MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 11/11/25

19:36Ben Meiselas:Like it's unheard of to have this level of booze this early on in a presidency that people hate this guy. And it was like, while that was going on, while Trump was being humiliated, you had this group going behind people's back and doing this. Just show the clip one more time. I know we've done lots of videos of this, of Trump getting booed. Let's play it. Sound issue. We'll get the sound fixed. Get that one fixed in a second. I want to show you though now, though, Maga Mike Johnson. Two clips I want to show you though. Maga Mike from earlier in the day, where Maga Mike refused to answer the central question.

20:12Ben Meiselas:Okay. So in the Senate, part of this deal is that the Senate will allow a vote on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. The Senate Republicans didn't agree they would vote for it. They just said they will allow Democrats to bring it up in a vote. And we know the Republicans are going to vote against it. There's a 60 vote threshold. We know that Democrats don't have 60 votes to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. When every Republican and Donald Trump have come out there against it. But the Democrats act like that's a win, that they'll get the vote to occur. But then in the House, the House hasn't even agreed to allow the vote to happen.

20:51Ben Meiselas:So why wouldn't you secure a requirement, at least if you were going to go down this route, which I would still disagree with, that votes have to be taken in the House and the Senate so you could at least try to say, well, we'll at least get to show going into the election, all of the House members who are all up for re-election that did not oppose the extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidy. Well, here's Mike, here's MAGA Mike earlier today, just walking away when he was asked the question. Here, play this clip.

21:19Brett Meiselas:And finally, do the right thing and help us to bring an end to the pain of the American people. This has gone on too long. Too many people have suffered and it's long overdue. That's the update I wanted to give you this morning. There are probably lots of questions, but I'm going to get a lot of my own questions answered later today. So stay tuned for more. Thanks so much.

21:45Ben Meiselas:So everybody wanted to know, will you bring the issue of extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies to the House floor if the shutdown ends? Will you agree to that? He walks away. Then Manu Raj, who I think does a really good job for CNN in general, just covering what's going on in Capitol hill he catches up with mag and mike and watch what happens let's play this

22:08Brett Meiselas:whatever the bill passes that senate on aca you'll give it a vote in the house look i'm going to do in the house what we always do and it's a deliberative process find consensus on whatever uh whatever the proposal is you know i do not guarantee the outcome of legislation or

22:42Ben Meiselas:So he says, we're not going to guarantee a vote on the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Then he gives some word salad answer about we'll go through a deliberative process, which basically means they're not bringing up the Affordable Care Act subsidy extension for a vote. So what's going to happen. What's going to happen is the Affordable Care Act subsidies, they've expired. People are getting their letters now. Healthcare is going to cost 100 % more, 200 % more will become unaffordable. People will lose healthcare. And all Donald Trump's been posting about now, and just ranting and raving about this are two things now to kind of, Brett, to your point, when we talk about dangling these riches or trying to distract people, he's been saying two things.

23:29Ben Meiselas:Number one, He knows people don't like insurance companies, valid. So he just goes, we're going to get rid of the insurance companies in general. No more money goes to insurance companies at all. And instead, we'll give people a$2 ,000 to$3 ,000 check, and then they can pay their healthcare with that$2 ,000,$3 ,000. Well, you're not addressing the central issue because what happens when somebody has a surgery that costs$100 ,000 and you've given them a$2 ,000 check, Now they go medically bankrupt. They die. So there's a reason why insurance exists. Now, insurance used its existence to become this profit machine that screwed people over in ways that shouldn't be taking place.

24:13Ben Meiselas:But there's a reason why you need to address the issue of high risk pools and why universal health care, guaranteed health care, exists in pretty much every other country other than the United States, including in Argentina, who we gave$40 billion to while screwing over our people. That was one thing that Donald Trump said. The other thing is that he wants to go from 30-year mortgages to 50-year mortgages, which just basically means extending the principal payments out a longer period of time. So they're slightly less on a monthly basis from 30 years to 50 years. But then the interest that carries over the 50-year loan balloons to such a massive amount that people are in debt for the rest of their lives.

24:58Ben Meiselas:And that doesn't address the issue of affordability of homes, which is a supply issue, which is the fact that corporations, private equity hedge funds are buying all these homes up and they're competing against individuals who stand no chance against these billionaire, trillionaire hedge funds. And so the supply of housing is severely limited for people to get into the market where it's commoditized. That's the issue. Supply is the issue, not a 30 to 50 year. Brett, I know you have a lot to say. Jordy, I know you have a lot to say. I'm going to shut up in next segment and let you both talk about that because I spent a little bit too much time talking.

25:37Ben Meiselas:We're hitting our first break point right now. When we come back, you'll hear from Brett and Jordy. We've got a lot to discuss. Also, Ghislaine Maxwell's five-star treatment that's pissing off all the other inmates and all Americans pretty much as the cover up there continues. We've got a lot to discuss. a reminder, hit join. If you're already subscribed to this YouTube channel, also join. And you can gift memberships to as many people as you can. By becoming a member of this YouTube channel, you help grow this independent media platform. And we continue to beat Fox and all the cable news networks over and over and over again.

