Panicked Trump Screws Himself as Term Collapses

Summary

The MeidasTouch Podcast: “Panicked Trump Screws Himself as Term Collapses” – Episode Summary

Release Date: March 13, 2025

In this compelling episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, hosts Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas dissect the faltering final days of Donald Trump's presidency. Titled “Panicked Trump Screws Himself as Term Collapses,” the episode provides an in-depth analysis of Trump's declining influence, economic missteps, and misguided policy decisions, all delivered with the brothers' signature blend of humor and earnest discussion.

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1. Trump's Diminishing Public Demeanor

Ben Meisellis opens the episode by highlighting Trump's visibly fatigued and disheartened appearance, suggesting a leader losing his grip as opposition strengthens:

“Have you noticed Trump is looking pretty beat down, pretty fatigued lately, as though he's somehow shocked that the world and now Democrats and other people are actually standing up to him.” [00:31]

He references recent events, such as Trump’s awkward product placement initiatives and the ineffective attempts by his associates like Caroline Levitt and Vice President J.D. Vance to manage the fallout.

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2. The Economic Mismanagement and Trade Wars

A significant portion of the discussion centers on Trump's economic policies, particularly his approach to trade wars and tariffs. Ben critiques the administration's strategy, citing negative feedback from reputable sources:

“From the Wall Street Journal editorial board. We said from the beginning that this North American trade war is the dumbest in history.” [02:15]

He questions the efficacy of imposing tariffs, emphasizing the backlash from both domestic businesses and international partners. The Wall Street Journal’s critique underscores the detrimental impact of these policies:

“Trump's economic message is spooking some of his own advisors. President's team received a flood of calls from business executives concerned about mixed messaging on tariffs.” [03:20]

Ben underscores the irony of Trump promoting tariffs while economic indicators suggest a downturn:

“The US stocks have underperformed the global markets in 2025, like significantly.” [12:45]

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3. Media Criticism and Public Sentiment

The episode delves into how various media outlets perceive Trump’s administration. Ben highlights the unexpected critiques from traditionally conservative publications:

“Chief Executive magazine... 'Business confidence at the lowest level since November 2012. CEO optimism plummets in March amid tariff uncertainty.'” [03:50]

He contrasts this with Trump’s public relations efforts, including his praise for figures like Elon Musk, which Ben finds tone-deaf:

“Have you noticed Trump is... holding product placement events saying how much he loves Elon? Here's a scoop...” [08:27]

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4. Caller Feedback and Public Impact

Listeners express dissatisfaction with Trump’s policies, particularly the economic repercussions of tariffs. A notable caller shares personal grievances:

Caller: “I'm already affected by the tariffs. The parts are up 8 to 10%... I ended up getting a new heater.” [05:55]

Ben uses these real-life examples to illustrate the broader impact of governmental decisions on everyday Americans, emphasizing the direct link between policy and personal finances.

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5. Social Security and Government Efficiency Cuts

The podcast addresses alarming developments regarding Social Security. Ben explains the administration’s plans to cut essential services, which could cripple millions relying on federal assistance:

“Social Security... weighing big cuts to phone service. You won't be able to call Social Security anymore.” [08:48]

He critiques the strategy as a veiled attempt to privatize Social Security, suggesting a deliberate push to dismantle critical support systems.

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6. The Guantanamo Bay Controversy

A significant portion of the episode scrutinizes Trump’s handling of migrant detention at Guantanamo Bay. Ben details the administration’s failures and the humanitarian implications:

“In Guantanamo Bay, almost none of the migrants were actually dangerous... they just took like people and threw them in Guantanamo Bay and then deported them elsewhere.” [11:00]

He references investigative reporting by Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, highlighting the inefficiency and mismanagement within the detention facilities.

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7. Focus on Trivial Issues Amidst Crisis

Ben criticizes the administration for prioritizing superficial issues over pressing economic and humanitarian crises. He uses the example of the plastic straw crackdown to illustrate misplaced priorities:

“The Trump administration's focused on what's mattering to the American people most. Plastic straws...” [08:48]

This focus, according to Ben, distracts from more significant challenges facing the nation, such as economic instability and social welfare decline.

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8. Conservative Support and Internal Contradictions

The hosts explore the conflicting narratives within conservative circles. While some Republican figures defend Trump’s tariffs as necessary for economic revival, Ben points out the contradictions and unrealistic expectations:

Senator Tommy Tuberville: “Trump’s tariffs making America great again... No pain, no gain.” [15:08]

Peter Navarro: “President Trump has had the best 50 days of any president in American history.” [16:58]

Ben argues that these statements ignore the tangible negative outcomes of the tariffs, such as reduced business confidence and economic contraction.

