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Ben Miceli
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Ben Miceli
Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply how not to Handle a National Tragedy Donald Trump rolling out the playbook after gutting government agencies, telling government workers to resign and take this fake buyout package after Elon Musk forced out the head of the faa. What is Donald Trump now doing? Donald Trump is blaming the horrible tragedy that took place in Washington, D.C. when an airplane that came from Kansas into D.C. crashed into a helicopter, taking the lives of more than 60Americans. Donald Trump actually in the Oval Office signing an executive order blaming diversity and blaming President Biden for it, even though Donald Trump's gutted federal agencies will talk about that. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's been reposting QAnon accounts, taking credit for the rain in California, saying release the water, watch the water over and over again. No Donald, what I'm watching is you. I'm watching the fact that prices are not going down, they're going up. Housing is not more affordable, it's less affordable. There's not peace in Ukraine in 24 hours and your threats of tariffing anybody on any given day based on your arbitrary capricious and downright dangerous emotions has led to things like coffee reaching records high and other commodities are getting there as well. Donald Trump engaging in Kim Jong Un like conduct and Putin esque conduct as well. You know he had Meta Juice to be Facebook enter into a settlement agreement with him to pay him $25 million for some ridiculous lawsuit Trump filed back in 2021 because Facebook exercised its discretion with a platform that it controlled to block Donald Trump back then. So they're now paying him 25 million 23 purportedly to a Trump presidential library. Right? It had to like double what ABC was paying and then $3 million for legal fees. I guess this is a Bribe by another name. Some may have an opinion of that. But I'll leave it to your opinion ultimately to make that determination. I'll also let you share your opinions about the confirmation hearings that took place as you had Cash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. All of those confirmation hearings were set by Republicans at once to try to jam these unqualified, incompetent and dangerous people through. And again, to me, whether you're from a red state, blue state, Democrat, independent, Republican, whatever, you should want qualified people, not Hegseths or Gabbards or RFKs or Cash Patels dangerous incompetent people. Also, the Federal Reserve did not lower interest rates given all of the uncertainty right now in the economy caused by Donald Trump and that government freeze, even though it was blocked by a federal judge. Another federal judge in Rhode island after Trump purported to rescind the OMB memo, but then his press secretary said, no, we were just rescinding the memoir, not the freeze. So a Caroline Levitt, 27 year old Trump press secretary had to say, the judge was like, so you mean you're not rescinding it? So we're going to issue a restraining order against you. But chaos has ensued across the country. This is the Midas Touch podcast. I'm joined by Brett and Jordy.
Brett Meiselas
Crazy week. Crazy, I was going to say. Is it? How, how long, how far through this week are we? Okay, it's Thursday at least. But it's been a crazy week. Week has really highlighted the incompetence of the administration. I mean, the willful, malicious incompetence. We've said on the show numerous times throughout Biden's administration that when crises happen, you want somebody in charge who's able to handle them appropriately, who's able to manage the situations, who's able to look at them clear eyed and be honest with the American people and make the right decisions about how to actually make these situations better. Unfortunately, we have a guy right now in the Oval Office who does the complete opposite of that, who rushes to judgment, who tries to blame the other side. It's the complete opposite of what we always like about our presidents throughout our history. I mean, I think to Harry Truman, what was Harry Truman's famous line? The buck stops here, the buck stops with me. I think it's the buck stops here. And Donald Trump is the opposite of Truman in that regard. And the opposite of what a leader is supposed to be. I mean, blaming President Obama, Obama, what are you talking about? Blaming President Biden, blaming diversity for this horrific tragedy that we watched unfold last night. I mean, my heart is absolutely breaking for this. It is such a horrifying scene. And to see Donald Trump take that and try to blame Biden and Obama and diversity, it just, honestly, it makes me so angry to see and it makes me so angry that there are Americans who could look at this and support this evil guy. It really, really, really disgusts me. I know we're going to get into it all. We got a lot to discuss, so I'll toss it over to you, Jay.
Jordy Kral
Yeah, I mean, Brett, just building on that real quick. It's just beyond pathetic, right? I feel like we talked about this earlier in the week or maybe last week, too, when I'm like all Trump and these Republicans keep doing. But, but Biden did this. But dei, here's the issue. Donald Trump is President. Biden's not President Obama. Sure hell isn't President DEI Trump. You're the president, aren't you? Got rid of Di when he walked in the door. You signed all those executive orders, big guy. And so these excuses just fall on deaf ears when all of a sudden you are the party in charge. You control the House, you control the Senate. You have the presidency. It's gross to say. I hate saying it, but you do. It's not Biden, it's not Obama. It's not DEI Trump, it's you Republicans. It's you guys that are causing this chaos, hysteria, and it's getting people killed. Benji, where do you want to start?
Ben Miceli
Well, why don't we start with Donald Trump posting a fact sheet? Let's, let's start with last week where Donald Trump posted a fact sheet on January 22, 2025 about the federal Aviation Administration and Trump says fact sheet, President Donald J. Trump ends DEI madness. End, restores excellence and safety within the Federal Aviation Administration. Folks, whether you're a Democrat, independent, Republican, red state, blue state, do you see excellence over the past 24, 48 hours, or do you see tragedy? I see tragedy when an airplane, a commercial plane, struck a military Blackhawk helicopter flying over Washington, D.C. what else are we learning? The FAA administrator had to quit on January 20th because Elon Musk forced him out. Also, Donald Trump put in place a very dangerous FAA hiring freeze such that the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the ranking members, who are the, the Democrats on the committee before this incident, put out a statement how dangerous this was. Donald Trump also cut back and removed key air safety committees as well.
Brett Meiselas
I'd also just like to jump in for a quick second to explain Briefly, why Elon Musk forced out the head of the FAA right there. It was because the FAA was trying to find El around $600,000 for safety violations committed by Elon Musk's company, SpaceX. And I just want to bring that up because it is the complete problem with having this oligarchy set up right here and having these billionaires who have these other interests that they have to deal with because it makes their decision making by its inherent nature corrupt. Because Elon Musk cares about his companies. He doesn't care about the country. So Elon Musk had a personal tiff with this guy because this guy wanted to enforce what, what's the issue that we're all talking about right now? Air safety, aviation safety. And Elon Musk pushed back and made this guy quit because of that. Pushed him right out. I just wanted to bring it up because it is like the epitome of the entire issue with this administration.
Ben Miceli
Then make it's a great point. Also, Donald Trump appointed Sean Duffy as the Secretary of Transportation. He got famous because he was on the Real World and then competed on the Real World Road Rules Challenge. You see him right there. He then parlayed that into a career as a MAGA, Republican Congress member and then a Fox host who was hawking crypto a few weeks ago. Let's talk about some of the facts. Some of the facts that we're learning is that staffing was not normal at the airport tower in Washington, D.C. where the crash took place, according to a preliminary FAA report. While that news was breaking earlier, it was not shocking. Donald Trump and his administration have been torturing federal employees. That's what Project 2025 is all about, to destroy their morale, to break them and to force them out. That's why they did a government spending freeze. And then they did what I think is a fake and also likely unlawful severance package, telling government employees, all of them, that if you resign immediately, you will be eligible for a buyout of your contract through next September, which I don't even think is a lawful use of appropriation expenditures, number one. Number two, do you trust that Donald Trump is actually going to pay that? And three, when you look at the fine print, it seems to suggest that all that really does is say that you can still work remotely, but not that you're not allowed to or that you can stop working, period. So there's a lot of shadiness there to begin with. But the overall point is you have all of this strain and chaos and pressure being exerted on the federal government. And, you know, a buddy of ours, Brett and Jordy, said, you know, when Elon Musk was destroying Twitter and there would be outages and delays and problems with it, it was Twitter, okay? At the end of the day, it's a social media app. But when you do that with the federal government, which regulates railroads and airplanes and food safety and health, well, then you get global pandemics, you get air crashes, you get railroad derailments, you get food shortages, and that's what's at stake. I want to show the clips, Brett, but I want to reflect on that for a moment.
