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Ben Meiselis
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Ben Meiselis
Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Meiselis and this is your Breaking News. Where to begin? Well, of course, you had that disastrous State of the Union that Donald Trump gave in contrast to the People State of the Union that we hosted here on the Midas Touch Network. Thank you everybody who joined the People's State of the Union. We had over 2.1 million viewers to the People's State of the Union on digital that was beating every cable and corporate news network that was airing the State of the Union. I think to myself, imagine if Midas Touch Network had a cable channel or a channel on linear tv, what the view count would have been there. I mean, I think that if we were able to program such a show, I think there would probably be 5 to 10 million people watching that as well. But we get to think, really center our coverage in what the people are experiencing. I thought it was important for our people State of the Union that which, by the way, shout out to moveon. Didn't they do an incredible job. Shout out to all the members of Congress who attended the People State of the union had over 40 Congress members and senators who showed up to our event. But perhaps even most important at all, thanks to all of the people who shared their stories about how the Trump regime has impacted them and their lives. And I think it's so important that we strike a very serious tone the way we did in the people State of the Union. But center it also in the people. That's why we called it the people State of the Union to show what lawmakers had to say, of course. But also you could hear the stories of people, real people who represent millions of other Americans who are experiencing the same types of tragedy, the same types of hardship, the same types of pain and suffering that the Trump regime is inflicting. But ultimately, I also see with the success of something like the People State of the Union. I also see a great deal of hope about what could happen in the future. I see a future if we recognize and if we listen to what people are telling us. They want, what they don't want, what they need, what is the role of government? People are telling us, and if we, whether that's in the news media or leaders in other areas, if we just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and don't listen, respond, be there, we're going to miss a very important moment that could result in generational change that uplifts and helps people. When you listen to what the people are saying, as I talk about a lot on this network, it becomes very clear people are recognizing that politics viewed through a gamesmanship lens has had the impact of obscuring and dividing when what we should have been doing, and this is our focus here on the Midas Touch network, is not begin with the politics, but begin with the facts, begin with receipts, put forward a statement of values and principles, talk about that and then find alignment with people who fight for those things. Not say, okay, what's the best Democratic messaging here? Should the best Democratic messaging be this or should the best Democratic messaging be that? That's already phony, right? That's already saying, what words can we say that best get people to vote for us? And again, it treats it like we're trying to get voters. That should not be what anybody does. What we should be doing as leaders, as responsible people or citizens or what have you is to truly listen to what people are experiencing and to try to make a better union, a happier, a healthier, a place, a country, a place where people can buy homes and have health care, get an education, leave the world better for future generations. That to me, what it's all about. That to me what the people State of the Union is all about. That's what this network is all about. To me. That's what we do every day. And sure, we have to respond and react and give breaking news. That's what a news company does. We tell the news. But we have to frame, reflect, project things in terms of values and principles and directionally move us, hopefully in a place where we're happier and we treat each other with respect and dignity and empathy and uplift and we don't mock and we don't bully and we build, we build together as a country, as a world, right? So people could just be happier. And we stand up to bullies and we stand up to people who try to drag us into their festering worlds of hate. We're never going to be able to stop the fact that, alas, there are lots of people who hate and want to divide and want to bring the unhappiness they feel to others. But we as responsible grown ups or responsible people we have to see something and say something and call it out and not normalize it. Right? When you saw Donald Trump giving that State of the Union, I had to watch it after the people State of the Union to at least know what happened. I can't be in the dark of what happened. So I wanted to fact check it. So, as you know, I did videos on that. But as I saw him up there, the venom spewing out of his mouth, or I should say the tonsil stones just exploding out of his mouth. It was gross. The speech was gross. It was hateful. It reminded me of, like, the sham wow. Infomercials of the early 2000s. It's a shammy. It's a wow. It's a sham. Wow. We're winning. You don't know how to win. You're winning so much. It's a win, win, win, win, win, win, win. I'm like. And I see the Republicans like, yeah, yeah, that was so good. I'm thinking to myself, that's. This is weird. The hell is he talking about? We're winning. We're winning, winning, winning so much. You don't know what to win with it. Just a con artist up there. And I don't say this as. Again, going back to what I said earlier, as a Democratic position, as a liberal, as a progressive, as woke. Right?