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9. International Relations and Escalating Tensions

The episode also touches upon international issues, particularly Trump's strained relationship with Russia. Ben reports on aggressive acts attributed to Russia and critiques Trump’s ineffective diplomatic responses:

“Vladimir Putin rejected the ceasefire agreement. Putin launches drone strikes on Kiev...” [17:00]

He underscores the administration’s inability to manage foreign policy crises effectively, further isolating the US on the global stage.

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10. Conclusion: The Decline of Trump’s Presidency

In wrapping up, Ben summarizes the extensive list of Trump’s policy failures and strategic errors that have led to the administration’s impending collapse:

“The corruption of the Trump administration is matched by its incompetence. They couldn't even figure out this Guantanamo Bay thing first.” [12:00]

He emphasizes the dire state of the US economy under Trump’s leadership, contrasting it with better-performing global markets and warning of the long-term consequences if current trends continue.

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Final Thoughts

Throughout the episode, The MeidasTouch Podcast maintains its commitment to uncovering the truth behind political narratives. By meticulously dissecting Trump's policies and their repercussions, the Meiselas brothers offer listeners a thorough and critical perspective on the state of American governance as Trump’s term falters.

For those seeking an insightful analysis of contemporary political issues, this episode serves as a crucial resource, blending factual reporting with engaging commentary.

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Note: For more detailed discussions and updates, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to The MeidasTouch Podcast and join the MeidasMighty community for ongoing coverage of political developments.

Transcript

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[Ben Meisellis]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Have you noticed Trump is looking pretty beat down, pretty fatigued lately, as though he's somehow shocked that the world and now Democrats and other people are actually standing up to him. I mean, look at him yesterday and then the day before when he did that weird product placement event. Look, Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump's pink dress lady. She's unable to spin this. I mean, she's making matters worse. And then you have Donald Trump's pink dress man. His vice president. His vice president, J.D. vance can't spin this either. This was the real release, though, that they released. Not the photo isn't real, but what they said here is actually from the White House. This was another week filled with endless wins for the American people under President Donald J. Trump. All right, well, let's, let's take out the receipts. Let's see if we've got these endless wins from the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Again, this is a right leaning Wall Street Journal. How do you like the trade war now? Trump is furious that Canada won't take tariffs lying down. From the Wall street editorial board. We said from the beginning that this North American trade war is the dumbest in history. And we were being kind. Donald. It's the right leaning Wall Street Journal. So if you're like, oh, I heard that this is the anti Trump channel, because that's what they're saying in the media. I'm just reading for you the headline from the Wall Street Journal. I find those other headlines funny as well. Take a look at this one right here from Chief Executive magazine. Not exactly a bastion of liberals. They said the following. A poll of more than 220 US CEOs finds business confidence at the lowest level since November 2012. CEO optimism plummets in March amid tariff uncertainty. Here's another doozy from the Wall Street Journal. Trump's economic message is spooking some of his own advisors. President's team rece flood of calls from business executives concerned about mixed messaging on tariffs. Quote. Senior officials, including White House Chief of staff Susie Wiles, have received panic calls from chief executives and lobbyists. It has been a horrific start for the economic policy team. So you know when I have the headlines, oh, Trump panicking, or Because I'm literally saying what the truth is, and I know sometimes in a Trump world that the truth may hurt, but we gotta say what did, the truth is. Here's another Wall Street Journal headline. Is Trump throwing it all away? Duh. His tariff circus undermines US standing just when it could be most useful. The US has been the best functioning, most innovative economy in the world at a time when its rivals and partners are all struggling for different reasons. Trump is throwing it away with his tariff policy. But Donald Trump doesn't seem to care. What was he posting first thing in the morning yesterday?

[Co-Host]

Wow.

[Ben Meisellis]

He goes, he goes. Wow. People are loving Elon. A great patriot. Nice to see. I mean, literally, people despise Elon Musk. I'll show you this one right here. For example. I'll show you a Trump Republican congressional district right here during a town hall. Um, they, they, they now do phone town halls rather than in person town halls because they're terrified of what's going to actually happen. And so the MAGA Republican Congress member Tom Barrett from Michigan 7th, this Republican district asked the people, type whatever if you like Doge, type whatever. If you don't support Doge, watch what happens. I wonder if these are all the Soros bots here. Play this clip.

