to keep the faith, to keep the power, to know that we hold the power to get out the word about the truth and to keep on sharing all this information with as many people as we can. The easiest way you could help the Midas Touch network is by sharing this YouTube channel and sharing the sub stack, which is midasplus.com and sharing all of our social media. That's a great way to help. It's free to do, do that it's free to subscribe to the YouTube channel, it's free to subscribe to the audio podcast. Right wherever you get your audio podcast, it's free to give a five star review. So do that. That's one of the easiest ways to help out and get out healthy information to people. And they can see when we go through the data and I show the clips and I show the receipts, it's not me just ranting and raving for an hour. It's me going through. Here's what people are saying. What do you think about this? And. And understanding the struggles that you're going through and trying to address them to the best of my ability, you know. Another way to help out, of course, is by becoming a member of this YouTube channel. You can gift memberships to others. I am looking forward to having that Patreon chat and you get to ask me and my brothers questions@patreon.com Midas Touch next Monday after the show ends. We'll be doing that. So go to patreon.com Midas Touch Touch and look, just. We need. Don't give up. We gotta stay in the fight together. Don't give up. We are gonna get through this together. I promise you. We're gonna get through this together and we're gonna look back at these moments, at these struggles, at these issues and we're gonna know we did it together. So stay in it. We're staying in it with you. And share this podcast episode with as many people as you can as well. Well, we appreciate you. We're grateful for you. Hit subscribe right now. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Shout out to the Midas mighty. Shout out, everybody. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Standing strong.
Brett
Against the fascist we sing our song.
Benji
We will get it right.
Jordi
Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski ad free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available@midasplus.com.
This episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast centers on the looming U.S. government shutdown and the broader implications of Trump-era governance, authoritarian overreach, the erosion of democracy, and the manipulation of public opinion through disinformation. The Meiselas brothers blend their signature comedic banter with a serious, fact-based critique of contemporary politics, especially focusing on how Trump is steering the U.S. toward an increasingly autocratic model, its effects on policy and public discourse, and the media’s failure to hold power to account.
[02:57–14:07]
Polling Troubles for Trump: Trump’s favorability is at 38% with 54% disapproval ([02:57]). Across policy issues—economy, trade, immigration—approval is low, undermining MAGA’s frequent talking points.
“Trump is weak, unpopular, and failing—treat him that way.” – Ben ([03:25])
Shutdown Mechanics: A shutdown is likely unless Republicans and Democrats agree on a funding bill by October 1, but Trump has “ordered Republicans do not speak to Democrats… not even negotiate” ([04:00]).
Demands & Reality: Democratic demands are minimal, focusing on Affordable Care Act tax credits, but Trump frames them as outrageous, scapegoating trans people and migrants ([05:00]).
Weaponizing Marginalized People: Trump relies on dog-whistles—“trans, migrants, crime”—as scapegoats to fuel division ([06:00]).
“The Democrats shut [the government] down because of trans. Because of trans. Transgender for everybody. What does it even mean!?” – Ben ([06:52])
Shutdown as a Power Move: The brothers argue the shutdown is a strategic MAGA play to destroy governmental structures and consolidate power ([07:30]).
Epstein Files & Discharge Petition: Delay in swearing in a Democratic Congresswoman (Adelitra Gavalha) is attributed to her support for an Epstein file discharge petition—evidence of GOP’s anti-democratic maneuvers ([08:30]).
[11:08–14:32]
Pattern Recognition: Shutdown theatrics are routine—Republican leaders persuade their base to “gut their own healthcare… remove benefits… by saying it’s only going to hurt the illegals” ([11:30]).
“It’s the ultimate con that Republicans have played for decades... Now they’re just so much more brazen about it.” – Brett ([12:40])
Media Messaging: Right-wing figures (JD Vance, Stephen Miller) are called out for flagrant misinformation, blaming Democrats for MAGA policies ([13:40]).
Control of Government: Brett points out Republicans control all branches and are responsible for the stalemate ([13:52]).
[14:32–18:37]
Ben reflects on building an ‘information silo’ at MidasTouch, analogous to the evidentiary rigor in a courtroom: “Facts matter. Stick to the data.” ([14:32])
Disinformation under Trump includes exaggerated claims about tariff revenue and economic performance, while the reality is a $2 trillion deficit ([15:00]).
Critique of Trump family self-enrichment—Trump Vodka relaunch, Rose Garden turned into Club Rose Garden, and merch sales using the White House as a backdrop ([16:30]).
[18:37–21:58]
Don’t Talk to Democrats: Trump (on Fox) brags about telling Republicans to refuse negotiation:
“Don’t even bother dealing with [Democrats]. We will get it through because Republicans are sticking together for the first time.” – Donald Trump ([18:45])
2011/2013 Flashback: Old footage shows Trump blaming the President (then Obama) for any shutdown:
“You have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead.” – Donald Trump (2011) ([20:34])
“In 25 years… they’re going to be talking about who was the president at that time. They’re not going to be talking about the head of the House or the Senate.” – Donald Trump (2011) ([21:11])
Host analysis: The hypocrisy is exposed through side-by-side comparison of Trump’s current and past stances.
