Guest/Contributor (3:16)

a couple of months.

Ben Meiselas (3:17)

I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with.

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Ben Meiselas (3:47)

Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Meiselas and this is Breaking News. The big news today that everybody's talking about the People's State of the Union just hours away on the Washington National Mall. That's where the Midas Touch Network and MoveOn will be holding our State of the Union. The People's State of the Union. Of course, we're boycotting the State of the Union here on the Midas Touch Network, which was a relatively easy decision. Why would we want to platform a authoritarian festival? Why would we want to platform someone who's going to just continue to lie and someone who's already broken down all the traditions and norms and has ripped to shred our constitution? So when people like. But, but it's tradition. Well, if you follow the tradition of democracy, even if I disagree with you politically, then I'll say that people should be showing up. But ultimately, if you rip to shreds the Constitution, if you don't support the traditions and norms of our country and you engage in the types of behavior that Donald Trump and his despicable regime has, you know, this is a natural consequence and it's not even a, it's not even a hard decision to, to make, frankly. I mean, why, why would I live stream the State of the Union where we just know he's going to lie the entire time? Everything is great. We've never been richer. Things are amazing. Things couldn't be better. Inflation is down. No one even talks about affordability anymore. Because I, I won. I defeated affordability issue. So it's not even an issue anymore. We've never been stronger. I've settled eight Wars. Nine wars, if you come to think about it. I've settled nine wars. I created the Board of Peace. The Board of Peace is what we called it. And we've totally secured the border. And the heroic aspects of ice and border patrol were so amazing. And, you know, and everybody's very grateful and, and, and, and, and this is, this is finally, after all of the destruction from a guy named Sleepy Joe. Sleepy Joe. It's a really bad, really bad times. I saved our nation. I rebuilt the military. I did everything. Everything was me, me, me. And it's amazing. And the dow is over 50,000, even though it isn't. And everything couldn't be better. There it is. I did the speech for you. Okay. We, you know, you know, maybe, maybe he does the noises, you know, maybe he throws in that. Maybe he does a little, you know, what is, what's his new line that he talks about lately? That there's a man who's trying to violently kiss him. There's a man, he tried to violently kiss me. And I told him, I'm a good little boy. I told him, I'm a good boy. I'm a good boy. Everybody, you know what? The Supreme Court's going to be there. You know, the Supreme Court, you made a very bad decision. Tariffs. It's a word. It's a word. I, I use that word tariffs. And I'm a good reader. I'm a good reader. I read paragraphs really well, and I know from the paragraphs that I read that I can do tariffs. Come to think about it, just think, why is it that I can destroy countries, but I can't impose a tariff? Does that make it. But look, with what the power the Supreme Court gave me, I'll make my tariffs even stronger. There'll be stronger tariffs. Everybody will get rebates. $2,000. Everybody, $5,000 rebates. You're all going to be rich. Winning. Winning. Have you, have you ever heard of winning this much? You're going to say, ah, please stop all of the, the winning. And I have a guest with me right here. And here's the guest. And the guest is someone who. Is someone who was, who's transitioned. And now they transitioned and now they transition back. And, and, and at the end of the day, look who we have here. Let's be clear. Under my administration, we say no to men in women's bathrooms and sports and don't play the sports. And penises and vaginas, everybody. And, and I'm very strong on that. I'm told you I'm very strong. Okay, that's it. Okay. That's what the. That's what. That's what the State of the Union is ultimately going to be. Somalians. Somalians this, Somalians that. Okay, I did it for you. I. I did the whole bit. That's what's going to happen. So the MAGA Republicans are really pissed at the Midas Touch Network for working with MoveOn. We're the distributor. We're carrying the people State of the Union. We'll have about 40 members of Congress, senators, members of the House of Representatives will be there. What I expect when our people State of the Union starts, I think you're going to see a very compelling scene with all of these lawmakers on the stage, shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with each other. I think that's going to be a. A photo that will be etched in the history books. It's my. Is my gut of what we're going to see at the beginning. And then we'll go into our program where we have incredible speakers. Everybody from, you know, Senator Gallego to Senator Murphy. You know, we have Senator Smith, we have Congressmember Frost and Jayapa. You know, I can go down the list. Leger, Fernandez. So many incredible, so many incredible speakers that if I listed everybody. Do we have the, do we have the people State of the Union graphic there, Jeremy, that we can show. Here's one of the graphics. You can see some of the people you know who are going to be showing up. You can see some of the names right there. Gallego, Markey, Merkley, Murphy, Schiff, Smith, Chris, Van Hollen, Anzari, Ballant, Cassar, Garcia, Leger, Fernandez, Frost, Jim Himes, Jacobs, Jayapal, Larson, Kamliger, Dove, Summer, Lee, Pinegree. We've got Presley Randall. We also have Congress member Cohen from Texas. Texas is ninth. We forgot to put him on the graphic. Randall, Scanlon, Ramirez, Coleman, and more. It's hosted by Katie Fang and Joy Reed. So there you have it, folks. Gonna be an incredible. Gonna be an incredible night. If you're wondering, well, where do I watch it here? You watch it here on the live feed. I'm sure you've all seen by now, it says people's State of the Union. There's already just kind of 5, 000 people or so just hanging out there in that waiting room. And so, you know, you could watch our videos throughout the day, go hang in the waiting room, and you could message people throughout the day and, and chat about what you expect is gonna happen. But it starts 