[Poll Moderator]

We'll go ahead and move on to our second poll question. And that question is, do you approve of the Department of Government Efficiency's mission to streamline the federal government and reduce spending? Again, this question is regarding Doge. Do you approve of the Department of Government Efficiency's mission to streamline the federal government and reduce spending? Press 1 for yes and press 2 for no. Again, that's 1 for yes and 2 for no. Our results are coming in and it's at 70% for no and 30% for yes. That's 70% for no and 30% for yes for the approval of Doge's mission to streamline the federal government and reduce spending.

[Ben Meisellis]

By the way, you know, people are calling C span and I'm not going to. I could show you dozens of calls like this But I'll just show you.

[Co-Host]

This one right here.

[Caller]

Let's play it just like in 30 days. I mean are, you know, domestically or. He's tanking the economy singly handed with the tariffs. And I just, I just got a new heater today. I'm already affected by the tariffs.

[Ben Meisellis]

How's that?

[Caller]

The parts are they say up 8 to 10% already just in parts for the heater. So I ended up getting a new heater.

[Ben Meisellis]

But the company told you that, the company that you bought it from.

[Caller]

Right, right.

[Ben Meisellis]

And they passed on that 8 to 10% to you, so you paid an extra.

[Caller]

Okay, yeah. And that's, this is for every kind of part from outside the country. And no matter what it is, I mean that includes everything that comes to the United States, to these terrorists that he's imposed.

[Co-Host]

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[Ben Meisellis]

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[Ben Meisellis]

Are right now, workers are getting destroyed, veterans are getting destroyed, people's retirement and savings is getting destroyed, pensions are being destroyed. And what's Donald Trump doing holding product placement events saying how much he loves Elon? Here's a scoop right here from Karen Tumulty.

[Co-Host]

Scoop.

[Ben Meisellis]

Social Security, facing pressure from Doge, is now weighing big cuts to phone service. Agency considers ending phone program that helps claims processing and is used by millions. In other words, you won't be able to call Social Security anymore. Remember I showed a video a few days ago where the wait time just to even get somebody was like 10 hours and then to process a claim it was like a year. What do you think happens when they fire everybody? Who's going to be able to process the claims? So one of the ways they're going to try to privatize and get rid of Social Security is by firing everybody. Let the system crash, let it fail and then try to have a business basically take it over. I wonder, I wonder which businesses it's going to be. Is it going to be an Elon Musk business? Shocker, shocker, shocker. But you know, look, the Trump administration's focused on what's mattering to the American people most. Plastic straws and making sure that the DOJ is involved in robust enforcement of plastic straw situation. From the office of the Attorney General, President Trump. This is, this is real, this is real memo that was issued moments recently. Trump recognized that there has been an irrational campaign against plastic straws that has led to the forced use of non functional, more expensive and potentially hazardous paper straws. The department stands with the president in rejecting this misguided effort of supporting plastic straws. Folks, there's a real, I'm not making this up, that that's what their focus is on. That's a real memo. I'll give you this update as well. Judge Tanya Chutkin, Washington, D.C. federal judge issued a powerful ruling yesterday which has Trump and Musk freaked out, saying that Doge needs to submit to immediate expedited discovery. We told you about Judge Cooper doing that. In another case, Judge Chutin goes even further. So the walls are closing in on Doge. The walls are closing in on Doge and Guantanamo Bay is closing. Remember, remember you were, as I say, the corruption of the Trump administration is matched by its incompetence. So they couldn't even figure out this Guantanamo Bay thing first. One of the things people uncovered is that in Guantanamo Bay, where they said they were giving the most dangerous migrants, almost none of the migrants were actually dangerous. They picked like 40 or 140 people originally. It wasn't even that many people. And they were nonviolent people, not the gangs that they said. And they just took like people and threw them in Guantanamo Bay and then like deported them elsewhere to other places. But they like put them in Guantanamo Bay. Well, now ICE has now returned all migrants from Guantanamo Bay to State five to stateside facilities. A new court filing described strip searches and the use of restraint chairs on some of the 290 migrants the Trump administration has cycled through the base. Jennifer Griffin over at Fox, she's one of the good ones they have over there. Good reporter. She goes Gitmo detention plans hit another bump. The administration's decision to take migrants to Gitmo appears at best to have been an expensive photo op. Now Fox News has learned all the migrants held at Gitmo have been sent to the US and plans to send more to the US Naval station have been put on hold. Read the thread from Liz Frieden below. I can't all the reporters there be like Jennifer Griffin. There are currently no migrants being held at Gitmo and no flight scheduled to arrive. Fox has learned none of the 195ten set up to hold migrants have been used because they do not meet ICE standards. According to several US Officials, the operation to build more tents was halted back in February, just several weeks after it started. Remember these photo ops from cosplay Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem? Under President Donald Trump, the days of open borders are over. High threat criminals are being arrested and locked up in Gitmo. Then she did this photo op and then she did this video where she talked about it. And then she went on Fox and did this video.

