Loading summary
Transcript10 lines
- [00:01]
Ben Meiselis
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply hey music.
- [00:32]
Brett Meiselas
Fans, there are some great concerts headed this way. Don't miss out on all the shows in your favorite venues like Deftones at Madison Square Garden, Eagles at the Sphere, and Foster the People at the Ryman Auditorium. Tickets are going fast, so don't wait. Head to livenation.com to get your tickets. Now that's livenation.com.
- [01:00]
Ben Meiselis
President Biden showing what a real leader looks like on Christmas. Actually, just also showing what an adult looks like on Christmas contrasted to Donald Trump telling people to rot in hell and talking about conquering other nations. Meanwhile, MAGA is at war with itself. On the one hand, you've got the MAGA Tech Bros versus the right wing extremists who don't like immigrants. You've got Elon and Vivek trying to say why they need to have talented engineers from India work for their companies, but not other immigrants. Then you have others in the MAGA base saying, donald, didn't you say that on day one you were going to fix this all and these were going to be American jobs? Are you lying to us? Is this the F around and find out stage right now. We will break that all down here on this episode. Also, you've got foreign leaders calling out Donald Trump for attacking the sovereignty of other nations. And Hunter Biden gets his revenge on Matt Gates. I wonder if when Matt Gaetz was engaged in some of that illicit drug activity which was found by substantial evidence in the bipartisan House Ethics Committee report he was a gun owner. Did he fill out one of those ATF forms and claim that he was not a drug user when he purchased that gun? Isn't that what they prosecuted Hunter Biden for? Should we look into this when it comes to Matt Gaetz? We'll break it all down here on the Midas Touch podcast. I'm Ben Meiselis, joined by Brett and Jordy. Oh wait a minute. Brett and Jordy have left me solo today for this episode. I wish them well. I love them dearly. And don't worry, we're gonna all we need is me and the Midas mighty for this episode. Let's get into it just right away. Right away, folks. President Biden making posts like this on Christmas. He posts. There's a true selflessness in giving up a seat at your Christmas table to defend your country. This Christmas, Jill and I spoke with service members serving around the world to share just how grateful we are for their courage and sacrifice. President Biden posts a picture of a little kitty cat. One of my favorite Christmas tales. Aw, so cute. President Biden posts Rabbi Sack said, a people that can walk through a valley of shadow of death and still rejoice is a people that cannot be defeated by any force or fear. That capacity for faith is the light of the Jewish people. As Hanukkah begins, may it shine from the menorahs around the world. President Biden sends this Christmas message. Merry Christmas for the last time. As your president, it's been my honor to wish all of America a very merry Christmas. My hope for our nation today and always is that we continue to seek the light of liberty and love, kindness and compassion, dignity and decency. May God bless you all. Here's his happy Kwanzaa message. President Biden writes this week, millions will gather with their families to light the seven candles and commit themselves to the seven principles from unity and self determination to faith. Jill and I hope that that your Kwanzaa is blessed with peace and light this season. Now, that's what President Biden's posting. But Donald Trump is posting. I just left Wayne Gretzky, the great one, as he is known in ice hockey circles. I said, wayne, why don't you run for prime minister of Canada, soon to be known as the governor of Canada. You would win easily. You wouldn't even have to campaign. He had no interest. But I think the people of Canada should start a draft Wayne Gretzky movement. It would be so much fun to watch. Oh, sure, Donald interfering with the sovereignty of one of our favorite and best and longstanding allies, Canada, in an UN In a border that does not have military. They're an unguarded border. Yeah, that's going to be fun. Just for you to interfere with their sovereignty and mock Canada and call it the 51st state. Donald Trump also posted the following. He goes merry Christmas to all, including the wonderful soldiers of China who are lovingly but illegally operating the Panama Canal where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago. Always making certain that the United States puts in billions of dollars in repair money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about anything. Just pause there for a second. Do you Y'all know, when Panama ditched its ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing happened in 2017, when Donald Trump was originally in office. And when Trump was too busy tweeting all caps things and too busy inviting Putin's top foreign advisers like Kisak and others into the Oval Office. Yeah, at around that time, that's when China established formal diplomatic ties with with Panama and started investing in Panama. It hasn't taken control of the Panama Canal, but it has invested billions of dollars into the country. Also, President Xi's first formal diplomatic visit to Panama took place in 2018, when very weak Donald Trump was in office and allowed China to establish a foothold in Panama, which I don't believe would have happened if you had, say, Hillary Clinton or someone else who was actually being tough on China and not just saying that they would be tough on China. But let me go back to Donald Trump's statements. He also writes the following. Also to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose citizens taxes are far too high. But if Canada was to become our 51st state, their taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other country anywhere in the world. Likewise to the people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for national security purposes and who want the United States to be there, and we will. And then he goes on to say, then he goes on to attack lunatic leftists. And then he says to everybody, go to hell. And then he says, merry Christmas. Now, unfortunately, here in the United States with our horrific corporate media, we've become all too numb to Donald Trump making posts like this where he goes, go to hell, left lunatics. I'm coming for you in all caps. But now Donald Trump has done that, but also included foreign countries in those posts as well, sovereign nations in those posts as