Ron Filipkowski (2:51)

That's a definition of a Ponzi scheme right there. The tariffs are literally what is hurting the farmers as there is retaliation by countries like China and elsewhere and as they're looking towards Brazil. But Donald Trump is so focused on delivering a TikTok subsidiary for his rich oligarch friends in the United States that he's basically given up legitimate trade objectives with China. And now our farmers are going bankrupt. So now they're going to get a bailout. And also Argentina is getting a bailout. While American hospitals are being shut down, health care is being ripped away from Americans. Groceries are less affordable right now. Donald Trump's approval is absolutely plummeting, by the way. More on that in a moment. But here's Donald Trump's agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins. Here's what she's got to say about how farmers are having what's going through farmers minds right now.

Brooke Rollins (3:47)

Let's play this, that alongside of course, the President's effort to realign America around American products and making all of these new deals. We are at a point where we're looking at the harvest, where we're looking at our soybean, corn, wheat, sorghum, cotton farmers who are facing very, very difficult times. We are currently in conversations here at the White House across the government on a farmer aid package. Our current, our current programming right now we've got about $13 billion moving out under.

Ron Filipkowski (4:19)

And of course we've got to bail out Argentina. Nothing says American first like bailing out Javier Malay of Argentina, their libertarian president, who Trump and Musk said he was going to be so good for Argentina. Apparently, they're about to go bankrupt and at least $20 billion of our taxpayer dollars are now going to Argentina. What you're playing this clip Vesta has.

Vesta (4:40)

Done very careful math about. And so anybody who thinks that they can cause a panic in Argentine markets understand it has to understand that the US Is going to be a firm backstop to that. It's not that we're trying to put our finger on the scales of an election. We're trying to just make sure that market manipulators don't influence the election.

Brooke Rollins (4:55)

So should we have a confidence then that the US will support Argentina?

Vesta (5:01)

Yes, the US 100% will support Argentina and of course support the will of the voters. But, but again, there have been times where there are people who do things like they call them, naked short attack and so on, where market turmoil can be created ahead of an election by, you know, people who like maybe and.

Ron Filipkowski (5:19)

Then this delusional bizarro Fox World, Maria Bartiroma and Kevin Hassett pontificate about how there's actually no inflation right now and everything is going great. And Kevin Hassett says, you know, I don't even worry about tariffs being passed on to consumers. It's hasn't happened before. It's not going to happen in the future as inflation is rising. Here, play this clip.

Brooke Rollins (5:43)

Therein lies the question in terms of whether or not that growth leads to ultimately companies passing on price increases. We haven't seen the inflation because we're looking at these numbers and they're low. But do you think at some point something's got to give that companies will stop eating the tariffs and in fact start passing it on to consumers?

Vesta (6:08)

The way I think about it, I don't worry about that at all. And the way I think about it is last time we had inflation below 2 and really high growth because there was a supply side boom from all of the Trump policies. And so if you have a, it's.

Ron Filipkowski (6:21)

Going to be a boom just maybe in 2026, maybe in 2027, I don't know, maybe if we bail out Argentina and the farmers. Boom, boom, boom. Talking about, let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Joe Morelli from New York's 25th congressional district. You've seen Donald Trump in that state of New York before he even took the Oval Office the first time and then ran the country into the ground. And then I guess people are like, let's see, let's see what the encore is. Like, well, it's even far worse right now. I mean, what I think I just showed there just looks like a Ponzi scheme. Like it looks like, like it's not even a good one. Like it just looks like defrauding us to our faces. Like they think we're stupid. Congressmember.

Congressmember Joe Morelli (6:58)

Well, okay, it's a little bit like I feel bad for all the sycophants around Donald Trump because first of all, they're all playing to him as the audience. They could care less about actually giving information to the American public, but they're always playing to him. And the problem is they have an untenable situation, all of which has been caused by Donald Trump. And like anything where you're just dealing with the thing right in front of you and you don't think about the totality of what you're doing and you make a mistake and then you have to cover it up by doing something else. And after a while, you end up in this endless disaster, which is what we have. There is no theory of the case here. This makes no economic sense whatsoever. Them telling us that prices aren't rising is one thing, but when you're actually sitting at your kitchen table and you're paying more money and you're like at the end of the month going, how does this not add up as much? So I feel bad for them because they got to go around and, you know, like the emperor with no clothes and try to somehow say nice things about a guy who's really. I mean, he's about as serious as someone you know from the corner bar, who's in the corner bar stool, who's had too much to drink and is just spewing nonsense. And somehow they have to make it sound as though it's legitimate, which it's clearly not. And this would all be really funny. It would be good for a Saturday live skit or series of skits. The problem is it's. It's hurting real Americans and real American families, and it's completely disrupting the whole world order. And America is quickly becoming a laughingstock, all of which ultimately American families going to pay the price for.

