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- [00:01]
Ben Meiselas
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- [00:31]
Brett Meiselas
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a.
- [00:41]
Jordy Meiselas
Thing Mint Mobile Unlimited premium wireless.
- [00:44]
Ben Meiselas
How to get 3030 a better 20. 2020. Better to get 20, 20 a bit to get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month. Sold.
- [00:51]
Brett Meiselas
Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch.
- [00:54]
Ben Meiselas
$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees.
- [00:59]
Jordy Meiselas
Extra speed slower above 40g detail.
- [01:02]
Ben Meiselas
So we've now reached the point in Donald Trump's disastrous transition where the mommy of one of the key cabinet picks is saying, please give my son the nuclear codes and I promise you, if you give him the nukes, he'll stop being an alcoholic, he'll stop drinking. Trust me, all that stuff was in the past. He's gonna be a good guy. I mean, when you really want to know what DEI means in the MAGA sense, it's didn't earn it. And Trump's got the real DEI picks. We'll break it down. Also, we see this Doge Committee, this fake agency created by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They met exclusively with MAGA Republicans. Well, I don't know how you can give this Doge Committee the benefit of the doubt about anything. They refused to meet with Democrats. They just met with the Republicans and they're out there leaking. We're going to cut the veterans benefits. Oh, we're going to gut your education. We're gonna make you squeal. And it does seem though right now there is this f around and find out moment right now, which I don't love the F around and find out stuff because it still means people are feeling pain. And just as a human being, I don't like to see people feel pain. But I hope it's becoming increasingly obvious that all of the things that you're upset about, a lot of them, are being caused by people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their entire ilk. Doesn't it seem like the oligarchical billionaires are, like, doing a victory lap in our faces and, like, quite literally spiking the football in our end zone in our faces, pointing their fingers at us and laughing? I just think that we, the people aren't going to take it. And I think people are wising up now, again, a little bit too late. But it's important that we channel the energy in the right direction about all of these things that we are seeing. Also, more of Donald Trump's cabinet picks are quitting or leaving or being forced out. We saw his pick for the Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA committed the cardinal sin in maga. There was video of him from a few years back saying that he supports pride parades where he was a sheriff in Florida. You can't do that if you're gonna go maga. Child sex trafficking allegations. A. Okay. But if you're ever supportive of being inclusive in a community where you're a sheriff, get outta here. It's ridiculous stuff.
- [03:37]
Brett Meiselas
I shouldn't even.
- [03:37]
Ben Meiselas
It's not even funny. It's like really sicko stuff. But we gotta really focus on what's going on. Um, and also wanna talk about how Donald Trump is pushing our allies closer to our trade adversaries. Yeah. You know, when you threaten tariffs and you bully people, you may just start pushing people like the Mexico president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to strengthen their ties to places like China. You may actually be strengthening the BRICS block, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South South Africa and. And others. When you have Russia and you have China, telling the other BRICS members, you can't trust the United States, they're just going to arbitrarily hit you with tariffs. And then Donald Trump does just that. We'll talk about that and more. This is the Midas Touch podcast and Ben, myself is joined by Brett and Jordy. So good to be here. And there just does feel to be. With each passing day, I think a broader recognition of what's really going on here. Like, okay, too late. But these oligarchs seem to just be kind of mocking us. Like they're like spitting in our faces.
- [04:56]
Jordy Meiselas
Yeah. I think in a way that they almost misunderstand what kind of brought them into power right now. And I think their kind of cockiness is ultimately going to backfire on them. Because I think one of the big lessons that we've seen from the. This election and from the past few years, quite frankly, is that there is this discontent that has been brewing in the country. A discontent against elites, a discontent against those in power. And that is what helped usher Donald Trump and people like Elon Musk into these positions, even these fake positions like Elon Musk has. But of course, the irony of that is that there is perhaps no greater representation of the oligarchical class than Donald Trump and Elon Musk. So here they are benefiting from this anti elitist set sentiment while they themselves are the spitting image. They are the elite. They are the elite that people are fighting against. And so now they're going to go through and they're going to try to strip away these policies, like take away people's health care and take away people's Social Security and privatize this and privatize that. And we're going to take Doge and we're going to take this meme coin named fake agency, and we're going to use it to get rid of the Department of Education programs people rely upon. And suddenly I think people are going to be like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's actually the stuff we wanted government to be doing. There was a whole lot of stuff that we didn't want government to be doing, like, I don't know, bribing oligarchs and, and getting taken advantage of by handouts to the rich. But we actually like the programs that help the people and we actually want more of those programs that help the people. Those same programs that people like Elon and Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy are all trying to take away. So to me, it is inevitable that at some point those two confront each other and that it causes some serious issues. And, you know, we' we're going to have to see where that actually leads and where it ends. But we need to. That's why we need to be calling out the hypocrisy of what is going on. And as I said a couple of weeks ago on this show, the hypocrisy is staring us right in the face right now. It has never been more obvious when you see people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk with this sort of power over our government. They are the definition of the people that people in this country are fighting against right now. It is just absolutely insane. But I'm looking forward to going through all the news of the day with you guys. Jordy, what's new on your end? How you doing?
- [07:19]
Brett Meiselas
Excited for today's show, Brothers Midas. Mighty great to see everybody. Yeah, it looks like we're Just going to hit this find out phase very soon. In fact, the Pittsburgh steelworkers, they've already hit that phase. And it hurts my heart to even use that expression, you know, f around and find out, because deep down, that just means that folks are hurting. But, you know, look, this is what's happening right now, and we can't, you know, bury our heads in the sand. And we have to report on it with data and facts that we'll bring here tonight at the Maya's Touch podcast. Benji, just take a look at this.
- [07:47]
Ben Meiselas
So you have Jeff Bezos doing his victory lap. He's worth $226 billion, right? And he's out there saying, look, there's a real big problem here with too many regulations that's really preventing businesses from really growing in the United States of America. Dude, you're worth $226 billion. I just wanted you to watch. This is from a recent New York Times summit that he attended. Just watch. Watch what he says here. And I want to talk about it. Let's play it for talking about Trump. I think it's very interesting. I'm actually very optimistic this time around that we're going to see. I'm very hopeful about this. His. He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. And my point of view, if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. What about the idea that he thinks.