well, that have their own trauma. For example, Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which was invaded by, by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany in 1940, when Denmark was just trying to stay neutral, which is why Denmark became part of NATO. Adolf Hitler basically used a Sharpie and he circled the Jutland peninsula in Denmark and basically said, da. In other words, it's the German word for it, and said, this is our land. So when Donald Trump makes statements like this, attacking the territorial sovereignty of a place like Denmark that has a history of being, being invaded, they take it very seriously. And now Denmark has to upgrade its defenses in Greenland against a purported NATO ally of it, the United States of America, which is supposed to be leading NATO. So I want you to understand the ramifications of this. Also, when Donald Trump attacks Panama, it has a reaction as well of other nations, whether it's Mexico or South American nations, all coming to the defense of Panama and saying, how dare you go after the territorial sovereignty of Panama. The Panama Canal belongs to the people of Panama. The fact that you even need someone like Claudia Sheinbaum to come out and have to say that Panama Canal belongs to Panama, I think tells you a lot. Let me show you first what Claudia Sheinbaum had to say on Christmas to rebut Donald Trump saying that Panama should belong to the United States. Here, play this clip. The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, saying, our solidarity in Mexico is with the people of Panama. The canal belongs to Panama. It is a sovereign nation. By the way, did you hear President Claudia Sheinbaum, like yelling or screaming or doing accordion hands? No. She was behaving the way a leader does. I mean, frankly, that's how President Biden talks. But I know for our corporate media here in the United States, you want to see a carnival barker, WWE wannabe fascist type character go out and just say the dumbest crap imaginable. And then I know you want to normalize that behavior. The way the CNN headlines were like, well, this would be the largest purchase, the largest territorial acquisition since the Louisiana Purchase. If we conquered and Greenland and Panama, that would be quite the acquisition right there. Donald Trump is teasing. He's just teasing. It's not teasing. Okay? That's conquest language. That's used by people like Vladimir Putin. That's used by people like Mussolini in history. That's used like people by like Hitler. That's conquest language. And that language is very traumatic to sovereign nations who now have to beef up to defend against an entity, the United States, a country that's supposed to be an ally. Now, who benefits from this all? Obviously, number one, Vladimir Putin does because Putin's on the ropes right now. Putin has to go to North Korea in order to get their troops. That just goes to tell you. And he's putting them through the meat grinder in Ukraine right now. I mean, we're hearing about 1500, 2000 of these Russian allied type of troops from North Korea and others getting killed each day from Russia's unlawful invasion right there. But we see pro democracy protest everywhere from Belgrade to Tbilisi in Georgia. We see the Basar al Assad regime falling in Syria, which Putin propped up. We're seeing Putin actually looking very weak internationally right now. And notice that Donald Trump is not attacking Putin. He's not out there attacking President Xi. He invited President Xi to the inauguration. President Xi's like, nah, nah, I'm not going to come to that thing. Kind of clowning Donald Trump. Donald Trump ain't attacking Putin. But Russian state tv, they were showing nudes of Melania and saying, ha, ha, it's your body, your choice. I mean, they're punking Donald Trump on Russian state TV controlled by Vladimir Putin by showing nudes of Donald Trump's wife. We just think about what Putin is sending a message to Donald Trump. And by the way, Donald Trump was like at that speech he gave over last week, and he's like, putin has summoned me. Putin wants to speak to me. So I will be speaking to Putin soon. I mean, how cowardly and weak do you look? Trump's attacking our allies and not attacking our adversary. So it's helping Putin and it's also helping President Xi. Because President Xi goes around and says, hey, we've got this Belt and Bridges initiative, the second Silk Road, and we're going to go into countries in South America, in Central America, across the world, in Africa, you name it. America is not a reliable ally to you. Look what a destabilizing force they are. You don't know if one day you're going to wake up and they're going to make a social media post mocking you. But we here in China, we're going to help you. What can we invest? How can we respect your territorial sovereignty and help you grow? And even though that CCP propaganda, of course, it certainly is more likely to appeal to nations being mocked by Donald Trump, who puts the American flag in the middle of the Panama Canal or in the Swiss Alps and pretends it's Canada. Think about what these nations who are looking for an ally are looking at. Do you want China's Belt and Bridges or Donald Trump's bluster and erratic behavior? Look, I had Charlie Angus, a member of the Canadian Parliament, on earlier today. Let me show you what Mr. Angus said about how he found out during his Christmas meal that Donald Trump was telling Canada to go to hell. And once again, talking about making it the 51st state. Here, let's play this clip.
- [14:51]
Brett Meiselas
Watching some of the response in the US Media. CNN stated, oh, he's just teasing. What? Teasing about taking over other countries. But then they said that, you know, hey, it'd be a great deal for America. It'd be bigger than Louisiana Purchase. There's no such thing as teasing when you're threatening the sovereignty of independent nations. And I think for a lot of us, we just thought Donald sort of acted like the buffoon, but he wasn't that stupid. But here's a man who, when Putin launched his murderous war in Ukraine, praised Putin, said he was savvy, said he was a genius. And he has one of his Putin trolls taking up one of the key places in his new administration. So his disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty sent, I think, a very, very chilling message. His attacks on Panama, his attacks on Greenland, his attacks on Canada are sending a message that he doesn't respect the international order in terms of the rights of nations. And we have to start taking that, I think, a lot more seriously.
