Trump’s Healths Crashes as Files Expose 2019 Sickness!!

Summary

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The MeidasTouch Podcast

Episode: Trump’s Health Crashes as Files Expose 2019 Sickness!!

Date: February 19, 2026
Hosts: Ben, Brett & Jordy Meiselas
Theme: An exposé on Donald Trump’s declining health, revelations from the Epstein files about White House intrigue, and implications for American democracy and global perception.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on explosive revelations concerning Donald Trump’s declining physical and cognitive health, newly surfaced Epstein files that implicate top Trump aides in plotting to invoke the 25th Amendment, and the ripple effects across US leadership and global politics. The Meiselas brothers dissect Trump’s recent erratic behavior, probe into conspiracy-laden messages between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein, and consider the deep consequences for democracy, security, and American stature on the world stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Visible Health Deterioration

(02:12–05:55)

• The hosts open with observations on Trump’s notable decline in health, specifically referencing photos showing discoloration in his hands and instances of slurred speech and confused rants at public appearances.
• The double standard in mainstream media scrutiny is highlighted—while Biden's health was a daily talking point, Trump's issues elicit little coverage.
  • Quote [03:53]: “The media’s complete and utter lack of interest in finding out what’s going on with Donald Trump’s hand when they spent every day of Joe Biden’s presidency idly speculating that he had dementia is effing infuriating.” — Political Commentator

2. Growing Evidence from the Epstein Files

(02:12–09:08)

• Bombshell text messages and emails surface from the so-called Epstein files, revealing that Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein discussed the possibility of removing Trump via the 25th Amendment as far back as 2019.
  • Quote [04:52]: “When you read the Epstein files, you had some of Donald Trump’s closest aides speaking to Jeffrey Epstein... during his first term were saying that he had dementia and the 25th Amendment needed to be invoked.” — Political Commentator
• Details emerge of internal White House chaos, with Bannon and others plotting to replace Mike Pence with Mike Pompeo, then using the 25th Amendment to make Pompeo president.
  • Quote [09:08]: “I like the idea of Pence stepping down in favor of Pompeo so when it happens, he becomes president.” — Allegedly Epstein, text excerpt

3. Trump’s Erratic Public Statements

(05:55–14:21)

• Trump's public comments further fuel concerns about his mental state:
  • Weird fixation on Nicki Minaj’s appearance and nonsensical stories about celebrities at rallies.
    • Quote [06:05]: “I love Nicki Minaj. She was here a couple weeks ago. So beautiful. Her nails are like that long. I said, Nikki, are they real?” — Donald Trump (clip)
  • Extended, rambling praise for sports celebrities such as Mike Tyson, Lawrence Taylor, Herschel Walker, and Jim Brown.
    • Quote [12:54]: “Boy, I tell you, Mike [Tyson] has been loyal to me... Herschel Walker, ambassador to the Bahamas. Or is it Bermuda?” — Donald Trump (clip)

4. The Potomac Pipe and Blame-Game Politics

(02:12–15:42)

• Trump repeatedly blames Maryland and Governor Wes Moore for “sewage smells” in Washington, D.C., demonstrating confusion over jurisdiction and federal-state responsibilities.
  • Quote [14:38]: “This is not a serious team that we’re working with. We’re talking about a D.C. pipe on federal land... any insinuation that somehow this is a Maryland issue... is ridiculous.” — Gov. Wes Moore (clip)
• Moore describes efforts to help D.C., only for the White House to deflect blame once media attention grew.

