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How many discounts does USAA auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount, Safe driver discount, New vehicle discount, Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply. It's tax season, and at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money in refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it, guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. Donald Trump is having a terrible morning. Some devastating headlines. So he sent his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessen, to Capitol Hill to lie about the economy, to lie about tariffs. And moments ago, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was caught committing perjury. He was asked a question about whether he, when he was running a private equity company, if he said tariffs were inflationary. He said, oh, I never sent a letter like that. Well, we actually have the letter where he literally says that tariffs are inflationary. So he, he was just caught lying to Congress, which I think should carry with it serious implications. We'll go over that in just a moment as well. But look at some of these grim headlines from various media outlets. And it should be noted as well, the Washington Post today announced massive layoffs. It's gonna be cutting about one third of its staff. Sports department, Middle east department is all being absolutely gutted by Jeff Bezos, who gave $70 million to the failing Melania movie and has destroyed the Washington Post. So just we can add that to the Kennedy center and all the other things that Donald Trump is destroying. Great job, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump. But take a look at some of these dark headlines from the New York Times. Former farming leaders warn that U.S. agriculture could face widespread collapse. A group of past government officials and former heads of farming associations on a bipartisan basis issued a dire warning to members of Congress. Or how about this from the Financial Times. Food and drink companies suffer as US Shopper sentiment sinks. Groups report soft sales and plans to cut prices as consumer confidence falls to its weakest level in more than a decade. Actually, the University of Michigan consumer confidence reports show the worst consumer confidence in many, many decades. Really, it's never been this bad since the Great Recession or the Great Depression. I mean, it's it's that bad. US Manufacturing and Retreat. This is from the Wall Street Journal. I'm giving you a variety of headlines from different media outlets with different ideological bends. Just so you can see that, I want to give you a holistic view right here from the Wall Street Journal. U.S. manufacturing is in retreat and Trump's tariffs aren't helping. Levies on imports were supposed a golden age of US Manufacturing. They haven't worked so far. We all knew tariffs weren't going to do that. Tariffs are inflationary. They are a tax on American companies that are passed on to consumers. Or how about this from the Cato at Liberty Organization. This totally imaginary $18 trillion political talking point of Donald Trump continues to be repeated endlessly in the hope that nobody in the public or press would ever be brave enough to rudely ask for some explanation or shred of evidence. And you know, here at the Midas Touch Network, the moment Donald Trump started saying, I did this trillion dollar deal and that trillion dollar deal, we said, okay, well then show us the documents. Because what I do every morning here on the Midas Touch Network and throughout the day is I go through the documents, I go through the footnotes, I go through the charts, I go through the graphs and people say, well, Ben, doesn't your audience find that boring? No, that's what we want. We don't need to see a split screen of people who don't know what they' talking about, shouting and yelling at each other. We want the data and information so we could be informed citizens and understand what the hell is happening. That's also why the Epstein files is absolutely so devastating for this regime since they are in the center of the cabal and Donald Trump is at the center of this cabal with Epstein. And again, I'm not saying that to be hyperbolic. I've done deep dive emails where I go through the the 38,000 references to Donald Trump on 5,000 documents. And it's only been a partial release of the Epstein files. There's still 3 million more files that have not been produced, which could be 25 to 50 million pages. We've showed you the references and the communications that were taking place between Bannon and Epstein and their communications about Trump and toppling governments. We showed you the communications with Epstein and Prime Minister Ehud, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel talking about influencing foreign governments and influence operations, the communications about meetings with Vladimir Putin, meetings with former Prime Minister of Norway, meetings with the royal family in the United Arab Emirates and all these connections and Links are here right now. I mean, this right wing oligarchy that's behind the scenes pulling the strings while engaging in child sex trafficking in the Epstein files. These people, many of them are still around and they're screwing your lives and they're making things very difficult and psychologically torturing people. That's what's actually going on right now. So when Donald Trump says it's time to turn the pieces, what he keeps on repeating, he said it again. It's time we turn the page on the Epstein scandal. No, as Governor Hochul says of New York, it won't matter. His name is on the next page, too. So let me show you this because Bannon's name was all over the Epstein files. He was in like daily text message communications with Epstein about Trump, about everything going on, and then even knowing that Donald Trump's been posting photos of Bannon on, on his social media platform. Well, Bannon said this morning that Donald Trump will use ICE in order to surround the polls and I guess, block people from voting. This is what Bannon posted this morning. This is not getting attention really anywhere else. This is what he said on his own podcast this morning. I think this should be front page news. Here, play this clip right here. You're damn right we're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can, you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen. Now, as I said, I want to bring you into that hearing where Treasury Secretary Scott Besant committed perjury moments ago. Watch as Congresswoman Waters was cross examining Besant. And he said that he never said in a letter that tariffs are inflationary. I'm going to play this clip in a moment, but here's the letter that he sent from his private equity company, Key Square Capital Management LLC, when he was running it January 31, 2024. Dear