MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 12/19/25

18:46Brett Meiselas:Exactly. And it's what folks keep saying about this Trump regime. If their lips are moving, they are lying. And you see Kevin Hassett up there. And I said this previously, whenever we show him, I mean, he's just got this shit eating grin on his face and he absolutely, he loves it. He loves going on TV and lying to the American people. And he is beside himself when he's looking at the networks who refuse to air the propaganda slides that the Trump regime had given out. And he's like, huh, I found that to be an interesting thing with his shit eating grin. And it's infuriating when you look at him up there, because at the end of it, again, I don't want to be gaslit.

19:20Brett Meiselas:I just want the truth. And Kevin Hassett is a total puppet, man. It's awful.

19:25Ben Meiselas:Then you had Andrew Ross Sorkin question Jamison Greer, who's Trump's top trade representative, just so you know all the officials, just so you don't get confused at home, right? You have Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, Treasury Secretary, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Economic Advisor, who you just saw over there, Kevin Hassett, and then Trade Representative Jameson Greer. That's like the core economic team, if you will, and they're all losers. So here's Jameson Greer. And trade is really supposed to be the one that deals with the tariffs. And normally it would be kind of free trade is what it would focus on.

20:06Ben Meiselas:So Jameson Greer is asked by Andrew Ross Sorkin. By the way, I did an interview with Ross Sorkin. Check out the interview that I did with him, which is on our feed. We went into a lot of areas that I think

20:15Jordy Meiselas:Great, great, great interview. I got to say, this was a really good deep dive into the economy, into Donald Trump's claims about the economy. And I recommend that everybody either watch it on YouTube or listen to it. It's on the Midas Touch podcast, like the audio feed. Check it out. Apple Podcasts, anywhere you get your audio podcast. A great deep dive, Ben. Incredible stuff. Hold on. I'm going to hype it up one more time.

20:37Brett Meiselas:I think it was the best interview and we squeaked it in right before the New Year. Might be my personal favorite interview of the year. Oh, shit. Yep. It's getting the Geordie stamp of that.

20:45Ben Meiselas:This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, though. These are the issues that I was speaking to him about, actually. And I was I was glad to see that he asked these questions of Jameson Greer. Let's play it.

20:54Brett Meiselas:I think I wanted to ask you about was the president spoke, obviously, to the American public last night and talked about the 18 trillion dollars, I think was the number he used of investment pledges made into the U.S. as part of some of these tariff transactions or tariff deals with various countries. And I think the American public wants to understand the math behind that because 18 trillion dollars is an extraordinary amount of money you look at some of the countries that have made these pledges it's you know close to their entire gdp over what period of time should we anticipate uh these deals actually coming to fruition and i should also just mention that bloomberg had done a an analysis of this and suggested that in fact there were closer to only really seven trillion dollars which by the way is still an extraordinary number, but in terms of measurable deals that we should be thinking about?

21:47Brett Meiselas:Well, remember, the deals, they really have a couple parts to them. One is the investment headline numbers that you're talking about, which are really important. It's helping to re-industrialize America, and I'll talk a little bit about that. And the other part are what I'd call the pure trade issues, where they're opening our markets to us. They're taking their tariffs down. They're removing their non-tariff barriers. And on that part, a lot of that is already in progress or going through legislatures in foreign countries. On the investment piece, this past week we saw a new zinc smelter be announced by a Korean company.

22:18Brett Meiselas:We have the Koreans talking about more shipbuilding in the terms of hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars. We have the Japanese companies like Hitachi and others building. So we see a lot of progress on that front. And we're going to be looking at it over the life of President Trump's term on the investment figure. Okay.

22:35Ben Meiselas:Just to be clear, he just lied. Do you hear what he just said? Just break it down what he just said. He goes, when we talk about 18 trillion, write this down or just remember it. That's the investment headline number. The hell does that even mean? that, yeah, the issue that you're being asked is that you're making up fake headlines. You go, it's the investment headline number. So that's what we look at, the investment headline. Okay, so you made up the number. That's basically what you're saying. And then the other thing we look at is the pure trade issues. What does that even mean? Yeah, you're the trade represent.

23:09Ben Meiselas:You think there wasn't trading before? So are you just counting trading that takes place between countries as a gross number of investment into the United States? So what does that mean? Pure trade issues, investment headline number. And then he says there's a zinc smelter plant from a Korean company that we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps billions, but you need to measure it throughout the lifetime of the presidency. Okay. That's what he said, right? Like y 'all realize he just literally just, just vomited out a bunch of words that make literally no sense at all. Can I give some other facts also just to like level set these numbers that the Trump administration continues to say?

23:53When you're talking about global trade and I'm talking like all of global trade, every single aspect of global trade,$35 trillion for 2025.

24:03Jordy Meiselas:So Trump is claiming he's brought in$18 trillion,$20 trillion,$22 trillion of investment. The entire global trade, all of it is$35 trillion for 2025. And anytime he says the numbers about these various countries, it's oftentimes as much as the country's GDP, most of the country's GDP, more than the country's entire GDP. It just none of it makes sense. None of it adds up.