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I'm just watching this, and I'm saying, this is we. This is weird stuff, and it's dangerous and it's hateful, and it's divisive, and it's filled with lie after lie after lie. Not even acknowledging the survivors of Epstein who were there in the audience either. Why couldn't you just say, would it be so hard to say? You know what I mean? And just think about how it would have been viewed if he said something like this. Look, I know a lot of people. I mean, already that's not his voice, right? A lot of people. But. But if he said, look, I know there's a lot of people out there who are frustrated with the Department of Justice and what they've done. I. I hear you. That's not what I'm here to talk about. I do want to acknowledge that we have these survivors here in the audience today, and I want to let you know that, you know, if mistakes have been made, if things have happened, if whatever, we. We apologize, and the way you've been treated, you deserve much better, and I'm gonna make that a priority. And so you've been hurt. I mean, he can't he, of course, he can't say anything like that. He can't even look at them. Pam Bondi couldn't look at them. The Dow. The Dow was 50,000, by the way. If you're gonna brag about the Dow being 50,000, which thereafter it was not 50,000, you may want to also mention that of the 23 developed nation stock markets, America, in the past year and a half under Trump, a year and whatever, three months, four months, Trump's America's 21 of 23 of growth in stock markets internationally. So why aren't we number one? Why are we number 21 of 23? That's not. That's not number one. So that was the State of the Union. We all know that when Donald Trump's like, he beat. He defeated affordability or whatever. He says that there's not an issue anymore. It's been solved. It's great. Everything's affordable. No, it isn't. No, no, no, no, it isn't. And you, by the way, you're a con artist. You promised on day one you would make things more affordable. You promised that you would end the war in Ukraine on day one. I don't get how people fall for this con artist lies. The guy's lied his entire life. He's literally a felon. He's actually a felon, right? I mean, he's found criminally liable for 34 felony counts. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Remember when we read all 34 counts, guilty, count one, count two, count three, I mean, this is a guy who was found civilly liable for fraud. It's a guy who's bankrupted so many companies. Bankrupt, bankrupt, bankrupt, bankrupt. So many companies going bankrupt. If there was a Guinness Book of Records for bankruptcies, this guy would be at number one. That's not a political position. It's not progressive or liberal. I'm just giving you a fact. The guy's bankrupted all of these companies, and right before his casinos went bankrupt, he would say, they've never been better. They have the greatest. They're the greatest casinos in the history. We are thriving. Our balance sheet looks amazing, and then, boom, it goes bankrupt. That's his life. That's what this guy has done his entire life. I mean, he is a sexual abuser. I know, Ben, why you saying that? Yeah, he's been found civilly liable in a federal court for sexual assault. He's been found civilly. And then he's on audio saying that he sexually assaults women. He said it's. He said he's rich. You get away with it. When you're rich like him, you are allowed to grab women's genitals and they let you do it when you're rich like him. And he used the P word and other things like that. Grab him by the P word. He's on audio saying it. Virginia Giuffre, as a child was sex trafficked from Mar a Lago, his home. His home was a location of sex trafficking. The guy was found civilly liable for sexual assault, a separate case. He's on audio bragging about sexually assaulting women. He says he uses his beauty pageants to inspect the girls naked. Because when you own beauty pageants, he said, it's like you're like a doctor, you're like an inspector. You get to look at him. You get to look at him naked. The girls, he's on tape saying these things. There's audio of like when Lindsay Lohan was either 17 years old or she was just turning 18. She was very young. He talked about how, because she was, she, she suffered mental illness. He said that makes him want to have sex with her more because she has mental illness. And he says the mentally ill ones, they're the best ones in bed. He says they're the best ones. They're the best ones in bed. I mean, there's audio of this guy and then there's 38,000 references to him in the Epstein files that we know of. And now we know that the regime is covering up. The 302 reports, which are the FBI investigative reports, and at least some of the ones that we know they're covering up and not turning over, involve accusations of Donald Trump sexually assaulted a minor. Those have not been produced. And there's really good reporting by Roger Sullenberger, who used to be with the Daily Beast. He's got, he's an independent journalist now. He's done some great reporting. NPR others have done good reporting on this as well. You have the manifest, the document, which shows that these 302 reports from the accuser of Trump exist and they just haven't been produced. They're covering it up. And with all of this as background, Donald Trump and MAGA say, you know who we really want to take the deposition of today? Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton. That's, that's who. That makes sense. How about, how about Howard Lutnick? And then why, why, why Howard Lutnick? I don't know. The guy, the guy who did business deals with Epstein, who was on Epstein island, who brought children there, who lied about it, who exchanged nannies. I don't know if that was code word nannies, because Epstein didn't have children. So I'm not sure the nanny for the children. But, you know, they're talking about that Epstein gave him $50,000 for, like, some award ceremony that Lutnick had in 2017. Why not. Why not bring in Lutnick and have him go under oath and. And have a deposition taken just on that? No Hillary Clinton. I mean, Melania's name is in the Epstein files. I've done lots of videos on that. Remember, Melania threatened to sue everybody who. Who made any accusations about her and Epstein. I'm gonna sue you for a billion dollars. A billion dollars. Remember, she threatened to sue Michael Wolf and Hunter Biden, and she said, I need an apology and $1 billion. Okay, and now