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific, and so Looking forward to. Looking forward to that. All right. MAGA Mike Johnson attacking the Midas Touch Network. He says that we are disgraceful. We are, we are horrible. We are extremists. We are, we, we are the ones breaking tradition. He says. Here's what MAGA Mike has to say moments ago. Let's play it. It's shameful that they would boycott an address. We don't do that. Republicans don't do that. It doesn't matter if there's a president from the opposing party. We don't skip out. Our constituents want and need us to be here. Every member of this, this house represents over 750,000 people. They're disenfranchised. If you're not sitting in the seat to be a part of, of the role and the responsibility of Congress, I think it's shameful. Republicans have a far simpler and far superior message for Americans watching at home. We're putting more money back in your pockets. We're restoring peace through strength. We're defending our border and deporting criminal illegal aliens. We're standing up for American industry and manufacturing, and we're making American workers, not foreign countries, the clear winners in this American economy. Those are not talking points. That is what we have delivered. It's called Republican results. And we are proud to run on that message in this fateful midterm election year. Run on it. Run it. Donald Trump says he's going to speak for three hours tonight. Says it's going to last three hours. The State of the Union. I saw somebody say this must be a threat. Inflicting more psychological torture on Americans. A threat. Three. Three hours. Okay. It's ridiculous. The good news is you're not going to be watching that. You're going to be watching the people. State of the Union here on the Midas Touch Network. We'll then bring you the rebuttal by Governor Spamberger of Virginia. That's the official Democratic rebuttal. Then, separately, although we'll keep it on the same feed, we'll bring you the official rebuttal from the Working Families Party. Summer Lee. So you'll see all of the rebuttals throughout the day. We have our Washington, D.C. bureau working really hard right now interviewing members of Congress. So I hope in a little bit to get you a video that will show you what's going down on what's going down throughout Congress. But what's Donald Trump's big focus today? Like, what's one of the things that he's really been pushing? Well, Donald Trump has Launched a new website to sell a new version of Trump watches. And they're running Trump watches ads on state regime media, which is Fox and others. I'm only going to play a small clip of it. But anyway, here, play this clip. Hello, everyone, it's President Donald J. Trump and it's Trump time. Check out this red beauty. It's one of my new watches. Wear it proudly on your wrist and everyone will know exactly what it's for, who it's for. Okay, we don't need to play any more of that. But that's one of the things that he's doing. What else did we learn this morning as well? Well, we learned that remember those meme coins that Donald Trump was selling during his inauguration? Well, we got some data now from the meme coins. The you can see right here that the Trump meme coins, the official Trump and Melania tokens have collapsed 92 and 99 from their all time highs respectively. And the damage to retail investors has been staggering. While insiders, meaning Trump and people Trump knows. While insiders cashed out over $600 million through fees and token sales, retail holders of these tokens absorbed the losses at a ratio of 20 to 1 for every dollar insiders earned. Ordinarily, investors lost $20 in total. Retail losses exceeded $4.3 billion across nearly 2 million crypto wallets currently underwater. The concentration of gains is equally striking. Just 45 whale wallets insiders extracted a combined $1.2 billion. And the sell off may not be over. Think about that. So you're telling me and lecturing me about traditions and norms when you have the grifter and thief doing that. I mean, but you know, that's just, that's just Tuesday for grifter and thief. That's just Tuesday before 6am for Grifter and thief. You think about all the other things he's doing. Again, we have masked ICE and border patrol Gestapo, torturing, terrorizing, killing people in this country. We have concentration camps in this country now, warehouses that have been purchased for the purpose of torturing migrants and even citizens. We've got judge after judge appointed by all different presidents, including Trump appointees, saying that this DOJ has violated court order after court order. This DOJ person's held in contempt. That DOJ person's held in contempt. They don't care. And of course we know they're covering up a child sex trafficking ring. There was more reporting today as well about accusations against Donald Trump being covered up by the Department of Justice. There was great reporting by NPR talking about how the Justice Department was withheld and removed some of the documents that involve accusations against Donald Trump and real serious accusations that we are aware of. So, for example, the Justice Department, this is what it says. The Justice Department withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor. An NPR investigation has found it removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Epstein also mentioned Trump. Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appear to be 50 pages of FBI interviews. So let's be clear what we know about for sure based on what's been produced, that there are 50 pages of FBI interviews involving someone who was a minor who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. That's being hidden. What else is being hidden? Are photos of Donald Trump and Epstein being hidden, the type that Michael Wolf described where there were girls of indeterminate age around Donald Trump, where he had stains on his pants. Are those being hidden and concealed? We know that there may be as much as 50 terabytes of documents that are still being concealed by Trump's DOJ. 50 terabytes. 5. 