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A
Morning Zoe. Got donuts.
B
Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?
A
Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana.
B
Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
A
Wow, impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
C
Nice.
D
You heard them.
A
T Mobile is the best place to.
C
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.
A
So what are we having for lunch?
B
Dude, my work here is done.
E
The 24 month bill credits on experience beyond for well qualified customers + tax and 35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier Cancel Finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1099.99 and new line minimum 100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Oaklove Speed Test Intelligence data 1H 2025 visit t mobile.com Donald.
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Trump is having a disastrous Monday morning. This may be one of the worst days of his entire term of both terms. In fact, he was just hit with catastrophic polling from CNN 24 hours before the critical November 4th elections where Prop 50 in California to do a mid decade redistricting there is on the ballot. Where you have critical governors races in Virginia and New Jersey are on the ballot there. Donald Trump just got this data from CNN. His disapproval rating right now is 63%. That's worse than either term based on the CNN polling. In other words, his polling right now is worse than it was when he left office following the January 6th insurrection. And it's not just the CNN poll, it's catastrophic polling across the board, across all demographics, across every single issue. He's underwater. And again The T, the YouGov poll, the Economist poll. Donald Trump is indeed a historic president. He is the most historically unpopular president at this time in history and all the Trump sycophants are trying to make sense of it. Cat turd, a MAGA Republican influencer is like these polls are all fake. It's all fake. And again, 37% of Americans approve, 63% disapprove. Then when it comes to the generic ballot, if the midterms were held tomorrow based on the CNN poll, who would the American people want to control Congress by a margin of 47 to 42%. The American people want Democrats to control Congress. Also, let's take a look at YouGov. As Owen Winter says in our polling with YouGov, since the start of his second term, Trump's net approval has fallen 17 points among white Americans, 28 points among Hispanic Americans, and and 38 points among black Americans. So he's net negative 74amongst black Americans, net negative 37among Hispanic Americans, and net negative 1 now amongst white Americans. So he's underwater right now against with white Americans. Now you take a look at the tip poll as well there. Donald Trump's approval is only 40% there. And again, just look at other data and you'll see why he's so loathed and detested. But let's take a look at Data regarding layoffs. 950,000 layoffs in the first three quarters of his presidency. Okay, that's worse than any other year other than Covid and the Great Recession. Here's how Max Kennerly puts it. Congrats to everyone who put Republicans in charge for the economy. The first 3/4 of 2025 already had more layoffs than any of the years in which Biden or Obama was president, except 2009, when Dems were still cleaning up the prior Republican mess. And you can see it in the chart right here. Layoffs are already higher than for any full year since 2020. Just look at 2025. You see it right there and that's the data for three quarters. And also, we don't have a full data set because Donald Trump's government shutdown has made the Bureau of Labor Statistics not produce or distribute the data. And in any event, Donald Trump's using the government shutdown as an excuse not to release the critical economic data. But here's what we know. It's been harder than normal to get a grasp of the US labor market lately, with several agencies that produce key economic data, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, going dark during the government shutdown. But even before that, Donald Trump's efforts to downsize the US Government left holes in the sprawling federal statistical system. But private data sets have helped fill in some of the gaps. A report from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas showed almost 950,000 US job cuts this year through September. That's the highest year to date total since 2020. And that was before the heavy October run of layoff announcements. Excluding that first year of the COVID 19 pandemic, US job cuts in the first nine months have already surpassed full year layoffs for every year since 2009, when something is almost the worst since the Great Recession. That's not very encouraging numbers. And the data set that I gave you again is just three quarters. And we've heard about all of those layoffs in October from Amazon and all these corporations that we've been reporting on here on the Midas Touch Network like this. Page one of the Wall Street Journal today was this. US Employers are becoming more comfortable with layoffs. Just think about that term. US Companies are more comfortable. You know who's not more comfortable with layoffs? Hardworking Americans who want to work jobs who are now being replaced by AI and these massive data centers. That's what the American people want to do. They want to work. They want to be able to afford their rent. They want to be able to own a, want the psychological torture of living paycheck to paycheck. They want healthcare. And Donald Trump and these MAGA Republicans are just ripping it away from them. Take a look at the Dallas Morning News. This was the front page there. Rural hospitals struggle to survive. And that's not unique to Dallas. We're seeing that across the country because what Trump called a big beautiful bill is a disastrous bill which we all knew would shut down rural hospitals, take away people's Medicaid and gut people's health care. Also, here's the what's on the front page. Black families to feel the brunt of the cuts. But you know who is thriving right now in this Trump presidency? Billionaires. And often foreign billionaires as well. You take for example, the founder of a crypto exchange called Binance. The guy's name was cz. A few years back, he pled guilty to serious money laundering charges in connection with having money funneled to like, terrorist groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda and other horrific, horrific end uses of this money. Well, we all know that Donald Trump pardoned this guy cz, who runs Binance, this crypto exchange. And then Donald Trump was asked on 60 Minutes, why'd you pardon this guy? Tell us about that. Do, do you, don't you think that to the American people who are suffering right now, that blatant corruption is something that should not be taking place? That's not exactly the way Norah o' Donnell asked the question. But that's how. I'll paraphrase that. That's how the question should have been asked. But what Donald Trump's answer was is I don't know who that is.