26:14Ben Meiselas:All right. I think we've got the boo working. Let's play the boo. Let's play it.

26:26Do someone at least swear.

26:31Brett Meiselas:And I will support any bang.

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30:25Ben Meiselas:it to brett i just want to set it up and frame give brett the right framework here which is brett whenever donald trump's approval is plummeting when the walls close in when he is spiraling out of control and we see his lowest approval, he goes to his scam bag, right? And whether it's Doge dividend checks,$5 ,000 that he said everybody was going to get, of course, that didn't happen. Tariff rebate checks, that didn't happen. And now he's claiming some, I guess, combination of the tariff dividend check. I'm not really sure, but it's$2 ,000 is one of the gimmicks that will replace healthcare. I guess that's what he's claiming.

31:05Ben Meiselas:the plan is. It went from negative 1 ,600 % drug prices to now he's going to give everybody$2 ,000. And then the 50-year mortgage, which they tried to roll out as though people were going to be like, oh, thank you. You know what I was really looking for? 50 years of indentured servitude. 50 years, thank you. And I just think people are catching on to it. But Brett, I think I just wanted to contextualize it. Here's he's pushing that now. Why? Here's why. It's interesting because if you've followed MAGA and Trump, like I have over the past few years, one of the big things that MAGA would always say, a phrase that they latched onto from the World Economic Forum is you will own nothing and be happy.

31:51And they like bash the WF for that. And they like made that a big, you know, thing like we want ownership, which I totally understand, by the way. But what Donald Trump is pitching here is quite literally that world economic forum concept of you will own nothing and you will be happy. Essentially, this would turn anybody on these 50 year mortgages into renters. And they say it would make things affordability, more affordable for first time homebuyers. I mean, it is really like wooden. It would also drive up the prices of homes. Like Ben said, you'd be like an indentured servant. You basically be renting your whole life.

32:20You'd have generational debt at that point. The average homeowner, I think right now, is like age 40. It's the highest it's ever been. So just think about taking this loan that doesn't mature till you're like 90 years old for a lot of people. And the whole thing just really doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I know Pulte, who's like, he started like on Twitter. He would do these giveaways. I'll give you a hundred bucks if you retweet this. Like he was like this guy, like this figure on Twitter. That's always a big red flag for me, by the way. Then he got pulled into the Trump administration. He's been Donald Trump's like henchman in going after any of his political enemies.

32:51He's the guy who kind of concocted the charges against Letitia James and all these people who goes, you committed mortgage fraud. You committed mortgage fraud. Like that's his role right now in the Trump administration to be one of his sort of like mafia style goons. So so that's that scam. And then with the insurance thing, you know, I think what Donald Trump is doing is shocker, incredibly predatory because he's a predator. But I think this whole notion where he's instructed all the Republicans clearly because they're all using this language and they're all in the pockets of the big insurance.

33:21companies. Let's not get it twisted, but he tries to position it because he's this fake populist. And he goes, listen, those big, bad insurance companies, if we pass this, those big, bad insurance companies are going to be the ones that are getting all of your money. You deserve the money. Instead, we should write a check to you of a couple thousand dollars rather than getting those healthcare subsidies. You know what to do with that money much better than the insurance company is. You know what that leads to? It's going to lead to like so many people dying and not getting insured. The issue is that insurance isn't affordable and the subsidies help make it affordable.

33:54It's actually like a key part of the Affordable Care Act are these subsidies. So you take away the subsidies, which really like will drop the price of these cases like$1 ,000 a month,$2 ,000 a month. I mean, without these subsidies, healthcare is going to rise over the course of a year. In some places, people are going to be paying$20 ,000 more,$30 ,000 more. So getting a check from the government for$1 ,000 or$2 ,000 that theoretically Donald Trump thinks you're going to spend to buy a health care plan that you can't afford, that's just not something that's going to happen whatsoever. It's this faux populism that is going to actually destroy people's lives, leave people at incredible risk, and totally, totally, totally screw them over, especially if people are suffering right now.

34:36They need money. They need to be able to – they're probably going to take – this money is never coming. But let's say they got that money. a person who thinks that they're healthy are going to they're going to spend it on the bills they're going to spend it on the things that they need their immediate needs then come a health catastrophe they're going to be screwed and it's going to be all donald trump's fault honestly this is like one of the big reasons why i'm upset about this whole you know cave of the democrats because i don't i don't care about like using these things as a political cudgel but i actually want to make sure that people are protected i want to make sure that people actually get the care that they deserve that people are taken care of.

35:10And I'm just not seeing that at this point. Hey, I could be proven wrong where things could change in the next month or two. And I'd be happy for that to be the case. But right now we see what the Republican party is doing and what they are saying. And they're saying that they do not want to fund any of these subsidies whatsoever. And they are not committing to the vote. So as I said earlier, I, I, and for fairness sake, let me break down what I think are like the good things of doing this deal. And as I said from the beginning, I am very much opposed to them doing this deal as it is. But they got the guaranteed Senate vote on ACA subsidies in December.

