Brett Meiselas (5:00)

What a good dad. What a good. You guys are both such good dads. Great to be here. Midas Mighty. What a week. As always, the news certainly is not slowing down anytime soon. And Ben, as you discuss the things that we're going to talk about on this episode, as you break that down, I can't help but think that those individuals who voted for Donald Trump and a Republican Congress are soon going to learn firsthand what that actually means for themselves. And I think as we've seen this kind of anger that's been out there in the public about certain things over the last few weeks, I don't think we see that folks want less of the government helping them out. I don't think they want less health care. I don't think they want less ability to get their prescription drugs I don't think they want billionaires to get everything. And I think they're soon and quickly finding out that Donald Trump is building this oligarchy around him and that he is doing a making a government that is for the billionaires and by the billionaires. And that is what we're going to see. That's what we're going to see, the results. And you already see Trump already backtracking on, like, every major promise that he made to folks that probably were the promises that helped get him elected. Like, I'm going to bring down prices. How many times have we heard Donald Trump say, and the prices are going to come tumbling down the day I get into office, they're going to come tumbling down. Now he's like, yeah, you know, about that. I'm not so sure. And now Trump, of course, always says, we're going to be respected on the global stage. And, Ben, I love that we've been keeping track here of all of these world leaders who are actually standing up to Trump. I have to say, in many cases, stronger and more effectively than the leaders that we have here, unfortunately. But it's great to see these world leaders standing up to Trump and openly mocking him now talking about Donald Trump saying, would be respected. We are now back to being the laughingstock on the global stage. And it's a shame, but, you know, we're going to break it down. We're going to go through everything that's going on. I'll toss it over to you.

Ben Miceli (7:02)

Yeah. I mean, you literally have President Macron of France and Prime Minister Tusk of Poland, and they posted this themselves. And Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, goes, handshakes with Donald are unusually quite a challenge. And for those who were just listening on audio, they're mocking Donald Trump's handshake. And they're, like, laughing and they're showing camaraderie against each other and showing. And Macron's like, just, just like, laughing. And they're, they're, they're mocking us. And they know also that one of the ways you deal with Donald Trump's bullying is by kind of mocking him as well. They know his pathology. They know how easy it is to kind of push his buttons. You know, the whole kind of sequence of events is, Donald Trump went to France. President Macron invited him there to be at the opening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Trump shows up. Trump takes a picture with Zelinsky. While he's there, Macron brings them together. Trump feels embarrassed by that whole situation. Also, Macron Shucked, shook Donald Trump's hand so strong that that bothered Donald Trump as well. Plus the Zelinsky photo, Donald Trump thought that he was played. So Donald Trump's been on like a rampage, attacking Ukraine, attacking our allies, mocking everybody, you know, in his own kind of petty, you know, way. I mean, Trump. Posted by Dynamics. You pay taxes. I send it to Ukraine, they send it back to Hunter, Hunter gives it to me. Pardon? Hunter. How Bidenomics worked with a photo of President Biden. Like, not only is it, all of it false, but like the most idiotic thing. What are you talking about? Send your taxes to Ukraine, it goes back to Hunter. I mean, this is at the same time that Donald Trump's son right now. I mean, by the way, Hunter worked for Burisma, a Ukrainian company, to be a pro democracy voice on a board to try to shift the company in a democratic direction, which was under Russian control at the request of a pro democracy leader of Poland to join that at a time when Biden was never in office. Right. I mean, people need to contextualize these things. Biden was not the vp, Biden was not the president. And Biden said that he was not going to run at that time. And then Biden changed his mind, decided to run after Charlottesville and said he thought he needed to be in. But Biden had no intention of ever running again. Hunter Biden previously sat on boards. He's a Yale educated lawyer, worked at the top law firms. George W. Bush had appointed Hunter to an Amtrak board. And it was a time where there really weren't any conflicts of interest because Joe Biden wasn't the VP and Joe Biden wasn't the president at that wasn't even running at that time. But contrast that to now. Eric Trump is posting. Look at the deals we do with Saudi Arabia. We have massive skyscrapers that we're building. Look at the project that we built in Jada. Look at the products we did in Saudi Arabia. Look at what we're building here and there. Massive golden skyscrapers with golden toilet bowls. Everybody you know. And then Donald Trump posts. Any person or company investing $1 billion or more in the United States will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to all environmental approvals. Get ready to rock, everybody. And then Elon Musk responds to like a Doge account, which is like an Elon Musk account as well, that he amplifies. This is awesome. No environmental focus anymore. You're gonna get cancer, you're gonna get toxic diseases. What are you doing? What are you even talking about here? And I just feel sometimes we're shouting from the rooftops, not the golden skyscrapers of Donald Trump or shouting from our living rooms here saying, what the hell is going is going on here? Sorry, but I digress. So Trump goes to France. He felt embarrassed by going to totally total zigzag there.