[Guest Speaker]

Everybody, I'm down here at Guantanamo Bay.

[Ben Meisellis]

Checking out some of the operations that.

[Guest Speaker]

We'Re standing up to house the worst of the worst and illegal criminals that are in the United States of America. They won't be there for long. We want to thank President Trump for.

[Ben Meisellis]

All this hard work to make America safe again. While it was all bs, I do want to mention this as well because it's not getting attention in American media. Like, did y'all know that like a Russian ship, cargo ship intentionally crashed into Another ship, a US tanker transporting jet fuel, fuel for the US military off the coast of Britain on March 10. Did you know that happened? I mean, the Russian national has been arrested, that the Russian crew was arrested but it seems to be an intentional act of war. We don't hear a lot of people talking about that here, that the captain of the ship was Russian. We'll be reporting on more on that in other videos as well. The one thing I think to note about America's crashing economy though is that other areas in the world are doing okay or good. Like if you just take a look at this chart right here, the US stocks have underperformed the global markets in 2025, like significantly. And when was the date where the global markets significantly overtook the US Markets? Ah, surprise, surprise. The day of the inauguration. The day of the inauguration the Atlanta Federal Reserve was predicting if Trump just kept the former Biden economy on autopilot, did nothing, golfed, took credit for it, just said, look what I did, look what I built. It probably would have grown about 3% GDP. Quarter one. Now we're expecting a contraction, a recession as well with about negative 2.8 to negative 3% GDP. But folks, the MAGA Republicans want to spin this all as great stuff. Like Laura Ingraham says, this is a transition. We're living through a great transition. Play this clip.

[Tommy Tuberville]

So what we're living through now is a transition and this one's good for us. For decades ours has been an economy driven by government stimulus, a lot of printing and borrowing of money, government spending, government giveaways. And Trump knows our survival though requires a return to an economy by private sector productivity the way it used to be. That's why the playing field in global trade has got to be leveled.

[Ben Meisellis]

And Tommy Tuberville, MAGA Republican senator, says no pain, no gain. Play the clip.

[Guest Speaker]

And Trump's tariffs making America great again. It's a great strategy if somebody's finally doing something out of the White House. President Trump, that is, that says you have to take an action in another country. Yeah, no pain, no gain. That's what we used to tell our football players. There's going to be some pain with tariffs. But tariffs got us back as the strongest economy in the world when President Trump was in the first time. He knows what he's doing. Democrats, get out of the way. Shut up. You have no answers. You didn't do anything right in the last four years with Joe Biden. We have a game plan. Trump has a game plan along with Howard Ludnick and the other people that are pushing the tariffs. We can turn this thing around. But folks, let me tell you, this is our last chance. If we can't get it done now with tariffs and with putting and pulling regulations and getting people back to work and cutting our debt and cutting the amount of spending. We're not going to have the country that we've had before. So people need to just listen, learn from this. Understand it's short term pain. We're going to get this turned around. President Trump knows exactly what he's doing and he has a game plan, something Democrats didn't know anything about.

[Ben Meisellis]

No pain, no gain. And then you have Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, saying this was the best 50 days ever. Play this clip.

[Tommy Tuberville]

President Trump has had the best 50 days of any president in American history. And there's no sign inside here or outside there that that's going to slow down because we got a lot of good stuff to go and we're just going to, I mean, and I'm so pleased with, with the trade team and the vice president because we are all on the same page, moving the same direction of the President's leadership and it's working beautifully.

[Ben Meisellis]

Well, the last thing I want to point out to everybody as well is it seems obvious that Vladimir Putin rejected the ceasefire agreement. Putin launches drone strikes on Kiev hours after Trump challenged him to quote tango and agreed to Ukraine cease fire as pressure mounts on Kremlin to back down. Oh, that's gonna do it. Trump's gonna say tango. Tango. Putin. Don't you want a tango? Putin's just like ignoring it. Sergey Lavrov, Putin's foreign minister, is like just basically ignoring it. And they're as not only are they ignoring it, they went into the Kursk region dressed in military fatigues and Putin demanded that the war be escalated and that more land be taken. So that's what happened. Anyway, we'll keep you posted with more. I'm Ben Meisellis. This is the Midas Touch Network. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas. Check out the Midas plus substack for ad. Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free [e-mail] foreign.

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