Brett Meiselas
Yeah. And you know, there's this whole kind of the playing field is not even when it comes to these sorts of things, because last night I saw a whole lot of these MAGA Republican types, these MAGA influencer types. When people started to bring up and realize, oh wait, Trump got rid of this aviation safety board last week away, Trump pushed out the head of the faa. Trump did all these things to intimidate staffers and drive staffers out. And now there are shortages at all these organizations where we need them. Like, there was one individual who was in charge of both the helicopters and all the planes that were coming in at that airport. We normally have multiple people monitoring both. And when people started to bring that up, you saw these mag influencers online who are like, how dare you? These are these liberal scum. Scum. How dare you speak like that. And how dare you rush to politics. And I agree, you shouldn't rush to politics in these situation. There are people's lives. It's important that you reflect on what is actually happening and that you are trying to act in the best interest of humanity. I agree entirely. But these are the first people out there, every single tragedy, to try to exploit it and take advantage of it. If someone is like little as like farted on a plane or a train during the Biden administration, these people would blame people to judge. They'd blame Biden, they blame DEI every single time. That was their whole shtick. That's what they did for the past four years, blamed Biden for everything, including the things that, that he managed very well. So now people bring up legitimate points about what is going on and what do they want to do. They know that. They know the effectiveness of calling him out. And quite frankly, this is honest information. This is real information. This is information that could have truly had an effect on this situation and led to this incident. So they want to what? It's a threat to Trump. They want to Silence you. So they want to try to mock you, they want to try to deride you, they want to try to act like you're a horrible human being. And that's part of their strategy as well. And so you have this uneven playing field where, where the second you start to speak out, these people are like, how dare you? How could you do it? And even, you know, a lot of kind of journalist types and you know, people like that speak out and are like, it's too soon for that. It's too soon for that. I'm sorry, it's not. We need to be speaking out about these issues. We need to be clear eyed and we need to understand that the actions that Donald Trump takes, it's not just a TV show. This ain't reality tv. This ain't the real world. Sean Duffy I'm sorry, this is real life. This affects people's lives and that's what enrages me so much. You can't just willy nilly go, I'm going to get rid of the people at the FAA because those people watch the planes and ensure that this doesn't happen. And this is going to continue to happen in various industries. There's going to be food incidents with health, safety. It's going to affect everything because Donald Trump is incompetent and all he cares about is his bluster in front of the camera. And so we have to be calling it out every single day and we can't let people silence us.
Ben Miceli
So now he uses his position in the White House, the biggest microphone in the world and the history of mankind, to spread his vicious lies, his blame game. The irony is that he's speaking from the main position of power while taking zero accountability and blaming others. Dude, you are in charge. You're in charge and not only are you in charge, your actions actually led to this. So let's take a look at what happened. So here is Trump during a press conference on the helicopter plane collision, blaming Biden and others. Let's play this clip.
Donald Trump
And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats. Democrats put policy first and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible.
Ben Miceli
As he's putting politics at levels that nobody's seen. Do you see the gaslighting right there? And doesn't that give you the vibes of his Covid press conferences? Folks, you've got nothing to worry about. Like A miracle. It's all going to go away, actually. It's actually great. Things are good. Did you see the stock market? It bounced back. Just inject yourself with some bleach. Everybody, this is all good, all good.
Brett Meiselas
Every.
Ben Miceli
It's China's fault, everybody. It's the China virus. Remember when he would do that routine? It's just the same iteration, perhaps worse. So then a reporter goes, so are you saying that this crash was caused by diversity? Because Donald Trump and his office were saying dei, dei. DEI did this. Then Donald Trump goes, it could have been here. Watch this clip.
Brett Meiselas
On DEI and the.
Ben Miceli
Claims that you've made.
Brett Meiselas
Are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?
Donald Trump
It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else.
Ben Miceli
I thought Donald Trump put out a press release saying that he got rid of the imaginary Dei Boogeyman. On January 22. He said it was restored, excellence was restored. He fought with his imaginary DEI boogeyman. He claims he won the fake battle with the DEI boogeyman and now he's blaming DEI still. Do you see these Putin esque tactics here? I know, Brett. You do? I know Jordy. Do I know the Midas mighty? You do, Brett?
Brett Meiselas
Yeah. I mean they could not be more out in the open when you see these clips. The irony, of course, of the DEI thing is that Donald Trump's, all of his nominees and candidates, everybody who he surrounds himself with are dei. They didn't earn it. They are all the worst people that you could possibly see filling these roles. I mean, the, it's just laughable when he uses DEI excuse. And then you have Pete Hegseth who has his history of allegations against him for sexual assault and his history of all the photos of him drinking on the job and his reports of alcoholism and reports from his own mother about abuse and all, all these various things.
Ben Miceli
Never led anything in the military, never.
Brett Meiselas
Let anything in the military. And you have him like speaking down and trying to remove the stars of respected generals like Mark Milley. It is the complete flip where you now have a castocracy in place in addition to the oligarchy that is a government that is led by the most incompetent among us. And that is what he tries to act like. DEI is and what diversity is. He tries to act like. That means you have incompetent people. When we're seeing what Donald Trump's hiring process is, it's bringing on the most incompetent people imaginable, because he just wants lackeys the same way Vladimir Putin just wants lackeys the same way Kim Jong Un just wants lackeys. It's the same thing, different country happening right here in the United States. And I feel like nobody, like, defends diversity anymore because they're too afraid because Republicans have made such an offensive. So let me defend it for a second, because what diversity, what the Republicans want to act like it is, is it's you're picking people for their skin color and that's it. And you're trying to fill quot but that's not what it is. If you actually want to speak about what diversity is, it's saying instead of just looking at this narrow group of people that you surround yourself with, like the Pete Hegseth, like the guy from the Real World MTV show, you know, those people maybe reach out outside of your bubble and see all these other groups out there, all these other people who have these lived experiences who may actually be a lot better than those people. But the fact is, there are a lot of people who are far more qualified than the people who have Donald Trump have chosen. And so they have to look down on them. So what Trump is now saying in all these press conferences is basically, and this is going to happen every single incident. If there is a woman who's flying the helicopter or the plane, that's going to be what they try to make the story. If there's an African American who flew the plane, who's involved in, that's going to be the story. If there's someone in the LGBT community, that's going to be the story. Because they need to deflect blame from what is really happening here, from their own failures.
Jordy Kral
Absolutely, Absolutely. Diversity is their new buzzword, too. It's like during COVID what was it? It was experts do activists. Those are the things that they attacked. Now they're attacking the word diversity.
Brett Meiselas
They've evolved, right? They used to be crt and then, like, you know, they've slowly gone, you know, honestly at a pretty quick pace, but they've gone more towards, from these words that were like code words for it to now they're like going closer to it. And the further we get, the more it's gonna get. Really, you know.