35:44I'll get back to that soon. Congress is going to be back in session. That means Adelita Grijalva will be sworn in, which should lead to the final vote on the Epstein discharge petition. We will see what happens there. Federal employees that were fired October 1 and on, all those reduction forces, they will be reinstated. And those additional firings will be blocked until January 30th, 2026. Okay. Federal workers who've been out of work and missing paychecks get paid and get back to work. There's the delays at the airports will be over national parks open, all that sort of stuff. They secured the funding for a snap and for the VA, uh, for at least the next year.

36:17So it won't be up for debate, uh, come the next CR votes. And you know what it effectively did regardless of the outcome. And I, and I'll happily say this, it focused the issue that everybody's talking about right now on the issue of healthcare, which is a really important thing. And it really put the Republicans on the defense here. And you could argue that it galvanized voters for Tuesday's elections and Trump's approval is at all time lows. I mean, we could go on and on with this stuff, but I think that's almost why it's almost more like devious that they caved because they got all these people excited.

36:45They got everyone to come out and vote. And then they kind of pulled the rug out from under people because I'll tell you now what I think are some of the bad parts about this. And that's some of the things I've said already, but I'll repeat them. The Democrats made the entire fight. The entire purpose of all this was the ACA subsidies and all they got for it was some sort of guaranteed vote in the Senate, something that the house of representatives has not agreed to. It would still take 60 votes in the Senate. Maga Mike, you think he's going to take it up as of right now? It doesn't seem that way.

37:13It seems like he's waiting for Donald Trump to tell him what to do. This to me is the single most damaging part of the cave. Also the fact like this could have been the same deal that they took like weeks ago, you know, like it's really ultimately like no different than what we could have done weeks ago. So it's almost like, what was the point, you know, other than, you know, I guess galvanizing people, you know, helping people politically, you know, that political nature. But, but what was the point in terms of the end result? That's the part that's pissing me off right now. Dems had everybody on their side fighting.

37:42They had the momentum on their side. I showed you the boot clip after multiple times of struggling to play the boot clip. You see what people think about Donald Trump. He's the most hated president right now of all time. And this is a time where Democrats took a very long time to get back to where they are right now I mean, they were really struggling after Trump's election. They were losing the messaging war They were losing all the political battles and finally they kind of got their mojo back with this one Republicans were cornered and at the moment that they had them cornered is when they basically waved the white flag and gave up Which is one of the craziest things in my mind And then you also just told trump and republicans that if they wait out any battle long enough in the future that you will cave You know, you're dealing with sociopathic people right here.

38:25And now they know that ultimately, if they wait long enough, that you're going to back down. And like the most offensive part to me is what Ben touched on before. It's the Democratic messaging about their decision. And sometimes it's like if you're going to take a big swing like this, right, if you're going to bank on we think Maga Mike is going to bring this up in the House, we think we're going to get 60 votes in the Senate. Just you wait and see. There's a plan. There's a strategy. then you better be able to come out and really articulate that strategy in a convincing and persuasive way and not basically place the blame on the American people for not understanding your brilliance or making up these BS excuses like that Donald Trump was winning this entire battle when every single piece of data out there shows that that is not true.

39:12And that to me is one of of the single most infuriating things possible. Like I'll play you this clip of Angus King, for example. Angus King was like, yeah, well, you know, we could ultimately, we couldn't beat Trump. Like, watch this and tell me if you're as infuriated as I am about this.

39:30Brett Meiselas:Well, Joe, you have to go back to what the strategy was at the beginning of the shutdown. There were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump. The other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue. The problem was the shutdown wasn't accomplishing either goals and there was practically well, there was zero likelihood that it was going to. In terms of standing up to Donald Trump, the shutdown actually gave him more power. Exhibit A being what he's done with with SNAP and SNAP benefits across the country. Oh, by the way, Joe, you're going to love this.

40:03Brett Meiselas:Guess who's getting paid during the shutdown? not not not the park rangers or air traffic controllers this the ice agents under special law under that big awful bill that they passed last summer the ice agents are being paid nobody else is so standing up to donald trump didn't work it actually gave him more power it just sounds like cope to me like it sounds like you're you're bullshitting me like you know don't don't bullshit me okay like be honest let's let's be honest here okay it's it's infuriating that's the first time i've actually seen that clip that that is of course he went on morning joe for that infuriating and that's the whole thing brett to your point earlier it's like what the heck was the point of the last 40 days if you're going to cave in the ways that you did and also look i'm not going to get conspiratorial here but there are certain facts behind the members who had voted, some of whom are retiring, some of whom have their next re-election bid in 2028, some of whom have their next re-election bid in 2030.

41:09Brett Meiselas:So don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining. If you wanted a cave, just say, hey, I want a cave. I'm ready to give up. I don't want to fight anymore. You could do that. I still wouldn't like it, but at least you're being honest to me at that point. Because once you're seeing there, it's like, how do you help that? Not that I'm here to help that, but I'm here to want to help the American people. And when that's their elected officials right there, someone who doesn't want to fight, someone who doesn't even realize that they're winning the fight. It blows my mind. It blows my mind. Tell me the plan.