5. Bannon’s Leverage & Trump’s Fear

(15:42–18:30)

• Trump seems unwilling or unable to punish Bannon despite learning of his betrayal, instead lavishing him and Peter Navarro with praise and shielding Bannon from legal consequences.
  • Quote [15:42]: “So Bannon gets a reward because Trump is afraid that Bannon has the dirt on Trump... Other countries are watching all this and think Trump is weak.” — Political Commentator

6. U.S. International Weakness & Global Repercussions

(16:30–19:55)

• Adversaries like China and Russia sense American weakness due to Trump's ineffectual leadership and internal drama:
  • Xi Jinping leverages Trump’s desperation for a meeting over Taiwan policy.
  • Chinese and Russian navies conduct military exercises with Iran, increasing instability.
  • In Venezuela, authoritarian crackdowns worsen.
• New York Times headline discussed: “Trump Bets on Diplomacy Without Diplomats”—Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with no relevant experience, are entrusted with critical negotiations.
  • Quote [19:10]: “Why do we have Witkoff and Kushner at the heart of international negotiations? Why not actual diplomats? Do you know how pathetic this all looks?” — Political Commentator

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the media double standard:
  • “[The] media’s complete and utter lack of interest in finding out what’s going on with Donald Trump’s hand...is effing infuriating.” — Political Commentator [03:53]
• On White House internal coup plans:
  • “They were saying...the 25th Amendment needed to be invoked during Donald Trump’s first term.” — Political Commentator [04:52]
  • “I like the idea of Pence stepping down in favor of Pompeo so when it happens, he becomes president.” — Allegedly Epstein (text) [09:08]
• Trump’s rambling about Nicki Minaj:
  • “Her nails. Her nails are like that long. I said, Nikki, are they real? She said she didn’t want to get into that.” — Donald Trump (clip) [06:05]
• Governor Moore’s exasperation:
  • “This is not a serious team that we’re working with. We’re talking about a D.C. pipe on federal land.” — Gov. Wes Moore (clip) [14:38]
• On Bannon’s leverage over Trump:
  • “So Bannon gets a reward because Trump is afraid Bannon has the dirt on Trump...” — Political Commentator [15:42]
• On the international stage:
  • “Do you know how pathetic this all looks? How weak this all looks?” — Political Commentator [19:10]

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Important Timestamps

• 02:12: Start of main discussion; Trump’s health and Epstein file revelations
• 05:55: Trump’s speech, rambling about Nicki Minaj—suggesting cognitive decline
• 09:08: Analysis of Newsmax segment exposing Bannon/Epstein texts
• 12:54: Trump riffs on Mike Tyson, Herschel Walker, mixing up details
• 14:38: Gov. Wes Moore refutes Trump on Potomac pipe, federal responsibility
• 15:42: Hosts analyze Trump’s fear of Bannon, global signals of weakness
• 19:10: Concerns over US diplomacy controlled by unqualified allies
• 19:55: Conclusion and audience call-to-action

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains a sharp, irreverent, and slightly exasperated tone, blending brotherly banter, biting legal and political analysis, and pointed comedic commentary. The hosts balance their clear pro-democracy stance with humor and a sense of urgent concern about leadership and media accountability.

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Summary

For listeners, this episode offers a critical and often darkly humorous look at cascading crises within Trump’s circle—decaying health, palace intrigue involving the 25th Amendment, and mounting evidence of incompetence and grift. The Meiselas brothers wield exclusive revelations and real-time reactions to show how these scandals impact the United States’ democratic integrity and global standing—and what it means for listeners committed to defending democracy in turbulent times.

Transcript

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[Political Commentator]