Jordy Kral
Well, when you listen to the hexa comments, I mean, he just flat out said, I don't want women in. In the military is basically what Hegseth had said on. On tape there. They say the quiet parts out loud.
Ben Miceli
It's.
Jordy Kral
It's disgusting. When you look at Donald Trump during these press conferences, does he work? Is he. Or is he just. Is he just holding court for corporate media? And they just eat it up. They go, yeah, Donnie, Donnie.
Brett Meiselas
Guys on TV all day. And they broadcast them all day, like, from. From morning till evening. He's in a press conference. He's in the Oval Office. And I get that reporters like the access. They like being in there with the cameras. But at some point, is somebody going to ask, like, dude, do you do work or you do go from this to the golf course? And then you let Elon Musk and his crew just cause chaos throughout our government?
Jordy Kral
Corporate media is having the time of their lives right now. They don't want to do anything to get in trouble with. With Donnie over there, B. They're having so much fun at the expense of people's lives. Again, it's disgusting. When you see Donald Trump up there talking to these reporters. This isn't a person who wants to lead for all Americans. It's just so obvious up there. Blaming Biden and Obama dei Ben Weapon of mass dest. Mass distraction. Exactly. Exactly that phrase. He's up there just spewing utter nonsense that, again, the corporate media and his MAGA followers just eat it up time and time. He doesn't want to lead for Americans. He wants to lead for the oligarchs while grifting off of the American people. It's like the reverse Robin Hood, right?
Ben Miceli
He wants.
Jordy Kral
He wants to give money to his oligarchs at the expense of Americans and American livelihoods. But it's disgusting.
Ben Miceli
What do you think MAGA Republicans were focused on today? What do you think their top issue was? Of course, what all Americans are worried about right now is their prices are going up as eggs, if you can even find them, are skyrocketing as your coffee prices are going through the roof, as you're worried because of the war that's taking place in Europe and Ukraine that Donald Trump said he was gonna fix in 24 hours, and the war spreading to Europe as people are worried that Trump's gonna impose these tar on Canada and Mexico, and we're going to be embroiled in a devastating trade war against countries that should be our closest allies, as people are worried. Donald Trump saying he's going to impose tariffs on the semiconductor industry in Taiwan, our ally playing right into China's hand. Americans, I know, are very focused on whether or not Donald Trump will appear on Mount Rushmore. I'm being sarcastic of Course, but that's the MAGA Republicans priority. MAGA Republican Anna Paulina Luna introducing legislation to put Donald Trump's face on Mount Rushmore. Quote, his remarkable accomplishments for our country and the success he will continue to deliver deserve the highest recognition and honor on this iconic national monument, Mount Rushmore. It's a timeless symbol of our nation's freedom. He deserves to be remembered along the greats like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. That's what they're doing. At the same time of this national tragedy, while Donald Trump is also making Q anon posts and reposting QAnon accounts, Donald Trump posting the. This is the QAnon one. And it is like if you go and look at Spiritual Street Fighter 17 WWG1GA where we go one, we go all. Donald Trump is reposting her. Donald Trump is also making. There it is right there. Watch the water. Donald Trump.
Brett Meiselas
The water, by the way, was a Q drop this week. I saw this. It was, you know, Q Occasionally the mysterious figure who leads QAnon released a drop and they said watch the water. And it was about Donald Trump turning on the rain in California, the big faucet in California that all the water came from. I mean, the stuff is like that.
Ben Miceli
Canada borders California on the north. That's what they think. And that right there in the northwest where California borders Canada, this is what they think. There's a faucet. And Trump turned Trump ordered. This is what Trump's followers, this is what 35% of America, at least 35% America believes sent the military and they turned on the faucet and then there was rain and the water was delivered and the fires were put out by Donald Trump. You know, 60% of Americans have under a fifth grade education and I guess they're into Donald Trump making posts like the goat, the G O A T. They're making posts like this totally and utterly absurd. This is what they're focused on on. And it's important that we point out that this is their behavior and contrast it with what we need to be focused on. You're not going to hear this in corporate media. You're going to hear it here on the Midas Touch Network. We have zero outside investors, zero oligarchs, zero billionaires, no investors at all here. One of the ways you can support us is at midasplus.com m e I-a s p l u s.com you can actually subscribe for free to test it out. It eventually becomes a membership. But try it out subscribe though. Become a member. It helps us grow. It's one of the main ways we grow.
Brett Meiselas
Lots of free content there too. If you subscribe for free. So you're getting a lot of good stuff. Even if you're a free subscriber, you always stay up to date and that's where you get, you know, like ad free episodes like this podcast Tomorrow will be up there ad free. If you're listening to the audio, it's it might be up there right now. It's going to be up there today. And so much great content. Ron Philipkowski's Daily Bulletins are the best daily recaps of the news you will ever read. Check them out. A Midas Plus. I wouldn't recommend it so strongly unless I really believed in it. And I really believe this is a great product that you will all also.
Ben Miceli
We got patreon.com Midas Touch. That's where we hold our meetings, our Zoom meetings. And it was great to meet with everybody earlier this week. Thanks for seeing it. We'll do another one very soon. But it was so great to see everybody at that meeting subscribe right now. We've got a lot more show. Don't worry, don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this pretty quick break.
Jordy Kral
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Ben Miceli
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Jordy Kral
Let'S go. Shout out to our sponsors man Links in description of YouTube and audio use the links. Use the codes. The codes really help us too. When you make sure you get that code in there beams back. I love beam Beams back on the network. So show them some love. Fatty 15 is wonderful as well. If you're in the market for that stuff, check it out. Work out the deals really hard for y'all. And I really like both those processes products. Benji, where to next?
Ben Miceli
We go to the Oval Office next and let me show you what was going on there. And Brett, to your point, I know corporate media, you know, they salivate for this. This is what they live. This is what they live for.
Brett Meiselas
It's a great point by me.
Jordy Kral
It was definitely my point.
Ben Miceli
Well, by the way, I mean, you know, Brett's new Tick Tock emergence as really good as, as one of the best.
Brett Meiselas
By the way, we have a lot of tiktokers who are now coming to YouTube to watch the show. So we should say what's up to Tick Tock. I like to have here. If you hear from Tick Tock, let us know in the comments in the, in the live chat. If you're watching live. Love seeing you here. This is awesome.
Jordy Kral
Let's go.
Ben Miceli
Let me show you what went down. So Donald Trump needs to be explained the things that he's signing, which is kind of just a weird thing in general too. They need to tell him what it is. He's obviously doing it for theatrics or maybe he needs it actually explained to him him because one of the things that we were learning as well was that the White House was blaming the Office of Management and Budget, which is now also kind of controlled by Elon Musk, as well as Russ Vote, the author of Project 2025 for the government freeze memo. Right. They said, and the Atlantic reported it. So odd. They were like the memo that shocked the White House. Okay. The memo that shocked the White House. I mean, Donald Trump's plan was Project 2025. The directive from the Office of Management and Budget Budget that froze most of federal funds on Monday had not gone through the usual approval process. Now look, I, I, the Atlantic is usually, they're usually on the, I think they usually write better articles than most. But what's the usual approval process? The usual approval process for Donald Trump? Let me post Q A non all.
Brett Meiselas
Caps letters and I'll say this. There was an informative article.
Ben Miceli
That's the usual approval process. So it doesn't even mean it was.
Brett Meiselas
An informative article that had a lot of good information in it. And I think the biggest issue was the headline. And I want to say, I want to be clear about that.