41:43That's right. Tell me the plan in a convincing way. Or don't go on TV and give me this, well, there's no winning against Donald. Don't give me that crap, okay? Go on and tell me your brilliant plan. Tell me how you intend to get Mike Johnson to bring this to the floor. Tell me how you intend to get the 60 votes. Assure me that that should be your job. Assure me. But if you're making up all this other stuff, then I'm going to be skeptical of you until I actually see the results happen. Let me show you this MAGA Mike Johnson clip. Meanwhile, let's see what MAGA Mike Johnson's saying on Greta Van Susteren's show.

42:15So you could see kind of the other side of it, what Mike Johnson thinks about extending these Affordable Care Act subsidies.

42:20Brett Meiselas:Well, is the Republican idea or solution going to go into effect at midnight on December 31st because people are going to get sticker shock on this insurance. I mean, this is really sort of an urgent matter for a lot of people. Yeah, it's an urgent matter for us, and it has been, which is why we put it into the bill that we passed in the early summer, and the Democrats fought to take it out. So we're reintroducing some of these ideas. There's a lot of ideas on how to drive the cost down, and we have November and December to work on that. We're going to have to get a bipartisan and consensus on some of this.

42:51Brett Meiselas:And so we'll be presenting our ideas and putting them on the table. The Democrats, this is very important to point out, they don't have any reform ideas at all. Their argument is they want a completely unreformed continuation. They would do it permanently, most of them, on government just subsidizing the insurance companies. And that is not the solution. And we're gonna be educating the population and along the way as we do this and come up with reforms that will actually solve the problem and not make it worse.

43:17Ben Meiselas:What Magamike basically says is, well, we have from Greta Van Susteren asks him, so, you know, what are you going to do when people get sticker shock and they see their premiums increasing? It's not a unique Democrat issue. Like people from all different political parties, human beings who live in the United States are going to get this and see their premiums rise. And he goes, well, we have all of November and we have all of December to figure this out. And so at least if you were Angus King, like, wouldn't you go on and basically say, I'm not trying to help him because I definitely don't support what he did.

43:52Ben Meiselas:But wouldn't you say, you're going to see Mag and Mike start to flail. And now they're going to have to come up with their plan. And every day we're going to be out there saying, what the hell is your plan? Because the people now understand the issue and they're not going to have a plan. So each day on the Senate, you're going to see me there. And I'm going to say, show us the plan, Mag and Mike, show us the plan. I'd at least be like, okay, like, all right, maybe. I don't know. I don't think so. I think I still hate this. But like, for you to say, did you know, Joe, that ICE agents? Yeah, we know.

44:27Ben Meiselas:We know. We see them on the street. They're freaking gassing people in Chicago. We're well aware that ICE is being funded. We know that. We know that people are starving. You know why? Because they're people. And we see the food bank lines are longer than ever. We understand these issues by existing. And these senators are so far removed from the feeling on the ground that they're just like, well, I just think that what we needed to do here because of the pressure we were under is the pressure was in the opposite direction, you morons. The pressure was increased the pressure against Donald Trump.

45:02Ben Meiselas:Like there's a reason why California Governor Gavin Newsom is meeting the moment right now. It's because he's aggressively going after Donald Trump and fighting for the people with his moral and formal authority. There's a reason why in places like Salt Lake City and West Virginia and purple states and red states, you name it, Bernie Sanders, AOC are filling up huge stadiums with people who are pissed off. There's a reason why Zoran Mamdani's campaign was so successful. Yes, he understood the social media age. Yes, he was, I think, a good candidate, energetic, good debater, all those qualities.

45:42Ben Meiselas:But his message, affordability, affordability, affordability, and we're getting screwed by these right-wing oligarchs. That was a message that we know what's going on, and it was such a freaking miss. And all the while, Brett, I guess if there's once, you know, why wouldn't Angus say this? Look, now we get to focus on the Epstein files because now there's two things that we're going to talk about the rest of the year. Healthcare and Epstein and people were forgetting about the Epstein files. Again, I would still not support what they did, but at least I'm making a cogent argument there, right?

46:17Ben Meiselas:We need to focus on Trump's cover up of the PPP, the Pedo Protection Program by the GOP. And every day we're going to be bringing up Donald Trump's connections with Epstein until the files are released. That's where our attention needs to go. And we can't watch Americans suffer losing their snap. I don't know, say something like that, right? Versus, well, I think we were losing the debate. You are losing the debate. You are actually winning the debate massively. Well, what are you doing? So I do want to talk about Epstein now because a lot of new developments have come out since last week. New York Times, Wall Street Journal's public records request on one of the court dockets involving JPMorgan Chase showed 4 ,600 suspicious activity reports, SARs, totaling$1 billion of likely money laundering that Epstein was involved in, which, by the way, was being investigated by Alex Acosta, then the United States Attorney of the Southern District of Florida, who later became Donald Trump's Labor Secretary, who took a deposition recently by the House Oversight Committee and said, I don't know anything about financial crimes.