Get [e-mail] it's not looking good for Donald right now. His health continues to rapidly deteriorate. His cognitive abilities, his motor functions, his physical appearance, it's all unraveling. At the same time, he's also getting crushed by his cover up of The Epstein files. And there's an important connection there as well, because when you read the Epstein files, you had some of Donald Trump's closest aides speaking to Jeffrey Epstein, like Steve Bannon basically working with Epstein on a plan to try to get Mike Pence to resign. Move in, Mike Pompeo, invoke the 25th Amendment against Donald Trump in Pompeo to become the president. And it seemed that some of Donald Trump's closest advisors during his first term were saying that he had dementia and the 25th Amendment needed to be invoked during Donald Trump's first term. We'll go through that. Even Newsmax did a special today where they were attacking Bannon and saying, wait a minute, Bannon was behind all of the rumors internally that the 25th Amendment needed to be invoked. And that was Bannon Epstein talking about that. You know, also you have Donald Trump talking about how the Potomac river smells like poop and that there's all this sewage in it. And he keeps blaming Maryland and says basically it's feces coming from Maryland and that that's why it stinks in Washington, D.C. right now. And he's like, it's the pipes. It's Governor Moore and his pipes in Maryland. And it's like, do you even know where the Potomac is? Like, do you know that it's in D.C. and it's under the control of federal government? You have Governor West Moore, who's like, yeah, these are, like, deeply unserious people. You don't know where the Potomac is. You don't know where your own water is. It's under federal control. And Moore's like, Governor Moore is like, you're blaming me? We try to send some people in to help you because you didn't know how to clean your own feces in Washington, D.C. so we tried to. Now you're blaming. You're blaming us. I mean, look at what Donald Trump's hand looked like yesterday. It's as bad as we've seen it. Aaron Rupar posted this photo. Look how discolored it is. As this other account says, the media's complete and utter lack of interest in finding out what's going on with Donald Trump's hand when they spent every day of Joe Biden's presidency idly speculating that he had dementia is effing infuriating. I agree. But guess what? We're the media now, okay? People watch the Midas Touch network than any other news media. Midas Touch was yet again the number one podcast on the YouTube charts, beating Candace Owens and Joe Rogan. And then last week, we beat Joe Rogan two weeks in a row. By the way, hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. Help us get to 6 million subscribers. We're so close. Hit subscribe. But then yesterday, as Donald Trump was, you know, we saw the way his hand looked. You saw his physical features. So he's giving a speech yesterday, and he just starts talking about Nicki Minaj, like the rapper, like how beautiful he thinks she is. And her skin is so soft and her nails are so long, and she's just so beautiful. And Trump is like, slurring his words. I won't do the impression, but he's like, nicki Minaj, she's so beautiful. Here, play this clip.

[Donald Trump (clip)]

I love Nicki Minaj. She was here a couple of weeks ago. So beautiful. Her skin so beautiful. I said, Nikki is so beautiful. Her nails. Her nails are like that long. I said, I said, nikki, are they real? She said she didn't want to get into that.

[Political Commentator]

Okay, now just look at what he's posting as well. Again, you heard what he said about Nicki Minaj. He's posting memes like this. I will be the one to shut it down. He's posting AI images of his golden ballroom. He's posting will be the greatest ballroom ever built. Now rising at the site of the White House, fully paid for by American Patriot donors. Zero costs to the United States taxpayers. You looked at the Epstein files. Yeah, we talk about it here a lot. Here are the messages from Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein. Here's what they were talking about it. They were saying, and no soldiers in the fort. He is really borderline. Not sure what he may do. They're referring to Donald Trump being borderline dementia. They go on to say, going to blow him up right out of the box. White House has zero plan to port, to fund to punch back. Ford Apache with no Calvary en route. Spoke to my Dems this weekend. Boy, our emotions running high. No, it does not stand for F and blow. F and B director. I'm back in the FNB biz, only we are either 2019 or it will surely own us. Hell of a year. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene who's out there saying, Steve Bannon went to jail for Trump. But back on January 1, 2019, he was texting Epstein about the 25th Amendment. Also, there is no excuse for having such a friendly relationship with Epstein. And you look at these messages, and they're talking about invoking the 25th Amendment right here on Donald Trump, you have Mike Flynn saying the White House, or at least the doj, needs to come out and say what they plan on doing. I remember all the 25th amendment talk in the first term. It was really ugly. And if Bannon and Epstein were behind it, Bannon needs to be brought in for questioning. This is what they were saying on Newsmax. You had Higby talking about Bannon and talking about the plan between Bannon and Mike Pompeo to replace Pence and invoke the 25th Amendment. This is what Trump's people were talking about. And Epstein was in the center helping Trump's first Cabinet and helping some of Trump's advisors try to get rid of Trump with the 25th Amendment because they thought Trump had. They thought Trump had dementia. I mean, there. There are emails here from Epstein saying some at dinner with Donald Trump last night were concerned about dementia. Tons of makeup, did not recognize old friends. And that's one of the things that we're seeing right now as well. Here's the Newsmax piece here. Play this clip.