Ben Miceli
And sometimes Ashley Parker probably didn't write the headline.
Brett Meiselas
Oftentimes the people. Yeah. Because I so oftentimes they are, they're different. The people write that lines. And, but, but, but here's like, the underlying thing, like, with that and, and with what Trump does and what we see every single day, it's that. What was that?
Ben Miceli
I said, sorry, Ashley, you wrote a good story.
Brett Meiselas
It was informative.
Jordy Kral
She did a good job.
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, there's good. If, if you're at the headline, I have some notes. But. But I'm sure you're great. But, but no, honestly, the thing, though is there's always, like, this has been a thing with Trump going back to, like, 2015. It's always been, like, not Trump's fault. It's always someone else, and he often blames somebody else. And, and oftentimes the media goes, oh, yeah, it was this guy. It was that guy, was the guy. It's never a buck stops here moment to bring this episode full circle to the beginning. And that's what drives. And so anytime that the media gives credence to that idea of, like, oh, it's just this person who went rogue and destroyed the entire system, I'm like, okay, so is he the president or is he not the president? Like, what, what, what, what are we doing here? We need to hold to the same standards that we'd hold anybody else to, not less standards, that's for sure. And that's why I want to make sure that everyone's doing that.
Ben Miceli
So to them, President Biden was responsible for absolutely every single thing, everything. No matter what local Trump issues, Donald Trump responsible for absolutely nothing. Literally nothing. He could be in office, but, like, we're still going to pretend that it's Biden and Obama and somehow Buddha Jej is involved in it as well. And Trump can never be. It's absurd. But that's why, you know, more people are watching this network now than any other cable network, including Fox. I mean, that's just why we crave the facts. Facts. I'm intellectually curious to know, like, what's really happening. And that's why I don't read other corporate media at all. I just go to the source documents and I look at the clips and I watch it and I read the orders and I form my own evaluation of it, because I'm just trying to read and grapple with what's before me. So that's why I showed you earlier in this episode about all of the things that, you know, Donald Trump did to the faa, the federal government, government forcing out the FAA head, you know, gutting these Key safety committees. So what does Trump do? And this is part of his playbook. You go on the offense, and then you blame others. And normally that would just mean you go on Fox. Well, now Trump goes on Fox in the Oval Office and then signs an executive order declaring. Declaring, like this. This is stuff that Kim Jong Un would be like, maybe learn, take some lessons here. Declaring that the plane crash was the result of Biden and dei, and that's what caused flight dangers here. Watch it for yourself, sir.
Donald Trump
Thank you.
Ben Miceli
Second, for your signature, we have a presidential memorandum titled Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety. In light of the damage done to aviation safety by the Biden administration's DEI and WOKE policies, what this presidential memorandum orders is for your Secretary of Transportation and FAA administrator, in this case, acting FAA administrator, to basically ensure that we are actively undoing all of that damage, that we are assessing how much damage was done, and that we're ensuring that people hired within the FAA, in keeping with your memorandum of January 21st, are only the most outstanding, capable people for the jobs that they are being hired wired into.
Donald Trump
In other words, competence.
Ben Miceli
Yes, sir. Elevating competence over. In other words, what you're trying to say here is competence. Huh? Like, corporate media is so stupid that they, you know, like, the tricks look like, like they're out of like a. Like a 1945, like, like, like Disney cartoon where, like, the good guy or the bad guy tries to set the trap for a good guy, you know, And Trump's like, you know, it's just. It's such corny crap. Oh, okay. In other words, competence. Sir, we've got an order here. We're going to remove the woke from it that you've already said you've eliminated two weeks ago, but now you're blaming it because you were the one who gutted the faa. So now let's blame Obama and Biden and Buttigieg. So what you're saying is competence, and then the corporate media reports it, executive order eliminating. You know, it's like, come on. Stupidest stuff in the world.
Brett Meiselas
The biggest argument against everything they say is themselves. Like, the biggest argument is exactly the way they run these things. And you could even go. You could go person by person of the people who they're bringing on. I mean, I keep going back to Pete Hegseth because he's, like, one of the most important people now in the country, controlling our military, controlling our budget. He's responsible for that helicopter being wherever it was that day, and that's his helicopter, and so is Pete Hegseth. Just wants the people to forget that he's in charge of this now. He's, they're going to try to blame other people. And the giveaway is when they go, and we're not going to look at these other factors, but we're just going to look at competence. And then you look at who they view as competent people like Pete Hegseth and who they look at as incompetent people like General Mark Milley, people like Lloyd Austin. Lloyd Austin is like, this is a former secretary of defense under President Biden, one of the most decorated military generals, like, of all time. This guy, like, has a military career that is to be revered. Weird, unbelievable human being. And they view him as incompetent. Why? Because he's black. That's it. Like the dei, this whole, all this language that they use, it's all just another way of them to get around saying racial slurs. And that's like the, the big not, not much so much of a secret. But it's, it's the whole thing. It's, we're seeing this white supremacy in action. And you see it, whether it's Elon Musk doing the gestures that he's doing or the way they're running the White House, they use all these other words, words. And they use all this other framing to try to play it coy. But it's very obvious what they're doing.
Ben Miceli
Let me show you this. Donald Trump in the Oval Office was asked about those 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Here's what Donald Trump says is going to happen. Let's play it.
Donald Trump
Cities that we're giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits. And I'll be putting the tariff of 25% on Canada and separate separately 25% on Mexico. And we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. Those tariffs may or may not rise with time.
Ben Miceli
You know, I should note that Donald Trump is making those threats at the same time that Howard Lutnick, who is his pick to be the head of the Commerce Department, says Canada and Mexico can avoid tariffs before Saturday's deadline and basically comes up with a way to try to create a fake deal with Donald Trump. And during his testimony, he blamed Canada for killing a hundred thousand Americans a year with fentanyl and saying Canada is shipping this in. Again, that's just false. There's literally nothing, there's no aspect of that statement that is true. True. So they basically want Canada to admit that it will stop Doing something that it's not doing. And the plan would then be, I guess, to make a fake deal and say Donald Trump made Canada submit and bend a knee and kiss the ring, and then hope our media propaganda reports it the same way they kind of did with Colombia. Columbia, which was a test run for that, where Donald Trump threatened 25, 50% tariffs, then Colombia said they're retaliating against it, and then Donald Trump said, we made a deal. And the deal is basically the exact same thing that happened when Biden was in office is now happening still. But he acted like they're agreeing to take people back, but they were taking people back under President Biden with what Columbia said is they didn't want military planes, which. With people from Colombia being shackled like prisoners. And it's.
Brett Meiselas
It's like you caused. Like there was no. There was no problem with the deportations problem. You caused the problem, and then you came up with your fake solution, and now you're spiking the football and the media is like, oh, look at how tough he was. Nothing happened.
Ben Miceli
Nothing happened.
Brett Meiselas
Nothing happened.