- [08:44]
Brett Meiselas
That the press is the enemy?
- [08:47]
Ben Meiselas
Well, I think he. I'm going to try to talk him out of that idea. I don't think the press is the enemy, and I don't think, you know, he's also. Okay, so what about the fact that he's, like, talking like a fascist? He's going to shut down your newspaper. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna talk him out of it. I'm gonna talk him out of it. But look, I think I'm very optimistic. I'm hopeful he goes. And he seems to have a lot of renewed energy in getting rid of the regulations. Like. Like, let's be very clear. The structures that are in place now that President Biden tried to deconstruct the structures, right? Now, that began with Reaganomics. That's what people are pissed about. Right? There was a time when CEOs would make a lot of money, and it's okay. See, it's a. It's a tough job. I get it. CEOs should be paid well. Entrepreneurs should be paid well. I get it. Right. But it went from, like, 30 times the salary of an employee to 300 times the salary, to 3,000 times the salary. And we get to a point where the minimum wage doesn't grow for like 40 plus years while the rich keep getting richer over and over again. So there are people who are struggling to pay their bills and you have the rich buying more yachts. Five yachts isn't enough. We need 15 yachts. Really? You need 15 massive yachts. One or two private jets. Gulfstream 600s. You need 10 Gulf Stream 600s. And just whenever there's a conversation about raising the minimum wage to being a living wage, oh, my God, that's going to destroy all the business. You're going to put us out of business. Okay, look, I'm happy to have that discussion if we want to talk about it, but we should also then have the discussion about what about the CEO who's making $50 million? What about Elon Musk who's giving himself a pay package of $51.2 billion? What about that? What. What about the fact that workers are just getting utterly screwed and one of their things that protected them was unions? But now you have a situation where, let's be clear. I don't care if Donald Trump appointed someone who seems to be pro union as the labor secretary or as pro union as you can be as a Republican. They're going to gut the National Labor Relations Board. Don't matter who the labor secretary is. If there is no forum for you to grieve, for you to assert grievances for labor. That's the National Labor Relations Board created by fdr. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been arguing before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The whole entire National Labor Relations Board should simply not exist. And let's be clear, Trump's going to gut the nlrb. So when I watch, like, the Teamsters, you know, on their social media account. And Sean O'Brien. Sean O'Brien loves Mar a Lago. He loves that rubber stake at Mar A Lago he runs there. Thank you, Donald Trump. Thank you, Donald Trump. Dude, Donald Trump's gonna destroy the Teamsters, you freaking idiot. Like, what do you think Trump is going. All of these wins that they post on the Teamsters account. I feel genuinely bad because the rank and file are going to get screwed of the Teamsters. But it's like, we won the formation of this union. We won. Where do you think you won that? At the very boards that Trump wants to dismantle. And watch this. And then, Brett, I want to throw to you, here is Elon Musk within the past year or so, talking about that, he doesn't think the idea of a union should exist. And that's actually his policy. He goes, because unions create, you can't make this stuff up. A lord versus peasant dynamic. So let's be clear. These billionaires, these Trump backed billionaires, these billionaires backing Trump, this cycle of oligarchical fascism is out there selling this. And Sean O'Brien as a leader of the Teamsters, isn't pushing back against it. That union shouldn't exist and that unions create the lord versus peasant dynamic, not the actual oligarchical lords who are worth hundreds of billions of dollars keeping people in living conditions that are below living wages in peasant like conditions. Here, play this clip. I disagree with the idea of unions, but perhaps for a reason that is different than people may expect, which is I just don't like anything which creates kind of a lords and peasants sort of thing. And I think the unions naturally try to create negativity in a company and create a sort of lords and peasants situation.
- [13:46]
Jordy Meiselas
Tesla factory workers in California are working so hard, they're passing out on the production line.
- [13:53]
Ben Meiselas
Brett, did you notice too, that both of those were about a year apart, but at the New York Times, same summit?
- [13:59]
Jordy Meiselas
That's actually quite interesting. I didn't pick up on that. That's such a genius point. This week there was that ruling in the Delaware court where the judge once again rejected Elon Musk's $56 billion shareholder package. And I know everybody's thinking, oh, I feel so bad for him. How's he gonna, how's that guy gonna survive? Poor Elon, Right? Well, for those who are feeling a little bad for Elon Musk, in like the past month itself, Elon Musk's net worth has ballooned $91 billion since the election of Donald Trump. He's worth something like 353 billion do dollars, possibly more than that. You know, it could hover with the various stock prices of his companies and whatnot. But, you know, I, I just think on some level, on some level, Elon Musk has kind of radicalized me a little bit, if I'm going to be totally honest here. Because in a way, I, I used to kind of think like, you know, what if, if you want to get rich, if you want to build a company, do it. Be my guest. Get as rich as, as you want to get. You know, if that's your thing. Good. Just make sure that, you know, people are taken care of. The issue is, is that those two things seemingly can't coexist. And when somebody is as rich as an Elon Musk, what we're learning now by seeing it right in front of our eyes is the fact that an Elon Musk could literally buy our entire government. He could buy influence that is actually dangerous to everything. And not to mention the fact that a lot of the issues that people have in their daily lives and I, once again, ironically, many of the issues that kind of brought people like Donald Trump back to power and brought El. Elon Musk to have a seat at the table at this. Seat at the table at this new White House are issues like housing and issues like crime and issues. You could go through them all. And let me just posit this for a moment. Do you think if Elon Musk made a few less billion dollars and there was a stronger social safety net to actually support folks from falling into homelessness, you think we'd have a better situation in this country? Do you think we'd have less crime in this country? Do you think things would be operating better? Do you think workers would be happier? Do you think there would be more people in houses? I think we would actually have a much better country. And Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would still be pretty darn rich, you know, but people would actually be able to survive in this country. They'd be thriving. They wouldn't have this discontent that they are having right now that we are seeing, and once again, I'm going to keep repeating it, that ironically led to Donald Trump, the image of the oligarch out there, the. The oligarch and Elon Musk getting them into positions of power over that discontent. It's this vicious cycle that we are seeing right now. But I think people's anger is often misdirected, and it's misdirected. This is why Fox spends billions of dollars. This is why they have, what has it been, $14.92 billion that they have to spend every, every year. This is why there's so much money poured into this right wing podcast ecosystem. Because they want to distract everybody with what? They want to distract people with trans issues. They want to distract people with all this other stuff in order to try to divide people at that cultural level while they pick your pockets. That is exactly what's happening. Because they don't want you to look at Elon Musk. Pick in your pocket. They don't want you to look at Rupert Murdoch pick in your pocket. They want you to look at your neighbor and blame your neighbor for Your situation. And this is just what we are seeing in the country right now. And to me, it's the root cause of why so many people are so pissed off at the moment. But a lot of people don't know exactly where to direct their anger at. And I'm going to say the Democratic Party is not blameless in this. They are beholden. And many people in the Democratic Party are beholden to the same interest. And I think that is part of the problem. But I think what Democrats who are able to. Should be able to do is they should be able to divert people's anger in the right place and be able to say, listen, this guy is picking your pocket. They are coming after your Social Security. You want to listen to that nonsense. This is all a distraction. They are trying to steal from you. Don't you see what is happening? And as of now, that leader has not emerged. But I have a feeling that somebody will emerge in the next few years who has messaging kind of along those lines.