- [15:52]
Ben Meiselis
One of the things that Charlie Angus also said is, sure, we may pay a little bit more taxes, but we have universal health care here. We don't have to worry about sending our kids to school and there being mass shootings every single day. And he just said, respect our sovereignty in Canada. Remember all these MAGA folks who are like, Donald Trump's gonna stop World War three from happening, or Donald Trump would always say, without me, there's going to be World War 3. Immediately all those people flip now and they're like posting maps that show America conquering Canada, Mexico and Greenland and saying, wouldn't this be so great if we conquered all of this territory? So the we're going to stop World War three folks are now we're going to become the bad guy in World War 3 and we are going to start conquering sovereign nations. Let me be very clear. Clear. There's over 70 plus million Americans and so many millions more of Americans who simply didn't vote, which frustrates me to no end. But Donald Trump came in by lying to the American people that on day one he was going to lower prices of things. That was basically the winning message, which was all based on a lie. He didn't say how he was going to do it. He just said, like a miracle this will happen. Because he said he's got all these magical powers and so many people just believe he knows what he's doing. And he claims he was a good business person, despite the fact that he bankrupted like literally almost every company he touched in the past. Not all of them, but most of them. And he said he was going to fix it. Let's talk about what's happening right now. Mortgage rates are going up past 7%. At one time last week they were above 7%. They're at like 6.2% now. The treasury yields 10 year note are reflecting a serious instability caused by Donald Trump's threats of tariffs and bloody mass deportations. That's already having a negative effect. We saw top real estate companies thought that mortgage rates would be going below 5%. And now they're saying that, nope, this is likely going to go up maybe even higher than 8%. Right now we've got the Federal Reserve, which was anticipating it would make numerous additional rate cuts in 2025, now saying that they don't think that's going to happen because they don't see inflation getting under control like it was going in a downward trajectory under President Biden because of Donald Trump's threat. So, oh, and by the way, the prices of eggs, that's all I heard. The price of eggs. The price of eggs. The price of eggs. Well, Donald Trump handle the avian flu the right way. I mean, heck, he wants RFK Jr. Who basically believes that there shouldn't be any type of vaccines. And he's someone who like helped, you know, who's, who's, you know, would be okay with polio spreading. So when you've got people like that out there and he wanted there to be, what, like an eight year moratorium on research into serious infectious diseases. So when you have all of that as background, I just, I don't think the prices of eggs are going to be going down. And I'm sure you've seen already in your own experience, prices actually going up and not down. And also, didn't Donald Trump say that before he even took office all of these wars would end? And instead he seems to be starting new wars now with our allies every single day, provoking territorial sovereignty disputes. So at some point this is going to boil over with the American people saying, wait a minute, this is not what you promised us. And I think we're already seeing that already before day one, we're seeing the F around and find out stuff as people start googling the stuff that you probably should have looked into before you actually cast that vote for someone who is a congenital liar, someone who literally basically has engaged in fraud and has lied, you know, over and over in his entire life. So one of the things we're seeing as well, though, and we saw this civil war taking place right now as well, you know, maga's, this MAGA alliance, if you will, you know, has these kind of far right wing people who hate immigrants, all immigrants, and they're basically like, they expect America to just be a white nation is their perspective on, on America. And so they love Donald Trump's rhetoric about bloody mass deportations and his anti immigrant rhetoric. On the other hand, maga's also made up of these tech bros, kind of led by Elon Musk and then more behind the scenes, Peter Thiel. And this is like the PayPal mafia they've been called. And you know, Musk and thiel started at PayPal and then they've gone on to kind of spawn this whole kind of tech bro movement which has turned kind of right wing MAGA and now this kind of right wing tech bro contingent. By the way, they're the reason that J.D. vance became the VP. I mean, that was Peter Thiel's pick. A part of the, hey, we're going to give you all of this money is we want our guy JD Vance, who worked for Peter Thiel to be your vp. So that was one of Donald Trump's first steps of submission to the tech bros and taking their money. But now the tech bros are out there. And by the way, those tech bros, especially with the platforms like X, formerly Twitter, they've been instrumental in amplifying hateful rhetoric against immigrants against the other. I mean, you've seen Twitter now X turn into a cesspool. But now what we're seeing are the tech bros, whether it's Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk who run this thing called Doge, this like made up entity which is pulling the puppet strings for Donald Trump and the magas in the House of Representatives, they're now out there saying, actually we need labor engineers from India. That's critical for us. We specifically need foreign talent. In other words, we need the type of immigrants who we think are helpful to run our tech companies. We don't want the other immigrants, the tech pro, say the ones that are instrumental in helping America's economy and agriculture and hospitality in construction. Yeah, you could do the bloody mass deportations there. We don't want them, but we need talent from places like India. And so one of the people who Donald Trump just appointed to be a senior policy advisor and he comes from that tech bro world is a guy named Sriram Krishnan. He was born in India. He's a venture capitalist, of course, because they're all venture capitalists who work for Trump now. And he worked at a company called Andre Horowitz and they were largely supportive of Donald Trump as part of this tech bro support of Donald Trump. So when he was picked, and by the way, he worked at former Twitter when it was not owned by Musk and he worked at Microsoft and Yahoo and Snap and all of these companies before working as a venture capitalist in Andrassy and Horowitz. Then Laura Loomer, who's big in maga, started saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want this guy. He believes in visa programs that we simply don't support. We can't have these visa programs here that bring in the HB1 visa programs. We can't have that. The H1B visa programs. We can't have that. Like we thought that this was. We thought these were American jobs. Donald, weren't you going to build the schools here and universities and make these jobs, the high paying American jobs on day one? Wait a minute. You want to kind of further support the H1B program and bring in more foreign labor to replace? I thought this was the exact opposite of what you said you were going to do. So now we saw this epic clash within MAGA itself. I want to talk about that. And you have to see this is something that I know corporate media is not paying attention to. But we here at the Midas Touch Network have been predicting that this was going to boil over and become a massive thing. I thought it may have happened at least a few weeks once Trump took over, but it's happening now during the transition. And people are out saying, Elon's got to go. Vivek's got to go. Elon and Vivek are saying, no, these guys got to go. And people are saying, we're the MAGA base. No, we're the MAGA base. And all of that fighting is happening already right now. I want to talk about that and more. We got to take our first and only ad break of the show. Want to remind you about two things. Have you checked out midasplus.com run by our editor in chief, Ron Philipkowski? Check that out. Also patreon.com Midas Touch P A T R E O N Midas Touch. Next week we're going to hold an exclusive Zoom meeting for our patrons where we're going to talk about that interview I did with President Biden in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing. I'll answer all of your questions about how that interview came about. I'll talk to you about my experience being in the White House and I'll give you my reflections on that interview and answer any of your questions. We have zero outside investors, so some of the ways we grow creatively is through midasplus.com and patreon.com Midas Touch and from our pro democracy sponsors like the ones you're about to hear from, this is only One ad break on this show. We'll be right back.
- [26:13]
Brett Meiselas
Let's face it, after night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. Hey, I got to be honest with myself, right? It feels like I have to choose between having a great night or a great next day. That is, until I found Pre alcohol Zebiotics. Pre Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration, that's the blame for your rough next day. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make ZBiotics your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Every time I have pre alcohol before drinks, I notice the difference the next day. For example, after a fun night out with friends at like a local bar wherever we go, I could still get up the next morning and hit the gym. And I'll admit I was skeptical at first. But I tried it at a dinner party with some friends the next morning. I felt great, ready to tackle the day, ready to do more videos here at the Midas Touch Network. I kept hearing about pre alcohol and wondered what it was actually like. Now that I've tried it, I get the hype. Plus, with their GMO technology, Zebiotics is continuing to create probiotics that tackle the challenges of modern living. Go to zebiotics.com midas to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use code Midas at checkout. Zebiotics is backed with a 100% money back guarantee, so if you are unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to ZBiotics.com Midas and use that code Midas it's me. I D A s at checkout for 15% off a large part of managing.
- [27:55]
Ben Meiselis
A business's finances is tedious, repetitive work to ensure accurate bookkeeping. You know what I'm talking about. RAMP helps streamline this work, giving business operators like yours truly and you more time to focus on what matters the most. RAMP is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. With ramp, spend policies are built into the card so you can prevent wasteful spending before it happens. You can customize spending limits and restrictions so employees are empowered to purchase what your business needs and you could have the peace of mind. Ramp plays bad cop so you don't have to you be good cop detecting policy violations, chasing missing documentation, requesting repayment and locking cards of non compliant employees. And get this RAMP's accounting software automatically collects receipts and categorizes your expenses in real time so you don't have to say bye bye to manual expense reports. You'll never have to chase down a receipt ever again, and your employees will no longer spend hours on expenses. The time you'll save each month on employee expenses will allow you to close your books eight times faster. And now get $250 when you join ramp. Just go to ramp.com midas that's ramp r a m p ramp.com midas r a m p.com midas cards issued by Sutton bank member FDIC Terms and conditions apply.
- [29:30]
Brett Meiselas
Need a break from crowded stores and endless holiday gift lists? Let me tell you about Via, your key to restoring your Zen and embracing the natural power of hemp this holiday season. Whether you're enjoying a quiet evening at home or diving into festive cheer, Via's Premium THC and THC Free Gummies can help you find that perfect holiday balance. Personally, I've been loving their dreams Sleep gummies. They're a game changer for winding down at the end of a busy day, helping me feel relaxed and ready for deep restorative sleep. It's like the holidays got a little less stressful. Via is renowned for its award winning products from THC and THC Free Gummies and Vapes to soothing topicals, calming drops and even premium THCA flower. They source the highest quality hemp from independently owned American farms so you know you're getting the good stuff. And here's the best part. Via ships legally to nearly all all states in discreet packaging. No medical card required. Whether you're looking to get better sleep, ease anxiety, enhance your mood or even enjoy a little holiday boost, if you know what I mean, Via has something for you. Their products range from 0 milligrams to 100 milligrams of THC. So whether you're microdosing or looking for more potent effects, they've got you covered. And if THC isn't For you, their 0thC line is perfect for sleep, focus and energy, all while keeping you glowing throughout the year. This holiday season, gift yourself some peace of mind. If you're 21 or older, check out the link to Via in our description and use code Midas that's me. I D A s to get 15% off your order. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our show and tell them we sent you. Enhance your every day and enjoy the holidays with via.