we see the files, and Ghislaine2002 was referring to Melania. Sweet pea. Sweet pea. And then Melania was saying to Ghislaine, you know, like, dear Ghislaine. It was G, G, Dear G. The New York magazine article with you and Jeffrey Epstein was so good. You look so great in the photos. I can't wait to see you again soon. That was the New York magazine article where Donald Trump said that Epstein's a great guy who likes women on the younger side. That's what Donald Trump said. Likes on the younger side, but a fantastic guy who likes women on the younger side. That was. That article had red flag after red flag in it about Epstein. That's the one that Melania said. Great article about Jeffrey Epstein. Okay, well, then Michael Wolf sues Melania. I did a whole video on this this morning. Melania ducks service she hides from getting. You know how, like, when someone files a lawsuit, you have to get served, like you've been served? So she hides from service the process. And then she pops up in a federal court to argue that Wolf's case should be dismissed because she was never served with the lawsuit. But her lawyer, when her lawyer was threatening Wolf said, direct all communication to me. So then Wolf directed the service of the complaint to the lawyer, said, I. Oh, I can't take this. I can't take this at all. But you said, direct all communications to you. And then Melania says, well, this can't. This case can't be in New York. It needs to go to Florida. Because she wants to try to get the case in front of Judge Eileen Cannon, in my opinion. She's like, get this case to Florida. I live in. In. I live in Mar A Lago. Okay, so then Michael Wolf submits a very detailed declaration showing why he believes even though she claims to live in Florida, that she actually lives in New York. And he gives a lot of specifics, including social media posts where Melania says in 2024, New York is my home. Like she posted that on social media. New York is my home. It was during the campaign, right before that Madison Square Garden rally that they did. And then in Madison Square Garden she said, New York, New York is my home. So Wolf submits all of that. Melania doesn't even submit a declaration testifying or an affidavit as an affiant saying under penalty of perjury that she lives in Florida. She couldn't even be bothered to do a declaration to say she lived. Like, why wouldn't you do a declaration? Just sign a five paragraph declaration and say, I live in Florida, here's how I spend my time. And by the way, if she did that, it's possible the case would get transferred to Florida even if we didn't like it. But she doesn't even submit an affidavit. She refuses to do that. She just wants the judge to move it to Florida just based on a memo of law. Be interesting to see what the judge does because I think the judge would be prepared to move it to Florida if Melania just submitted an affidavit, but she isn't. So that's kind of shady right there. And also, why didn't Melania sue Michael Wolf? Wolf sued her and her response is to avoid, sir, why don't you countersue him, sue him for a billion dollars if you think that he's defamed you, right? No, because she doesn't want discovery. She doesn't want to have sit for a deposition. She doesn't want to do any of that. But by the way, do you know who was fine sitting for a deposition? Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton. And she said, but what Hillary Clinton said was, let's do it in public. Let's do a hearing where all of you Republicans, Jim Jordan, you're a tough guy. James Comer, you're a tough guy. All the magas out there who go on state regime media question me in front of the world, I'm here. You want to do it five hours, I'll do five hours. You want to do 10 hours, do it 10 hours. I'm ready to go, but let's do it in public. Now again, I don't care what political party you're from, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, whether you hate politics, whether you're from another country. Whatever. Isn't that a reasonable ask by her? You have all these people defaming her. They want her deposition. She says, let's do it. Just let's have cameras there. Let's do it in public. So it would be pretty shady, right? If someone objected to that and said, no, we want to do it in private. We want to do it in private. That's weird, but that's exactly what James Comer and MAGA did. They said they want it in private, they want it in secret, because they know that if she testifies publicly, they'll be embarrassed. So going back to what I said before, ask yourself this question. This is what I ask myself all the time in these things. Because I don't like, like politics that much. I care about the impact of politics on people's lives. Let me be clear. This is a political media company or news company. We cover politics, but it's actually to deconstruct politics to what we're really talking about, which is basic humanity and truths and evidence and facts. So I ask myself, you say you care about transparency. She wants to do it publicly. You go on FOX and all these things, and you say things about her. So just do it in public. What's. What's the big deal? And then when you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got to do it in secret. I go, okay, got it. I understand your agenda. Your agenda is cover up and to say we did a Hillary Clinton Depot and then send photos of her to MAGA influencers like Benny Johnson, who got the Lauren Bober. She sends the photo to Benny John. That's my Lauren Boebert impression. She sends the photo to Benny. He posts a photo of her. Oh, look, Hillary Clinton's getting deposed. Then they had to stop the deposition because Lauren Boebert was taking photos of Hillary Clinton. How embarrassing. Like, she was caught taking photos of Hillary Clinton. So then Hillary Clinton says, again during the depot, okay, look, if you want to take these photos of me, then let the media in. Stop it with this crap. Stop behaving like that. I'll do it. Let's invite the press in. So then no one's taking weird photos of my side view. And you're not, like, sneaking your phone and doing photos like that. Let's just have the media in there, outside, let them in again, regardless of what political party you're from, right? Even if you hate Hillary Clinton, Even if you hate the Democrats, Even you hate me, right? Isn't that a reasonable. Wouldn't you want to see this thing live? It wouldn't it raise your suspicion that somebody does not want to hear live? So the Republican said, no, no press. We're