- [18:26]
Brett Meiselas
Just building along what you were previously talking about, Brad. It's also why Elon bought Twitter for $44 billion, right? You got Murdoch covering linear TV and newspapers. You got Murdoch doing that over there. And then you got Musk over here on Twitter, on social media, just amplifying. I mean, if you open that app, like, it's just. It's all of what Brett was talking about. The most disgusting, heinous stuff all popped up right in your face. Like, the videos are outrageous, from the violence that they show to just the utter propaganda. It's truly bizarre. So once you have, you know, the Murdochs and the Musks now, like, buying elections through platforms, it's an unbelievable thing to witness.
- [19:06]
Ben Meiselas
Brett, you mentioned housing as one of the things people are very frustrated with. Why is there a housing shortage? Why is the supply of housing so down? Is it because there aren't actual houses? Or is it because hedge funds, basically commoditized houses? These massive venture. These massive private equity firms would buy tens of thousands of houses, package them up into, like, financial vehicles, the same thing with mortgages, and then exclude people from basically getting access. Because when the supply of housing is down, the cost of housing goes up really high. So then you go in and you go, I don't know, like, do we need some regulation? Like, should we maybe say, hey, housing should go to, like, people who need housing, like hardworking Americans? And that's what Bezos is saying when he's like, too much regulation, too much this, too much that. Dude, you're already so rich. If you, if you had 1 billion, if you had a hundred billion. Who needs a hundred million dollars yet alone three. What's he worth? 224 billion. Elon Musk is worth 300 billion. You know, so there are. I, I get it. You want to have a conversation about maybe some regulations, overdo it in certain areas, but which area? Too much regulation.
- [20:34]
Jordy Meiselas
I could now order something on Amazon and it could come like with literally within hours to my door. So whatever regulations are reeling you in too much, you're able to do a whole lot.
- [20:45]
Ben Meiselas
Okay, Brett. The regulations on drilling, drill, baby, drill. There was more drilling under Biden than under Donald Trump. America was energy independent for the first time under Biden. And now once Trump won the election, now that we're in the transition phase, you notice what the oil company's saying, actually that the supply of oils, there's too much supply. What we actually need to do now is decrease the supply and we need to increase the demand so we could inflate the price of oil.
- [21:17]
Jordy Meiselas
So I'm actually upset that Biden did too good of a job.
- [21:21]
Ben Meiselas
The oil industry is saying this is what they want now. They don't want more drill, baby, drill. They want Donald Trump to shut down electric vehicles. They want to go after Elon Musk's competitors. That's what they want to do. You go into other topics. You want to talk about the price of eggs, for example. That was the big one. The price of eggs. The price of eggs. The reason that the price of eggs were going up is there was price gouging that was taking place post Covid. Donald Trump mishandled Covid. Number one, supply lines were crap. There was also an avian fluid, which guess what, it was caused by Donald Trump. I mean, one, the avian flu was called caused by an avian flu, but it was also caused by Donald Trump stripping away a lot of the health and safety regulations that would allow for these things to be checked. So there was an avian flu that broke out. Chickens had to be killed, which reduced the amount and the quantity of eggs. So the price went up. But then corporations use that to increase their prices. Well, and by the way, the prices of eggs ain't going down. That avian flu isn't going away. So people, I could go through every sing issue just like that, Brett, and show you how to your point where your anger should actually be directed at. And I think one of the biggest problems with Democratic campaigning, you know, here was like, let's move forward. Let's turn the page away from Donald Trump. People are pissed right now. That's incredibly clear. People don't want to turn a page. People want to blame right now. They want to know who is, who is screwing me, who's screwing me over. And that's why the billionaires are spending billions of dollars on podcasts and entertainment of attractive people to try to convince you that it's not the billionaires who are the ones who screwed you. They want to convince you that it's the unions and people who are literally protecting, that they're the lords and you're the peasants. While the lords, while these people who are billion, billion dollar 300 billionaires over and over and over again worth more money than you could even possibly fathom, they want more and they blame the unions. Wow. We've got a lot more. We got a lot more to do. I want you to channel your anger in the right directions here, and it's okay. Let's blame the real people who are doing this, the Mar a Lago crowd that's laughing in your face, that's who's doing it to you. Wake up. Don't you see that they're treating you like you're stupid? That's what they think about you. Anyway, we got a lot more to discuss. Let's take our first quick break of the day. If you want to check out. Oh, by the way, check out that poll. It's going to be our last day of that poll where we want to get your views. If you think Hunter Biden should be pardoned or should have been pardoned.