[Political Analyst]

And then they told us all throughout the next four years that our tech was secure and it was the most secure election ever. After bragging about meeting with the people who Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon claimed could hack our elections. Their words, not mine, make it make sense. But why was Bannon or any other officials in any other role meeting with people who, according to these emails, were doing or trying to do, or possess the power to do all that? Let's look at some of the other stuff from these files, too. That even goes crazier than this stuff with Bannon. Why was he talking about replacing Trump, swapping Pompeo as the VP with Mike Pence, and then using the 25th Amendment to make Pompeo the president? These are text messages with what is assumed to be Epstein confirmed to be with Bannon. Quote, I like the idea of Pence stepping down in favor of Pompeo, so when it happens, he becomes president. That's from allegedly Epstein, and I'm thinking it. What do you mean by it? Bannon responding. That is his name. Has this been shopped? Epstein replies, rudy did lay out impeachment. Pelosi vote and don't go after Ivanka. Bannon says, great, great. Impeaching Trump. I mean, we now know Pompeo was not a product of MAGA doctrine and was heavily critical of Trump once he left his first term, showing his true colors. And Bannon wanted him to become president. I mean, am I reading that there's a possibility that Bannon did nothing wrong and these are being misinterpreted. There's a possibility giving him the benefit of the doubt here, considering he was like I defended this guy. I thought he was good for the administration initially. But there's some splaining to do about beyond talking about a documentary to revitalize Jeffrey Epstein's image.

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[Political Commentator]

I D A s Also, during Donald Trump's press conference yesterday, he kept on talking about Mike Tyson and saying that Mike Tyson loves him. Here, play this clip.

[Donald Trump (clip)]

You talk about a piece of work, but he could fight, couldn't he? Mike Tyson? Boy, I tell you, Mike has been loyal to me. Whenever they come out, they say Trump's a racist. You know, it's like a statement, Trump's a racist. Mike Tyson goes that he's not a racist. He's my friend. He's been there from the beginning, good times and bad. But Mike Tyson's A great guy. And he was so loyal. Always been loyal. And Herschel Walker, speaking about loyal, how good a football player was Herschel? Herschel Walker, now he's ambassador to the Bahamas. I don't know. Bahamas, Bermuda, is he. Bahamas, whatever. It's nice, a nice place. You'd like that, Bruce, wouldn't you? Bruce wants it. And a friend, a guy became really. He liked Trump, Jim Brown. He was tough. He'd come in, he was very silent. He was silent, but deadly. He'd come in and he'd look at people, and if he didn't like him, he'd just look at me. And he got it. No good. He wanted to rip their heart out. I would say there can't be a better football, greater football player than Jim Brown. By the way, Lawrence Taylor, great friend. Lawrence, the great Lawrence Taylor, the greatest defensive player probably in the history of football. He's a great friend of mine and. But I'm longer off the tee than him. You know why? Because they take the club back further. He takes the club back this far and he hits it 200 yards. When you can do that, you're strong. He's a great. He is a great guy, I'll tell you that.

[Political Commentator]

Here's what. Here's how Governor Wes Moore referred to when Donald Trump keeps talking about the Potomac smelling and there being all this sewage and this scent, Governor Moore's like. This guy's like, just deeply unserious. Here, play this clip.

[Governor Wes Moore (clip)]

This is not a serious team that we're working with. We're Talking about a D.C. pipe on federal land.

[Political Analyst]

Right.