not allowing, it can't happen. Okay. So she continued her deposition and she finished it. Just look at the contrast of behavior between the Trumps, the Lutnicks, the Melanias, all of that crew and Hillary Clinton. Say what you want about her. I happen to respect her. I, I interned for her when I was in undergrad. I happened to like I did a rap about her in eighth grade to Coolio song and it was as she, when she was a first lady. I won't do the song, but I did, I did a rap for my sixth grade project. It was sixth grade, right? Explain. This is an interesting project that I did. But I, I, I did the rap song to Hillary is a good first lady. Hillary is a, as she walks through the White House where she lives and she eats, she takes a look at her life and realize it's very neat. But that's perfect for a first lady. Like she, I don't know, something like that. That's, that's, that's how it went. We're trying to, we're trying to locate the project that I did on Hillary Clinton. But then you know how the song goes. Tell me why are we so blind to see that the ones we hurt are you and me. But the chorus for my song was here. Laurie is a good first lady. I still, I don't even know how I remember that here. Okay, I'll stop talking about that. But any events, that's, that was, that was what went down. She finished the deposition. The Democrats are demanding it be released. But now all the magas that were out there, like James Comer, they were being asked like, are you concerned that Donald Trump is covering up the FBI? 302 reports that show that there was people making accusations of him that he sexually assaulted them when they were minors. Let's take a look at what James Comer has to say. Let's play this clip. Are you concerned that there has been a cover up of sexual abuse of a minor by President Trump? There are missing FBI records. No, we're looking into the accusation by the npr. We don't know that the answer to that. We know what the administration says. We're still looking to get a definitive answer on that. All right, well what about Howard Lutnick? What about that? What about, should we call Howard Lutnick in? Wouldn't it make more sense if you were to do These depositions that people like Howard Lutnick testify. First, your playlist clip. We'll do one more question. Go ahead. Partisanship. Would you then ask the Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to come testify? It seems like he has some information that's very possible, and I think they're, you know, I think it's a good possibility that his name will arise in some questioning today. It'll be on my list. And I haven't even email, I printed off for Hillary to ask about Howard Lutnick.
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we're asking again, and I want to remind everyone, we've already brought in Alex Acosta and Bill Barr for depositions. That's two Republicans in the, in the Trump administration. So this isn't just about Democrats. This is about anyone that has any knowledge of Epstein, the investigation. I think we all agree the government failed. The government failed the victims and what our role is. We can't, we can't prosecute anyone. But what we have been doing is getting transparency with American people. We subpoena again. Don't invoke transparency. Just tell us the truth about what you want to do. Right? It is what it is. You know, you are a political hack, and you view your job as helping the Epstein class cover this up, and that's what you want to do. So don't use the word transparency. Don't invoke survivors. You know, don't, as the Trump regime is doing now in Minnesota, as they're stopping federal reimbursements for Medicaid there. Don't act like we didn't want to do this. We're just, we're just, we're just rooting out the fraud. Right? You know, just, just say it. You know, I, I, I'd have, I'd have more respect for it. Maybe respect's not the right word, but I would at least be like, okay, look, they're telling us, right? I mean, look, just say that you retaliate. You like an authoritarian leader. You don't care about the survivors. You're all involved in this Epstein class stuff, and you want to harm blue states because you believe that, you know, Raqqa or the city, Raqqa, Syria, you know, when, when it was under ISIS control, you know, was kind of a model. Like, you like that, like you, you like chaos. You, you view Kim Jong Un as great. You, you view Putin as great. You like that. You like Orban. You like that. That's what you're into. You're part of that cabal in that group. Okay? That's what that's what you like. And. But don't act like you're here for survivors, and you're here for transparency. If you were here for transparency and Hillary Clinton says, let's do this in public, you would say, eureka. Transparency. That's a good idea. Let's do it in public. That's not what you did. But so. So just admit it. Just admit it. Don't. And I think, you know, when I speak with a lot of young people, too, because I teach. I teach undergrad, when I'm not doing this, you know, I think. And it's not just young people, it's people across this country right now. It's where I started this episode saying, I think people in general hate politics, but I think it's important that we don't move away from understanding that politics impacts humanity. And what Trump wants to do and what MAGA wants us to do is hate politics in a way that. That conflates everything. So we go, everything is bad. And then we accept a dystopian world and no future. That's kind of what Trump. And that is. That's what Trump and MAGA want. What we have to recognize is that oftentimes, but not always, that politics is used to divide and obscure and to manipulate. We could recognize that. So where we need to fight back is to make sure that politics is not what's leading, but that it's our values and principles that are leading, and we find leaders who represent these values and principles that unite and bring us together and then utilize that in order to make the world a better place, versus starting with personalities. And this person, and that person, and this person said that about this person. I just want to know who's going to be fighting for my fellow Americans and people in this country who are psychologically tortured, living paycheck to paycheck, if they're lucky enough to get a paycheck, who can't afford their rent, who can't buy a home, who don't see a future for their children and grandchildren, who can't access health care anymore or never could to begin with, that was too