Ben Miceli
And by the way, Canada has been reaching out to its European allies, by and large, other than the premier of Alberta, which she's like, maga May people. Canada is ready to impose very harsh retaliatory tariffs against America to try to cause pain. Mexico's wildly popular president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has been rallying, not just those in Mexico, but all throughout Latin America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean. They held a meeting today as well. They're ready to go, and they're going to be turning more towards China for help. Who's the big beneficiary of this? All you have France meeting with the leader of Denmark. And France and other European allies within Denmark are committed or floating at least, but likely committed to sending ground troops into Greenland to protect it against an American invasion. The world is uniting against Donald Trump. And the thing there, too, is those populations have been prepared for the assault on them by Donald Trump. So they're ready for shared sacrifice because they've been learning about this. They understand the threat, by and large, now in America, because our corporate media has bent the knee, kissed the ring, put on their knee pads, what have you. People here are not ready. I think, by and large, those who watch the Midas Dutch network are. Are for what's about to take place. The mere threat of Colombia's retaliatory tariffs and tariffs on Colombia led to a skyrocketing of coffee prices and also gas prices just start to. And the Tariffs didn't even happen. Trump made a fake deal. If these tariffs get imposed and we're in a massive trade war and then we impose tariffs on Taiwan as well, this is going to happen, have massive economic impacts. And Brett Jordy, Midas mighty. What is Donald Trump going to do when that happens? Three letters, D, E, I and one name. Biden, Donald Trump. They're all going to roll out there. We're going to have to sign. This is the executive order. Sir. Sir. And this says that the economic catastrophe that just occurred was caused by Biden. I hereby decree DEI and Biden caused a depression. And at some point, let me be very clear, we the people are not going to take it. And it's happening rapidly. It's happening rapidly that we the people, at some point when this keeps on happening, it's going to be enough, enough. And that's what he wants wants though, right? He wants the people to have a reaction to this. And he is what he said he was going to do before martial law. And I'm going to declare the Insurrection Act. This is part of the project 2025. Elon Musk said We this was during the election. I did how many reports Brett and Jordy and Midas money did I did on this? I said, folks, they're saying that they want to cause economic hardship, right? They're saying they literally the quote was we want to inflict economic hardship. Hey, union folks. Elon Musk's literally saying he doesn't believe in your existence. He said unions create a lord peasant environment and that they should be abolished, period. Sorry for that.
Jordy Kral
No, Ben, real quick. There's only so many times Trump could really go to the Biden. Well, at least so I thought. And then all of a sudden today he was rolling out that it was Obama's fault, that the plane crash was somehow Obama's fault. So it doesn't look like they've advanced their talking points at all. At least Trump and these MAGA Republicans on how they're going to deal with disaster, like they're sure as heck never going to take accountability. But to your point, Ben, there's only so many times you could really blame Biden and DEI again when you are the party in charge, when you have the House, the Senate and the presidency before corporate media hopefully one day pushes back on him and said not going to take it because, you know, unfortunately it's not up. We can't wait for corporate media to do that. That's why we're doing it here. The Midas mighty and the pro democracy community, and it's fricking working. But I just, you know, I just want to see somebody have the stones one day to finally push back on them.
Brett Meiselas
Here's the thing. You're, you're assuming an electorate that uses common sense. You're assuming a rational electorate. And it's not, it's just not what we're dealing with. Like, it just isn't. So, like, yes, they're going to go back to the same. Well, every single, the same people are going to parrot the same every single time. And they're going to try to play this like it's football or something. They're going to play it like it's sports. They're going to just do exactly what they've been doing. You're going to have all these people, the Charlie Kirks, the Tim Pools, the, you name it, they are all going to be spouting this BS and turning everything into these same wars, the same, it's the same game they play every single time. And so our goal is to be louder megaphones than them and to find the people who aren't so entrenched in that cult and to pull them out of it gradually. Right? So we already saw, because there, there are a lot of people who voted for Trump this time who aren't just the MAGA cultists. And we have to understand that there are people who voted because, you know, like a lot of young men, this is something that we were raising the alarm on quite a lot. A lot of them voted because they viewed their lives as they were getting stiffed, you know, in their life, that they had this promise of America, of the American dream, that you are going to live a better life than your parents and you are going to be richer than them and you are going to have more, more opportunities. And they grew up in an environment where that's not the case. And turning to Donald Trump sounds counterproductive. And I agree, it's the opposite of what you want to do if you want to solve those issues. But they found some sort of camaraderie in this that made them feel powerful, that made them feel like, okay, this is a community that accepts me and they actually make me not feel like a piece of crap. Right. There are people out there who are still persuaded who voted for Donald Trump. So I think it's the goal of, of us, of this entire community to be in full persuasion mode every single day and highlighting the chaos. And we already see the more people see what Donald Trump's action, because campaigning is different than governing. And the more people see what Donald Trump is actually doing, especially now, because his actions are not going to only be seen by his people, they're going to be shown on these networks. Right? Whether the networks give him good coverage or bad coverage, people are going to be seeing these crazy actions every day. But we saw in one week his approval rating go down like quite a bit and we saw a big backlash to like all of his signature policies. We saw this right off the bat. And so Ben, I don't want to step on you because I know you wanted to get into this also. So, so let me know if we should show some of this data or if we should hold on it. But the point is, when people actually are seeing what Trump is doing, a lot of people, people will not like it, but they will only not like it if we don't give up, if we don't quit. And there are so many people right now, I'm not saying this community, but like a lot of people in the Democratic Party right out there, right, who just sort of seem defeatist or seem like, oh, in order to win people over, we need to be more like them and we need to like make our policies more MAGA and things like that. And it's just like the such the wrong way to work about it. Like have your values, speak loudly and proudly about them and actually fight for something like that's what people want. People want fighters and we all need to be fighting for our country. If that calvary is not going to come from this, these party infrastructure and from leaders like that, we're going to be the ones who have to take it on.
Ben Miceli
Let's take our last quick break of the show.
Brett Meiselas
I can't hear you right now. I'm not sure if you're new, but.
Jordy Kral
I just wanted to add this there Brett, Dem leadership needs to step up like to your point. Exactly. Their Dem leadership needs to figure out a way to combat the Biden, the dei, which is strong friggin messaging. This community is doing amazing. The pro democracy community is doing great, speaking out and putting that down, down. But I, I need to see it out of DEMN leadership.
Ben Miceli
I need to see.
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, you're good now.
Ben Miceli
Perfect. Well, why don't we take our last quick break of the show. Brett will go over that data. We'll go over Donald Trump being asked a question about, well, you said you were going to what, cleanse or clear out or just get rid of the whole Gaza situation, that you were going to cut this deal with Egypt and Jordan but it turns out that there's saying there's no deal. We're not, we're not doing that. We don't know what he's even talking about. And Donald Trump's like, they're going to do it. Just trust me. They'll, they'll do it. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about some data. Reminder patreon.com Midas Touch is where you get to do Zoom meetings with us. Secret links get to meet with us and then Midasplus.com led by our editor in chief, Ron Philipowski. You can subscribe for free@midas.com so you might as well just subscribe for free. Free. Test it out, try it. A lot of free content. And look, we don't have outside investors, so we'd like you to become a paid subscriber. But you can try it out, become a paid subscriber, do whatever you want to do. We're just grateful that you're a part of the Midas Mighty. Either way, let's take our last quick break of the show.