0. That's hundreds of millions of documents in the Epstein files that are still being concealed. And what's been produced already, it doesn't vindicate Donald Trump. Quite the contrary. The stuff that has been released is sickening. And in other countries there's been some accountability. I mean, you look at the uk, you have Peter Mandelson, the ambassador from UK to the United States. He was arrested in the past 24 to 48 hours. Before that, Andrew Mountbatten, a former Prince Andrew, he was arrested as well. Just think about it. In the uk, where they have actual royalty, there's no absolute immunity there. But in the United States, our right wing fascist Supreme Court created a doctrine called absolute immunity. They invented it out of thin air. It's disgusting. Disgusting. So no, when our government is covering up for the pedos and the pedal and the pedo Cabal is inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sorry, I'm, I, I, I don't, don't lecture me, don't lecture me on traditions and norms or anything like that. Let's we, we caught up with Massey today. Thomas Massey, the Republican, perhaps one of the only courageous Republicans out there who's been working with Ro Khanna to release the Epstein files and to hold the Trump regime accountable for covering up a child sex trafficking ring. Here's what Massie said moments ago. Let's play it. You've been back now to the Department of Justice to see the unredacted files. What can you update us on? Oh, well, I've got to go back again because we were not able to search the files that they had put on on the website and then pulled back down and those were. That subset of files contains what I think may be names of co conspirators. Okay. Any reason why they would have taken them down? Well, they did take some files down in the first batch they did in December and redacted them some more and put them back up. But I'm not sure if they plan to put these back up. Ostensibly the reason they took them, the first ones down was because there were survivors information in them. Well, we will. By the way, that footage right there comes from our Washington D.C. bureau. Thanks to all of you. We've built out a D.C. bureau. And so that's Pablo Manriquez who's doing that interview right there. And we appreciate you. If, if you want to become a member of our YouTube channel and help the growth of this network, you can click join right now and you can gift memberships to other people as well. So just click join and you can give memberships if, if you want. No, no, no pressure. No worries. Go to Midasplus.com, that's our substack as well, Midasplus.com and make sure you subscribe here. We just hit 6 million subscribers yesterday, so we're on our way to 7 million subscribers. Yeah, yesterday we hit 6 million subscribers and 9 billion views in the same day. It's a great accomplishment and it's thanks to you. But the numbers don't matter to me. I mean, you know, billion, nine billion bazillion for me. It's what you do with the platform. Right. You can talk the talk, but can you walk? The walk? I think is important. And I hope that what we're doing tonight with the people, State of the Union, is using the platform that we've all built together with your help, exactly how this platform needs to be used. And it's in stark contrast to corporate news. Right. While we are boycotting the State of the Union and we are sharing actual policy speeches and we're going to hear from not just the lawmakers, but they're going to be bringing guests. You're going to hear stories about how people have actually been impacted from this Trump regime. So while we're doing that and talking about what's impacting Americans, people here in this country, Donald Trump's going to be there spewing lies and corporate news. They were there in the white House today begging for access. And if you want to know why I call it regime media, it's because they get their marching orders from the regime. Let me share with you what Jonathan Karl said moments ago. Here, play this clip. Hey, I just left the White House, where I'm just leaving now. The president did a lunch with network news anchors and offered a bit of a preview of his speech. One notable thing we did talk about Iran. He said that Iran wants some deal more than I do, but they just came. I can't say the magic words, which he said was that they won't build a bomb. The president said he's going to talk a lot about the economy and he's going to call for new tax cuts tonight. And he's going to say that the next three years in America will be the best years economically that we've ever had. And he's going to say, or he told us it's already begun. So that's here at the White House. Just leaving lunch with the president and network anchors. Just leaving with the network anchors. What are you, a stenographer? He's gonna tell me what he said. Look, if you want to report that, don't you think that you should say, well, it's all false. Don't you think that you should say, well, he was speaking with us today and he told us that he's going to spend three hours lying to the American people. That's why when people ask me, hey, would you want access to the White House? Do you want. Why would I want? Like, why? What would be the purpose of me? What would be the purpose of me doing that? Right? Like, okay, I show up and I'm like, hey, everybody, you want to know what the President told me? The president told me that we're great and he's going to focus on more tax cuts and he's going to give you all rebates, everybody. And he's telling me that we've never been stronger. Also, he's going to talk about how he's been vindicated in the Epstein files. And you know what else he's going to talk about? That Iran says they're very close to making a deal. And even though he said that they were previously obliterated, he did an obliteration that was not a full obliteration, but it's really an obliteration, he says, and we've never been more powerful. He's going to talk about how he stopped eight wars, everybody, and how everybody now has health care for free. You all have most favored nations Health care and everybody's doing amazing. And you know what he also told me? He also told me everybody can afford homes, that it's so easy to pay your rent right now. Everybody's getting paid with dignity. It's amazing. We're in a golden age. So that's going to be this speech. So that's Ben Mysellis from the Midas Touch network. I will be replay. What are we doing there? What are we doing? What's the point of posting that video? What's the point of that? And all the networks are there doing it. What's the point of that? Seriously, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Even if you are a good reporter when you do that, that's embarrassing stuff. You want to know how the American people actually feel? Look at what the polling data says. I could show you anyone but look at what the polling data says. Let's play it. Jeremy.