- [31:10]
Ben Meiselis
Welcome back. Thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors right there. And thank you to all the Midas mighty. We had some pretty incredible news. This Pod Scribe account that traces the podcast downloads, this is just in addition to like digital views for like the whole network on this YouTube channel. We're just talking about the Midas Touch podcast of all podcasts in the world. It has the Joe Rogan experience number one. But then the Midas Touch podcast was a close second and then coming in at number eight was the legal AF podcast. When you then add all of the hot takes that we do, not just the podcasts themselves into the mix, Ad Week actually had us beating Rogan and tied with Disney for digital views, which is an incredible testament to the strength of this community. And I say that not to pat myself on the back, but honestly, to pat you all on the back for building a people powered independent media network that I think has the infrastructure to push back against the lies and disinfo and everything that's already been coming our way. And that will be in 2025. And so thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors. Since we don't have outside investors, they go a long way to help. And thank you to our patrons@patreon.com Midas Touch and for those who subscribe at minusplus.com as well, well, and get those daily newsletters from Ron Philipkowski. Thanks to all of you. And look, you don't have to become a subscriber or a member, although that's helpful. Just share this network with friends, family, co workers, neighbors, anybody. You know, the more you talk about the network, the more you share it. It really goes a long way to help and so that helps us a ton. All right, we were talking about the MAGA civil war before we took a break between the MAGA tech bros, whose interests are very different than the other magas who want no immigrants and thought that Donald Trump's whole policy was going to be anti immigration. So you have Laura Loomer who's on the anti immigration faction of Trump and remember she was traveling with Trump throughout the campaign and she's been with Donald Trump's or been by Donald Trump's side, you know, almost every step of the way for years and years and years. So much so that like lots of other people in the MAGA world, you know, got jealous of their close relationship. Here's what Laura Loomer posted today. The elephant in the room is that Elon Musk, who is not MAGA and has never been maga, is a total effing drag on the Trump transition. He's a stage five clinger who overstayed his welcome at Mar A Lago in an effort to become Trump's side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in Big Tech to slither into Mar A Lago. Shots fired. Laura Loomer calling Musk Trump's side piece for Big Tech to slither in to Mar A Lago. Let's take a look at what Elon Musk was saying though on his social media platform, where again, Elon Musk had encouraged a lot of this anti immigrant, hostile, hateful rhetoric on his platform. So one of his followers and a MAGA person goes the following There are over 330 million people in America. Surely there must be enough of them to build your ultimate team. Why would you deny real Americans the opportunity by bringing foreigners here when there's enough among the 330 million Americans to do these jobs, these tech jobs, these engineer jobs? Take a look at Elon Musk's answer. Your understanding of the situation is upside down and backwards. Of course, my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we do as that is much easier than going through incredibly painful and slow work visa processes. However, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America. This is not about handing out opportunities from some magical hat. You don't get it. This is blindingly obvious when looking at NBA teams as the physical differences are so obvious to see. However, the mental differences between humans are far bigger than the physical differences. So, in other words, is Elon Musk calling Americans genetically dumber than other people? Because that seems to be what he's saying right there. Someone responds, Open a school. We have brains. Come on, Elon, bring it to America. Wasn't that the whole campaign? American schools, American factories, American manufacturing. By the way, let me just add all of the things that President Biden actually did with the Inflation Reduction act, the Infrastructure act, and the CHIPS act. Investing, I think like a trillion dollars in all of those things to build that up, to make these things actually in America. As President Biden said to me he hopes his legacy is I kept my word. I said I was going to bring it to America. I did that. I was investing in America. Red states, blue states. I invested in infrastructure. I invested in America. Elon Musk's response to this person saying, why don't you open up schools, Elon? You got billions of dollars, Elon. Open some schools up. Elon goes, if you need a school, you've lost already to. To which a MAGA follower goes, incredible. At this rate, you're actually going to make me side with the leftists who want you treated like a hostile foreign agent. Laura Loomer then responds, don't worry guys, the divorce is coming soon. Referring to the divorce from one group of MAGA and the MAGA tech bros right there. D.C. drano, a well known MAGA account goes, how did Doge go from let's cut wasteful government spending to here's why we need to import more immigrants almost overnight. Did I miss something? What's next? Gun control? No more oil drilling. Back the truck up here and you'll get back to the main mission. Elon Musk continued on with this. He goes, there's a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley. So again, Elon Musk is saying, we need certain type of immigrants here. We need the immigrants from India. So they work the tech jobs. They work at the Teslas and for X and for the Tech Bros. For our companies, we need them, but not the immigrants that work the agriculture, hospitality, construction and other jobs, right? Elon saying, this is what I need. So just when you see Elon and these Tech Burrows pros talk about America, just replace America with I or me and you see what their intentions are. As our editor in chief Ron Philipkowski said that as well. And then Elon Musk also posts, it comes down to this. Do you want America to win or do you want America to lose? If you force the world's best talent to play for the other side, America will lose. End of story. Now this is the exact opposite message that