47:24Ben Meiselas:Dude, it was a$1 billion money laundering investigation in parallel to the child sex trafficking investigation, and you gave him the sweetheart deal. So you have that big revelation. You have additional information coming out now that Ghislaine Maxwell is getting the greatest treatment of all time by the Bureau of Prisons in the minimum security facility after she was removed from the Tallahassee maximum security facility, put into a minimum security facility where she was banned because child sex traffickers, convicted child sex traffickers are not allowed to be in this minimum security facility.

48:02Ben Meiselas:And now Ghislaine Maxwell is working apparently with the help of the warden. The warden is trying to suck up to Trump apparently. So it was like helping give Ghislaine like cell phones and information and printing out stuff and redlining and underlining things like actually helping her get a commutation for Donald Trump to prepare the paperwork. You've got Ghislaine getting access to service puppies and meals and they shut down the prison so she can meet with private VIP guests that nobody knows who they are. And if any prisoner dare speaks out, and this has happened before about the unequal treatment and the favoritism for Ghislaine, they send the minimum security prisoners who actually belong there to maximum security facilities in Houston.

48:49Ben Meiselas:and that's happened. And the wardens held meetings with the prisoners. If you go to the press, she said, according to these whistleblowers, if you go to the press, we're sending you to maximum security facilities to help Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker. And meanwhile, the MAGA Republicans in the House are blocking the Democrats subpoena of the formerly person known as Prince Andrew. Now it just goes by Andrew because they removed all of his titles because of his connections with Epstein. And additional hacked emails came out. We did a report on this showing that Epstein worked with Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel and defense minister of Israel, to work on all of these Israeli defense contracts with like the Alison, what's an Alison Otara, the leader of Cotevoix in Africa, Ivory Coast, Mongolia's leaders, and they would pitch their services.

49:46Ben Meiselas:So Epstein would use the sex trafficking ring to then serve as a middleman, apparently based on these emails that have been released, not conspiratorial, like actual emails where you see him talking about building the cash flow with Ehud Barak and doing these deals in war-torn areas. And they mentioned a lot of countries by name and deals that they're working on. So they would use the sex trafficking, or he would use the sex trafficking ring to then be a middleman in these deals with foreign countries to bring Israelis, Mossad surveillance technology into these other countries to help the authoritarians keep power in these foreign countries.

50:25Ben Meiselas:And it's like, you know, that's not a rabbit hole that I love going down, but it's a true one. That's why I go down it and I go, holy crap. And I showed you all those emails. So that's what's going on in the Ghislaine front. One of the things that Andrew likely knows is a lot of the other rich, powerful men who were with him with the underage girls like Virginia Giuffre and others. By the way, Virginia Giuffre, according to Donald Trump's own words, was found and taken from him from the Mar-a-Lago spa when she was an underage 17-year-old girl. Also, we had Alison Gill do a report here. She's been doing great Sunday reports on the Mind is Dutch Network, right?

51:01Ben Meiselas:from Bowler, she wrote, talking about how FBI agents who have seen these files say they're far worse than the worst nightmare of what people expected to be in them. So that was the coverage there. Let me just say, though, let me just say, you did this whole deep dive, which is very well researched and well-informed. And I know that our audience appreciates it and that we've stayed on this story very closely for many years now, but you don't have to do a deep dive to think, isn't it weird that Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker, was moved to a cushy club fed prison out of her previous prison into this low security prison in Texas?

51:43Isn't that weird? Isn't it weird that - After speaking with Trump's lawyer. After speaking with Trump's lawyer, after given immunity by Trump's lawyer, Isn't that a little weird? Isn't it also weird that she's getting all of the special treatment in the prison? Isn't it weird that she has that they gave her a puppy? I think that's kind of weird that they gave her a puppy, that she does Pilates classes and yoga classes and that she has these secret private meetings with these VIPs, all the things that Ben went through before. Like that on its own before you get to all the deeper, dark stuff like that on its own is freaking weird.

52:13And I could go on. Isn't it weird that House Democrats asked Prince, formerly Prince Andrew, he no longer has the Prince title, to testify before the House of Representatives, before the committees, and Republicans said absolutely not? Isn't that a little weird? Like, like at what point if you're a Republican or a Trump voter or you name it, who pretended to care about this issue and made it your big thing over the past few years, and you see all these attempts to block any sort of progress on finding out more about this, you see the cover up in plain sight happening before your eyes. At what point do you go, huh?

52:50It's a little freaking strange. That's all I want to say. Like, you don't need to peel back a billion layers to look at this story and realize exactly what is going on right here between Donald Trump and his former great friend of many decades, Ghislaine Maxwell.

53:07Ben Meiselas:I want to take our last quick break of the show. A reminder, become a member of our YouTube channel. We'd love for you to be a member. It helps grow this independent media platform. You can also gift memberships to those who can't afford memberships, and you can give them access to the emojis, the special edition podcast that I do with Ron Filipkowski every Wednesday. So if you can join gift memberships to people, that would always be incredibly helpful. Let's take our last quick break of the show. We will be right back.