Brett Meiselas (11:19)

When I just say. Can I just, like, translate that message for a second? The Trump post that you just read there, Trump is essentially saying that you could pollute the environment, you could destroy the United States, you could bypass all of our regulations. You actually get an expedited path to bypass all of our regulations. As long as you invest at least $1 billion or more in the United States. It's quite literally the def. It's the definition of selling out our country to billionaires. It's screwball. Small business, screw any sort of regular kind of investors. He's going to foreign investors, foreign persons, foreign corporations, and saying, come invest in the United States. And you don't even have to follow, play by the rules as long as you have at least a billion dollars or more. This is just the very foundation of the oligarchy that he is creating. And it's no wonder that somebody like Elon Musk is like, oh, this is awesome. This is so cool. Elon Musk, I believe today it was announced that he had $400 billion in net worth. Just think about that sum of money. And no matter how much you think about that sum of money, it's an unfathomable, obscene amount of money. It's impossible for, I think, for anyone's brain to truly wr just how much that is. But Donald Trump is saying, if you're Elon Musk, if you're Mark Zuckerberg, if you're Jeff Bezos, if you're one of these foreign billionaires in Saudi Arabia, whatever country, we don't care. As long as you have money. You have a voice in my government. Working class, we don't need you. Regular kind of companies, small businesses, we do not need you. That is what Trump is saying with these posts, and they're just being so explicit about it. And when Eric Trump is just flaunting these investments in Saudi Arabia, I mean, you just think now going back to past presidencies like Jimmy Carter with his peanut farm, you think through the lengths that people had to go to divest from their businesses, no matter how big or small. And this was even an issue back in 2016, right, Ben? People actually tried to push. They tried to Pressure. Donald Trump didn't work to divest from his businesses. Remember, Trump made up that he had a plan. I think this is one of the times Trump brought out the fake sheets of paper and says, here's my plan to divest for my businesses.

Ben Miceli (13:39)

All.

Brett Meiselas (13:39)

All BS, 100% BS. Well, they're not even, like, no one's even asking him this time around. But why aren't we asking him? Like, why are we just accepting the fact that he's allowed to be intermingled in all of these foreign business deals that are going to have an impact on the way that he governs? It's just absolutely insane, Ben.

Ben Miceli (13:58)

But, yeah, so when the fact that they're spiking the football, these billionaires in our face, right, it makes it even extra worse. And I think ultimately they're exposing themselves with this as well. Right. They're not, perhaps you want to call it their Achilles heel or just no amount of money for them is making them feel the level of importance that they want to feel. They feel that they deserve so much respect for exploiting us all. And people hate them. So they keep posting the images of themselves to try to show us how great they are. Look at my Lamborghinis. Look at my Gulf Stream jets. Look at my skyscrapers that I'm building. Look at the deal. I mean, Eric, this wasn't like. You're not a savvy, sophisticated businessman. Saudi Arabia is freaking buying your family. They're playing you, okay? MBS brag that Jared Kushner is in his pocket. They know. We'll. We'll build the skyscraper. We'll put your family's freaking name on it. We'll get you $100 million, and then we'll get to do whatever we want geopolitically. And you're like, I'm a savvy businessman. While Americans right now are worried, Holy shit, Project 2025. Wait a minute. Trump actually appointed all the Project 2025 people. Wait a minute. The first thing that Congress is talking about now is getting rid of our Social Security, getting rid of our Medicare, getting rid of Medicaid. Wait a minute. Someone like Elon Musk, who's worth $400 billion, created a doge Committee, and he and Vivek Ramaswamy, who's also worth $1 billion, they're on Capitol Hill meeting with millionaire Republican Congress members, and they're talking about imposing austerity measures. Trump, austerity measures to inflict economic hardship on we the people. And they're saying, we're going to take away veterans health care, all of these lavish benefits that veterans are getting. The wealthy veterans are out there just sucking up all of this money right now, is what the MAGA Republicans are saying. They're saying nothing is off limits. Social Security isn't off limits, Medicare isn't off limits. And by the way, then Donald Trump's asked basic questions, you know, by Time magazine, so are you going to lower your price? You know you're going to get prices down. No, no guarantees. Donald Trump tells Time magazine he was asked a similar question on Meet the Press by Chris de Welker, where you are. So are you going to lower prices or you on day one, you go, I can't guarantee you anything. I don't control that. That's outside of my control. It's hard. He goes, it's very hard to take down the price. Just, just for this, let's read this answer from Time magazine. You all know I don't show Donald Trump audio or video clips. Let me just read it to you. This is the question from Time magazine to Donald Trump, if the prices of groceries don't come down, will your presidency be a failure? Answer, I don't think so. Just pause there. Just think about that. I don't think so. That was the whole premise that everybody said, why Trump won the election because he guaranteed, I guarantee you on day one, the prices are all going to go down. And everyone said, look, despite all of these metrics that show President Biden led one of the, if not the most successful presidency in like American history, the fact that he didn't overnight solve inflation caused by Donald Trump mishandling of COVID Trump's destruction of supply lines, Trump adding $8 trillion of debt, the most in American history because President Biden couldn't fix all of that until like year three, when Biden's policies finally started to kick in, people said didn't matter what the stock market did, it didn't matter. Unemployment was at record lows, it didn't matter. Biden created 16.1 million jobs. It didn't matter. The Infrastructure act, the PACT act, the Inflation Reduction act, the CHIPS act, bringing the semiconductor industry back to the United States, record low crime, none of that matter, people said, because Biden didn't effectively manage inflation caused by Donald Trump, which Biden managed to do better than any other country in the entire world by multiples of any country under the entire world. And while Trump's plans, every economist who has any shred of credibility says if you tariff, if you do bloody mass deportations, if you do all of these things, it's going to increase inflation, not decrease. But people say that's why Biden didn't win. That's why Harris ultimately lost and Trump goes pull it back up again. Let me read it for everybody.