Donald Trump was making during the campaign. Quite literally the opposite. The opposite. Now I want to read this for you. And again, as Ron Filipkowski and I just said before, replace I or me with America. When you hear these things from Elon and he's saying that it's beneficial to him. And that's the thing with these Tech bros. They're like, yo, Trump, we gave you all that money for that campaign. We bought this White House for you. So now pay up. This is what we want. And then the other Magas are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't buy it. We're the real Magas, we're the real ones. And that's creating this civil war. I want to read for you what Vivek Ramaswamy wrote. He's the other co head of doge, this made up agency pulling the House Republican strings and Donald Trump strings right now as well. Now when I read this to you, I just want you to think for a second. Imagine if President Biden said this. Imagine if any Democratic Cabinet member said this. Imagine if Vice President Kamala Harris said this. Imagine the outrage. Imagine what you would hear everywhere from Fox to CNN to msnbc, all of the corporate media, they buy into the right wing outrage. Oh my God, can you believe they said this? Now because it's all hypocritical and just at this point controlled by right wing forces and the oligarchy. They're not going there. But again, let me read to you what Vivek Ramaswamy says. He goes, the issue is the American culture is all about mediocrity and you need to bring in people from India and immigrants from India because they just work harder than white Americans. White Americans are too busy watching Boy Meets World and Saves by the Bell and they're not as smart and dedicated as the immigrant Indian families. So that's the problem. Let's be honest about it. If you go, Ben, whoa. Did he really say that? That would seem to be something that would cause outrage in in Maga World. Let me read it for you what Vivek Ramaswamy, who's like the key person in the Trump administration, said. He goes, our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long. At least since the 1990s and likely longer. That doesn't start in college. It starts young. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the mantle, the Math Olympiad champ or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Corey from Boy Meets World or Zack Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell or Stefan or Steve Urkel in Family Matters will not produce the best engineers. Fact. I know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates. More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of Friends, more math tutoring, fewer sleepovers, more weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less tv, more creating, less chilling, more extracurriculars, less hanging out at the mall. Most normal American parents look skeptically at those kind of parents. More normal American kids view such those kind of view such those kind of kids with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, then normalcy is what you will achieve. Now close your eyes and visualize which families you knew in the 90s or even now who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest, normaly doesn't cut it in a hyper competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we'll have our asses handed to us like China. Kind of sounds like isn't that what they were referring to as globalists and globalism and all of these things? As our editor in chief Ron Philip Kowski goes, maga has suddenly realized that the tech Bros are globalists. I'm not going to read to you some of the stuff by Nick Fuentes, Ashley Sinclair, John Cardillo and some of these other kind of right wing MAGA people because it's really kind of xenophobic about Indians and people from India and foreign cultures and things like that. But it is interesting to see right now that Trump ran an entire campaign on attacking immigrants and now you have at least the tech bro saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, we need him for us. As our editor in chief Ron Filipkowski says, Elon is just saying what every other Republican employer is about to say in 2025. Deport everyone else's employees, but not mine, because I really need them. Look, we're going to follow up more here about this civil war taking place. But again, could you imagine if what Vivek said AOC wrote or if what Vivek said, Bernie Sanders said or, or of course, Biden. Just think about it. It would be every single day, every second, the top coverage. You know, it's why it's important we have an independent voice to let you all know what it is that's happening and what is being said right there. Wild stuff, right? Wild stuff. I'm not quite sure as wild or comparably wild to this whole Matt Gaetz ordeal. I'm not going to go through the entire House Ethics Committee report which made these findings that by substantial evidence that Matt Gaetz engaged in statutory rape, illicit drug use, receiving gifts, obstructing the congressional investigation. But you know, Matt Gaetz's defense since this report has gone public is like it is the height of, of privilege. I mean, I mean, I just want you to think about what he's doing. So here's an example of what Gates is doing. He posts a selected portion of one of the depositions of one of the women. And here's what. And here's what he writes. He goes, another one of the ethics witnesses who was an alleged, quote, prostitute, claims she was indeed not when actually pressed in a deposition. This won't be in the ethics report because of course, and this was a lawsuit, I think, brought by a Republican lobbyist who was alleged to have been at a place where some of the conduct that was described in the ethics committee report was occurring. So here's the deposition testimony that Gates claims is like, good for him. Question, were you escorting, working? What were you doing? A lawyer does an objection. And then the answer from the woman was, I wouldn't consider it any of those. There was a lot of times where I did not get paid for being there in that time. I thought a lot of these people were my friends. Question. Okay, all right. So you wouldn't characterize anything you did in 2017 as sex work. Objection, you can answer. And then she says no. To be clear, what she's saying here is that there was a lot of times where I did not get paid for being there, which means there were times where apparently she did get paid. And this is not this deposition transcript, if you're wondering, is not the 17 year old statutory rape one. This