expensive for them, that see AI and data centers popping up everywhere, replacing their jobs and making their ability to live much harder. I see people who are terrified about ICE and Border Patrol, Gestapo and SS torturing and terrorizing people in the streets. I see all of that. And people want help on those things. And so we need to find people who help. And if those people are Democrats, great. And if they're not, we should identify that right I mean, that's where. Or if we want them to fight for those issues, we need to start with those issues and then find people who fight for them versus hope that people fight for them. Do you get the difference? We need. This comes from the people and we need to make sure that more, more importantly than anything, that values and principles are supreme here. And I'm going to keep on talking about that here on the Midas Touch Network. So we get back from our first quick break. I want to talk more about that deposition that was just taken. I want to talk about some international news because all of this stuff is interconnected, right? I bet you didn't know yesterday, did you know? Well, I'll ask you. Did you know that yesterday Kim Jong Un bragged about increasing their nuclear arsenal and making it even bigger? We have a plan to strengthen our national nuclear force. We'll focus on projects to increase nuclear weapons and expand nuclear operational means and space for use. Did any of you know. Look, I'm just asking you generally in the chat, other than us talking about the Net, did you know that was a thing that he said? And could you. And the fact that that's not talked about as even headline news when you have that, you have the fact that off the coast of Cuba, you had a boat coming from the United States where 10 people were on it. There was a shootout with the Coast Guard, with the Cuban coast guards. Four people on the boat were killed. Six people were detained. And we don't, we don't that, that's like all the information that we have. We don't know anymore. We, we're on the, we're, we're about to go to a war with Iran. Iran's rejected all of Donald Trump's demands, even though Trump said everything was obliterated back in June last. I mean, everything here. We're, we're. Four years past Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yesterday in the United nations, the United States abstained from a vote that said we want peace in Ukraine. The US Abstained from that. US And China abstained from a resolution urging a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine. I'm not really good at teasing what's to come after ad breaks. I think I just told you what was going to come after. Okay. But when we come back, I'll tell you much more about that stuff and we'll talk more about the Clinton deposition. All right, let's take our, let's take a quick ad break. A reminder, hit subscribe. We just hit 6 million subscribers. We're heading to 7. Subscribe to the Midas Touch audio podcast as well. That helps us out as well and leave a five star review there. All right, let's take our only quick break of the show. Hey everyone, Ben Mysellis from the Midas Touch Network here. Let's be real. Owning a handgun for self defense, as I do, comes with serious responsibility. You need it secure but also accessible when it matters most. Too often that means choosing between locking it away or leaving it out vulnerable to kids, guests or intruders. 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Ben Meiselis
You really love Mud Water. Shout out to them. Shout out to all of our sponsors right there. I mean check all it out. I mean it's, it is, it's great stuff and majority spends a long time working on those discount codes and you know, make sure, make sure you check it out. If you can stop box, you know, it is, it is critical, you know, it's critical, you know, for, for self defense sometimes and you gotta, you gotta be safe about it as well. Well, so the discount codes are in the description. This has been on breaking news. I'm Ben Mysellis. This is breaking news. While that ad break was taking place, we learned that Warner Brothers looks poised now to sell to Paramount. And we know that Paramount just bought CVS and Warner Brothers Discovery is now saying that Paramount's $31 per share bid is superior to Netflix's offer. As the latest twist in the bidding war there now Netflix has four days to try to counter which this took place. Basically Paramount, which now owns cbs, we saw what happened with CBS after Paramount, the parent company Skydance acquired Paramount cbs and now they're going to try to acquire Warner Brothers. And you could I pretty much guess the direction that would be taken in there. I mean, you know, as between Netflix and Paramount in terms of acquiring Warner Brothers. I mean, you pick whoever you, you know, I'll, I'll leave that for you to, to decide. But I mean, what we're seeing with this consolidation under, in my opinion, under normal situations of antitrust enforcement. I'm just giving you my opinion here. None of this would survive scrutiny under actual antitrust enforcement mechanisms. But remember, the DOJ doesn't really have an antitrust department anymore. Their leadership, the number one and number two, were forced out recently because Big Tech told Donald Trump they didn't like what was being done by the head of antitrust, who, when she was announced she was Donald Trump, did a social media post when he hired the head of the antitrust division and said, we want you to make sure Big Tech can't do all these, you know, antitrust consolidations. And her background was stopping or standing up to Big Tech. So, look, she was a Trump pick. She was someone who said that she was standing up to Big Tech. But as we've seen before and as we talked about before the commercial break, you know, it's like when Comer talks about transparency or the survivors, right? It's opposite world. They say those things, Maha, make America healthy again. They say these words, but ultimately what they're doing is making America less healthy. By far, with measles outbreaks. I mean, heck, you had the surgeon general that Casey means the nominee. She couldn't even say during her testimony for a confirmation that she supports measles vaccines and that she would tell parents to get measles vaccines. The surgeon general couldn't say get a measles. Couldn't in a very basic way say get a measles vaccine. So make America healthy again. They say, we're gonna ban glyphosate. They do the opposite. They. They