Brett Meiselas (18:47)

Can I, can I read Prywood? One thing before you read this, Let me read this. Ok. Before Ben reads what Donald Trump said in this Time magazine article that was released today. Here is what Donald Trump said in September in front of his followers. And he said this at multiple many rallies, many events, many phone calls to Fox News. Here's just one example. Front from September, quote, vote Trump and your incomes will soar, your net worth will skyrocket, your energy costs and grocery prices will come tumbling down. With that in mind, Ben, pull it up.

Ben Miceli (19:21)

If the prices of groceries don't come down, will your presidency be a failure? Answer? I don't think so. Look, they got them up. I'd like to get, I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up, you know, it's very hard. But I think they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down. You know, the supply chain is still broken. It's broken. You see it, you go out to the docks and you see all these containers. And I own property in California and Palos Verdes. They're very nice. And I passed the docks. I've been doing it for 20 years, never seen anything like it. You know, for 17 years I saw containers, you know, they'd come off and they'd be taken away. Big areas, you know, you know, in that area, you know, you know, where they have the big, the big ships coming in big, the port. And I'd see this for years as I was out there inspecting property and things because they own a lot in California. In addition to just being a completely incoherent answer, I at least appreciate that.

Brett Meiselas (20:30)

They didn't edit it for clarity. He didn't answer as he said it because it's one of those ramblings that it's like nearly impossible to read. But I mean, just a stunning admission right there.

Ben Miceli (20:41)

Right.

Brett Meiselas (20:41)

And you see how he's already trying to sort of get out of, of the responsibility of the very problems that he is going to cause. And those same issues that he wrote to Victory, by the way, the same issues that have been improving year after year after year. And many of those issues, including especially the supply chains that he was talking about that were completely devastated by Covid and Donald Trump's handling of COVID He's once again trying to put that blame on the Biden administration who actually went in and fixed the problem. I mean, people really, seriously. And I know it's, you know, it's a late message, but we've said it, we said it all throughout the campaign. Also, people really don't remember what it was like in January 2021. Like, people really cannot, are unable to put themselves back in that place. But things were grim, folks. Things were very grim. There was many people dying a day. Everything was completely falling apart. Companies were decimated, people were out of work. Like, things were as bad as it gets when President Biden took office. You remember that first Time magazine, I think back to that, the COVID it was President Biden. It was that desk that was filled with papers and just the White House and utter chaos. Such a complete and total mess. And I forgot what the message was, but it was something like his turn to clean up or something to that effect. I'd have to look it up. But, but that's how the Biden administration began. And then you look at the metrics that we have here, that if you looked at these things on paper, you'd be like, oh, of course that guy would win a second term, or, you know, whoever his successor is, because this is undeniably the best in the world and could things be better? Of course. But, you know, the hole that we had to dig out of this Trump hole was absolutely devastating. And, and Trump managed to ride his own destruction back to the White House. I think it's the irony of this entire thing.

Ben Miceli (22:34)

Well, look, Donald Trump's incoming press secretary, Caroline Levitt, she said today the press has been telling her off the record, which she clearly doesn't know, off the record. By saying it on the record, she goes, the press has been telling her off the record how happy they are to get the access back that they always wanted. Right now they get to report on, oh, Don Junior's ex fiance, Kimberly Guilfoyle gets kicked to the curb and now she gets to become the ambassador of Greece. And now he's got Bettina, a socialite girlfriend, and Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka's father in law, a convicted felon who set up his own brother in law with the prostitute and showed it to his own sister. Charles Kushner, he becomes the ambassador of France. Ooh, and then you have Tiffany's father in law becomes the head of Middle east policy. The drama. Oh, my God. Everybody look we don't want drama. I want stability, normalcy. I want stable leadership right here. I don't want this chaos and craziness. And it's absolutely, utterly ridiculous. By the way, before we go to our first commercial break, Brett, pull up this graphic right here from the stock market. If we haven't Donald Trump rung the bell today, right? So we, I like that we covered Donald Trump's face with a cloud emoji right here. So just think about it. Trump goes to Wall street.

Brett Meiselas (24:09)

You almost wouldn't even know, right? Like it works to ring the bell.

Ben Miceli (24:14)

To Time magazine gave him person of the Year, the biggest propaganda moment for him, right? So you would expect with the biggest propaganda moment, the stock market would go up, at least one of the indexes would go up, right? The dow closed down 234, the S P closed down $32, and the NASDAQ closed down $132. And so that was Trump at the stock market today. But you know, all of this corporate media fetishizing of authoritarianism, ooh, Baron's a ladies man at nyu. Ooh, Donald Trump, powerful handshake. What a power movie. Looked like a freaking fool. Who, what human being shakes a freaking hand the way he shook Macron's hand? We look like clowns. And that's why they're mocking them. You know who's in an echo chamber? Our corporate media here. They freaking crave fascism because they're run by their corporate overlords as well, who are part of this oligarchy right here that's trying to exploit we the people that's trying to screw you over. But here's the thing. Going back to the point I was making earlier, when you start flaunting it like that, when you start going out there, hey, billionaires, you want to dump toxic chemicals on the, on the people. We'll give you whatever, you know, businesses to run. They need customers. If you're going to kill your customers, piss off your customers. If you're going to screw the people that needs to be called out. And by the way, our, our equivalent of page one here on the Midas Touch network is that Donald Trump already breaking his promises, already saying he's not going to lower prices, Donald Trump saying that there's nothing that he can do, you know, to he doesn't have a health care plan. All of the lies should be called out powerfully, not just on day one, but right now we've got a lot more to discuss. Let's take our first quick break of the show.