- [24:02]
Jordy Meiselas
It's in the description to it's in the description to this video. And we're going to announce on the next episode. We'll announce. We'll announce the results on the next episode. And I think it's going to shock a lot of people in the mainstream press. I'm not going to say anything about the results until we have the full poll in. I think it's going to shock a lot of folks, though, in the corporate media when they see what the community feels. You could take the poll. Should, should President Biden have pardoned Hunter? It's in the description to this video, so check it out.
- [24:34]
Ben Meiselas
Let's take our first quick break of the show.
- [24:39]
Brett Meiselas
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- [27:51]
Ben Meiselas
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- [29:26]
Brett Meiselas
Shout out to our pro democracy sponsors y'all. I'm hearing great things from the Midas mighty about level so definitely if you haven't yet, check out levels. They're new to the network and I could vouch for it personally. It's friggin amazing Benji where tonight so.
- [29:39]
Ben Meiselas
Republicans continue to show that they are the pro child sex trafficking party. I know I'm coming in hot right there with the commercial break but let me just we have to speak blunt. We got to use plain language, right? When you cover up child sex trafficking allegations over and over again and refuse to allow people to see the allegations in a report that you prepared, it seems that you're pro child sex trafficking to me. So MAGA Republicans want to peddle in all of this Q& on conspiracy nonsense. But they continue to cover up for Matt Gaetz, their former colleague. At this point, House Republicans tanked a Democrat led effort to force the release of the Ethics Committee report on former Representative Matt Gaetz. You will all recall that the Ethics Committee said they weren't going to release it. So Democrats put it to a vote before the entire House of Representatives to get everybody on the record. The final vote, which was whether to refer the matter out was a vote of 206 Republicans to 198. Just one House Republican sided with the Democrats, Representative Tom McClintock. Every other Republican said, block our own report. This is like some random report, right? It's not like, you know, this, this is their House report that the Ethics Committee did with credible allegations of child.
- [31:01]
Brett Meiselas
Sexual like cyber ninjas, Ben, coming in here, right?
- [31:05]
Ben Meiselas
Their own report that they have and they could potentially protect future victims. Right.
- [31:12]
Jordy Meiselas
And I'll say this also, a lot of them know exactly, if not most, if not all of them know exactly what is in this report and apparently realize how damaged the report likely is. And they are willingly keeping that from the American people. And this is the kind of thing to me that just shows the kind of rot in our politics. And because this should be a unanimous thing, right? To me, this should be an easy decision. Everybody should be wanting to get this out there, have it, see the light of day. You know, I think back to the crazy situation a few days ago in South Korea when the South Korean president declared martial law like in the middle of the night there. And then their assembly got together and voted 190 to 0 to reverse that. Do you think if that happened in America that there would be a full House of Representatives vote against a Donald Trump doing the same thing? Not that we would do that here, but absolutely not. Absolutely not. We don't. They don't vote in tandem like that really for almost anything. There are rare exceptions here and there. But you would think exposing something like this, you would think that would be something that would be a popular thing to vote for. But once again, they are protecting themselves. They are protecting their own body. They view this as an attack on all Republicans. And meanwhile, while they do that, Ben, as you said, they are, every time something happens, like when they, when Donald Trump announced Cash Patel for the FBI, they're like, great, now we're going to get to see the Epstein list. It's like, well, you ignore all the Epstein information. How many times do we got to tell you that you ignore all the Epstein information? Also, does anybody really think that there is a list at the FBI that's like Epstein, like, associated pedophiles, and it just like, has a list of names. Or does Epstein have a little black book that Donald Trump is in? Or does Epstein have flight logs that Donald Trump appeared on seven times? I think that is kind of the list. And I would also concede the fact that that doesn't mean anybody's guilty of anything. You could be have a contact with somebody and not engage in the behavior with them 100%. But then you could dig deeper with Donald Trump. You could see what Jeffrey Epstein, in his own words, said about Donald Trump saying that they were best friends, best friends in the world for over a decade. You could see what Donald Trump said about Jeffrey Epstein saying that they were great friends and that Jeffrey Epstein liked girls on the younger side.
- [33:41]
Ben Meiselas
You could see this whole history of.
- [33:43]
Jordy Meiselas
Things, and you could go, that's pretty damning when you add up all the elements. Not just one little element here and there, but that's pretty damning. But then when push comes to shove and it goes, okay, we got this child sex trafficking issue right now in our own house, literally in our own house, what are we going to do? Are we going to tell the people? They seem to be very. They seem to want transparency, especially around this topic. No, we're going to, we're going to vote against it. Meanwhile, we're going to accuse the Democrats of engaging in this behavior, and we're going to act like, coincidentally, all the celebrities that we hate are all on this, this mythical list, but we're going to ignore Donald Trump's name on all their documents and in the voicemails and, or voice recordings and everything. I mean, the whole thing is just so, so, so insane. Once again, just like going back to the beginning, Elon and Trump kind of being the figureheads of this oligarchical movement that is staring us right in the face. This is an issue also that is staring us right in the face. And I feel like, where's everybody? To call this out in clear terms, it is maddening to me.