is a different individual. What Matt Gaetz would do, according to the ethics report, though, is his close buddy Joel Greenberg, who ended up taking a plea for sex trafficking. Greenberg would find the women, or in the case of the girl, they'd find them on a website called Seeking Arrangements, where implicit in the relationship was that there would be payment for sex. So the woman wouldn't charge the money. It would just be part of what would take place, is that you would make the payment. And that was clear in some of the other text messages between Greenberg and the woman where he would show the photographs of Matt Gaetz and he would even say, all right, the usual 400 for the meat. They'd say $400 for the meat and then they would go, $400 for the meat. And that's how they would call it. But like, Gates is like looking at this like, like, these were my girlfriends. Like, these were. I was just giving gifts to girlfriends. And just, just think about that as like his defense. And this is another post that he made. Gates goes, giving funds to someone you are dating that they didn't ask for and that isn't, quote, charged for sex is now prostitution. There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve Eve report. And here's, here's what he claims is like, helpful to him. Question. So it wasn't that the amounts charged did not depend on how attractive a guy was. Is that fair to say? And then the woman responds, I never charged anyone anything. Like I said, it was just given question. Okay, answer. And it wasn't spoken about. So Gates views that as his strongest evidence. Right there, where the woman is saying, I didn't have to charge because the arrangement that was sought on seeking arrangement was just given what this was all about. And Gates is like, dude didn't do anything. Look, how great is this? Okay, Matt Gaetz was who Donald Trump picked to be Attorney General, the top law enforcement officer in the United States. The most powerful legal position, essentially, that there is. Matt Gaetz was a member of Congress entrusted with a public position while he was in. Again, I don't care about private sex lives of members of Congress or private individuals. Like, by the way, with all of the stuff against Hunter, the stuff with Hunter was consensual sex. While Hunter was a private citizen, he wasn't picked to lead a governmental agency or the Attorney General or to run anything in the Biden administration. Hunter's conduct was when Biden was not even the VP and not the president. In between, he hit rock bottom because Bo, his brother died of cancer and he went into a serious drug addiction. To which Hunter took full responsibility for. Hunter was not out there saying, oh, they said this. Look at the deposition. Hunter said, I did it. He said, I made mistakes in my life. I was at the lowest point in my life. I take full accountability for what it is I did. And what did the magas do? They found ways to charge Hunter with things that nobody other than Hunter has ever actually been charged with. And the irony is that you have someone like Matt Gaetz who's out there. Abolish the atf. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency. Abolish it. That there shouldn't be any of these ATF forms at all. Let weapons of war proliferate. There should be no common sense gun control as well. But Gates and the Magnas went after Hunter because when Hunter was under the influence of drugs or when he was suffering from drug addiction, he purchased a gun that he only had for a few weeks where he signed a form that said that he was not under the influence or was not consuming drugs or was not addicted to drugs on the ATF form. Now, there was substantial evidence in the Congressional ethics report that Matt Gaetz was on drugs during the relevant time period. Matt Gaetz is a known gun owner. Matt Gaetz is someone who called Florida, not the Sunshine State, but the gunshine state and so, you know, Gates is photographed with AR15s. And so did Gates fill out that form that Hunter filled out that Hunter was charged with that nobody else but Hunter was charged with? Gates gets a pass there. Why is Gates getting a pass there? I mean, wouldn't Hunter's ultimate revenge be that Matt Gaetz should ultimately be charged with the things that he's alleged to have done in this report that's made public? Also, I did a Google search of other people in Florida who were charged with statutory rape of a 17 year old. And I saw the story of a former police officer who was I think 28 years old, I think younger than Gates was, who met a girl on Tinder. And she said at first she was 23, admitted she lied and said that she was actually 19, but it turned out that she was 17 years old. And this guy, Jose Robel Hernandez, who met someone who he thought was 23 years old on Tinder, he was a former police officer. He was prosecuted for statutory rape. Matt Gaetz wasn't. And I want you to think about the ultimate kind of. And Matt Gaetz is out there making posts with deposition transcripts about other women. Although let me be clear, the 17 year old's a girl, but he's making posts about other people and he's like, they didn't charge me anything. What are you talking about here? And then he's posting Donald Trump's in support of him. After all of this, Gates is saying, I got a great note from President Trump. And then Trump's like, Matt, very unfair, exclamation point. After the ethics report came out, Trump had Matt Gaetz's back. So when you put all of this together, folks, though, you have to kind of go and ask yourself. And this again, one of the things we try to appeal to on this show, there it is right there. For those watching, you see what Trump said to Gaetz, Matt, very unfair. We try to appeal to people's common sense right here. And I try to take away the political tribalism that exists. And I just try to appeal to logic. That's why I show you what Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk are saying. I show you what Matt Gates is saying. We go through the ethics report in a strong amount of details. We go through what Trump is posting on Christmas, what the reaction to it is by the international community, what President Biden is doing. Because to of the biggest corrosive plagues, the biggest corrosive forces in politics is treating politics as some game with different teams. And both Sides, ism and a horse race. And this team did that and that team did it. Elevates these things as one side's doing this, one side's doing that. Look, you could watch the 30 minute interview that I did with President Biden. And