Brett Meiselas (26:21)

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Ben Miceli (29:18)

Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors right there. They help fund this programming and some great products as well. So the discount code is in the description below. Brett, great ad reads there. You know, they say when it comes to fascism, don't obey in advance. I like to just shorten that and just say don't obey. But let's face it, when it comes to the corporate oligarchy here in the United States, whether it's billionaires like Jeff Bezos or whether it's billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, it's not so much obeying as, I think, putting their mask off and revealing who they've always been all along. We learned that Mark Zuckerberg is going to be giving a million dollars to Donald Trump's inauguration. And we just learned earlier today, before shooting this podcast, that Amazon, that Jeff Bezos, who is so excited about all the deregulation that Donald Trump's going to bring, is also giving $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration. You know, Brett, all of that regulation that's clearly made it so difficult for Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

Brett Meiselas (30:34)

Can I just get serious for a second? I just want to, honestly, like, I know Bezos is going through some hard times. I know Zuckerberg, they've fallen on some hard times just being strangled, strangled by the regulation. So I just want to send my, my heart, you know, my thoughts and my prayers to them during these very, very difficult times. I, I'm so sorry that you've gained hundreds of billions of dollars during this administration, but I maybe wanted more, I don't know, but I know things, I know times are tough, but you'll get through it, guys. You'll get through it.

Ben Miceli (31:06)

Okay, well, look, Brett, as Americans are suffering as these billionaires are buying up and commoditizing housing, you know, you look at these billionaires who've bought 93,000 homes, 150,000 homes, 300,000 homes, and they buy them up, they decrease the supply to increase the price, make it unaffordable for people to live the American dream. Housing in short supply as people are struggling to afford an education as let's face it, prices are, prices are high. And voters made their voices very clear, even though it seems that they were completely hoodwinked by Donald Trump and all of the MAGA Republicans. I think the word seems is doing a lot of work there. But Brett, you know what voters and Midas mighty are very angry about? You know, one of the biggest threats they worry about? Of course, it's the free tax filing service by the IRS that is a massive threat of government encroachment. So as the MAGA Republicans talk about what on their top priorities, yes, it's attacking Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans health benefits. Don't worry about the fact that these billionaires are amassing massive net worths. MAGA Republicans Adrian Smith and Chuck Edwards, Congress members, they wrote Donald Trump a letter urging him terminate the IRS's new free tax filing service, otherwise known as direct file. On day one through an executive order 27 other MAGA Republicans signed on to it. This is after Intuit, the owner of TurboTax, lobbied for the free filing system to be eliminated, viewing it as a threat to their business model. But one of the reasons I want to even talk about this though is it's a perfect example of where Democrats came in, addressed a situation by having an IRS commissioner who made government work for the people, right? If you had to call the IRS for figuring things out for most Americans, they love it, the wait time. I mean, no one loves paying taxes, let's face it, but the taxes exist. We live in a system, though, where people have lots of issues with the irs. So President Biden tried to make it more efficient. The wait times for the IRS are down. They use modern technology to have a free tax filing system to make filing taxes easier and less stressful. But here's what the MAGA Republicans are focusing and just listen to their language that they use here. Dear President Elect Trump, we write to urge you to take immediate action, including but not limited to a day one executive order to end the Internal Revenue Services unauthorized and wasteful direct file pilot program. The program's creation and ongoing expansion pose a threat to taxpayers freedom from government overreach. And its rollout and structural flaws have already come at a steep price. As you know, during the last tax year, the IRS rolled out its direct file pilot program in 12 states through which taxpayers file their taxes directly to the irs. Instead of through a trusted accountant or reputable third party preparation service under the guise of offering a convenient, free to file alternative preparation service. The IRS asserts itself as the tax assessor, collector, preparer and enforcer all in one. When the program is used, this is a deeply concerning and clear conflict of interest. And it goes on. And it's very long about the severe threats. This is government at its worst. I mean, meanwhile, the Maga Republicans are okay with AR15s in front of school, right? Meanwhile, the Maga Republicans are okay taking away your health care. Meanwhile, the MAGA Republicans are refusing right now to pass supplemental disaster relief for the recent hurricanes. It's just another way to stick it to President Biden, right? You don't pass the supplement. They view passing hurricane supplemental relief as being wasteful. The MAGA Republicans have not passed a budget. I just want you to think about the last three years. It hasn't been deja vu, it's been real. Remember the MAGA Republicans since they get into power, they refuse to raise the debt ceiling. And President Biden had to negotiate that or else we would have been in a great depression. Remember the drama? Even though Donald Trump had the debt ceiling raised over MAGA Republicans refused to do it. Biden had to like, cut a deal to do something just the country alive. And then what MAGA Republicans do what Trump always does, break the deal, don't pass the budget. Then we had to have continuing resolution. After continuing resolution, we'd go to like the day where we were all about to suffer. And then we'd pass them continuing resolution. And then Republicans would like, take a continuing resolution and divide it into like five pieces and do like a divided continuing resolution to act like things were happening. But then they would like separate the National Defense Authorization act with another one. And then, and then they'd all be all over the place. And then they wouldn't. And then we're here. We are, Brett. We're like, what? We're 10 days away from. Days away from a new government shutdown. There's been like, what, three close calls of shutdowns. The failure to raise the debt ceiling. Not passing supplemental. And here's the thing, not passing disaster supplemental. But here's the thing, Brett. None of this is talked about on news. Like, yeah, I'm sure on New York Times, page 12. That's on it. You know, I'm sure. Washington Post, page 8. I'm sure it's never on cable news where they actually give this any. Maybe it's 2% of their coverage, but this stuff, people don't know about what Republicans are doing. So they just feel it's all screwed up, everything's messed up. And then Republicans exploit that disparity in information.