Brett Meiselas
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Jordy Kral
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Brett Meiselas
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Ben Miceli
So Trump's ambassador to the United Nation, Elise Stefanik, was asked at a confirmation hearing whether she espouses a biblical view that Palestinians And Palestine should simply not exist. And she said she agrees with that biblical view. View. You had Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, say the same thing, that he has a Christian Zionistic view as he refers to it as any biblical perception that Palestine should not exist. And then Donald Trump also said that he wants to clean it away or get rid of it and just, you know, you know, just get rid of the whole damn thing. And then he said he's got a deal with the King of Jordan and Egypt. Egypt, where that's where he's going to move all the Palestinians. Then he implied that he was going to build like condominiums. He says it's a great place for building great waterfront property. And by the way, several years ago, Jared Kushner made very similar remarks. I still remember where there were these Muslim leaders in Dearborn, Michigan and others who were saying that Donald Trump was going to be just great. He was going to be great for all of the Muslim issues. Well, Donald Trump is now gonna be imposing a Muslim ban that's worse than the first one, perhaps when he banned your entire people. I don't know. That may have been a red flag. The first administration. And we were saying that Donald Trump is very. It's not the same thing when it comes to Trump and Kamala. When it came to issues of Palestine and Kamala wanting a two state solution and Donald Trump not. But Donald Trump's being asked about. He says he's got this deal, but the president of Egypt and the King of Jordan say that we know nothing of this deal. The same way Donald Trump made up a lie that he was going to have a peace deal in Ukraine in 24 hours that he now WMD weapon and mass distraction wants us to forget about as Putin and Russia are literally mocking him on Russian state TV every day. But here's what Trump had to say about Gaza. Let's play it.
Brett Meiselas
Egypt's president and the King of Jordan have both said that they won't take in displaced people from Gaza like you suggested. Is there anything you can do to make them do that? I mean, tariffs against those countries, for example.
Donald Trump
They will do it. They will do it. They're going to do it. Okay. We do a lot for them and they're going to do it. Mr. President, you.
Ben Miceli
I mean, it's literally the stupidest loop of timeline that they're going to do it. Okay, they're going to do it. They're. They're going to do it. Now, the question should have ended after he said the Egypt president and the king of Jordan said that they're not going to do it. Did you notice the reporter though there? If you were listening carefully, like, are you going to use things like tariffs? Yeah. The question almost implies the f. It does. Does it? Almost. It is embedded with the fallacy that these tariffs threats are having an impact and are going to make Egypt and Jordan change their behavior in a material way. And, and it's, it's loaded with this idea that tariffs make sense. Tariffs are a tax on American corporations. You need me to say it again? Slo tariffs are attacks on American corporations that import import to try to disincentivize them from bringing in foreign goods. And sometimes it does that and the tax is then passed on to the American consumer. If the American company still imports from the foreign country, the foreign country gets pissed because it's an economic weapon against them. So then they impose retaliatory tariffs. Then a trade war starts. Hearts. Donald Trump believes that America was its richest in the 1870s, which is just the blatantly most stupidest thing you can possibly say. We were not the most powerful in the 1870s. And so this whole concept that we should be more like 1870America is quite literally the dumbest thing. But also just going back to that video, you've got Donald Trump again, this was. This is his latest lie. They're going to do it. Why? Because I say so. Okay. I just. They're gonna do it. We do a lot for them. They're. He has no sense of the geopolitical environment. While Russia and China are feasting. They could not be happier right now for similar end dip. They could not be happier. China's reaching out to all these countries saying, let us help you, let us invest. We'll be the new leaders who let us help you. Let us help you, let us help you. And Russia is like, this totally justifies all of our territorial ambitions to take Ukraine and to take Europe. Putin doesn't believe for a second that he's going to broker any deal that is in total capitulation. And he thinks that Donald Trump will allow that to happen. The only thing Ukraine is banking on, and I've been reading a lot of stuff from, from Kiev journalists out of this, is that somehow Donald Trump just gets so frustrated that he looks like a bad negotiator that maybe he will get frustrated with Putin. That's literally what Ukraine is banking on. Now, finally, let me show you this clip though, where Donald Trump says that. So they announced at another event that they were Going to launch a Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. Let's call it what it is, a concentration camp camp in Guantanamo Bay as like a point where migrants will be sent and I guess potentially Americans too because they're rounding up people who aren't even migrants and, and people who are here lawfully. Donald Trump says he's asked about it and he goes his concentration camp is not going to cost anything. It's not going to cost a lot of money. Here, watch this. You want 30, 30,000 view beds there. Is there a possibility that will increase with 30,000?
Donald Trump
It depends. But countries that won't take back their criminals that they sent into us, you know, they sent them to us, they put them into the caravans and they came in. As sure as you're standing that they were sent by those countries, then they're going to be met very harshly with sanctions, etc.
Jordy Kral
This new facility up and running, it'll.
Donald Trump
Be up pretty quickly.
Jordy Kral
How much do you think it's going to cost?
Donald Trump
Not very much. Much which a lot of the structure is already there.
Brett Meiselas
As you know, confidence may have played a role.
Ben Miceli
Are you. As you know, I don't know a lot of the structures there that. Look, I think you could probably ask Donald Trump any question about any topic and that and he will respond with the ridiculous answer. I mean I think you can literally ask him. There have been reports that Russia has highly trained unicorns that are whatever, what's your view on that? And he would respond, I think, you know, we have unicorns, they have unicorn. I think you can ask him the dumb, you know, anything and he will respond with some sort of lie that is utilizing the framing of the question. It's, it's absurd what he's saying there, that it's not going to cost anything like a miracle. It's all going to go away. Was his coincidence covenant. All of this is like what we predicted here. Conservative estimates were that Donald Trump was going to add five to $7 trillion to the to in debt. I was saying, well that's what he did last time, $8 trillion. So this time I'm putting a 5x multiple on it. So I was saying between 30 and $50 trillion in debt that he's going to add. Just think about it. One of these flights is like a million dollars with 80 people on him that he uses the jet and he makes the films about it. He is the most reckless with the spending and wait until they push forward their billionaire tax cuts. That's going to be their main thing. That's. That's working its way through right now, Brad.
Brett Meiselas
Everything that he's lining up right now with the tariffs, with the spending, with everything he's doing, it's. It's setting it up for, honestly, just like an economic disaster. That's all designed to funnel money, obviously to the richest people in the country and people who operate private prisons and, and things like that. Like, who do you think is gonna, you know, and I can't believe we even like, speak about this crazy Guantanamo idea in the realm of reality, but we, but we have to. But who do you think's gonna, like, you know, be. Be going down there to create these massive prisons in Guantanamo Bay? It's going to be some Trump lackey who runs private prisons, some billionaire who's going to get all this money. And just to put it in perspective also, I think Guantanamo Bay at its peak, and Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba. It's like an area of Cuba that we've, like, taken control of. And we put like, you know, a lot of people who are. Are like dangerous war criminals, but a lot of people have also been there because they the kind of wrong place, wrong time. These are people who haven't gotten due process. At its peak, there was like 700 prisoners that got Guantanamo Bay. 700 at its peak currently today. The last time I checked, there was 15 people in Guantanamo Bay. So he wants to go from 15 people, and right now the 15 people who are there are like the most dangerous, you know, people in the world who like, did 9, 11, and things like that. He wants to go from 15 people to our prison prisoners of war. And he wants to now, in a place that shouldn't exist, quite frankly, he wants to now bring in 30, 000 migrants and treat them as war criminals, basically, and bring them into this area designed for up to like, 700 people. And there's no way to do this in a way that's not going to be absolutely just dehumanizing. And it's. It's really. Guantanamo has been a stain on our country since it's been open. This takes it to a whole other level. It's just completely abhorrent. And it's just another step in this crazy kind of Trump chaos where he's just showing us that there is no bottom.