Political Analyst (25:31)

I would borrow the phrasing of Tony Blair, of course, the former prime minister of Great Britain saying weak, weak, weak. It was weak over there in the United Kingdom. It is weak here in the United States when it comes to President Trump. Okay, Trump's net approval rating. Look at all the pre sodas polls. The State of the Union. Look at this. Okay, we're at this point. Look at that. Negative 27 points. My goodness gracious. The snow is up to the knees here in New York City and Trump seems to be well underneath it at this point. Compare that to where he was in 2020, 2019 and 2018 in term one go going into those state unions. Minus 10, way lower now. Minus 15, way lower now. Minus15, way lower now. The bottom line is this. Donald Trump has never been weaker going into a State of the Union address. A queer north CNN polling than he is right now and weaker by a considerable amount.

Ben Meiselas (26:21)

So this is his first term to his second term. How does it compare to other presidents

Ad/Promo Announcer (26:26)

at this point in their second term though?

Political Analyst (26:27)

Yeah, okay. It's not just that Donald Trump is breaking records compared to himself when it comes to state unions. He's breaking records compared to other presidents at this point going into a state of the union. What are we talking about? Look at all the 21st century presidents on your screen right here about at this point a second term going into the State of the union. Trump at minus 27 points. Obama was at minus 15 points. George W. Bush was at minus 11 points. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that minus 27 points is considerably lower than minus 15 or minus 11. So Trump isn't just weaker than he's ever been going into a State of the Union address. He is weaker than any other president this century going into a State of the Union address at this point in their second term.

Ben Meiselas (27:08)

Talking about it all throughout the show

Ad/Promo Announcer (27:09)

as we're going through these numbers. But talk about what is driving this drop.

Ben Meiselas (27:13)

For the, for the.

Political Analyst (27:14)

What is driving this drop. I said record was the name of the game when it came to this segment, right? Talking about the lowest Trump has ever been going into the State of the Union, the lowest that any president has been this century going into a State of the Union at this point in their presidency. It is also the weakest that Donald Trump has ever been with independents. Look at this drop. We've been talking about it the past few months. At this point a year ago, Donald Trump was at -13 points. Look at this, -47 points among independents, the lowest Donald Trump has ever been in either of his two terms as president.

Ben Meiselas (27:53)

The funny guy. Enten's a funny guy sometimes. Okay, well, what does Jim Jordan say about Donald Trump's awful polling when Manu Raju asked him here, let's play this clip. And you know, let me jump in because he also said he was going to reduce prices on day one while in office. And just as his own data from the, from his own government says that the rate of price increases for all food up 3% up, meat, poultry, fish and eggs up 2% all the way down the list, a number of items, prices are still high. And on top of that, voters don't think he's doing a particularly good job about the economy, are concerned about the state of the economy. 72% of the American public thinks the economy is fair or poor. And that's consistent with other polling.

Guest/Contributor (28:38)

It's not easy to recover from all the ridiculous things and the rapid inflation,

Ben Meiselas (28:42)

the record inflation that we had under

Guest/Contributor (28:43)

Joe Biden, but we're in the process of doing that.

Ben Meiselas (28:46)

Markets at record high 2/4 ago that Americans are feeling 4.4% growth.

Guest/Contributor (28:53)

We want to bring down prices.

Ben Meiselas (28:56)