Brett Meiselas (37:51)

Yeah, it's so incredibly stressful because the last thing on the planet I'm going to say is that the Democrats are perfect and that everything they do is great. I'm not going to say that. But what I will say is at least a majority of the time, they're at least trying to push the country in the right direction, and they are at the whims of the obstruction of the Republicans who have brilliantly figured out this plan to obstruct. And not only to obstruct, but to use the means of communication to propagandize and to convince people that Democrats are the cause of your problems, to convince people that transgender people are the cause of your problems, to convince you that gay people are the cause of your problems, migrants are the cause of your problems. I could keep going down the list, but they have devised and executed this scheme quite brilliantly. The Republicans, where you have so much of the country, quite frankly, going, oh, Democrats, Republicans, oh, they're all the same. It's not. It's just not true. And I understand that, you know, that folks are looking for a bit more radical change right now when it comes to certain things, that people are pissed off that these programs are not working for the American people. And I totally get it, and I totally agree. But you have the Republicans, quite frankly, trying to take us backwards at every step. Like, do you think that. Do you think that these Trump voters, who, many of whom are working class, do you think that one of the priorities they wanted Donald Trump to tackle on day one is to remove the IRS's direct file system that made filing taxes easy for them. I can guarantee you that is not something that they were eager about.

Ben Miceli (39:21)

Right.

Brett Meiselas (39:22)

Like, that's not something that they were. That they were hoping for with this administration. Do you think they wanted billionaires to get exclusivity to the government, to get extra rights for the government? I just don't think that that's the energy that we're seeing in this country right now. I think people were hoodwinked in many ways into believing that Donald Trump is a guy who's going to help the working class. And I think, as we see day in and day out, Donald Trump doing everything he can to empower these billionaires and then this billionaire group, this billionaire oligarch group of people like Jeff Bezos, of people like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk. You see Bezos and Musk now donating each million dol dollars to Donald Trump's inaugural fund. Just kissing the ring like this, right? And you start seeing what's going. It becomes so obvious, I think to me, who is kind of in control and who is trying to get special treatment and who wants a seat at the table in this administration. And it has never been more transparent who this amendment administration is for. And I can guarantee you that so, so many of even these Trump voters that this is not what they were voting for. They were not voting for the billionaires. But we all knew that this was going to be an administration for the billionaires. Hopefully, as things progress, they will soon find out they will reach that fine. I know some of them have. I've seen a lot of comments, I've seen a lot of reports on this, but I think a lot more of them are going to start to realize, oh, wait, why is Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and Elon, why are these people making decisions about my life? Wait, they get priority over me while they tell me that I have to cut back. Wait, Elon Musk is getting new grants and new government programs and new government contracts, but I need to cut down on my Social Security payments. And I'm not able to use this free government IRS filing service anymore because Intuit and TurboTax want me to use their service. And so they lobbied their friends in the Trump administration. Like, that doesn't seem super fair. And reality is going to hit, and when it hits, it's going to hit pretty hard.

Ben Miceli (41:23)

You know, there's going to be, I think, kind of these key events. You know, you do a tariff war with China, and now all of a sudden, the, the new iPhone doesn't get delivered. And I know it's something so superficial like that, but kind of these are the times, right? Like, like an iPhone will start costing, like $10,000 or something like that, because the factory in China gets shut down as a retaliatory act for the trade war. Or we get a lot of, you know, resources from Canada, energy imported from Canada. You know, what happens when they cut, if they cut that off in retaliation, what happens when you do these bloody mass deportations and there's nobody to work the fields? If Trump's going to do that on day one, what about the mere threat of doing workplace raids shuts down the productivity? And when inflation starts creeping up, what about when H5N1 becomes A, you know, could potentially become a more widespread contagion as RFK Jr doesn't take the health measures because he believes that raw milk is the greatest thing since raw sliced cheese or 10 day old sliced cheese. You know, that's rotten. And, and then people are getting sick. You know, America, you know, America is a pressure cooker right now caused by Donald Trump's policies. One of the big mistakes, and I don't want to do the postmortem thing now though, is that the Kamala Harris campaign was focused so much on turn the page, move forward. Americans were pissed. They wanted somebody to blame. And the people to blame were the Donald Trump Mar a lago billionaires who were doing this to them. And Trump and the billionaires convinced the people by enough numbers. Look, it wasn't. This is not a mandate. Donald Trump won by less than 50% of the popular vote, but he convinced the people that it was the trans people, it was migrants, it was George Soros. It was a deep state cabal, and it wasn't. But now that Trump and these billionaires are spiking the football in our faces and 500 foot yachts wasn't enough. It's got to be another. And they're doing it in our faces and mocking us. They're creating a situation where their, their lies are being exposed. And I want to talk more about that. I want to show some of the international response. I want to do a quick, I.