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56:23For a limited time, try OneSkin for 15 % off using code MIDAS at oneskin.co slash MIDAS. That's oneskin.co slash M-E-I-D-A-S. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

56:40Ben Meiselas:Now, I think this is really important for me to bring this up. The Medicare annual enrollment period is here. This is the time to compare your options. If you don't, your costs could go up, your coverage could change, or your plan could disappear entirely. So listen up. That's why I recommend you reach out to our partners chapter. They're the only advisors who look at every single plan in the country and provide honest advice to Americans on Medicare. It's why we work with them at the Midas Touch Network. In under 20 minutes, they can see if you're already on the best plan for your needs. If you are, they'll tell you.

57:17Ben Meiselas:If not, they'll help you switch for free. They've already helped many members of the Midas Touch community, and they can help you too. Don't get duped by brokers who are pushing the plans that pay them the biggest kickbacks. And don't wait until December to figure out your plan for next year. Call Chapter today at 82 Medicare. That's 82 Medicare and get honest advice today. Give them a call and let me know how it goes in the comments below. I know the Midas Mighty have been very happy with the results.

57:53Brett Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors. Links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Do you guys like the script that I've kind of come up with myself post break? Here's one more thing. It was a rhetorical question. I didn't want Ben to actually answer that. I know what Ben would say. New Midas merch. New Midas merch. We got some special. I just got mine too. Store.midastouch.com. I didn't tell the brothers, but 15 % off. We're doing a winter sale. So Thanksgiving's Black Friday. Forget that. We're doing a winter sale going until I say it's over.

58:24Brett Meiselas:So go to store.midastouch.com. Use code Midas at checkout. out and you'll get 15 % off your entire order. It's a pretty sweet deal that I didn't consult. Jordy, I got to say this though, you pointed at your shirt, but we got audio listeners. They want to know what the shirt is. Explain the shirt, explain the new, it's a hoodie. Play the clip hoodie. So everyone knows Ben's famous phrase, the famous phrase that we use of the Midas Touch Network, play the clip, right? We bring the receipts, play the clip. And so we decided to immortalize that with some merchandise here at the Midas Touch Network.

58:54Brett Meiselas:So store.midastouch.com, use code Midas, get 15 % off. Benji, where to next?

59:01Ben Meiselas:In a moment, I'm going to tell Brett to play the clip regarding California Governor Gavin Newsom's trip to Sao Paulo in Brazil, basically representing not just California, but the future of the United States and what the United States once was on the international stage. It's why I called Governor Newsom essentially the shadow president at this point. You know how in other governments they have like a shadow cabinet in the opposition party, which we should do here in the United States. I am hereby saying that Governor Newsom is the de facto shadow president right now. And he's out there representing California, which would be the fourth largest economy by GDP in the world if California was a country.

59:42Ben Meiselas:And he's there, you know, talking about here's why we know that climate change is real. Here are the steps we're taking in California. here's why it's good for people's health here's why it's good for the economy and he goes on to defend American values and principles he speaks out against the current regime and so I just think about you have that taking place and then back at home you have Donald Trump holding a disastrous presser I did a video on this earlier you should all go and watch it was like weird like Erica Kirk Charlie Kirk's widow she just like shows up all the time now in the Oval Office and then randomly, I don't need to play the clip.

1:00:21Ben Meiselas:It's too grotesque. And our audio listeners, you'll just hear like a kiss sound and it'll gross your ears out. So I'll just tell you what it is. Yeah. I'm going there because Trump did. He's like, where's Erica? Where's Erica? Erica, come here. Then he just like kisses her like in the Oval Office, like for no reason. It was like very strict. Why are you kissing her? Like in a press conference, like she's in the room. So So first off, I'm not like a kisser when I greet a general anymore or whoever. Like, I don't know. It's the idea of like, I don't know, kissing someone when you say hello to them.

1:00:52Ben Meiselas:I don't know. I just don't do that. But setting that aside, like maybe like you see somebody and then they leave, right? And those are the times where maybe you do like a kiss on the cheek. But like, I'm just trying to think of like a meeting that would take place where in the middle of it, where you know the person's there and also you're on TV. Like you call the person and say, come here, come here. And then you kiss them on camera. Like it's a very strange thing that I think like deserves more attention for how strange it actually is. But you can go watch my other video that I did on that. It's my analysis there.

1:01:28Ben Meiselas:And I guess on a more serious note, I don't know, but more serious note, Donald Trump posted this morning an attack on all air traffic controllers. Just think about this behavior. Like, like this is how like Donald Trump treated his workers in Atlantic City and they hated him and he like ripped off his contractors and didn't pay him. And like he's ruined so many lives. But just think about this. Like air traffic controllers, very specialized. Right. Very requires a lot of brainpower, a lot of focus, highly skilled, not that many of them. And this is what Donald Trump decides to post today while they've had to take significant sacrifices as a result of the Trump government shutdown.