- [34:49]
Ben Meiselas
Yeah, look, Epstein recruited the girls, or some girls from Mar A Lago, like Virginia Giuffre. She worked at Mar A Lago. Ghislaine Maxwell, who trafficked for Epstein, would identify the girls, like a Virginia Giuffre, who was previously homeless, was working in Mar A Lago, would bring her to Epstein and Epstein would traffic her. Like, just go do the research and, and, you know, so. So now the second White House or whatever, you're going to call Mar a Lago. The winter White House was literally like one of the main locations where Epstein used to like find the girls that he trafficked, like Virginia Giuffre. Like, that's horrifying. And just think about this. And here's an important point too. Like, Democrats are the party that pushed out Al Franken, right? The senator from Wisconsin, formerly at SNL. Because in 2018, pictures emerged of him before he was involved in politics. Like when he was doing like an overseas trip, he did like this. It wasn't really all that funny, but he was trying to be funny. It's like a photo of him with like his hand still at a distant but like over the area of where like a woman's breast was who was there and they were having like a joke about it. Democrats forced him out, pushed him out, basically treated him as though he was like, you know, horrific and allowed Republicans to basically take over the Senate with moves like that. It should be noted, now that I reflect back on it, that a lot of the people who were loudly kind of pushing Franken out are also a lot of the people, do you notice this, who were attacking President Biden. It just kind of clicked. It's the same crew that always attacked Biden, attack him for a pardoning hunter. It's that same kind of crew over and over and over again. The Pearl clutch. Republicans all in to support hiding sex trafficking allegations. Like that's where they're at with that, right? But when it comes to Democrats, Democrats push out Al Franken and allow Republicans to then kind of take control of the Senate block block the ability to, for Democrats to bring in Supreme Court justices, allow Republicans to stack the Supreme Court with their people. But anyway, that's one of the main differences right there. And so that's why when people are like, oh, Biden, but you did this, Biden, you did that. Okay, Like Donald Trump's out there, like found liable for sexual assault. The guy lies about literally everything. He made the ambassador of France, his daughter's father in law who was engaged in witness tampering by literally setting up his brother in law, his wife's setting up his sister's husband with a prostitute and then showing his sister the video so that they wouldn't testify against him in 2000. That's Trump world. 34 felony counts. That's trouble. But you attack President Biden anyway. I don't want to influence you doing the poll. That's in the description below in any event.
- [37:56]
Brett Meiselas
But definitely do the poll.
- [37:57]
Ben Meiselas
One of Donald Trump's Cabinet picks who was selected to run the dea. Actually, a qualified guy, Chad Chronister, a sheriff from Hillsborough county in Florida. He dropped out. He withdrew his nomination because all of the magas were attacking him for. He was, like, attending pride parades or had a pride parade in Hillsborough County. He supported diversity. He supported equality, equality in the community where he was a sheriff. So he had to drop out. And then Donald Trump even made a statement like, his views don't reflect our views. It's like, dude, you picked him number one. Like, did you not do the diligence when you picked him? And two, notice that that's not what they said about Gates. Like, they never attacked the Republicans, never attacked Gates for the child sex trafficking allegations. They just kind of allowed him to kind of bury it. But with this guy, Chad Chronister, oh, my God, he did a pride parade, and he said he arrested someone who violated the COVID protocols in March of 2020. That was too much for Maga. They got rid of him. But it also kind of brings me back to who I want to talk about, though, quickly, right now. And I told this story on one of the videos I did earlier in this morning, and it relates to the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegsreth, whose mother, Hegseth. Whose mother, Penelope Hegseth, has been, like, calling senators on her son's behalf and, like, doing Fox News where Hegseth works. And the story I told was, when I was in third grade, my art teacher did not want to hang up my artwork in the halls because I would color outside of the lines or whatever. I do more abstract art. And all the other students in my class, they had their artwork hung up. I never got it. So I told my mom, I said, they wouldn't hang up my artwork, Mommy. And she would say, they didn't hang up your artwork. And so my mom drove to school with me. She spoke to the art teacher, and she kind of yelled at the art teacher in front of me. And I. And I was so happy that I knew my mom loved me. But as a third grader, it still was a little bit embarrassing that, like, my mommy had to go yell at the art teacher because they weren't hanging up my artwork. And I asked my mommy in third grade, I said, hey, can you not do that anymore? But I really, really appreciate everything that you. That you did. So Pete Hegseth right now is doing the same. Do we lose Brett? There he is. He, like, dropped out of the frame for a second. He, like, disappeared. Brett. So Pete. So Pete Hegseth's mommy is going on Fox and going on all of these shows right now. And she's like, I promise you, if you give my son the nuclear codes, I promise you he won't, he won't drink anymore. He won't do alcohol. Okay? He'll stop drinking. He'll be a good boy. Okay? He may have done that in the past. I made. She called him a sexual abuser. She got an abuser of women is what she said. She goes, you're an abuser of women. I want to use the precise terms at a time where he was accused of sexually abusing women. And, and so now she's on TV and it's like so scripted as well where she's like, she's like, donald, I want to send you this message. And to all the women senators out there, he's a good kid. Okay, look, I believe, I believe in redemption stories. Like, I'm okay. Like, I think people can heal. I think recovery is a serious thing. By the way, a lot of the people who still work with this hex of guy say this guy's like, not like in recovery like that. They always thought still though he had issues until recently as well. But I believe in recovery. I believe that people should get second chances. I believe in all of that. Sure. I don't think you then need to get the nuclear codes like you could. You still should be employed and do other. You don't need the job that literally ends the universe as we know it. Like, can you not get that freaking job? I want to talk about that and more. I want to take our last quick break of the show. I want to remind everybody about that poll. Do you think that Hunter Biden should have been part in that poll? It's our last day of the poll, so make sure you fill it out. Also. Patreon.com Midas Touch P A T R E O N.com Midas Touch We've been doing live zooms each week. Zoom meetings with secret links with our patrons. So it's so fun meeting you and seeing you and answering your questions. We're going to do one next Monday. We'll put out the time in the next day or so, but join us on Monday if you want to meet me, Brett and Jordy. Patreon.com Midas Touch that's the destination where you go for our official Zoom Club meetings. Let's take our last quick break of the show.
- [42:38]
Jordy Meiselas
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- [44:42]
Ben Meiselas
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- [46:19]
Brett Meiselas
Shout out to our sponsors. I just got numerical sheets for my bedroom and my guest bedroom too, so pretty pumped about that trade Just to let Quick Tangent brothers before we go into our next topic here trade, let me know Quick Tangent that they love Brett's reads. Like they are obsessed with Brett's reads. So show trade some love breakfast.
- [46:37]
Jordy Meiselas
They come from. They come from the heart, Jordy. They come from literally. I'm very bad at checking my mailbox. I probably check my mailbox like once a week, which is not what you're supposed to do. And then I see bills that I'm probably supposed to pay like a week ago, but I go to the mailbox and there's like always, always a bag of trade like waiting for me in the mailbox. I feel like I got myself a little gift. I feel like I got myself a little gift.
- [47:01]
Brett Meiselas
And by the way, I too. And maybe it's Millennial. I too have a mailbox phobia.