[21:58–25:03]
Right-wing media—Fox, New York Post et al—are described as “merchants of hate,” designed to provoke anger and misinform.
“They are such a major component of why our country is where it is today.” – Brett ([21:58])
Media and OMB’s threats to fire government employees are critiqued for treating workers as pawns in political games.
Trump’s mass layoffs haven’t worked; many federal workers had to be rehired, proving essential staff cannot be cut without consequences ([24:00]).
[25:03–28:51]
Jordi’s Worry: Despite MAGA responsibility, corporate media could spin the story, confusing the public about who’s at fault.
“My fear… is that the American people at large might not necessarily realize that.” – Jordi ([25:03])
Polls Show Blame: A Data for Progress poll: 59% of likely voters blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown; even a majority of independents do ([27:04]).
Information Warfare: Platforms like X/Twitter, controlled by Musk, and corporate media, are viewed as contaminated information ecosystems.
[35:14–43:34]
Coverage of Trump’s bizarre Oval Office meeting with Turkey’s President Erdogan: Trump tries to impress Erdogan, but is outplayed and subtly mocked.
Trump flip-flops on Ukraine and Gaza, making empty promises he fails to deliver.
Authoritarian Admiration: Trump flatters Erdogan:
“This is a tough man. This is a guy who’s highly opinionated... I always liked this one.” – Trump ([40:41])
Erdogan’s look of disdain is called out for what it symbolizes—Trump’s weakness and desperation for approval from actual strongmen ([41:20–43:29]).
[43:34–47:25]
Trump Family Self-Enrichment: Eric Trump launches “Trump Vodka,” and appears on right-wing media gushing about his father’s ‘Nobel Prizes’:
“He literally stopped a war. In fact, I was in the office recently for another one where he stopped another one...” – Eric Trump ([44:45])
State Media and Propaganda: The Trump family’s media dominance, and new Pentagon rules—press must pre-clear stories—are highlighted as core features of autocracies.
[47:25–58:55]
Comey Charged: Ex-FBI Director James Comey indicted after Trump publicly called for it, with Trump’s personal attorney installed as federal prosecutor.
“A very dark day… Trump makes a social media post, indict someone I don’t like—James Comey… and James Comey gets indicted…” – Ben ([52:32])
This sets a chilling precedent for future indictments against Trump’s adversaries (Letitia James, Adam Schiff, etc.).
False Equivalence: Brett rails against media equivocation – “Everything they pretended to care about… was all bullshit. They are weaponizing the government for their political ends.” ([56:08])
[58:55–61:40]
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summons 800 admirals and generals to Quantico, raising alarms over the administration’s intentions and the Pentagon now requiring press to pre-clear information.
“If the reporting has to be approved by Trump and Pete Hegseth, you’re not doing reporting. You’re doing government propaganda.” – Brett ([60:07])
[61:40–70:19]
Farm Crisis: Trump’s trade war has devastated American farmers, losing crucial export markets like China. The administration organizes bailouts as a band-aid ([61:40–65:08]).
Bizarre Priorities: Despite “America First” rhetoric, the administration rushes to bail out Argentina’s right-wing government to protect MAGA oligarchs’ investments ([65:08–66:57]).
Hypocrisy: MAGA voices hail Argentina’s president as a savior, then quietly support a bailout when the policies fail ([67:57]).
[70:19–74:13]
The brothers stress how crucial it is for Americans to seek and share real information, as democracy is undermined by both state propaganda and passive, complicit media.
“We need—don’t give up. We gotta stay in the fight together… We’re gonna get through this together.” – Ben ([72:05])
Listeners are called to action: subscribe, share, and support independent news to “stand strong against fascism.”
On the government shutdown:
“I think that Donald Trump wants the shutdown to take place. He wants to operate as a full dictator with the government not even existing.” – Ben ([07:20])
On media complicity:
“Our information environment right now… is so toxic… [with] algorithms controlled by Elon Musk… it is really not an accurate representation of anything.” – Brett ([27:13])
On authoritarian drift:
“This is what they do in countries like Russia, North Korea, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq… You get your family members out there, they become the people who are on TV.” – Brett ([47:25])
On Trump’s interactions with Erdogan:
“It’s just so embarrassing seeing Donald Trump in these positions time and time again… That’s not a look of, ‘this is my buddy’… It’s a look of utter disdain.” – Jordi ([42:50])
On hope and activism:
“Don’t give up. We are gonna get through this together… Stay in it—we’re staying in it with you.” – Ben ([73:00])
This episode delivers a sobering, detail-rich analysis of the authoritarian direction of U.S. governance under Trump, its devastating policy fallout—especially for ordinary Americans—ongoing assaults on democratic norms, and the urgent need for independent, fact-based information. The MeidasTouch team encourages their audience to remain active and vigilant, reminding listeners that real change comes from collective effort and unwavering truth-telling.