[Governor Wes Moore (clip)]

The area that we're talking about that has been under federal control for the past century. And so any indication or any insinuation that somehow this is a Maryland issue or a Virginia issue is ridiculous. This is a DC Pipe on federal land. The only difference is the reason that I ordered our team to be able to support Washington D.C. in their effort on the cleanup was, one, I did not want contagion that would impact the people of Maryland. And second, I believe in actually helping our neighbors. And when our neighbors needed help, I instructed our team to assist them and help them. And this is in January. We started this process that for now, the past week, there is no overflow that is taking place from that jurisdiction. And now, now the White House wants to get involved, even though I was doing. We were doing their job for the past month. And so if the President wants me to ask nicely, here's my nice ask to the President. Mr. President, please do your job.

[Political Commentator]

And I want you to think now also about how foreign leaders are viewing Donald Trump in this regime and how weak they're viewing him. Just think about this. We know undisputed, right? Steve Bannon behind the scenes is apparently talking to Epstein about potentially invoking the 25th Amendment. He's saying all these horrible things about Donald Trump, right? And so when Donald Trump learns about this from the Epstein files, what does Donald Trump do? Does he seek retribution against Bannon? No, quite the contrary. Donald Trump makes posts about Steve Bannon praising Bannon and saying that Bannon and Peter Navarro were being treated so unfairly. So Trump praises Bannon. Then Trump has Jeanine Pirro from his DOJ dismiss criminal charges against Bannon when Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress. So Bannon gets a reward because Trump is afraid that Bannon has the dirt on Trump. Now, if you are Xi Jinping or Putin or Del C. Rodriguez or you name the world leader and you're watching Trump's behavior with Bannon or you're watching Trump's behavior with Elaine Maxwell, right? Elaine gets rewarded. She gets moved to Club Feds. She gets VIP treatment in Camp Bryant, Texas. Bannon gets all of these rewards for basically, in my opinion, shaking Trump down. So how do you think other countries are reacting to that? Right? You have Xi Jinping saying, well, Donald, I'm not going to meet with you in April unless you agree not to give any more arms to Taiwan. If you want to meet me in China, the way Carney and Starmer and, and all these other world leaders and Macron and other world leaders have met me, then you got to not give arms to Taiwan. And now a major US Arms sales package for Taiwan is in limbo because Xi Jinping knows the levers. By the way, right now in Iran, I don't know if you know this, right? Trump's threatening war in Iran. He sent two aircraft carriers there. We have dozens of ships. Like, there's a massive buildup right now. Did you know that China and Russia are doing military drills with Iran in the Strait of Her muse right now? To stand to. To show force, right? Like, do you know that's going on right now? There's they sense weakness in Donald Trump is what they sense. Did you know Del C. Rodriguez, who's now the leader of Venezuela, the authoritarian, who's right, she was the right hand of Maduro. Here's what many Rodriguez Paulo writes the Del C. Rodriguez dictatorship quote, free journalist Rory Barker and then charged him with five new fake crimes the next day. It's becoming more evident Every day. The Chavista tyranny has no intention of stopping its brutality. Venezuelan journalist Rory Branker is accused of five charges the day after his release. Branker would be subject to restrictions, including a ban on leaving the country and speaking with the press. So do you see what's going on there? It's all one big, gigantic fake. And meanwhile, while Donald Trump's in this state, whatever the hell you want to call it, here's the New York Times headline, Trump bets on diplomacy without diplomats. President Trump's most trusted envoy, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are at the center of the Iran and Ukraine negotiations. Why? They have no experience. Why? Why do we have these two people? Why do we have Witkoff and Kushner at the heart of these negotiations? Why not actual diplomats? Like, do you know? Do you know how pathetic this all looks? How weak this all looks? He's talking about Nicki Minaj's nails. You got Bannon talking to Epstein about 25th Amendment. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million. Thanks for watching.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks for watching. Be sure to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast for new updates every single day.

[Political Commentator]

We're lost. I'm gonna pull over and ask that man for directions.

[Political Analyst]

Hi there.

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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.

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[Donald Trump (clip)]

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