- [47:06]
Ben Meiselas
I don't.
- [47:07]
Jordy Meiselas
So irresponsible.
- [47:07]
Brett Meiselas
I don't like checking my mailbox. I don't know, I just, I try to avoid it as well. I don't know.
- [47:13]
Jordy Meiselas
Couldn't this letter have been a text?
- [47:17]
Brett Meiselas
How about you? You're in the upper scale of the millennials. Do you any hard time checking your Mail.
- [47:21]
Jordy Meiselas
Do you check your mail every day?
- [47:22]
Brett Meiselas
Every day.
- [47:23]
Ben Meiselas
Ben, you said a brief tangent. I check my mail. It's called mail. I go out, I open the mailbox, I check my mail every day.
- [47:31]
Jordy Meiselas
I gotta walk outside.
- [47:32]
Ben Meiselas
It's called, it's called adulting. And I want to talk about adult because one of the things that I think, and I don't mean to transition, to use you as my foils for this transition, but what I was going to say is that in people who get the nuclear codes, I think at a bare minimum, they should check their mail. I'm just joking. At a bare minimum, there should be a floor where you do not need your mommy to go on TV to say that you're not going to drink alcohol if you get the nuclear codes. Like, it is vastly humiliating to the entire country that the mommy of the Secretary of Defense pick is going on FOX and saying this here. Do we have this clip? Let's play you. But we are broken by your behavior and your lack of character. When you wrote that, what's the backstory? What was going on that made you so angry you wanted to write that? Well, I will tell that story in a moment, but let me make two statements first. And one is to President Trump. And I want to say thank you for your belief in my son. We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago. I'm not that mother. And I hope people will heal hear that story today and the truth of that story. So the other thing I want to say is I am here to tell the truth, to tell the truth to the American people and tell the truth to the senators on the Hill, especially our female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media and that you will listen to Pete. Well, it's really humiliating. Like there's so many things there.
- [49:22]
Brett Meiselas
So bad.
- [49:23]
Ben Meiselas
There's so many things. But number one, how scripted it was like, she's a life coach, that's her profession. But like she clearly was trained. She rehearsed that. She didn't answer the question. Even the way she looked at the whole thing was like such North Korea propaganda. I'm going to answer that. But first I want to say to you, Donald Trump, like, she knows he watches it, right? Like she has to like make the appeal through state run propaganda audition, you know, and then, and then to all of the female senators and she's speaking to Senator Joni Ernst right there, who she knows is the female senator who does not want him to be appointed because Ernst was in the military. And this guy is kind of a disgrace. And that kind of like the biggest disgrace. He never led a military company before. The two veterans organizations, small groups that he helped, helped run, pushed him out for all of his malfeasance, which he denies. His mother, you wrote the letter to him saying you are an abuser of women who needs help. That came from you, that didn't come from the media. That was literally your email to your son. And we're not speaking about some like commission for the betterment of the arts or something, I don't know. And Donald, my son, put him on this unpaid commission so that he can still help out. This is the Secretary of Defense right now. The current person who holds it, a guy named Lloyd Austin is a retired four star general, someone who's got the most distinguished military career. But because he's a black man, all of the MAGA Republicans were calling the four star general a DEI high. Could you imagine if Lloyd Austin's mom went on MSNBC or whatever network, right, and said, just want you to know my, my son's a good guy. Could you imagine the outrage that would be there? I mean the whole thing, the whole scene right there that we're watching is dystopian. It's embarrassing, it is shameful. And it just shows you though when that whether it's talking about before Niagara Republicans justifying child sex trafficking allegations or being pro child sex trafficking allegations supporting this charade, this farcical, ridiculous thing, it just goes to show you there is no bottom, there is no depths to their depravity. They will go anywhere. There is no ideological framework. There isn't anything but raw unadulterated power and the subjugation of the other and the hoisting up of the billionaire oligarchy. That's it. If you're going there and you justify that and the child sex trafficking allegations of gay. You can't even have an ar. How am I supposed to have an argument with these people on any other issue when I know that they're there? There is no, I'm not dealing with, with people who are honest brokers of information. And here's the thing then Democrats put themselves, while Republicans are zero percent on the purity test, don't give a at all. Democrats have to be 100% right. And if you fall below this purity test, if you're Al Franken, if you're President Biden, whatever, we're gonna, you're gonna get cannibalized by your own party. Well now it justifies the atrocities, though it doesn't justify the atrocities of the other group. The other group's doing the atrocities every single day. And then you're buying into the framing of these issues. You're spending your time dealing with that framing versus own the narrative. Call Republicans out as pro child sex trafficking. Say it every single freaking day the same way. For the last eight years, all we heard was, where's Hunter? Where's Hunter? Hunter, Where's Hunter? Where's Hunter? Just repeat it. They're pro child sex trafficking allegations. And what, is your mommy gonna come. You need your mommy to give you the nuclear weapons? Your mommy just talk like that. Mock them, right? Like just freaking call them out. What is, what is this behavior by Democrats of like, these are layups. These are like the easiest layups in the world to his mommy. His mommy is on tv is an Elon Musk's mommy. Go. Their mommies go on TV to defend them. What in the world are we watching? It's. It's weird. It's weird stuff.
- [54:05]
Jordy Meiselas
Instead we get. Elon is absolutely right. Doge sounds like an interesting opportunity to curb government spending. And I'm excited to work a lot.