1:02:11Ben Meiselas:All air traffic controllers must get back to work now! Just pause there for a second. Like, could you imagine just treating somebody you know like that at all? Again, take away Democrat, Republican, Independent. Like, other than like someone who's like a gigantic dick, like as a person. You know, and I was thinking about not using that word because we know what Stormy Daniels said about Donald and it's the exact opposite. So I don't even want to phrase gigantic dick and Donald Trump in a sentence. But being an asshole, I don't know, whatever. Just being a total jerk. We'll go jerk. Jag off, Ben.

1:02:46Ben Meiselas:Come on. Jerks. A little jag off. He's being a jag off. But like just the behavior of get back to work now, air traffic controllers. Like who behaves like that? Like I'm just trying to think about like raising your children. Like would you want your children to treat other human beings like that? Like it's a character of a bad person manifested in real life. Now, anyone who doesn't will be substantially docked for those air traffic controllers who were great patriots and didn't take any time off for the Democrat shutdown hoax, I will be recommending a bonus of$10 ,000 per person for distinguished service to our country.

1:03:23Ben Meiselas:Like we all know the number's like a fake, right? Like it's not going to ever happen. Just another fraud number by Donald Trump. For those that did nothing but complain and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid in full shortly into the future, I'm not happy with you. You didn't step up to help the USA against fake Democrat attack that was only meant to hurt our country, you will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so with no payment or severance of any kind. You will be quickly replaced by true patriots who will do a better job on the brand new state-of-the-art equipment, the best in the world that we are in the process of ordering.

1:04:09Ben Meiselas:The last administration wasted billions of dollars trying to fix antiquated junk. I'll just tell you this. Under the former administration, I didn't see planes crashing all the time. I didn't see these delays happening all the time. I didn't worry when I got on a plane like I did last time, what was going to happen to me. That's a uniquely kind of Trumpian thing. But let me just show you two. Do I want to want to play it, but I'm not going to play the Trump Oval Office stuff from today. He's just obnoxious and he's a horrible human. And it just will annoy me. It's just Donald Trump saying things like, I'll just tell you what he says, because I really don't want to play it.

1:04:46Ben Meiselas:He goes, everything's cheaper. Gas prices are under$2. Everything's incredibly cheap. We've stopped inflation. He talks about the healthcare system where we're no longer going to have insurance companies. And instead, we're going to give everybody$3 ,000 or$2 ,000. And that's going going to be used instead. You do realize, though, that insurance needs to be insured. My view is that the government should play a substantial role in it because it's a human right like in every other country, and there should be universal health care insured by the government. That's my view. How do you pay for it, Ben?

1:05:22Ben Meiselas:You tax the rich more money. You start off by taxing them a fair amount. You tax them more money. You bring in more revenue, actual revenue. That's my view of it. I'm unapologetic about that. But the next idea of a plan is the Affordable Care Act. You create these pools that can deal with high-risk people. You basically require that people join this insurance to ensure that you have all these people who can spread out the risk. And then you try to subsidize it to bring down the price. It's still insurance-dominated, and oftentimes insurance comes from people's work. And so it creates these issues where it's expensive, but you try to subsidize it to bring down the costs.

1:06:02Ben Meiselas:Or you go back to a pre-Obamacare Affordable Care Act where 20, 30 million Americans don't have insurance and they die. So what's your plan? And saying you're going to give people$2 ,000 and destroy insurance companies, that's not a plan. It's not a real thing. It doesn't address the issues and it will cause people to go into medical bankruptcy. So he says that. Then he talks about, maybe we do play this clip, Brett, because I just want to hear people say it. For all of Donald Trump's talk about, we hate the globalists. We hate the globalists. Donald Trump goes, when somebody's like, why is Donald Trump focused on like Argentina and China and all these other places in the world and not on helping Americans?

1:06:43Ben Meiselas:Trump's like, well, that's what I, the world is the United States. Let's just play this just so I can show you the one receipt. And I'll go to Newsom. Let's play. You can believe these deals.

1:06:51Brett Meiselas:But so when somebody makes a statement about he's devoting time to the world, well, the world is the United States because of the world's in trouble or the world is ripping us off. You know, the world was ripping us off before I came here. Europe was getting massive tariffs. They were sending us nine, 10 million cars a year. We were sending them none. They were not taking our agriculture. We were taking massive amounts of there. It was so unfair. Now we have a deal where nine hundred and fifty billion dollars is coming into the United States because of me and because of tariffs. So if I don't do all these things, our country is doing very poorly.

1:07:28Brett Meiselas:So, you know, it's easy to say, oh, don't worry about the world. But the world is turning out to be our biggest customer. The world is the world was on fire and we could have been in that fire very easily if you didn't have a president that knew what he was doing.

1:07:42Ben Meiselas:How is he even talking about? What do you mean? The world didn't take American agriculture and American cars until you? I mean, you just want to look at China. We were exporting 27 million metric tons of soybeans to China. And now it's 12 and a half metric tons. If you want to look at anywhere else in the world, you'll find that Canada was taking a lot of our stuff. Now they're taking almost none of our stuff. Same thing in Europe. They're not giving us$950 billion. These are all fake numbers, fake deals. None of it's actually happening. Show it. Show it to us. Show us in the treasury where the money came in, right?