Ben Miceli
So here's their way to cover up the government freeze, right? So everybody was pissed. Red state, blue state, Democrat, independent, Republican government freeze. It probably impacted you or somebody you knew in some material way, the chaos. I mean, I had friends who were saying that, you know, they had Procedures and they weren't sure if they were going to be able to have a life saving procedure taking place. And whether you were talking about any of these government programs, people were impacted. I saw statements from the governor of Louisiana, a far right wing governor, the governor of West Virginia, far right wing governor, saying that they were caught off guard hard. And you know, they're like 45, 50% of like their budget comes from the federal government, which by the way, blue states help fund them. You think about Tennessee, you know, for example, all these red states are funded by the blue states with federal funds because they can't really fund themselves, by and large. And then they want to rail against the federal government. So, so what's Trump's current version of they're eating the cats and dogs? What red meat can he throw to his base knowing that a lot of people who support him have less than a fifth grade education and that there are about 50% of our country or 60% has under a fifth grade education, and that's the electorate. So what they came up with was that they needed to do this because Biden was putting $50 million or tens of millions of dollars and sending it to Hamas so Hamas can build bombs made with condoms. Condom bombs. Devastating condom bombs by Hamas. $50 million worth. I kid you not, this is what they went with. And it's so outlandish. It's so out there. Condom bombs, $50 million to Hamas. So even when I heard it at first, first you have to think to yourself, okay, maybe they're not condom bombs, but were we sending $50 million of contraceptives to Hamas? Were we sending, were we doing that? Like you start trying to go down, okay, there's a lie, but, but, but some of it must be true, right? Because people don't lie about everything. No, they lie about everything. Like literally from USAID of the $60 million of a much bigger budget budget that was sent internationally regarding contraceptives because you don't want internationally the spread of AIDS to occur in hiv, for example, which then finds its way back to here. Pandemics, as we've learned, are global in nature. So the fact that they may start in country wide doesn't mean they end up back in the United States. But none of that went to Gaza. None of that went to the West Bank. None of that went, went there. So literally this whole concept of condom bombs lie. But Trump's supporters feast on this stuff. They love this hits them and then, and then they're enraged and then they're so pissed about Condom bombs. Here, play the clip first of Trump talking about condom bombs. So people like, man, what are you talking about? Here, Play it.
Donald Trump
In that process, we identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza, Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas. 50 million. And you know what's happened to them? They've used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?
Ben Miceli
How about that it's a lie? How about none of it is true? But that's the thing. Like when I, when, when MAGA people reach out to me, if you want to even call it that, they send me memes. Like, they, they don't engage in actual discourse. Like they have a meme that they send you for everything. And then they start that. Then the new meme is like a photo of Biden with Hamas and then condoms. And then it's like a meme like that. And this, like, really hits them, I don't know, in their reptilian brain or whatever. And people run with this thing, and it's literally all a lie. And as I said, it's a WMD weapon of mass distraction. So you can ignore the fact that none of Donald Trump's promises are true, but perhaps when he said he was going to free all the January 6th insurrectionists, by the way, to have the episode come full circle, when Cash Patel was testifying at the confirmation hearing and California Senator Adam Schiff was asking him, hey, Patel, you were bragging that you came up with the J6 choir song with the most dangerous insurrection correctionists, many of who tried to kill police. Patel goes, I didn't do that. Senator Schiff goes, well, you went on Bannon, and you said, we produced this, and you talked about all the things that we did, meaning you. And then Patel goes, yeah, but I said we. And then Senator Schiff goes, so you don't include yourself in we, meaning you and Trump and others. Yeah, I don't know what that was referring to. That's where they're going with this. They created songs with the insurrectionists. They, they created musicals and, and, and choirs about this. But this is the WMD weapon of mass distraction that they're deploying to get you to forget about all of these things, that none of Trump's promises are true, Brett.
Brett Meiselas
Yeah, and one of the strategies also, and, you know, whether you call it a distraction or not a distraction, one of the, one of the moves that he does is, is just flood the zone with shit. And that's literally a phrase taken from Steve Bannon from Donald Trump's first term. That's a coordinated strategy by them to do so much chaos that it's hard to even keep track of it all. Even in the way that they handled these hearings today, where you had Tulsi and you had Cash Patel and you had RFK today all going at once. The three most controversial nominees. That's designed to put a lot of shit out there in order to divide your attention and make it so it's hard to focus on any one of them. It's hard to cover him and all of that. So we are going to see a lot of this flooding the zone from Trump. We are going to see more chaos. But I think the one bright spot of this week was that it showed that our voices matter. When it came to this funding freeze and the recession, of the funding freeze and the chaos around it, the judge ultimately ruling against them. The reason for all that chaos and uproar was because people made noise. And so we have to understand that we still need to use our megaphone and make noise at these things and do what we can to ensure that people realize how dangerous Donald Trump's policies are, how dangerous these funding freezes are, because they're going to try to position all these as good ideas, right? The same way they try to position their attacks on diversity as, as good ideas. The same way they try to frame all these attacks on staffers who deal with our airline safety as they were just cutting the budget. Don't you want a more efficient government? Sure, I want a more efficient government. I don't want to get rid of the person who controls the air safety for our planes. That's for, I got a, I got a plus symbol in my video. So, you know, just keep eye on. Where did that come from? Keep your eye on the ball, everybody, and understand that your voice, your voice has power. Got Ben and Jordan. I'm making fun of me, making the thumbs up for the audio listeners. Your voice still has power. Our voice is still a power. It's why we need to continue to spread these messages. It's why we need to continue to speak out and it's why we can't let them get us down and drive us into like this submission and this like, okay, well, it's just so much, much I, I got to tune out because I, I, I can't focus on it. That's exactly what they want you to do, and that's exactly why we're going to do the exact opposite of that every single day.
Jordy Kral
That's why this defeated, busting their butts every single day, coming out, sharing the videos talking about it, making noise in the right way. And I just want to say thank. Thank you guys. It doesn't go unnoticed. Like, none of this, none of this reach is possible without, without y'all here. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Ben Miceli
Look, we hit about 22, 23 million views or so every 48 hours. By reference, that three biggest fox shows combined, bigger than Hannity, Laura Ingram, and Jesse Waters all at it together. And that's thanks to you, the Midas mighty. Our choir needs to sing loud and we need to be proud about our views and values and principles. And we need to make sure that we continue to fight for the American people, for the American worker, and for our democracy. So if you can, we don't have outside invest, one of the best ways you can help is just subscribing. It's free to subscribe. Turn your notifications on. If you subscribe on YouTube, go look for it. It says notifications on when you do that. That means when I put out new videos or Brad or Jordy or any of our hosts put out new videos, you get the alert right away, even though we do them pretty much every 90 minutes. If you haven't figured out the pattern by now, you can keep checking back always throughout the day, as I'm sure you do, you get those notifications. Another way you can help out is@midasplus.com our Editor in Chief, Ron Filipkowski writes the best daily recaps every single day@midasplus.com and you could subscribe for free and test it out and see if you like it. And then maybe if you like it, you become a subscriber because without outside investors, it's one of the main ways we grow. And it's a great, great product in my opinion. Midasplus.com check it out out. And please subscribe there right now. Finally, patreon.com Midas touch a great destination where we do our special zoom meeting. So if you want to meet Brett, Jordi or I when we hold these meetings, that's a great place to do it. Also, there's a tier of membership on patreon.com Midas Touch where you can become an honorary producer. And your name, name shows up on the Midas Touch podcast live. You get to see your name there. It's forever etched in history. And we'll show that. We'll show that at the end that I feel like I'm at the Oscars and I'm getting the signal. All right, Ben. Anyway, Those are our honorary producers right there. Thank you to all the Honorary Producers, patreon.midas/midas Mighty oh Mods. To all of our mods, thank you so much for all the work you put in. And to all the Midas mighty out there, thank you for all the work you put in each and every day for our democracy. Whether you live here in the United States or abroad, it's important that we stand in solidarity with each other for democracy, for peace, for freedom, for love, compassion and empathy. We're here together. We're all in this together. We'll get through it together, together. And it'll feel very, very sweet when when we do. Thank you everybody for watching this episode. Oh hit subscribe to not just this, subscribe to the audio podcast as well. So wherever podcasts are available, just search Midas Touch Podcast. It goes a long way to help us when you subscribe to the audio. Even if you don't listen on audio, which you should usually listen to it on audio, subscribe their audio listeners go to the YouTube subscribe help us on all of the platforms. Thank you again. We love you. We're grateful for you. We appreciate you. Jordy. You got it.