- [54:13]
Ben Meiselas
Bernie, who said that too, by the way? Bernie. Bernie came out with a pro Elon. And look, I get Bernie is. Is not for the military industrial complex. Who's. Who's really like pro military industrial complex. But you still need a military. But like the moment you start Bernie by saying Elon is right, that's was. Bernie's. Elon is right. What do you think? There's no nuance anymore in politics. Fox is going to run with. Do you think their headline is going to be, oh, Bernie Sanders made a very nuanced argument about defense spending. But. But he did it as a check against Elon Musk's other outrageous there. No, they're just gonna say Bernie says Elon is right. That's all they're gonna clip. That's all people are gonna read. So why do you fall into that trap? Jared Polis or whatever, the guy, the. The governor of Colorado, you know, RFK is right. You know, you know, he comes in and he's like, oh, I think these are rfk. That's a fascinating. A fascinating. Go ask the people of Samoa what it was like when RFK told them not to take vaccines. And all the surrounding islands that took the vaccines were immunized against measles. But Samoa had a measles outbreak. You want to, you want to do that writ large? You tell the people about herd immunity where they. Which by the way, vaccines is a form of that. But the herd immunity that they want. Let the kids die, let people die, and then there'll be a survival of the fittest mentality. What are you talking about? Or RFK saying water turns people gay. You know, saying that Covid was part of some 5G experiment. You can't say RFK is right. You know, this is a battle of information and you're losing it because one side's playing a game and you all are like within their own matrix. And you're not doing. You're just, you're just playing their game over and over again versus just calling out these things. It's like what we started with, with, you know, you've got these billionaires saying that unions are the lords and union members are the peasants. You think that's what it is? Or may just maybe people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, maybe they're the lords because they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars and they're screwing you making 10 bucks an hour or 15 bucks. Maybe the union's fighting to raise your wages. Maybe they're not the. And then the union guy goes to mar a lago with the thumbs up. It's some. It is crazy stuff. Yeah.
- [56:46]
Jordy Meiselas
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to dig deep and give Bernie a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. And I'm gonna say that it's possible that he's trolling Elon just a little bit, knowing kind of how to play Elon and say, oh, you. You say you care about this stuff. Well, I got something that you could be cutting. Here's. Here's a great idea. So I'm gonna give him. I'll give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt that that could be his strategy. But you are so spot on because I just looked it up. What do the headlines read? And the headlines on every paper from, you know, all the right wing stuff and even not the right wing stuff that you go down the list on Google News right now if you type in Elon Musk, Bernie, it's all Bernie shocks, says Elon is right. Bernie, Elon is right. Bernie shocks Internet Elon. It's just go down the whole list. And here's the thing about government spending and Doge or whatever it's called, right. This fake, fake agency that really doesn't have power, but it will because he is buddy buddy with Donald Trump and he's going to try to force his power there's obviously clear conflicts of interest with this entire operation. Given that Elon has a lot of government contracts, and given that Elon has benefited tremendously from the government over the past few decades, I mean, Tesla would not exist, it would not have succeeded without an infusion of government cash and government loans, the same loans that right now he is trying to get rejected from other startups that are trying to break into the space. And this was the newest story today. There's a car company called Rivian. I'm sure a lot of you folks have seen Rivians on the road. I've seen quite a few. There was a federal loan that was approved by the Biden administration in the past couple of weeks of $6.6 billion to go to Rivian to help their factories in the United States. I believe they're in. I think they're in Georgia. But $6.6 billion alone. This isn't just a giveaway of money. This is a loan. The same kinds of loans that Tesla benefited for. So today, when Vivek Ramaswam, speaking about their list of priorities of government spending to cut from once they get into office, he said that one of the highest things on their list of priorities was to claw back the money that is going to be given to Rivian. That's the kind of stuff that Doge is going to be doing. You think they're really going to go in and they're going to actually look for efficiencies in the government? No, they're going to be going like, not with a scalpel, but they're going to be going with a sledgehammer. And they're going to be trying to get rid of full departments. They're going to try to get rid of any of these kind of operations that could possibly hinder Donald Trump or his friends, businesses like Elon Musk, and they're going to try to rig the system in their image. That's all this whole thing is about. But, you know, Frank, frankly, I'm happy when, like, you know, when they have these silly Doge committees now and, and I see somebody like a Jared Moskowitz say, I'll be on it, because I'm happy to have a sensible. If there's going to be a committee in Congress, I'm happy there's going to be a sensible voice on it to at least be a check to the Republicans. The same way we saw people like Jared Moskowitz and some of the other kind of brillian New Democrats fighting back against the Republicans in the Last Congress when they went on all these crazy, you know, side quests, I'll call them during Congress. But we have to understand that, you know, do people want the government to run more efficiently? Of course. Is there waste in the government? Of course. Do people want Elon Musk saying, okay, your Social Security out, your Medicare, done. You don't need that. We don't need that anymore. And if you look at the things that Elon Musk is saying on his own app, he's responding to things by people like Senator Mike Lee that are pushing forth the merits of taking away Social Security. That's the kind of content that Elon Musk is engaging with. So when he says efficiency, that's not a code word for actually making the government work better. That's a code word for our austerity. That's a code word for taking away the programs that people actually like in this country, that people actually rely upon in this country. That's a code word for going after Elon Musk's competitors. That's a code word for benefiting Donald Trump's buddies in the government and attacking those people who are against Donald Trump in the business world. That's exactly what they intend to do with all of this. And even here, you know, Congress people kind of saying this out loud that, you know what, we're going to have to look at Social Security. Here's Representative McCormick, a Republican, speaking about this. I believe this is from Fox just this week. Listen to this.
- [61:13]
Brett Meiselas
The problem with the Democrats is they've.
- [61:15]
Ben Meiselas
They'Ve never run out of things that they can give away for free, quote, unquote.
- [61:19]
Brett Meiselas
When you talk about $1 trillion in.
- [61:22]
Ben Meiselas
Debt payment just on interest alone every year. We can't just talk about the military, though. The military can do some things better. We can save some money, just lower contract. We're going to be careful that we don't decrease our abilities because China is right on our heels. However, if you talk about 75% of the budget, 75% is non discretionary. We're going to have to have some hard decisions. We got to bring the Democrats in and talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. There's hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it.
- [61:50]
Brett Meiselas
We just have to have a stomach.
- [61:51]
Ben Meiselas
To actually take those challenges on. But we can't just talk about our discretionary budget. That's 20, that's less than 25% of our budget. We have to have some real hard discussions.