make the glyphosate a. They give it the status, they give it immunity, and then they give it the status of the most preferred pesticide. Right. Right next to coley, you've got Mr. Glyphosate. And their whole thing was running against this stuff. So they're not make America healthy again. They're make America sick again. They're not for survivors. They're against survivors. They're not against Big Tech. Therefore, the most helpful aid and assistance to help Big Tech form monopolies, which is ultimately what. What Big Tech likes sometimes. So they go to the White House because they're like, oh, wow. All we got to do is give the guy a gold nugget, give him like a brick of gold, give him a fake metal, you know, and say nice things about him. And we could avoid all of the regulatory framework that was actually intended to protect consumer. Wow. That's all we got to do. That's, you know, that's, that's, that's what's really going on here. And by the way, that's Putin's tactics, right? When Putin goes denazification and we need to invade Ukraine because of the Nazis and we need to denazify it, and it's like Zelensky is Jewish and denazification. We need to help. This is what Putin said. Build hospitals and help the infrastructure of Ukraine. So we need to take it over. Does that sound familiar to you? That's what Trump's saying with Greenland and Canada, right? We need to take it over because it'll be much more prosperous. We have to do it. We're sending hospital ships, even though we're not to help Greenland because they're sick. The people are sick there. No, they're not. It's the same mindset, right? In, in Hungary right now as you have the f. The Fatiz party, as you have Orban's party, it has losing to the Taisa party, to the, to the opposition party. What's Orban saying now? He's saying Ukraine is about to invade. He's saying Zelensky is about to invade Hungary. That's what Orban's saying. We have to protect ourselves. Zelensky is about to invade us. That's what they say. By the way, in Hungary, when Orban came to power in the past 15 years, one of the things that he said, it's because it's all the same playbook, was he's going to get rid of the pedos, that there's deep state of pedos out there and he's going to stop it. Well, you know what they did when they came into power? They turned their juvenile justice system, and I put that in quotes in Budapest into a sex trafficking of underage of children. And so a lot of the protests that we see in Budapest are that the Orban regime was covering up a sex trafficking ring there while they were saying they're going after the pedos and said all these other people are the pedos. Right. There is a playbook that is used by authoritarians to destroy democracies and to destroy liberal democracies and to topple really the advancements of liberal democracy since the late 18th century to now. If we view things through the lens of purely domestic politics about what's going on in the world. I've said this before and let me say it again. If you view the problems taking place as purely domestic, gamified Democrat versus Republican versus Independent, whatever politics, it's like bringing a butter knife to a fight against F35s where your butter knife also has a kill switch on it, set up by the Epstein class. Because what's actually happening in the world, and you see it in the Epstein files, which is why one of the other reasons Donald Trump didn't want it released, is that you have this international Epstein class. You have this group of authoritarians who view themselves as masters of the universe, who use sex trafficking as a currency amongst each other, to blackmail each other, to get ahead with each other. But you have these people who use the same playbook to rip to shreds a world order that existed at the time, create a new world order, and in the process of destruction, they see opportunity to profit and enrich themselves. Throughout the Epstein files, you see Epstein talking to people and other world leaders before the annexation of Crimea by Russia about, you should short the ruble, you should do this, you should do that. You have him talking about Bitcoin to Putin. He's referred to as Putin's money manager. Epstein is. You have him and Bannon talking about propping up secretly Jair Bolsonaro, who was the prior MAGA insurrectionist leader of Brazil, who has since been sentenced to just 27 years in prison. Right? You have, you have Brexit being discussed, making the messaging behind Brexit being discussed and how the European Union would be destroyed and ripped apart. You have all of that and Epstein's in the middle of all of it. And you have all that taking place in the files. And so at an international level, there's an international movement of authoritarianism, an international version. MAGA is the vessel in the United States for it. Trump is a vessel in the United States for it. But in Canada, Pierre Poliev and his mutation of the Conservative Party there was going to be, was going to be that the Liberal Party in Australia, which is not actually the Liberal Party, it's their right wing party, Timu Maga and Denton and all those people, they were projecting in Australia a MAGA vision there. And Anthony Albanese stepped up and he won and defeated them at the Labour Party in Canada. Prime Minister Carney was the right guy for the right moment, right? The central banker to outmaneuver Donald Trump. Canada picked the Right guy for that moment. But if you look in France, whether it's the successors to Le Pen's movement, whether you look in uk, the Reform Party with Nigel Farage, whether you look at Fides in Hungary with Orban, whether you look at the AfD in Germany, I can go country by country here. You get the point. This is why Rubio, this is why Vance rushed to Hungary in order to try to prop up Orban. Orban, by the way, is doing the same stuff that Trump is doing in Fulton County. Seize the signatures of the voters, go after, get the voter rolls, intimidate people at the polling locations. I mean, what we saw in, in that prior post, Jeremy, that you put up of the opposition party leader was calling Orban out for, frankly, the same things that Democrats are calling. Yeah. Peter Majar is the main opposition leader calling out Orban for the same thing that Democrats are calling Trump out in Fulton County, Orban is doing in Hungary right now. Same, same stuff, same playbook. And I want you all to know that, because that's actually what's happening here, because the history of humankind has been of