What world are you living in? Jim Jordan and we're still doing the Biden blame. Donald Trump said on day one, day one, I will bring down prices. Inflation is up, up and it's higher than expected. We did the report PCE 3% GDP down 1.4%. Anemic. It's not good. We're in a jobs recession right now. What are we talking about here? Right. AI continues to take away people's jobs. These data centers, zero regulation that Trump supports. Running rampant. We're going to see more job losses there. And then Donald Trump imposes a new tariff regime against the world after the Supreme Court strikes down. Donald Trump's IIPA tariffs. Right. The emergency claim there's an emergency. The trade deficit is an emergency, and Canada's smuggling in all these drugs, and it's the same as Mexico and such. There's a national security emergency, so we need IIPA tariffs against Canada and Mexico. And then the trade deficit with the rest of the world is its own emergency. The Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. And so Trump's response is, ooh, I guess I won. When the Supreme Court says, you lose, Donald Trump's, he's a predator. He's a sociopath. I won. No, you lost. So even though Donald Trump's lawyers argued, when they were asked by the Supreme Court, the Circuit Court, the Court of International Trade, they, they, Trump's lawyers were asked, why don't you invoke the Trade act of 1974, Section 122? And they said, we actually don't have that authority to invoke. This is what Trump's lawyer said. We don't have that authority because what we're claiming the emergency is, is trade deficits. And what Section122 deals with is issues about currency and currency crises and kind of monetary deficits where there could be a run on a specific currency. You know, there was the. Brendan, what am I trying to do? A boring professor lecture on the Brenton Wood system when the dollar was pegged to gold. And then after World War II, there was a run on gold in the early years of Nixon, it was called the Nixon Shock. So they came up with this idea of, how do you stop this kind of massive kind of currency dilution in the Brenton woods system, where the dollar was fixed to gold. It's not happening now. That's not a thing that's happening. And also when Donald Trump says, all of these countries are giving to the United States trillions of dollars, how could you be having this emergency under for monetary deficits when you're claiming all these countries are giving you all of this money, just giving it to you. So Trump invokes Section 122 under the Trade act of 1974 unlawfully to now impose 15% tariffs against the world? Except he told the trade representative and our Commerce Department told the people collecting the levies. The document they were handed only says 10%. So Trump said 15%, which is. And 10% still high. But the actual levy Right now was actually 10%. So people are like, what the hell is even going on? We don't. We don't even know what this is. So Trump's lesson from the Supreme Court ruling is, okay, I was able to institute my unlawful tariffs for, what, 14 months without the. Until the Supreme Court finally said no. Okay, so why don't I just do the same damn thing again? I'll find another law that doesn't say what I claim it says. I'll invoke it, I'll get sued, I will delay the lawsuit. 14 months will pass, I will lose, and then I'll find another one. By the way, this is Donald Trump's behavior before being in office. This is why he bankrupted so many companies. And I'm not saying this as a partisan or as a political person. This is the types of. Or the type of behavior. This is why his casinos went bankrupt. This is why, you know, if there was a Guinness Book of Records on bankruptcies, he would be at the top. Why people think this guy is some good business person when he's gone bankrupt over and over and over, like, so many bankruptcies. I don't know. It just makes no sense. Oh, he's a businessman. He wrote the book the Art of the Deal. Like, are you really that stupid? Because he wrote a book called the Art of the Deal, you think he's a good business? I know. I, I don't. I, I truly. I try to be empathetic, especially as people are leaving maga. I really try to do it, you know, and, And I, And I, and I do my best and, you know, leave maga. I. It's. Cults are hard to break. And one of cult programming and deprogramming is you go so far into a rabbit hole that you're afraid if you tried to get back out of that rabbit hole, you humiliate everybody that you know. You humiliate friends. You admit. You admitted. You humiliate yourself. You admitted that you were wrong all of these years and that you caused so much pain. So that's why actually people go deeper into cults, as opposed to. It's so hard to get people out of cult. So I get it, but I just don't get how you fall for this shtick. The guy's whole life was loser again. You just look at the guys, and I'm saying this not politically, just objectively. The guy got daddy's money, and he just would bankrupt things his whole life and just destroy people's lives. And so you're like, that's the guy. That's the guy. I literally the worst guy. If you had my 18, my 16 month old daughter, 17 month old daughter, Imana, if she were running this country right now, okay, in her cute princess dress, okay, she would do a significantly better job than Donald Trump would be because she wouldn't do. She would just want to play with. She would just want to play with Anna and she would want to play with, with Elsa and, and that's what she would want to do. That's. And so if she played with Elsa and Anna and all of her toys and that's what she did every day, the country would be phenomenally better like and she'd be known as one of the best presidents. He meant it would be on Mount Rushmore right now. If you just let on autopilot Biden's economy, the state of the union would be strong. The state of Elsa and Anna and Tatiana would all be very strong. And bell. All right, we'll take our. It was a reminder. How many people are in here right now, Jeremy, how many people are watching this live right now? 22, 000 people are watching me. Talk about talking. Blippi. She loves Blippi. Blippi. Can we play Blippi? The people's State of the Union. Oh, and don't get me started on Ms. Rachel. The people State of the Union right here. I want you all to do blue heart emojis. If all 20,000 people here will be watching the people State of the Union tonight here on the Midas Touch Network. Blue emo, you know, not blue emojis. The 6 million emoji. Do the 6 million emoji. If you're going to be watching the people State of the Union tonight here on the Midas touch audible. The 6 million. Let's use the 6 million. So we'll see you all here tonight. I'm not done with this show. We've got a lot more show to go. We're going to take our first and only quick break of the show. We'll be right back. I want to talk about MAGA Republican congress member Gonzalez. What's going on there? I want to talk more about, you know, the MAGA Republicans cover up of the Epstein files. Take our first and only quick break of the show. Elbows up. We'll be right back.

Guest/Contributor (37:43)

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Ben Meiselas (40:19)