Ron Filipkowski (8:38)

Look, you're the vice ranking member, right, on the House Appropriations Committee. And so when Donald Trump makes a comment that we've brought in $17 trillion, that's what he says. And then his press secretary, who I call a propaganda, says 9 trillion. So it's somewhere between 9 and 17. But then we see for the last fiscal year, the deficit increased by another 2 trillion. We knew that last month the deficit increased more year over year than it did under former President Biden. I forget what the number was. 345 or 350 on 650 billion in expenditures. Like, we literally have the data here. So if we brought in 17 trillion and there was a $2 trillion deficit, that would mean that we have a $15 trillion surplus, which would be great. That would actually be a golden age if that was taking place. But how did. When you sit with, like, your colleagues on a very serious committee, where you go through numbers and you have to talk about appropriations. Like, how do they even look at you? Like. Like, how do they look at you with a straight face?

Congressmember Joe Morelli (9:51)

Well, I think there's a lot of them that are sort of metaphorically looking down at their shoes, kind of hoping nobody's going to call on them in class. I mean, the funny thing is, you know, Trump administration touts 8 trillion. Of course, the President can't help him, so he's got a double A number. And by the way, the 8 trillion to your point is all a fantasy. I mean, this doesn't exist. This is, you know, where a country says, oh, yeah, we'll invest in America. And he just starts writing down the numbers as though they've already happened. I mean, the truth is Biden actually got real investments in the United States by foreign governments and by companies that were relocating and reshoring in the United States because manufacturing is a big deal. We do want more companies back in the United States. But here's the problem. Whenever the President speaks, I hate to make light of this because he's the President of the United States, but it's almost without exception, just fantasy. It bears no connection to reality whatsoever. You know, this week he's a, he's a scientist suddenly, and he's telling us, you know, what we should do for a fever if you're a pregnant woman or, you know, you can't pronounce anything, but. Because he really doesn't know it, he's giving medical advice, and then he's, he's talking about autism, and then he's talking about trade deficits, of which he knows nothing. You know, it's an endless series of just baloney. And any serious people would find this laughable problem is, you know, as you pointed out, I mean, he's the President of the United States. So we've never had a situation like this. 250 years of American life. You've never had somebody less serious in the Oval Office who really doesn't even understand the nature of the presidency, doesn't understand the nature of leadership. This is all his personal grievance and kind of how, how he sees the world, which, again, bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality. And it's going to leave, you know, indelible mark on America for generations to come. I mean, it's easy to stop a lot of this. A lot. It's, it, it's, it's easy to stop medical research. It's easy to stop work at the National Science Foundation. It's easy to stop hiring federal workers. What's really hard is restarting any of that. All the work that we need to do to continue to be economically secure and secure from the military point of view. And it's, it's all being ruined under this presidency, you know, and now we're.

Ron Filipkowski (12:24)

Headed towards a shutdown because Trump has ordered. Republicans have no conversations at all with Democrats yet alone negotiate. Just do not speak with them. And that's a very unprecedented kind of concept of like, don't, don't even talk because you do need the votes, at least in the Senate. And, you know, I think the American people expect that there be at least a modicum of talking and this wasn't the way that it used to be. This is a very Trumpy thing. But, you know, you see the playbook that he's rolling out today, and it's the same playbook that he does before the election. You know, his plan is he's going to say Democrats are funding illegal migrants. Just say the word trans, like multiple times. Trans, trans, trans. Migrants, Migrants, migrants. Crime, crime, crime. And just then try to rely on this right wing media ecosystem of Fox and everybody to pound that message through New York Post, through your front page cover, just push it out and hope that that influences the American people's approval. Quinnipiac Paul has his approval at 38%. This is a deeply unpopular person who's getting more unpopular and this is his response to things, you know, trans migrant. Is it going to work? Is it going to work, though, when he does this crap? Like when he pulls this, are Americans going to go, I guess Democrats. You know, I don't even know what, I don't even know what the argument is transgender for everybody. I don't even know what the hell that means.

Congressmember Joe Morelli (13:52)