partners, we begin 2024 with a set of three high conviction ideas that are based on what the Key Square investment team perceives as anomalies, erroneous conventional wisdom, or various perceptions on our part. Go on. Another differentiated view that we have is that Trump will pursue a weak dollar policy rather than implementing tariffs. Tariffs are inflationary and would strengthen the dollar, hardly a good starting point for a U.S. industrial renaissance. Weakening the dollar early in his second administration would make U.S. manufacturing competitive. A weak dollar, plentiful cheap energy could power a Boom. The current Wall street consensus is for a strong dollar based on the tariffs. We strongly disagree. A strong dollar should emerge by the end of his term if the US Reshoring efforts is successful. Well, I showed you all the headlines that manufacturing is in a recession right now. That letter is signed Scott Besant and the Key Square team. Okay, that's what I mean. I show you the data. Here's what Bessant said at the hearing. Play this clip details about this, but did you write a letter to investors raising concerns about the impact of tariffs, writing that, quote, tariffs are inflationary. Did, did you say that at that time? Yes or no? No. Okay, thank you. Okay. We have a New York Times article that you know. New York Times. Then last summer when you testified before a Senate committee, you said, and I quote, there is no inflation. Tariffs are not being passed on to consumers. You are quite, you were quite definitive and even claim that critics had, quote, tariff derangement stat syndrome. Well, those comments are at odds with the statement you made to investors that tariffs are inflationary. Again, I want to be clear. So just let me ask you, are tariffs inflationary? Yes or no? According to the San Francisco Federal Reserve with 150 years of data, yes or no? Tariffs do not cause inflation. San Francisco Federal Last November, as the Trump administration finally began to realize 50 years that affordability issues Ever wake up Sweaty, freezing or just uncomfortable? The temperature in your bedroom can make or break your sleep. 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Speaking of which, you have Congressmember Green, Democratic Congressmember Green, cross examining Besant about. Do you think that it's okay? Do you have any concerns that Donald Trump tells people to buy his DJT stock to inflate it and manipulate the market? Like you're the Treasury Secretary. Does that bother you? Here, play this clip. I ask you kindly and as one professional to another, Mr. Treasury Secretary, you think that this should be investigated? The President's stock being linked to his true social message and that stock having gone up by some $415 million in a single day. In a single day. And this is a stock that was doing very poorly prior to that. Hadn't done, hadn't had a lot of success. Do you think that this should be investigated? No, sir. Kindly explain to me why we would not investigate the President making such an announcement as it relates to his stock and then reaping some $415 billion million as the potential capital. Well, all Americans benefited from the rebound in the markets that day. And in fact, the rebound in the market after that was the fastest in market history. Yes. And then instead of answering questions from Democratic House members, Besant has like a list of notes from the White House as Aaron Rupert writes and he just starts attacking, attacking, attacking whoever's asking the question. Play this clip to know whether you will commit today to pause and heighten the scrutiny of any bank, charter or licensing application at the OCC connected to the World Liberty Financial. Until all of these conflicts of interest and foreign influence reviews are completed and shared with the United States Congress, all I need to know is will you halt it and do a complete investigation and scrutiny of this license application? All you have to ask is yes or no, no, Congressman, the. All you have to ask is the SEC is an independent entity. And I would know, Congressman, and I take that as a no. You traveled to Venezuela. I take that as a no. On behalf of. I take that as on behalf of your government. You do not want to answer that question. I take that as a no. For a 7 billion. I'm asking you to do your responsibility as Secretary of the treasury into a Venezuela. You do not. Should also be noted that replacement Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina had the following to say on CNBC this morning. Play this clip. Just wanted to ask you what your reaction is to the reaction of the president by your comments. Not, I don't think necessarily just in this particular case, but he called you a loser recently because of some of the comments that you made about Kristi Noem and also Stephen Miller. Yeah, I said that obviously qualifies me to be the Homeland Security secretary and senior advisor to the president. Look, these are the people who are losing. Stephen Miller is the one who went down the rabbit hole of Greenland before he went down the rabbit hole of plussing up resources in Minneapolis and creating a horrible situation there. Kristi Noemus failed both in terms of her ICE role and in terms of her response to Helene in North Carolina. I mean, they're behind by about a year and a half. There's no comparison between Christy Noem in this administration and President Trump's first administration, which was extraordinary. So you want to use that kind of language. You know, I'm fine if that. If that qualifies me for at least two senior positions for the president because I consider them losers, then we'll move on. Otherwise, we could act like adults, use adult language and get things done. And then Donald Trump is posting away about ballrooms and golden arches or whatever the hell he's talking about. But that's what's happening this morning. We'll keep you posted every step of the way. Hit subscribe and thanks for watching. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content Only available@midasplus.com. We're lost. I'm gonna pull over and ask that man for directions. Hi there. We're looking to get to the campground. Well, you're gonna take a left at the old oak tree end of this here road. No, I'm just kidding. Let me get my phone out. How Are you getting a signal out here? T Mobile and US Cellular decided to merge. So the network out here is huge. We're getting the same great signal as the city and saving a boatload with all the benefits. Oh, and a five year price guarantee. Okay, here's those directions. Actually, can you point us in the direction of a T Mobile store? America's best network just got bigger. Switch to T Mobile today and get built in benefits the other guys leave out, plus our five year price guarantee. And now T Mobile is available in US Cellular stores. 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