A S. Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Meisellis and this is breaking news. I want to turn to this MAGA Republican Congress member Gonzalez from Texas for a moment. District is Uvalde, right by the Mexico US Border. Right there you remember this guy? He was the guy who was all in going after Matt Gaetz. And by the way, we should all go after Matt Gaetz. But he's saying, look, Matt Gates is disgusting. She is. And you know, I served with some real scumbags. And Matt Gates, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. And you know, people were like, oh, Tony Gonzalez, go get a man, go get him. But MAGA Republicans are MAGA Republicans. Okay? And now we learn that Tony Gonzalez was having, was sexually harassing. I want to be clear. An affair makes it sound con. Is consensual, although inappropriate. So I don't like the term affair. He was sexually harassing, coercing a young female staffer who worked for him named Regina Santos Avilias. He was asking, this is in the text message for anal, anal, question mark. He would say, he would say, send me naked photos of you. What positions do you like? And she would say, boss, I don't like this. Boss, please stop. Her husband found out. They got a divorce. We're in the process of getting one. The, the, the sexual harassment and, and, and, and the activity in question took place in 2024. She then allegedly died by suicide from self immolation. The story is purportedly that she sets herself on fire and kills herself by self imm. By, by burning herself to death. Then at the time, this MAGA Republican Congress member, Gonzalez doesn't mention anything. Acts normal. It's a tragedy. Doesn't say that he was this predator who was going after her and, and continuing to coerce her and was the guy who destroyed her marriage. Just show you the clip of him. This was when this was back from a few. This was what, 2024 or so when he was going, making appearances to go after Matt Gaetz. Here, let's play this clip of him. He will survive. Look, the house is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is going to be just fine. I served 20 years in the military. It's my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I served with some real scumbags. Look, Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they're walking around with white hoods in the daytime. Meet mirror, meet mirror. I just. It's, It's. It's bad. It's. It's baffling. The ease with which these people do it, right? The ease with which, you know, these maga often Maga men, but some maga women. But to be fair, Anna Paulina Luna, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, they've been calling Gonzalez out saying he needs to resign. The maga men are. The maga men are like that. But those three magaladies, Congresswoman, they've been calling him out to resign. But, like, it's a real. You know, the Epstein class, man, they, like, do they have, like, do. Do they. They don't feel right. You know, they're. They. They don't have kind of a human emotion. You know, like, if I, If I. Or you told, like, like a small lie, and it was like, why, Why'd you, Why'd you do this? Well, you know, I was. I, I, I. Did you eat. Did you eat the candy that was out there? Did you eat that candy that was out there? No. You ate the candy, didn't you? Yeah. Okay, well, you know, like, a normal human reaction is to be like, right? To be like, what? Whatever. I mean, you'll have someone like Howard Lutnick in that weird voice of his, say, I let you know when I saw Epstein in 2005, I was disgusted with him. He brought me into the room. I saw a massage table. I said, a massage table in the living room. What are you doing? And he says, the good kinds of massages. So I went to my wife and. And I said, that man is disgusting. And since that time, I never met him for personal, for business, ever, because I knew what he was up to. Disgusting. Disgusting. So the interviewer said, what do you think he was doing? Blackmail. Blackmail. He would have people go to the island where horrible things would happen, and then he would blackmail him. It's disqualifying. Okay, okay. Well, the files come out. He's all over him. You. You brought your children to the pedo island. I just brought my children and my wife. So what? Well, first you said you knew. First off, the fact that you brought him there bad. Bringing children to the island where children are sex trafficked bad. But then you also said you knew that that's what was happening. Then you brought your friend's children there also, and you're talking about nannies with each other, even though Epstein doesn't have children. Exchanging nannies is that code. He gave you $50,000 for some award that you got in 2017. You did business deals together. So, so what that we've had years, long business ties. So what? He's disgusting. Okay. Like, you're a crazy person. Like, you're literally, you're literally crazy people. Like, again, this is, this isn't through a lens of, oh, the Democratic position. This is, These are like, like literally. These are like literally horrific humans. I don't, I don't even understand. I don't even understand the, the conduct here. And by the way, I mean, we talked about this at the outset of the show. I'll do another video about it in the morning. But now we know that, you know, these accusations by minors against Donald Trump were just like deleted, destroyed, or withheld by the Trump regime. And it wasn't even. Look, I give a hat tip to NPR for finding it, but, you know, they did real work to find it. But it's, you know, at the bottom right hand, they have like Epstein Transparency act, like ETA 00000, right? The Bates numbers. Well, 50 of those Bates numbers, 50 of those pages are missing. And those are the ones where a minor accuses Donald Trump, apparently. Here's how Congressmember Garcia described it earlier today. Let's. Hey, everyone, it's Congressman Robert Garcia. As you know, we have been in a very serious investigation with the Epstein files. It appears that there are files that are missing from what the DOJ has produced that include very serious allegations about the President of the United States from a survivor. I know this because I myself just looked for these documents yesterday and I want to show you something. This is a manifestation document, and it lists a series of interviews and documents that should be in the files. These highlighted documents are actually missing under our oversight subpoena. All of these documents, and under the new law by Khan Massey, all of these documents have to be available to us unless there is some type of active investigation happening with the. These documents. What we have here is a survivor who has made serious allegations about the president and now these documents are missing. Oversight Democrats are opening a parallel investigation into why these documents are missing, where they are. Obviously we know who the survivor is, but of course, they're also protecting that survivor's identity. And the DOJ needs to answer, why are they covering this up? And this White House cover up needs to end. I mean, right in plain view. They're doing this right in plain view. I saw some people in the chat saying this is where the military needs to step in and, and, and arrest, you know, and arrest these people. The issue is Is that, that's why Donald Trump put in someone like Pete Hegseth, someone who has numerous accusations against him. Right. I mean, Pete Hegseth's own mom wrote to what Hegseth's ex wife and said, yeah, my son's horrible and he's doing all these horrible things. And then Hegseth's mommy had to go around to the senators and she spoke to the senators, the Republican senators, to ensure they would vote for her son. Like, how did the United States of America get to a place where mommy had to go around for her son after writing emails that were, that came out during the discovery process or the, the process of the appointment hearings? And mommy had to go around for her son? I mean, how. And again, you know, that's why, you know, when we talk about dei, I mean, we talk about didn't earn it, didn't earn it. Mommy had to show up for you. Really, like, that's, like, that's where we're at. I mean, that's how I view these things. I never got into this actually as a political person. My, my, my views, when I started to reflect on politics, started to, I said, okay, well, my views align with the label progressive. And I've, and I've always been throughout my life someone who's, you know, voted for progressive candidates. Although when I was a lawyer, I never thought, I never, I never really even thought that much about politics when I was a litigator. You know, we represent different clients. They would be good, bad, Republican, Democrat, you just may represent, people show up in court. You know, sometimes you have more of