Yeah, it's, it's to your point, this is really all a distraction. What Trump knows that people always concerned about public safety. So he, he just, you know, throws out crime wherever he can. He's not serious about crime. I mean, certainly not serious about violent crime. He pardoned hundreds of violent people who attacked the United States Capitol, leading to the death of police officers at the Capitol. I mean, and he just gave him a blanket pardon, so he's not serious about it. Nothing that he ever does is serious. But it's a distraction in the same way that immigration becomes a distraction. Although I think he's clearly overplaying his hand in that space and that's going to come back to haunt him. But, you know, here's the interesting thing is in, you know, if you had tried this 40 years ago, where most people got their news through the evening news or the daily newspaper, everyone kind of saw it. But now most of the people who I think are MAGA supporters, they literally are only watching Maria Bartolomo and watching their favorite news people. So they're not getting any of this news. And until it affects them directly. And there is a sort of a lag time between when things happen and when you feel the impact of them. It may be too late by then, but he is becoming more and more popular because it's just not going to work. His. He doesn't really have a theory of the case. This is all personality, grievance, politics, and practicing the dark arts of fear and anger and resentment. I mean, even look at what happened, the tragedy last week with Charlie Kirk, who. I'm not a Charlie Kirk. I didn't really know much about him. I've seen some of the stuff he said since his passing, and I feel very obviously bad for his family, his kids. But the things that he said were misogynistic, racist, I mean, a lot of awful stuff. Putting all that aside, the president had, in this moment, this chance, if he had really used the power of the presidency, could have brought people together and said, look, everybody, including me, including me, Donald Trump, we got to stop the rhetoric. We got to tone this. This is not acceptable in American life. What does he do instead? He gets unhinged, which is kind of extraordinary because he's almost always unhinged, and goes on this wild terror about the radicalization of the left. And I mean, it's. It's nonsense. Don't you feel like saying, okay, everyone just stop for a second? I feel like if these are my kids, if you were my kid, this is where you. At the top of your lung, you say, everyone stop. I don't want to hear your arguments. Just stop. And unfortunately, there's no one who could kind of do that with Donald Trump right now. But hopefully the American people will in time. But it's beyond discouraging. And frankly, I'll say this, he hasn't met a constitutional provision or a federal statute that he isn't willing to break. So he's not only not a serious guy, he engages in unconstitutional illegal behavior. And at some point, Americans got to wake up to this, to say, this just isn't what we signed up for. This is not what we want in our future. And this is, frankly, do we want to empower a president in the future, even a Democrat, to have all this power and not have to consult with Congress or the American People, it's crazy, just crazy.

Ron Filipkowski (17:10)

You know, there's been a lot of talk. One of the phrases, Abundance, abundance. The phrase that I use, though, is moral clarity right now. Because we need an abundance of moral clarity. Because that's, to me, what's missing in all of this. And I never even, I was never even a political person before I started this. But the things that, that you're talking about, leadership, just being a good person and standing up for people and not bullying people like the country as it's accepted, normalized this behavior, we lost a moral compass and a moral lens. That, to me, transcends just a political thing, but it's unfortunately being filtered through a gamified political discussion. And for me, it's always, and this is why I think this network is growing. But I think that there's a yearning of people who are just. And I'm sure you're seeing it in the 25th, who are just like, I'm not.

Congressmember Joe Morelli (18:06)

I can't.

Ron Filipkowski (18:06)

What am I supposed to do with my kids? Like, my kids are seeing this. My grand, you know, your grand, My grandkids are seeing this right now. And this is just not like, acceptable leadership. If this was happening from a coach or a teacher or a family member at the dinner table, like, we wouldn't want this. Like, why is this happening in the United States? That, to me, is a transcending issue that people want to hear leaders like yourself talk to just leadership.

Congressmember Joe Morelli (18:32)

I, I completely agree. It's funny. My father, I talk about my father a lot. He, he didn't graduate from high school, ended up working as a pipe fitter his whole life. But he must have said to me a thousand times in my life, just treat people the way you want to be treated. It's really simple. It's the golden rule. It goes back centuries, but it, but if you think about it as simple as it is or as cliched as it is, wouldn't that make the world so much better? Does Donald Trump want to be treated the way he treats other people? I think not. And boy, I tell you what you saw. Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow, forgiving the person who shot her husband, that's pretty much an act of charity. What does Donald Trump get up and talks about how he hates his enemies and hates his opponent? This is the President of the United States. And to your point, we can say all we want about kids tuning out. Nobody pays attention to politicians. This is the president. People do pay attention. And if there's a lot of people out there who Follow him. Who suddenly think it's okay to demonize people and dehumanize people. It's not okay. I don't care whether you're conservative, a progressive. I don't care if you live in the north, south, whether you're black, white, gay, straight. I don't care about any of that. There's certain fundamental rules of decency and humanity which we should also all follow, and there should be peer pressure to do that. Could you imagine if the president actually encouraged people to act with a little kindness, a little civility and to remember? Everybody has struggles. I don't care who you are. Everybody struggles. Some of the struggles you see, and your friends can see, some they can't, but everybody struggles. Let's just. A little compassion, a little slower to criticize and to air our personal grievances. I think we would be so much better off as a country. And here we are at a moment where we might be closing the federal government down, and the President of the United States is basically saying, I'm going to inflict a lot of pain if this happens. Think about that. That's like, you know, you should feel some degree of responsibility for the American people that you lead. Why wouldn't you be saying, look, I'm sorry, we'll try to work it out. I'm going to do everything I can to take care of you in this moment instead of, hey, because I didn't get my way and because I didn't get the things I wanted, I'm going to inflict real pain on you until the other side capitulates. Who does that? I mean, it's monstrous. And yet here we are. It's hard to explain.

Ron Filipkowski (20:54)

Congressmember Joe Morelli, first time on the Midas Touch Network. We gotta have you back. We appreciate you.

Congressmember Joe Morelli (21:00)

Hey, Ben, it was great. Thanks so much. Continue. Good luck.

Ron Filipkowski (21:03)

Thank you, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski ad free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available@midasplus.com.

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