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Who? Cz?
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I don't know. The founder of Binance. My, my kids deal with that. Crypto is a good business and my kids deal with all of that. But didn't Trump and all the Magas say that former President Biden didn't know who he was pardoning? Wasn't that their whole thing about auto pen this, auto pen that? And Donald Trump claims he doesn't know the name of the crypto billionaire that he just pardoned who was involved in a money laundering scheme to which he pled guilty, to which $4 billion or so of restitution was owed to the United States government is money laundering with terroristic groups. You don't know who that person is? Donald, Seriously. So Maga Mike Johnson, during one of those disastrous press conferences that he holds, was asked about it. And here's what Maga Mike said when he was asked about it. Let's play this clip.
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Questions. Manu, you get it first every time. This is not fair.
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Last week you came here to these mics and you were very critical of Joe Biden's autobahn pardon. He said you didn't even know he was pardoning. The last time. 60 Minutes, the President, President Trump admitted not knowing he pardoned a crypto billionaire guilty to money laundering. Does that also concern you?
D
I don't know anything about that. I didn't see the interview. You have to ask the President about that. I'm not sure. Yes, ma'. Am.
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C
Now, Donald Trump, meanwhile, is. What's he posting? He's trying to play the refs. You know, the Supreme Court's about to hear the case regarding Donald Trump's tariffs against the world. So yesterday, Donald Trump wrote next week's case on tariffs. It's one most important in history. Then Donald Trump claims that there's virtually no inflation right now, that his tariffs have solved inflation. We all know that tariffs have caused massive inflation. Things are far worse off. And again, when you ask the American people, are you better off or are you worse off than you were last year? So better or worse than former President Biden? And we all know how the public treated Biden, right? It's like 63, 64% say worse off this year. Why? Because prices are even less of things are less affordable right now than they were under former President Biden. The situation is much, much worse than Donald Trump goes in this post. Our recent successful negotiation with China and many others put us in a strong position only because we had tariffs with which to negotiate fair and sustainable deals. What are you even talking about? What's the deal with China? Has anybody seen a written deal with signatures between the United States and China? The details that I've heard is that China's agreeing to export 2 million metric tons less of soybeans a year than it did under former President Biden. And then every year we have to go to China now to beg them to release their rare earth elements and to not put export controls on them when under former President Biden, the rare earth elements were flowing freely into the United States. So that's, that's this brilliant deal that tariffs got us less soybeans and we now have to beg China. Any analyst who objectively looks at what went down with China says Xi Jinping cleaned Donald Trump's clock. I mean, he made the United States look foolish and stupid. Like a Trump bankrupted corporation. Oh. And then Donald Trump says, I decided that I'm not going to go to court. I won't be there. I don't want to be a distraction before the United States Supreme Court. You're a distraction every day, Donald. To the United States of America. And again, we're hearing across the country right now, even former MAGA people, especially younger people as well, who are saying, donald Trump betrayed us. Donald Trump lied to us. I'll just give you an example right here. So this UFC fighter by the name of Bryce Mitchell, he was ultra MAGA during the election. He said he would take a bullet and that he would die for Donald Trump. He goes and he said that Trump, Trump was like his savior. And now he says that Trump is the biblical Antichrist. He says, this is a video that Bryce Mitchell made. And again, this is what we're seeing amongst kind of some Trump supporters and people who maybe weren't political who voted for him. And again, we're seeing this reflected in the polls. Here's what Bryce has to say. Here, play this clip.
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Hey, I want to let y' all know I'm not with Donald Trump no more. I don't support him. I don't like him. I think he's a corrupted leader. And, yeah, it took me a while to come to that conclusion, but I finally am coming to it. I do not like the guy at all. The first thing for me was he didn't release the Epstein files. They're even acting like they didn't exist. And of course, they're sending Israel and Ukraine, all of our tax dollars, just like the numb nuts before him did.
C
Putting America last.
H
And now he's blaming the beef farmers for the price of beef. Hey, I'm not biased, man. He talked a good game. He tricked me. I was fooled. I admit it. Okay, now let me tell you how.