Guest/Contributor (51:46)

a

Ben Meiselas (51:48)

control over your case selection and the cases you pick. But sometimes as an associate, you just get cases. But, you know, I didn't view it through political lens. I don't view, I don't view any of this through political lenses. I just look at the conduct and I'm like, this is abhorrent. And so again, I don't view this as a Republican Democrat issue. But Jennifer Griffin over at Fox, she's a good reporter there. She's actually a very good reporter, one of the very few good reporters. She does national, she's on the national security beat and she talked about a meeting that took place today. If you're wondering how I meandered to talk about this, the comment was the military needs to arrest Trump, which I agree with. But the person leading it is Hegseth, and that's why I'm getting here. At a high stakes Pentagon meeting today, Secretary Hegseth gave anthropic head Dario Amodi, an ultimatum. Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic's AI model for mass domestic surveillance and kinetic autonomous operations without human oversight or face censure and be labeled a supply chain threat. Now pause there. The Pentagon doesn't dispute this, okay? I don't care whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. The demand is that Anthropic, this AI company, give the government its AI model for the purpose of mass domestic surveillance. And what does that mean? That means that when you're walking, when you're out and about, when you're doing things, we already know that there are cameras everywhere, right, that are probably filming you, but the government will be spying on you at every moment of the day. Not trying to be hyperbolic. You watching this? If you're in the United States, if you travel to the United States, you will be under 24 hour surveillance. The moment you walk out of your house using camera technology, using the AI technology, the various cameras that are out there, you will always be monitored. Okay, first off, why isn't that a front page story? Could you imagine if that was a plan from Obama or if that was a plan from Biden, or if that was a plan from any, any president? The outrage that should be. I mean, heck, when we learned about certain types of wiretapping and surveillance programs post Snowden and things, it was a big deal, right? But here the government just saying, we're going to do it, we're doing it, we're spying on all of you. And Anthropic, I guess, to their credit is saying, look, we've developed this, Claude, it's called Claude, this powerful AI tool. You can use our technology. You were able to use it successfully in Venezuela and there's a lot of successful military operations. But we don't want our technology to be used for basically autonomous operations without human oversight that just. The AI decides when to kill people, right? They surveil on you and then the AI determines do they kill you or not, or abroad. Again, no hype. I'm not being hyperbolic. The government wants the AI monitoring you 247 and then being able to kill you or to be able to kill people abroad. And that technology to be implemented into drones and other things. And that the AI decides when someone dies or when someone. And all Anthropic has said is, look, we don't. We'll give you the technology. You know, we do defense work, but we're not going to do mass domestic surveillance because we think that's a crime to do that. And we don't want our technology to be used that the AI determines when it kills somebody. I mean, imagine your chat GPT to saying, okay, I'm going to kill you now. Right? That's what the government wants, the chat GPT to make the decision. So according to a source familiar, that meeting was cordial. Not a dressing down, not a screaming match, all business. Hegseth praised Anthropic's product, but then said if by Friday, Anthropic does not agree to the Pentagon's use of the model without restrictions, then Hegseth would terminate the contract and use the Defense Production act to force Anthropic to comply and or designate Anthropic a supply chain threat and national security risk. Jennifer Griffin says Edit Both are mutually exclusive. You can't be a supply chain risk, but also invoke the Defense Production act to say the country needs this product so much for national security that it will override any restriction put in place by the company that limits government access to the product. Both cannot be true. At issue is Anthropic's two stipulations, that its advanced AI model, currently used in the Pentagon's classified system, is not used for autonomous kinetic operations. Anthropic currently requires human oversight of autonomous operations when used to kill things for safety reasons, because they don't know how the autonomous system will react and could even endanger soldiers using the models. Soldiers and others could lose control of the model and automatically start killing large groups without humans in the kill chain. Second, Anthropic bars its models from being used for mass domestic surveillance. Hegseth wants these restrictions lifted, according to a source familiar with the talks. Anthropic has never objected to the use of its models for legitimate military operations. It also told Hegseth it never complained to the Pentagon or Palantir about the use of its models in the Maduro raid. You know, Senator Sanders, Bernie Sanders told me once. Not once. He says it every time he's on with me, and he says it every speech he gives. The most important issues out there are often the issues that are being least discussed when I host shows like this, when I'm out there speaking with people, when I'm out there asking you about, you know, the fears that you have. Here's what I hear frequently, that you, the American people, feel psychologically tortured, living paycheck to paycheck, if you're lucky enough to have a paycheck, that you're unable to afford homes, you can't afford rent. Maybe if you're lucky enough to have a home and your kid or grandkids are living with you. They can't even envision a future that's better than your future. And they can't afford to be able to leave the home with you if you're lucky enough to have a home. People are terrified about AI replacing American jobs, especially AI that's not regulated. People are terrified, and rightfully so, of data centers going up in their communities, both in terms of the environmental hazards, the energy consumption it's causing your energy bills to spike as well, and the use of the data centers as well. People want health care to be a universal right. The Obama subsidies, while imperfect, were helpful. And the Affordable Care act, while imperfect, allowed people to access health care who couldn't be before. And health care is being ripped away from the American people by the Trump regime. People aren't falling for Trump's claim that he didn't rip away Medicaid because the trigger for when Medicaid gets lost by you is after the midterms are over so that the Trump regime can blame Democrats. You know that now people are in trick. They know that that's what's happening right here. People want to be able to work a job and be paid with dignity for the job that they work. And you know, I, I can go. People want to be able to have a good education, have a good education for their children and grandchildren. People also don't want to have a president who makes everything about themselves, you know, and who's grifting and who's stealing from the American people and this, and, and