Brett Meiselas (44:09)

Just want to do a quick compare, though, while, while we're on the subject of messaging. Because the one thing that I will say Trump is good at is he's marketing, right? He's good at getting the message out. He says things very kind of dumbed down and very clearly. And so I'll go back to that. The quote that we were speaking about at the beginning of this episode when Trump was speaking about bringing down prices. Now he is admitting that that was a total lie. But this was his comment from September. I read it earlier. But he said, vote Trump and your incomes will soar, your net worth will skyrocket, your energy costs and grocery prices will come tumbling down. It's a very direct, affirmative statement, right, for people to hear. And so the folks who bought into that were like, oh, that's exactly what I want to hear right now. Think about, you know, comments from Vice President Kamala Harris where she couched it in this terminology that would sometimes feel like it came from a marketing firm, like a professional or a PR firm, when she said, I'm going to create an opportunity economy. Like, people don't really understand what opportunity economy means, but people Understand what? Your income will soar, your net worth will soar, your prices will come down. Like that's something that people understand. And I think Democrats in general need to kind of take that lesson and they need to be as direct as, as that. That's why, you know, even we in the past when we were speaking about, you know, things like the inflation Reduction act and, and all these bills, we said let's stop calling them by these, these lofty names and let's just say what the thing is, right? Like Biden's doing right now. Say, I'm going to cap your prescription drug prices at $2,000 a year. I'm going to negotiate with the drug companies. Your drug prices will come down, your health will go up. Just be very straight forward about it and stop couching it in this political language because we need to be direct with the people. All right, we got a lot more to talk about, Ben. I know. We'll be right back after this break. Do not go anywhere. See you in a second. Let's face it, after a 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 zbiotics. 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 to 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 or 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, ZBiotics is continuing to create probiotics that tackle the challenges of modern living. Go to ZBiotics.com Midus to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use code MIDAS at checkout. ZBiotics 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 M Eidas at checkout for 15% off.

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Brett Meiselas (52:07)

Our editor in chief, Ron Philip Kowski every single day during the week is doing these breakdowns, these recaps of the day on our Midas plus Com. That's our substack and you should check them out. He releases them around sometimes like around 4pm or 5pm Pacific time each day. And it's like you could not watch the news all day and then read Ron's recaps and you'll be all caught up. And me as somebody who is a news junkie and is tuned in to everything throughout the entire day, even I reading Ron's recaps, I'm always finding new nuggets of information that I haven't seen before. I mean, he really sees it all. And I've read hundreds of these kind of newsletter recaps in my day. I gotta say, Ron's is easily by far and away the best. Easy read, easy to digest. You can check it out. It's Midas+.com posts every day in the evening. Go check it out.

Ben Miceli (53:00)

Look, our coverage of the Canadian House of Commons is getting a lot of attention right now. That sentence in and of itself, you know, perhaps in other times you'd be like, really? Coverage of the House of Commons in.

Brett Meiselas (53:14)

Canada, Canadian Parliament, talking about us?

Ben Miceli (53:17)

Look, I think it is, first off, we have a lot of Canadian followers followers. And we love our Canadian followers, we love our international followers. But I know how big our Canadian followers are. And I think it is important to show how Donald Trump's bullying of Canada, one of our closest allies, is having the impact that it is. And so we covered, for example, a member of the ndp, the New Democratic Party, which is right now, I think like the third biggest party in the Parliament right now. I mean, the, the Liberal Party is under Prime Minister Trudeau is leading the official opposition parties, the Conservative Party and then the NDP joined up with the Liberal Party there to form the government that now is in control and which has blocked the no confidence votes that the Conservatives have brought to the floor. Let me show you. This is NDP member of Parliament Charlie Angus. He gave a speech. I'll show a small portion of it, but we, you could watch the full speech that I showcased. And by the way, I'm going to have Charlie Angus on the show for the weekend. But let's play this.

Brett Meiselas (54:36)

So yes, they are neighbors, but we have stood up to them. We're in a different situation with Donald Trump, a convicted predator who's seriously undermining the democratic process in the United States. And he thinks he can just push us around. He insults us. You know, the Conservatives seem to like it because he's insulting our Prime Minister. But he's not really insulting the Prime Minister. He's insulting Canadians calling us the 51st state. That's right, exactly. You know, Once there was a Canada that had a flag that didn't to be waved, a flag that represented who we are, we didn't boast about.