authoritarians, of strong men. That's what it's been. And the idea of liberal democracy, popular sovereignty, we the people, that's a revolutionary concept. But authoritarians right now don't like that. And they are utilizing social media, AI and a disparity of information. Paradoxically, there's more information now than ever. More access to information now, more ability to acquire knowledge. Yet, paradoxically, people are less informed than ever before because with the disruptions of new technology, it's allowed the authoritarians to brainwash people and mass. This is happening at an international level. Let me repeat that. To create a feudal dynamic of lord versus peasant internationally. That's what's actually taking place. That's actually in the Epstein files. If you analyze it through the lens of what's happening here. Right. And it's fascinating to me as well of some of the other major resignations that are happening as a result of the Epstein files. Right. You had the head of the World Economic Forum announce resignation today as well. He's in the Epstein file, speaking with Jeffrey Epstein. Remember that guy who was side by side with Donald Trump at Davos, Borge Brend? Remember this guy right here? There he is right there. I think he was a former foreign minister in Norway. And he says, it's a pleasure to welcome Donald Trump back to Davos at a time of significant economic, technological, geopolitical change. The World Economic Forum provides a platform for leaders from Government. Well, he's now resigned because, well, here's photos of him and Bannon. This is the crew. This, this is the team right there. These are individuals, I mean, who, who are causing a lot of the pain and suffering that lots of people are experiencing internationally. And then going and saying, we're the ones who can save you. They cause the pain, they cause the issues. Then they want to be the ones and say, let us save you from the pain that they've unleashed. Including, if you don't see their hands all over issues regarding mass migration, their hands are all over it. The same way. When there was a fix in the United States to deal with immigration in a common sense way, a bipartisan bill that was supported by Democrats and Oklahoma Republicans, Donald Trump, when he was running, told the maga, republicans, kill that bill. We can't have actual immigration reform because they need there to be pretexts for the terror they want to inflict. That's true everywhere in the world. What these right wing authoritarians want, they want the chaos. They want it so that their authoritarianism could step in and solve it. By the way, just like Howard Lutnick, this guy Borsch Brend claimed we have no con. I don't, never spoke to Epstein. I don't know him. And then they were setting up meetings then. So then after he found out, we found out that he was doing meetings, he's like, but I never knew about his criminal record. Well, then there are messages in the files of Boris Brendan doing laugh emojis with Epstein joking about his prior felony conviction for child sex prostitution, which shouldn't be called, that should be called rape, should be called child rape. But they were, they were doing laugh emojis about it. And so he clearly knew also about Epstein's prior criminal history. These guys are just liars. They lie and they lie and they lie. So let me share with you what Democratic Congress member Garcia said, though, outside of that Clinton deposition. He said, look, this committee, this House Oversight Committee, a new precedent has been set and we're going to. Now we want, we want Donald Trump to be deposed. Now you depose Bill Clinton. We want Trump to be deposed. You did Hillary Clinton. We want Howard Lutnick to be. Let's do it. Let's go, let's brawl. Here's what Garcia said. Let's play it. Lastly, I want to also add that this committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents. And we're demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of oversight Republicans and Democrats. And that should happen immediately. He is the person that appears almost more than anyone else in the committee and it needs to happen right now.
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Mr.
Ben Meiselis
Chair, do you distinguish at all, do you distinguish at all between a president and a former president and a sitting president? I mean, is there something in there? Because they will say, wait a minute, we know, I think, look, you know what, the court ruled on his immunity. We should, we should depose the person that is mentioned in the Epstein files almost more than any other person next to Ghislaine Maxwell, and that's Donald Trump. Mr. We're going to have a couple comments and then we're going to There you have it, folks. That's what I want. I just want transparency. So going back to how we started this episode, we want transparency, we want the facts. We want to know what's really happening. That's all. Shouldn't it be a Democratic issue, Republican issue, an independent issue? That's all. Just tell us what's happening. Tell us, give us the facts, Let the people know. That's why the catchphrase here is show the clip, play the clip. You know, sorry if it's annoying some play the clip. I want to show you what they said. So you also know that I'm not just ranting and raving like I'm telling you, here's what he said. Here's, there's, this, here's this, here's this. And then judge for yourself. That's it. That's, that's what this, that's what this whole network is about at the Midas Touch Network. And that's what we're going to keep on doing every day. So reminder show I do with my brothers, 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific. Make sure you catch that show. Excited to do that show to be live this evening. Excited to see them. Make sure you subscribe here on YouTube. Help us get to 7 million subscribers. I'll start to remember to say 7 instead of 6, but I'll still, I won't say what I'm about to say, but make sure, make sure you subscribe. Help us get to 7 million subscribers and subscribe on our audio podcast. That helps a lot. So even if you don't like to listen on audio podcasts, just if you can now just search Midas Touch, subscribe on the audio. It helps us a lot. Okay. Thanks everybody for watching. Grateful for you. Appreciate for you. I'll see you tonight with the brothers, eight Eastern, five Pacific. Keep checking in for videos throughout the day. We love you. We're grateful for you. Shout out Midas Mighty this has been Ben on Breaking news.