people don't want this predatory Epstein class that's destroying their lives. I, I could, you know, I, I, I can elaborate more, but I mean, I, I think also people do not want masked ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo torturing, terrorizing, and killing them in, in the streets of America. I can go on, but, but that's what the American people want. And you know, rather than focusing on the gamification of politics, this one, up, down, you know, Democrat, Republican, we should be focusing on the people. We should be focusing on just being real and authentic about how we feel. I'll just give you, I'll give you an example just quickly as well. You know, there's a lot of people, you know, a lot of, a lot of political pundits, you know, who are like, look, I think that it's really bad messaging to criticize the men's hockey team for, you know, being there with Cash Patel and celebrating they won the gold. You know, everybody likes the Team winning and they won a gold medal. And don't criticize the team because that's bad for politics. Look, I don't think you have to spend. I don't think the fault completely or majority lies with the men's hockey team. I don't. I mean, you have Cash Patel going in there. They're celebrating. You have the FBI director, you have the FBI director behaving that way. You know, these are, you know, whatever. You know, they see him there, they're celebrating. They get a call from the president, the president is saying things. They're at their all time high in their minds. But I also think that I don't have to think about everything from being a political messenger. Right? I did not like. I did not like setting aside that I have a daughter. It doesn't matter if you're like, you know, people like, well, I'm a, I'm a girl dad. Okay? I am. But whether I'm a girl dad or not, it doesn't matter. Okay? Just morally, I did not like seeing the president and the men's hockey team mocking the female hockey team. I didn't like that. That is something that offends my morals and principles and values. So I can call that out. I don't have to belabor the point. I'm not going to devote episodes to saying the hockey team, the hockey team, the hockey team. I'm glad the American hockey team won the gold medal. I really am. But I do hope that there is some reflection as well about the women's hockey team and the amount of time the women's hockey team worked for that gold and they had an incredible tournament. And leaders and people with basic decency should be out there to acknowledge that you can do all of the above. And I don't have to be this political creature to channel everything to what's the best political message. I want to just let you know how I feel about these issues. And I think the American people are so sick and tired of even everything, whether it's Democrats as well, being filtered through. What's the political message here? What's the right lens? How do we persuade? How are we more persuasive? Did this ad move the needle by this amount of percentage points? Should we use this word or that word? Look, just be real and caring and react normally to how things are. And if it offends you, if you see something, you say something. Be a grown up, be an adult. Stand up against the bullying. Stand up against this. You know, I did not like to see the incredible women's hockey team getting demeaned like that. I didn't. And so I can say that I could also say congratulations to the men's hockey team. Congrats. I'm proud when the US Wins gold medals. I am objectively, you know, you know, and I'm proud of the Canadian hockey team and I'm proud of the great work that Canadians have been doing internationally as well. And I'm proud of Midas Canada and the great, the great work that they're doing. All of these things, all of these things can be true at the same time. And I could be absolutely livid, I could be absolutely furious at this, what this authoritarian regime is doing here in the United States. And so we're going to call it out. We're not going to normalize it. We're not going to legitimize it. And if, and we're just going to let you know how we feel about these things, and we're going to bring facts, facts, facts to this every step of the way. So how many people here will be watching the People State of the Union in approximately two and a half hours or so, or three hours, two and a half hours, how many people will be watching the State of the Union right here? Eight Eastern time. How many people will be watching that? I'm excited to have everybody here watch that right on the Midas Touch Network. Do me a favor. If you can tell friends, co workers, family members, as soon as this episode ends, will you remind them for me? Will you remind? That's one of the best ways you can help. If you're like, ben, how can we help you? We love the Midas Touch network. Congrats on 6 million. What can, what can we do? It'd be great if sitting aside, if you're a member, if you're a subscriber, fantastic. But what you really can do right now, which would be incredibly helpful right now, right this second, is to text message, email, tell people around you, hey, you know we're boycotting that State of the Union, right? You know, we're watching it on the Midas Touch Network YouTube channel. Here's the link. Here's their YouTube page. Will you all do me that favor and do that? If you commit to reaching out to 10 people right now about the Midas Touch State of the Union event, Throw a blue emoji right now. If you can commit to me right now, you will tell 10 people about the Midas Touch People State of the Union event right now. Let's see those blue emojis let's see those blue emojis right now. I know someone's saying you guys need your own TV network. I'm working on it. I'm doing my best. I hit 6 million. The next is the TV network. The next is the. The next is the TV network. Okay? Someone's like, you need a TV network to bring on Colbert and to bring on Kimmel. We're working on it. I'm doing. I'm gonna do my. Once I hit 10 million subscribers. Midas Touch Network on TV. Midas Touch Network internationally. Midas Touch Network in Europe, in South America, in Mexico, in Africa. Spreading the truth. All right, I'm making a. I'm told I'm making a lot of promises I'm going to do. I set big goals. My producers are saying you're setting a lot of promises. All right, here's my promise for you, though. Here's my promise for you right now. My promise for you right now is we're going to work every day as hard as we can to fight for the truth and to fight for democracy. How about that, Jeremy? I'll bring it down. I'll bring it down. And not a notch to. To hear. All right, thank you, everybody, so much. For real. Please tell people about tonight's event. I want to make sure the audience is huge for it, and I'm really. I'm really excited about this. Really, really excited about this event. Thank you all. I'm appreciative of you. I'm grateful for you. Thanks for helping US hit 6 million subscribers. Thanks for heading US hit, helping US hit 9 billion views. See you next time. Shout out Midas Mighty. See you tonight. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus.com you'll

Guest/Contributor (69:15)

get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski ad free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content Only available@midasplus.com.

Ben Meiselas (69:31)

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Ben Meiselas (70:33)

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