Jordy Kral
Shout out to the Midas. My day. Love this video. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram itouch and help us grow. Blow past 750,000 followers.
Ben Miceli
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The MeidasTouch Podcast: In-Depth Summary of "RESPONDS to BREAKING NEWS - 1/30/25"
Episode Overview Released on January 31, 2025, The MeidasTouch Podcast features hosts Ben Miceli, Brett Meiselas, and Jordy Kral as they respond to the tragic airplane-helicopter collision in Washington, D.C. This episode delves into former President Donald Trump's handling of the tragedy, his ongoing policies, and the broader implications for American democracy and governance. The discussion is punctuated with critical analysis, notable quotes, and a clear stance against Trump’s administration.
Key Discussion Points: The episode opens with the tragic crash involving an airplane from Kansas and a helicopter in Washington, D.C., resulting in over 60 fatalities. The hosts critique Donald Trump's immediate response, highlighting his tendency to blame others rather than taking accountability.
Notable Quotes:
Brett Meiselas [04:52]:
"We've said on the show numerous times throughout Biden's administration that when crises happen, you want somebody in charge who's able to handle them appropriately... Unfortunately, we have a guy right now in the Oval Office who does the complete opposite of that."
Jordy Kral [07:11]:
"It's gross to say... you do have the presidency. It's gross to say... it's Republican, it's you Republicans. It's you guys that are causing this chaos, hysteria, and it's getting people killed."
Key Discussion Points: The conversation shifts to Trump's impact on federal agencies, particularly the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The hosts discuss how Trump's actions, including the appointment of Sean Duffy as Secretary of Transportation and the imposing of a hiring freeze, have undermined aviation safety.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Miceli [07:11]:
"Sean Duffy... was on the Real World and then competed on the Real World Road Rules Challenge... Some may have an opinion of that. But I'll leave it to your opinion ultimately to make that determination."
Brett Meiselas [09:43]:
"Elon Musk had a personal tiff with this guy because this guy wanted to enforce what, what's the issue that we're all talking about right now? Air safety, aviation safety."
Key Discussion Points: The hosts critique Trump's use of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) as a scapegoat for systemic issues, arguing that his administration's DEI policies have led to incompetence within federal agencies.
Notable Quotes:
Brett Meiselas [18:41]:
"Donald Trump's all of his nominees and candidates, everybody who he surrounds himself with are DEI. They didn't earn it. They are all the worst people that you could possibly see filling these roles."
Jordy Kral [20:38]:
"Diversity is their new buzzword... it's like they're trying to play it coy. But it's very obvious what they're doing."
Key Discussion Points: Trump's aggressive stance on tariffs, especially against Canada and Mexico, is scrutinized. The hosts explain the potential for these tariffs to escalate into full-blown trade wars, negatively impacting American consumers and international relations.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Miceli [38:48]:
"I'll play it. 'Cities that we're giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits. And I'll be putting the tariff of 25% on Canada and separate separately 25% on Mexico.'"
Brett Meiselas [41:16]:
"Everything that he's lining up right now with the tariffs, with the spending, with everything he's doing, it's setting it up for, honestly, just like an economic disaster."
Key Discussion Points: Trump's controversial statements regarding Palestinians and the establishment of new detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay are dissected. The hosts express deep concern over human rights implications and the dehumanizing nature of such policies.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Miceli [54:43]:
"Donald Trump wants to go from 15 people to our prison prisoners of war... it's going to be absolutely just dehumanizing."
Brett Meiselas [61:16]:
"It's just completely abhorrent. It's just another step in this crazy kind of Trump chaos where he's just showing us that there is no bottom."
Key Discussion Points: The hosts address Trump's dissemination of QAnon-related content, such as the "Watch the Water" meme, and label it as a tactic to distract and misinform the public.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Miceli [24:36]:
"This is what they're deploying to get you to forget about all of these things, that none of Trump's promises are true, but perhaps when he said he was going to free all the January 6th insurrectionists..."
Brett Meiselas [70:21]:
"It's a coordinated strategy by them to do so much chaos that it's hard to even keep track of it all."
Key Discussion Points: Trump's executive orders leading to a government funding freeze are examined. The hosts discuss the tangible effects on various states and federal programs, emphasizing how such policies create uncertainty and jeopardize essential services.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Miceli [72:42]:
"People were impacted. I saw statements from the governor of Louisiana, a far right wing governor, the governor of West Virginia... that they were caught off guard hard."
Brett Meiselas [63:00]:
"It's designed to funnel money, obviously to the richest people in the country and people who operate private prisons and, and things like that."
Key Discussion Points: The podcast critiques Trump's persistent effort to defame President Biden and DEI initiatives. The hosts argue that Trump’s lack of accountability and continual blame-shifting undermine national integrity and democratic values.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Miceli [16:54]:
"It's China's fault, everybody. It's the China virus. Remember when he would do that routine? It's just the same iteration, perhaps worse."
Brett Meiselas [33:57]:
"They are not going to look at these other factors, but we're just going to look at competence. And then you look at who they view as competent people like Pete Hegseth."
Key Discussion Points: The hosts discuss the strategy of overwhelming the public with information and chaos to deflect attention from key issues. They highlight how this tactic complicates efforts to hold Trump accountable.
Notable Quotes:
Brett Meiselas [70:21]:
"The biggest argument against everything they say is themselves. They are trying to flood the zone with shit."
Ben Miceli [72:57]:
"Our choir needs to sing loud and we need to be proud about our views and values and principles."
Key Discussion Points: In their closing remarks, the hosts emphasize the importance of staying vigilant, subscribing to the podcast for unbiased coverage, and actively participating in supporting democracy. They urge listeners to resist being silenced and to continue fighting against the chaos orchestrated by Trump’s administration.
Notable Quotes:
Jordy Kral [72:57]:
"Thank you from the bottom of my heart... stand in solidarity with each other for democracy, for peace, for freedom, for love, compassion and empathy."
Ben Miceli [76:56]:
"Look, we hit about 22, 23 million views or so every 48 hours... We need to make sure that we continue to fight for the American people, for the American worker, and for our democracy."
Final Thoughts This episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast offers a comprehensive critique of Donald Trump's administration, focusing on his handling of national crises, management of federal agencies, divisive policies, and strategic disinformation campaigns. The hosts present a clear and unwavering support for democratic values, urging listeners to remain informed, engaged, and proactive in safeguarding the nation's future.