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The MeidasTouch Podcast
Episode: Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben — 2/26/26
Host: Ben Meiselas (MeidasTouch Network)
Date: February 26, 2026
In this Breaking News update, Ben Meiselas delivers a passionate solo monologue focused on the political, legal, and ethical crises intersecting American democracy and global authoritarian movements. The bulk of the episode is a deep-dive response to Donald Trump’s “disastrous” State of the Union address, the MeidasTouch Network's alternative “People’s State of the Union,” and detailed discussion of the latest news on the Jeffrey Epstein files, related depositions (notably Hillary Clinton), and broader themes of transparency and the rise of international authoritarianism.
People’s State of the Union Success
“I thought it was important for our People’s State of the Union…to show what lawmakers had to say, of course, but also you could hear the stories of people…who are experiencing the same types of tragedy, the same types of hardship, the same types of pain and suffering that the Trump regime is inflicting.” (03:16)
Critique of Trump’s State of the Union
“The venom spewing out of his mouth, or I should say the tonsil stones just exploding out of his mouth. It was gross. The speech was gross. It was hateful.” (09:26)
“What we should be doing as leaders…is to truly listen to what people are experiencing and to try to make a better union, a happier, a healthier…country…” (07:12)
Review of Trump’s Alleged Crimes
Epstein Files, Depositions, and Double Standards
Calls out MAGA’s push for a Hillary Clinton deposition, contrasting her willingness for transparency with Trump allies’ evasiveness:
“Do you know who was fine sitting for a deposition? Hillary Clinton…let’s do it in public.” (21:45)
Highlights irony:
“It would be pretty shady…if someone objected to that and said, no, we want it in private. That’s weird, but that’s exactly what James Comer and MAGA did…” (24:50)
Points out that, despite damning evidence and accusations surrounding Trump and others in the Epstein files, the GOP pursues political theatre rather than genuine investigation.
Notable exchange: Ben recaps Congressional questioning of James Comer regarding missing FBI records of Trump’s alleged abuse:
“Are you concerned that there has been a cover up of sexual abuse of a minor by President Trump? There are missing FBI records?” — (Clip referenced and discussed at 35:10–36:15)
Breaking news during the show: Warner Brothers is poised to sell to Paramount.
Decries lack of antitrust enforcement:
“In my opinion, under normal situations of antitrust enforcement…[this] would not survive scrutiny…But remember, the DOJ doesn’t really have an antitrust department anymore.” (38:55)
Connects media consolidation and deregulatory agendas to Trump’s broader anti-democratic, pro-big business paradigm.
Links developments in the U.S. to global trends: Hungary, Brazil, the UK, France, Australia, Germany, and Canada.
Notable international news items:
“This committee has now set a new precedent…We’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee…He is the person that appears almost more than anyone else in the [Epstein] committee, and it needs to happen right now.” (54:53)
“We want transparency, we want the facts. We want to know what’s really happening. That’s all…Let the people know. That’s why the catchphrase here is show the clip, play the clip.” (56:25)
On State of the Union events:
"Imagine if MeidasTouch Network had a cable channel...there would probably be 5 to 10 million people watching…we really center our coverage in what the people are experiencing.” (03:42)
On Trump's rhetoric:
“It reminded me of, like, the ShamWow infomercials…It’s a shammy. It’s a wow. It’s a sham. Wow. We’re winning. You don’t know how to win. You’re winning so much…” (09:47)
On systemic injustice:
“When you listen to what the people are saying...it becomes very clear: people are recognizing that politics viewed through a gamesmanship lens has had the impact of obscuring and dividing…” (05:40)
On investigating Trump's connections in Epstein files:
“He is the person that appears almost more than anyone else in the [Epstein] committee...and it needs to happen right now.” – Rep. Garcia (54:53)
Language & Tone:
Unflinchingly direct, urgent, passionate, and often laced with biting satire (e.g., “ShamWow” comparison, “tonsil stones” imagery). Emphasizes seriousness of subject matter with moments of personal anecdote and a touch of levity (self-effacing references to his own school project rap about Hillary Clinton).
Approach:
Fact-driven, with a focus on receipts and evidence over mere rhetoric. Ben frequently references and mocks MAGA talking points, calling for open hearings and depositions on all sides.
This episode is a sweeping, highly opinionated briefing on the intersection of current American political drama, legal accountability, and the international struggle between democratic values and rising authoritarianism. Ben Meiselas uses the Trump State of the Union, the People’s State of the Union, the ongoing saga of the Epstein files, and Congressional maneuverings as a springboard to call for honest, open, and principle-driven leadership both domestically and globally. The episode is punctuated by invitations for transparency, warnings about the dangers of “gamesmanship” politics, and the persistent refrain: show the clip, play the clip—facts and sunlight as the only remedy to political rot.
Note:
All ads, promos, and intros/outros have been omitted. The summary above captures only the substantive news and commentary content.