- [62:00]
Jordy Meiselas
Well, we talk about this all the time. Why do the hard discussions always rely upon going after, after the people who have the least in the country. That's always the we're going to have to have some hard discussions. We're going to have to experience some real pain, folks. Remember when Elon Musk said that at his teletown hall before the election, People in this country are going to have to experience some real pain in order to implement Donald Trump's agenda. He said that out loud. He wasn't talking about pain for himself. He wasn't talking about pain for Vivek Ramaswamy. He's talking about the pain of somebody who is relying on their Social Security check to get by. He's speaking about the people who are relying on the VA to get their medical care. That's who he's saying need to experience pain. Not him and his buddies, but y'all. You guys are going to have to experience some pain if we want to get this in check. I mean, their branding is actually genius because they're able to convince people like, of course, Department of Government Efficiency, they're spending too much, Spending too much, and I'm not getting enough. So you want less than though. You want less. You want them to target the things that actually help you. And when it's explained, unfortunately, it usually doesn't get to that stage before a decision in that person's mind is made on it. I would bet nine times out of ten those people would say, oh, no, you can't cut my Social Security. Are you kidding me? You can't cut my VA care. You can't cut my Medicare. Absolutely not.
- [63:24]
Ben Meiselas
Brett, what's the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year year? It's brain rot. And there is a massive issue with brain rot. About 60% of Americans have below a sixth grade education, so a fifth grade education and reading comprehension or less. And one of the videos I did recently about the pro democracy protests in the country of Georgia, I've been following that very, very carefully against the Putin Putin regime or the pro Putin regime in Georgia that calls themselves like their version of MAGA is like the dream party that's trying to move them closer to Putin and further away from Europe. And that's why you see the people rising up. And to me that seems to be almost foreshadowing what I think Washington D.C. is ultimately going to look like. But there's a video that I show of these pensioners, as it's described, being in this, like, area, in this like, small room, in like a little teeny, tiny, like concrete office space. Everybody's wearing jackets. They're all bundled up, but they're inside because there's no heat in this office or this room that just looks awful, like an awful place to be. And then you have, like, one of the pro Putin people talking about how Trump's going to help Russia and how Trump's going to go after the trans people in the military and all of these things. Things. And you see these people in Russia who probably struggled to get a loaf of bread, and they're, you know, living really difficult lives over there. And again, there's not even. There's not. They don't even have heat where they are. And they're all bundled up and they're shaking, but they're brain rot. They're nodding their heads as this speaker is talking about going after trans people and all of these things. And I've called that the loop of autocracy or the autocracy loop, and people get caught in it. It's why when you look at some of these red states that are like the lowest in education, lowest in wealth, lowest in health, lowest in all of the categories, but they keep voting against their interest, it's because they're being fed this diet of lies and disinformation and other rising. And they're. And they're hurting themselves. And it's this brain rot. It's real. It exists. You can persuade people that they're really entitled to crumbs or to blame people who are the ones who blame others for the fact that they're only getting crumbs versus blaming who they really should be blaming in the first place. And so we kind of end this episode where we started here, you know, which is people need to channel their anger the right way. People are angry. We have to recognize that people are angry. And this. Okay. And sophisticated nuance and all of these things. It's great. We can write papers about it, we can have academic discussions, we can discuss them, but you have to also be very clear and direct in your messaging about what's happening. And you have to just be relentless and ruthless with the truth the same way the other side is relentless and ruthless with the lies. It's truth's on our side. Just go and tell the truth. It's not about eating cats and dogs. It's about taking your Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Right. It's not about, you know, trans people this or that. You know, it's about oligarchs who want to think. Who want to make a trillion dollars. They think 300 billion is not enough. They need a trillion dollars and they want to take away your rights, your healthcare, your livelihood, your life. That's what we need to do. That's what we'll do every day here on the Midas Touch Network. Reminder Midasplus.com Our Editor in Chief, Ron Filipkowski gets out daily summaries every day. We also got some pretty cool content on Midasplus.com I think that's the number 12th substack. So check out Midas Plus.
- [67:20]
Jordy Meiselas
Ron's recaps on Midas plus are the best. And I'm somebody who also, I think that I'm following everything all day and somehow every time I read Ron's recaps, I'm like, I can't believe I missed so many of these stories.
- [67:32]
Brett Meiselas
Me away.
- [67:33]
Jordy Meiselas
It's, it's unbelievable. It's, I know, I know I'm biased towards our own Midas plus substack, but it's really, it's truly like the best, best and quickest kind of way to catch up on all the news every day. It's incredible.
- [67:46]
Ben Meiselas
And then we're going to be doing our Zoom meeting next Monday. We will release the time in the next day or so when it's going to take place. But join patreon.com Midas Touch and we're 100% independent here, right? We got zero outside investors, so no billionaires, no oligarchs pulling our strings. We're funded by those pro democracy ads and things like the Patreon, the substack and other things. So join us. We want to Meet with you Patreon.com Midas Touch we'll meet with you next week. I'm excited to see. I love just seeing your faces and hanging out with you. Thank you for joining us on this episode. Have a great weekend. Keep checking back at The Midas Touch YouTube for all the updated videos that are loading. We've been doing a lot more deep dives lately on issues and we don't even show Trump video or Trump audio anymore. So how about that? Jordy, take it away.
- [68:38]
Brett Meiselas
Shout out to the Midas.
- [68:39]
Jordy Meiselas
My day.
- [68:59]
Brett Meiselas
Hey Midas Mighty love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram at Midas Touch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.
- [69:16]
Ben Meiselas
You're pretty smart when people talk about you.
- [69:19]
Jordy Meiselas
Too smart comes up a lot.
- [69:21]
Ben Meiselas
So why are you trying to prove them wrong? Why aren't you pushing the limits of.
- [69:25]
Jordy Meiselas
Science and powering the nuclear engines of.
- [69:28]
Ben Meiselas
The world's most powerful navy.
- [69:30]
Jordy Meiselas
If you were born for it, isn't.
- [69:32]
Ben Meiselas
It time to make a smart choice?
- [69:34]
Jordy Meiselas
You can be smart, or you can be nuke smart.
- [69:37]
Ben Meiselas
Become a nuclear engineer at Navy/Nukesmart. America's Navy, forged by the sea.