1:08:19Ben Meiselas:Should it be easily, is there a check? Show me the money. Show me the project. Show me where it happened. Show me the data. We're just going to repeat the same lie over and over again and not show me anything. But I just wanted to share that with you because they're like, oh, globalist, globalist, globalist. it's like a warped, it's like the worst version of globalism too. It's like a stupid global. Like I can't even describe what it is, right? It's like a made up version where he goes out there, undermines America status in the world, and then like begs other countries and then doesn't realize that he's begging and in a position of weakness and everybody is to actually taking advantage of us or laughing at us as he goes out there.

1:08:59Ben Meiselas:And like, that's like, he's discovered the idea of trade for the first time, but does it in a way that undercuts significantly the United States. But meanwhile, Donald Trump isn't sending anybody to the zero people, to the San Paolo United Nations Climate Conference, the 30th anniversary. Nobody, because our regime doesn't believe in climate change. They don't believe in wind energy. They don't believe in solar energy. All of the great investments that Biden was making in the country that would have helped American industry, Trump's destroying, and China's taking full advantage of that. It's good business.

1:09:33Ben Meiselas:It's a really good business. And it's good for the environment. It's a double win. Great business, great for the economy, new jobs being created, manufacturing, construction. We were in a manufacturing boom because of it. We got rid of those jobs. And it's actually good for the environment also. But Trump's like, screw that. Why would I do anything like that? So let me show you what Governor Newsom said. Here's Governor Newsom in Sao Paulo. He's at the Milken Institute right there. And he says, look, California is here for the long haul. Let's play this first clip. My country may be unrecognizable to you in a year or two.

1:10:07Ben Meiselas:There's a revolution going on in the United States of America. It's not about co-equal branches of government. It's not about popular sovereignty. It's not about the rule of law. It's increasingly about the rule of dawn.

1:10:20Brett Meiselas:And I hope it's dawning on many of you how real that is.

1:10:25Ben Meiselas:But I also hope in the spirit that began this conversation that I'm leaving you with a sense that we march to the beat of a different drummer in California. Stable, reliable partner. We're here for the long haul. We're 1 ,600 miles away from Washington, D.C., 1 ,000 miles in terms of mindset. So think about California in those terms. Think about us as a partner and think about us as it relates to decisions you make in the future. You matter. We care. And there were lots of more clips like that and comments that he made, but I did a whole video on that. So Brett, let me pass it to you to kind of just give us a summary of where we're at right now?

1:11:13I think people know where we're at, but I want to make it clear. We're going to keep fighting no matter what happens here. I mean, that's what we're here to do. I like to think that we are representatives of this community and that you are representatives of us, that we're all fighting to actually make people's lives better, and that this movement that we have built, this pro-democracy movement, as Jordi so eloquently described earlier, is not about any sort of single political party. it's about doing what's right for the people. So if I see the Democrats and I think they're screwing up and, and by the way, it's okay.

1:11:44If you disagree with us in any way here, that's fine. We could have disagreement here. I think they made a poor decision, but if I think they make a poor decision, I'm going to come out and I'm going to tell you how I feel. Okay. I'm not going to just try to shill for a party. I'm not going to try to just try to sugarcoat things and say that everything is, I'm not, that's if you want that, that's not going to be me. Okay. I'm going to tell you how I actually think things are. And I think they screwed up big time here. Um, but what But I can promise you, I can't promise you anything that the Democrats are going to do or any politician is going to do.

1:12:12I never put my faith in politicians. But what I can promise you is that we're going to continue to fight for you here at the Midas Touch Network. And so we march on, you know, and I want to thank everybody else for your support out there for supporting this network. It really means so much. You know, I've been meeting so many people now when I go out who tell me, you know, that they love the network and they love seeing me on Instagram and the YouTube videos and all the various things. And I always try to figure out like, where did you, where did you find out about Midas Touch? You know, it's always like the thing I'm most curious about because we don't do any marketing here.

1:12:45And it's always, you know, my mom told me about you guys. My friend told me about you guys. My son told me about you guys. Like it's all word of mouth and it all comes from relationships like that. And I think that's what makes the bond of this community so special and so strong. It's that it really is an organically grown movement. That's word of mouth. So please keep spreading the word. check us out on Substack MidasPlus.com for daily news recaps and more. If you love this, if you're watching live right now on YouTube, please make sure you go and check us out on Apple Podcasts and all the various audio podcast apps, add the show, leave a five-star review, all that sort of thing.

1:13:18It all really helps. They're going to be good times. They're going to be bad times. They're going to be things that make you want to scream. They're going to be things that make you want to laugh. They're going to be things that make you want to celebrate. We're going to be here for it all. Okay. And so I just want to thank you once again, and then I'll toss it off to Jordy.

1:13:34Brett Meiselas:Y 'all the best. Ben, anything else you want to add before I send us off? That's all I got, Jay. Y 'all the greatest. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. The Midas Mighty is standing strong

1:13:49Brett Meiselas:Against the fascists we sing our song We will get it right whenever Want to stay plugged in? become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal. Invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to.

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