Ben Miceli (55:14)

Okay, so that's from an NDP member in Parliament. Let me show you, kind of separately, a premier from Ontario, Doug Ford. Now, Doug Ford is someone who back in 2016, said his support of Donald Trump is unwavering. Lots of people call the.

Brett Meiselas (55:35)

The ultimate MAGA bootlegger. Right? Like, Doug Ford was like, he. I think he said, like, I'm maga. Like, like, he was like the number one Trump fan in Canada, saying that he support everything that he did.

Ben Miceli (55:48)

Yeah. You know, and, and he's been. That. That's been his line. Like, don't worry. They call him Maple maga, and they call a lot of the Conservatives Maple maga. And while people have expressed frustration with Trudeau, lots of people I know in Kenner like, okay, but the Trudeau NDP alliance is, is superior to the Conservatives. But the Conservatives have been telling people, look, we got this. Trump's our guy. We're, you know, we, we, you know, we have a plan. So then Trump jumps in, though, and starts attacking Canada and saying that, you know, you know, all these kind of defamatory things about Canada. And now the Conservatives in Canada, like, they look like they've been selling a bill of goods to the people. So now they've had to recalibrate their message to look tough against the United States. So now what's interesting is, you know, the NDP and the Conservative Party, like, as far as part as you can basically get, but now the ndp, Trudeau's Liberal Party, and the Conservative Party, by and large at both the kind of federal level and the provincial level are all now kind of saying similar things. Like, here Doug Ford is like, there's almost now a race in Canada to who can be the toughest to fight back against the bullying of Canada by Trump. And so here Doug Ford's like, we're going to cut off your energy. We should. We should plan to cut off the energy that flows from Canada into the United States, among other things. Watch this. Let's make no mistake about it. As I mentioned to the Prime Minister, the rest of the premiers, we need to be ready. We need to be ready to fight. This fight is coming 100% on January 20 or January 21. But we'll use every tool in our toolbox, including cutting them off energy that we're sending down there. Folks, this is coming. It's not. If it is, it's coming and it's coming January 20th or 21st. And we need to be prepared. We need to stand as a country. We need to stand united as Canadians and work hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with our colleagues across the country. And we're ready to do it. We'll use every tool in our toolbox to fight back. Like, we can't sit back and roll over. We just, we just won't as a country. We never have. Okay, why would you, as the United States, like, that's your top ally. And for Trump within America's top. Not saying Doug Ford, I'm saying Canada within Canada. If you're Trump and you're being strategic about this too, your top ally within a country that's an ally is a guy like Doug Ford or Pierre Polyev. Like, who's, who's the main opposition leader in Parliament. These are the guys. And now you've alienated them. You have President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum talking about retaliatory tariffs. You've got President Macron of France and Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland do. Mocking Trump's handshake. These are our allies. So imagine what it's like with Vladimir Putin. Imagine President Xi. Imagine, you know, when you see Eric Trump going, oh, everybody, look at my new building in Jeddah. Look at my new building, everybody. This is all, I'm a smart businessman do. We have just the Eric Trump post. What do you think mbs, MBS is saying? Like, oh my God, we now have, we now have a United States that just gets bought out. Just hahaha, Just stick that Trump name on that building that we were gonna build anyway, kick the family a hundred million dollars and they're just gonna leave us alone. And we can pursue all of our geopolitical goals. Like, just think about the dynamic already from, from strength with NATO allies under Biden to utter weakness. Brett?

Brett Meiselas (60:06)

Yeah. And I also want to emphasize the fact that when you look at the Saudis and what they're doing there with Eric Trump and you see all this, you realize that this whole kind of billionaire group that comes together, it's not just limited to the United States. I just want to make sure that that's clear. The country is for sale right now to the highest bidder anywhere. And that is one of the issues that we are currently facing. And it is so obvious who this government is for. It is so obvious who is running this government under Donald Trump. It in fact, could not be clearer. And when you see these world leaders speaking out like Doug Ford, like, dude, like, literally, I pulled up some articles about Doug Ford from before the past few weeks. And here's just a couple headlines from the Washington Post In 2018, Doug Ford could bring Trumpism to Ontario. New York Times, 2018, Will Canada elect a Tin pot Northern Trump? This is from a YouTube channel MAGA hat wearing a Doug Ford supporter is all cringe. That's something making fun of him. Here's Bloomberg. Canada's Donald Trump wins over Canada's Donald Trump. Well, how did that work out for you, Doug Ford? How did that work out for you? But, you know, it's good to see that there are people out there who are standing up to Trump like this. And I hope to see that sort of clarity and more of our leaders here. I think far too often these past few weeks, it has felt like the United States has not even like had an opposition party. It has felt like the United that a lot of these Democrats have simply rolled over. And this is a time where they need to be loud about their values. This is a time where they need to really be making their case. This is a time where they need to be listening to the American people and their concerns and say, listen, I hear you on health care and here is our plan on how to move forward. Here's how I want to get health care to all Americans. Listen, I hear you on the housing crisis. Here's the Democratic plan and they need to speak loudly about these plans and then have the Republicans oppose it. Have the Republicans say, now, we don't want to give that to the people. We instead want to give our giveaways to the billionaires. Now, we don't want to help housing. In fact, we want to just help the billionaires to buy up more housing and use them as commodities and grow their wealth that way. We prefer it that way. Put these Republicans on the defense. I don't know why this is so hard and I don't know why there are so many running away from this or worse, rushing to kind of embrace Donald Trump and embrace the people around him. It's simply not what you have to do. And frankly, I do not believe personally it's what the American people are looking for. The American people are looking for fighters. The American people are looking for people who are going to stand by them and stand up for their values, stand up for the things that they are screaming about. The American people are being quite clear, in my opinion, about the things that they want. Now, are you going to answer the call? It's your time. Do it or don't do it. But I hope that you do it. I hope that you pick up on the message because it's coming through loud and clear.