President Biden had all the opportunity, if he wanted to, to say all of these things about the red states and the people who were effing around and finding out now who voted against their interests. And I asked President Biden these questions and he's like, look, whether you. He goes, I don't care. He goes, if Trump took credit for my accomplishments and that meant American people were benefiting, go take credit. He goes, this isn't a credit game. My job was to deliver on promises I made. And if those promises are delivered, then I feel I did my job and my duty. My view and the view of the Midas Touch network, I believe, is that that is a statesman with dignity in President Biden. Right. To me, when we talk about Teddy Roosevelt, and it's fitting we did that interview in the Roosevelt Room. The big stick policy. Walk soft and carry a big stick. You don't have to go and be loud and obnoxious, but you should back up what you're doing by delivering results. And if people get in your way and try to undermine your vision to be helpful, you respond with audacious power. But you don't have to wield that power recklessly and carelessly. And I've said you have the big stick policy from Roosevelt to Biden. And now with Donald Trump, we've got that micro stick policy. He's got that micro stick complex or the tiny stick policy. Act loud and obnoxious, but you're a paper tiger. You're ultimately not backing it up with real force and real power. And all you're doing is energizing the world against you and making you weaker. I'm sure if we reflected on the lessons of Machiavelli or Sun Tzu or whoever, like Trump does the opposite. When we teach negotiations or I teach negotiations, I mean, everything that Trump's doing is what you don't do in a negotiation. It screws over your bargaining power and ultimately exposes you and just makes you look dumb. I mean, look what happened with the continuing resolution. Trump demanded something or else. And then when that thing didn't happen, the debt ceiling wasn't added to it. There wasn't a removal or elimination or extension of the debt ceiling. He didn't do anything. He just moved on and played golf and then moved on to attacking Canada or attacking Greenland or attacking. Then he just moves on to the next one. And people see that as weakness. I promise you, Putin sees that as weakness. President Xi sees that as weakness. Our allies see that as weakness. They know the force and power of the United States. They know that it could be wielded. They have to take Trump's threat seriously, but they view him like they would view, like a mad king. They view him as someone who's kind of crazy and unstable and illogical, and they have to deal with it in that way and that type of instability in a global world order. As Charlie Angus, the Member of Parliament from Canada, said, that allows Putin to feast, that allows President Xi to feast, that allows our adversaries to take advantage of that. And that's not strength. That's weakness. That's weakness. And so I think it's important that we point that out. We point out Trump's broken promises that are going to inevitably happen on day one that I've talked about already on this show, with prices not going down but up, mortgage rates not going down but up, the tariffs and bloody mass deportations causing real harm, real problems. And I think it's important that our opposition to that be rooted in logic like this. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to be passionate, we're going to be ferocious, we're going to be logical, we're going to be fearless, and we're going to support democracy, not just here in America, but abroad. The ramifications of this are international in scope. That's why we're focusing a lot of our attention to what's happening in Canada, in the uk in Germany, as Elon Musk is supporting a party there that's known the AfD, which is known for supporting neo Nazi views and why that's so dangerous, or Elon Musk potentially giving $100 million to Nigel Farage in the UK and we need to focus on what's happening in Australia, what's happening in Mexico, what's happening in Austria, what's happening with all these far right movements taking place and pro democracy coalitions and government forming to try to stop that. And ultimately, a lot of these far right wing parties, they're supporting Putin's agenda. And then there are these pro democracy alliances which are supporting power to the people. So we'll keep talking about that. Do me a favor, make sure you're subscribed right now to our YouTube channel. I want to really get 4 million subscribers. So if you can help us. Please hit subscribe right now. Also, if you want to check out midasplus.com I think you'll enjoy the coverage there from Ron Filipkowski, our Editor in Chief. Also check out patreon.com Midas Touch as I've said, we don't have outside investors, so one of the ways we grow this is through Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com Midas Touch it really does help us grow and I'm looking forward to holding that Zoom meeting sometime next week where we can talk about all of the behind the scenes stuff about my interview with President Biden and such a such an honor. And I hope I really made you all proud and how we handled that interview and showed that look, you can be tough in the interview but also dignified and respectful and actually get answers. What a novel concept. Actually get answers from the politician and not make it about you, the host. Make it about the country and make it about what President Biden's responses was. So I hope we made you proud with that. And on that note, thank you everybody for watching. We appreciate you. You can subscribe to the audio podcast as well. If you're not our audio listeners on the Midas Touch podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Our YouTube watchers subscribe to the audio podcast. Thanks everybody for watching. Have a lovely and wonderful day. We love you. We're so grateful for you and we'll see you next time. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. Hey Midas Mighty. Love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram. It's TOUCH to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.
- [60:37]
Brett Meiselas
Hey music fans, there are some great concerts headed this way. Don't miss out on all the shows in your favorite venues like Deftones at Madison Square Garden, Eagles at the Sphere, and Foster the people at the Ryman Auditorium. Tickets are going fast, so don't wait. Head to livenation.com to get your tickets now that's livenation.com.