I
Bad I think this is, though. This is really this bad, guys. I want y', all, if you're a Christian, I want you to get into Revelation 13:3, and I want you to read that verse. Yeah, about the Antichrist, about the one who was fatally wounded in the head. Then he was miraculously healed, and the whole world marveled at him and said, no man can make war with him. Yeah, I do think that Donald Trump is that beast of Revelation 13:3. Yeah, go read it. Go read it. There ain't another man that's ever walked a planet that fits Revelation 13:3. Then read the rest of the chapter, and it'll tell you the mark of the Beast is coming in 42 months. Now, I'm not saying that I know that Donald Trump is this man of Revelation 13:3. I'm just saying he's the only one who could be right now. Go read Revelation 13. He's the only man that feeds that fits that description. Yeah, and I'm totally done with the dude.
F
He's.
I
He's done. To me, he's done. He's a goner. He's compromised. He's right up there with the rest of pedophiles, man. And it sucks to say that because I supported him for a long time, but he's a good actor and he had me fooled for a long, long time. God bless y' all and thank you.
C
And just to contrast it to what Bryce said right around the election time, here's what Bryce said just so you can see his change of opinions here, play this clip.
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And Satan and Donald Trump, he's prepared to do the Lord's work. And that's why I love Donald Trump. Even if he makes mistakes, I still support Donald Trump. And he don't make many mistakes. And when he does, he'll figure it out and he'll fix it. And I trust him. Gas is about to be cheap, brother. So God bless the country and God bless Donald Trump. He took a bullet for us. And I promise you, if the day comes, I will take a bullet for that man. I love that man with all my heart, and I would die fighting for a battle for that man.
C
Now, as Aaron Rupar writes, it's really time for journalists to start asking MAGA Mike Johnson meta questions during these pressers like this Speaker Johnson, on five different occasions last week, you've said, I haven't seen it. When asked about major news events with serious implications for public policy regarding Donald Trump. Do you ever read the news and do you agree it's problematic for the speaker of the House to be so woefully uninformed about major issues? I mean, you're the speaker of the House. I mean, you're one of the people in line to hold the presidency. You don't follow these issues. You don't know what's going on. Well, I'll tell you what. The American people know what's going on. We know that Prop 50 is on the ballot in California tomorrow. We know that there are major governor races. You have Abigail Spamberger, the Democratic candidate running in Virginia tomorrow. We've got the. We've got in New Jersey, Mikey Sherrill, Democratic candidate running for governor there. Big races across Mondani running in New York City mayoral race. We've got a lot of big elections. We'll be covering it all here on the Midas Touch Network. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe let's get to 6 million subscribers.
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Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available@midasplus.com.
In this politically charged episode, the Meiselas brothers break down a series of disastrous developments for Donald Trump and the Republican party just before a high-stakes Election Day. The episode focuses on catastrophic new polling data showing historic unpopularity for Trump, economic turmoil with massive layoffs, controversial pardons of corrupt billionaires, and even public defections from former MAGA supporters. Through their signature blend of biting humor and detailed analysis, the brothers lay out why American democracy is at a crucial juncture, previewing the significance of the coming elections.
Opening Analysis ([01:00]):
Election Stakes ([01:08], [16:55]):
Massive Layoff Statistics ([03:42]):
Real-World Consequences:
Trump’s PR Offensive & Economic Claims ([11:05]):
Dramatic Defection: UFC Fighter Bryce Mitchell ([14:05]):
On Trump’s Unpopularity:
“Donald Trump is indeed a historic president. He is the most historically unpopular president at this time in history.” – Ben ([02:14])
On Economic Pain:
“Layoffs are already higher than for any full year since 2020. Just look at 2025. You see it right there and that's the data for three quarters.” – Ben ([04:23])
On Pardoning Crypto Bad Actors:
“I don't know. The founder of Binance. My, my kids deal with that. Crypto is a good business and my kids deal with all of that.” – Donald Trump ([08:04])
From a MAGA Defector:
“I want y' all to know I'm not with Donald Trump no more. I don't support him. I don't like him. I think he's a corrupted leader... He tricked me. I was fooled. I admit it.” – Bryce Mitchell, UFC fighter ([14:05])
On Media Responsibility:
“Do you ever read the news and do you agree it's problematic for the speaker of the House to be so woefully uninformed about major issues?” – Ben paraphrasing Aaron Rupar ([16:45])
The episode mixes biting satire, urgency, and exasperation. The brothers interweave data-heavy analysis with incredulous commentary on GOP leadership and a sense of deep concern about threats to American democracy. The banter is fast-paced, with moments of humor, but always circles back to the serious stakes of the 2025 elections.
Summary prepared for listeners who want a comprehensive, timestamped, and engaging overview of this pivotal MeidasTouch Podcast episode.