Ben Miceli (63:05)

It's a really great point, Brett. It is so obvious to becoming an effective opposition party right now with all of these billionaires flaunting their wealth, spiking the football in people's faces, bragging about the skyscrapers and sweetheart deals that foreign countries are giving them, when they're talking about cutting people Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and maga. Republicans are talking about Trump austerity measures. They're out there talking about we need to impose economic hardship and then it'll get better when they start talking about the Argentinian President Millay who has a 52% poverty rate in Argentina and they use that as their shiny example. Or Viktor Orban where inflation was recently like 18% and the entire GDP of Hungary, where Orban is the authoritarian leader, is less than like an American corporation. Like when they're doing that, I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm just so simple that I'm missing the whole layers of complexity here that why Democrats or just human beings who, who want to be leaders just can step up and look at the American and say, the billionaires are coming for your health care. The billionaires are coming for your Social Security. The billionaires are coming for your Medicare. The billionaires are coming for your veterans benefits. The billionaires are coming for your health. The billionaires are coming for your family. They're going to spare nobody in their consumption of everything that you've worked hard for. And we need to channel our frustration peacefully to make sure that we have a system of checks to make sure that these billionaires don't run and conduct a rampage and pilfer over the American people. Our editor in chief, Ron Philip Kowski, I think put it succinctly as he always does on Midasplus.com so check that out. Ron Filipkowski writes, we have a peculiar historical event shaping up where the oligarch billionaire class is about to fleece this country, while most of their supporters are working people who are convinced that they are on their side because they hate migrants and trans people. And if you watch Fox or right wing media or corporate media, they push this message over and over and over. And it's because corporate media is run by corporation, which is run by billionaires. And as I've said, there is a class war and Americans aren't even aware of it because they're not in it. It's a class sneak attack by the billionaires Maybe not even a war, a sneak attack. And the billionaires are not satisfied by their billionaire status. They got to have hundreds of billions or trillions. They're in a race for trillions. It doesn't matter. Five private jets aren't got to be 10 private jets. And they want to turn the government into billionaire welfare. It's what they want to do. And they're using a culture war as the subterfuge for the class war that they've initiated on the people. And the people are. Oh, the volleyball player from San Jose Street. Outrageous. A San Jose State volleyball player. There's a transgender woman on the volleyball team. What am I going to do? The swimmer. Oh, my God, there's a swimmer. I can't believe it. You know, and people are so riled up over these things.

Brett Meiselas (67:11)

Elon Musk's net worth skyrockets from 200 billion to 400 billion since the election. That's what's happening while they're complaining about the volleyball player or whatever it is.

Ben Miceli (67:21)

Exactly. And they're freaking playing you for a fool. And they're taking away your education, which is why Donald Trump wants to get rid of the Department of Education. So that you're not smart enough to see it. Why do you think they're attacking education? Why do you think they want to burn books? Why do you think? And by the way, they want to corporatize it, too, and make you fundamentally the private schools of their rich kids while they're at it, and make you subsidize that with your tax dollars and then buy Trump's bogus Bibles. The distinction between the separation of church and state is so Trump can sell. And the Supreme Court getting rid of the lemon test that normally had a separation of church estate ultimately used by the Republicans. So Trump could sell Bibles in Oklahoma and make a few more million bucks from the Oklahoma superintendent. Come on, people. Don't you see what's going on? But here's the thing. I'll leave you with this. We need a leader who just says that. And not once a week on Meet the Press or twice a weekend on the weekend shows. You gotta be loud every day on every freaking platform that there is. And you gotta convey it and you gotta channel it and you gotta push it every single day. It's what the people are craving right now is leadership. I just don't. I see exploitation and what the Republicans are, but I see a lack of leadership right now by democracy. Democrats, Wake up, someone. Rise to the top. Lead. Lead the people to truth to justice, to equality. We'll do our part here at the Midas Touch Network. Thank you everybody for watching. Make sure you hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million subscribers. Share the Midas Touch Network with people that you know. Check out midasplus.com hopefully you like a lot of the work we do there. A lot of the stuff is free there too. Some of the stuff isn't. Some of this. A lot of the stuff is though. Midasplus.com check it out. Patreon.com Midas Touch check that out. And thank you so much for watching. Subscribe on audio podcast as well. If you're not, that helps us subscribe on the audio podcast. Anyway, thank you so much everybody. We'll see you next time. We appreciate your support, really do. Thank you to the moderators. We know you put in a lot of hard work as well. We appreciate you and we'll see you next time on the show. Brett, take it away.

Brett Meiselas (70:00)

Shout out to the Midas mighty, the mightest mighty.

Ben Miceli (70:20)

Hey Midas Mighty. Love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on.

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