24:30Brett Meiselas:It's also why the Ponzi scheme that the Trump regime is running right now, lying about the trillions and trillions of dollars that they brought in, just absolutely makes no sense to me. because at that same token, they'll talk about, oh, we brought in this much money, you know, trillions of dollars here. The economy, it's an A++++++ economy. And then in the same breath, they'll go, Biden left me a disaster. This economy is horrible. But you should be feeling great about it because it's actually great. It's like the mixed messaging here makes absolutely no sense because they're lying. They are lying to you.

25:02Brett Meiselas:And that's why.

25:05Jordy Meiselas:It's Schrodinger's economy, right, Jordy? It's both the best economy, the golden age, A++++, but also it's horrible and it's all Joe Biden's fault.

25:14Ben Meiselas:Exactly. And meanwhile, Dr. Oz was holding a press conference today and here's what he was talking about. Let's play it. Vaginoplasty, a vaginoplasty, a procedure a child does not need, costs$60 ,000. shockingly a phalloplasty the creation of a penis costs on average in america according to this data high quality 150 000 now look we don't need to get into much more of what he was i mean he's trying to attack transgender people and he's trying to attack gender affirming care and and that's the main thing though that his focus is like just to be clear you know again while americans are having their healthcare ripped away from them as MAGA Mike Johnson refused to allow a vote on the Affordable Care Act subsidies to be extended to even take place despite there being a discharge petition.

26:06Ben Meiselas:They go to their toolkit, right? They go there.

26:10Jordy Meiselas:Don't forget the massive measles outbreak. Exactly.

26:13Ben Meiselas:Exactly. So we have a lot more to discuss when we come back from our first quick break of the show. I want to give a shout out to the Midas Plus sub stack. It's our, We're shouting at our own sub stack. Check it out. I think you'll like. Ron Filipkowski does a great job there with his daily summaries. Go check it out at MidasPlus.com. Become a member of our YouTube page if you can. It helps grow this independent media platform. Subscribe across all Midas Dutch platforms. YouTube viewers, go to audio. Check out the audio podcast. Audio podcast listeners, go check out the YouTube page. Let's keep trying to grow this thing as much as we can.

26:47Ben Meiselas:And we appreciate all your support. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show.

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30:11Brett Meiselas:Let's go. 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. And as we were at break, Ben and Brett, I was thinking of a fourth C word. about this trump regime and i'm gonna say it i'm gonna say they're childish looking at those clips that's what you're sweet child what was it childish because we need adults in the room if we actually if we actually as a country want to start solving the issues that are in front of us inflation this economy making everyone and our citizens actually feel better moving forward like we just need to be serious and we need to have serious people as leaders and the trump regime are not serious.

30:55Brett Meiselas:They are childish. Ben.

30:56Ben Meiselas:Well, you look at what they even said this morning, right? They said consumer price index. They said, wow, big drop in inflation all of a sudden out of nowhere, big drop in inflation, like kind of like a pretty drastic drop. And it's like, well, where is this coming from? Well, it's coming from housing and rent. Wait a minute. Housing and rent is all of a sudden going down like dramatically over the past, what, month and a half. And then And it's like, wait a minute, did you all use the number zero and just make a assumption that there was zero increase without actually gathering the data? And is that one of the core inputs that dragged down in a good way that brought them, although it's fabricated information, that brought down inflation?

31:42Ben Meiselas:And yeah, they did. And you can say, well, they did this because the algorithm just input zero. That was one of the excuses there. Just the algorithm did it. okay, what does it mean? The algorithm put zero? Why don't you just, they've had a lot of time to gather the right data. Like, why don't you put what it actually is before making a report that's false? And if the algorithm truly inputs zero improperly when it's not zero, then maybe you say, hey, it inputs zero. So you can't trust this data, this, because we're going to figure it out. Like people saw it and said, wait a minute, how'd this happen?

32:14Ben Meiselas:Wait, you put zero. And they're like, wait a minute, the cost of all these products and goods and consumer stuff, that went down dramatically as well. How'd that happen? Like all of a sudden, oh, wait a minute, you didn't collect any data other than basically the Black Friday sales across the board. So you're literally using the Black Friday discounts to claim that inflation is going down. And then when you see this, it's just like, you can't, there's nothing you trust with these people, right? It's like what I said before oh that's the headline investment number did we tell you about the zinc plant yeah and it's just jordy to your point like when children lie when children lie or give fake gifts to their parents and re-gift them for their birthdays you know who would do something like that that's like

32:59Jordy Meiselas:i was such a weird thing to do i don't know who who would do that and then admit it on a podcast to millions of people that'd just be a freaking just because it came out of like you know when

33:08Ben Meiselas:you're like a kid and it's your mom's birthday coming up and you give her her own necklace as a gift and people like i'm not sure about that one brett i'm not sure that's a shared experience

33:17Jordy Meiselas:i definitely i definitely did that to you guys too by the way you definitely got a

33:21Ben Meiselas:re-gifted gifts of it and maybe you know you were just winning you're like you're like a unique experience to you brett okay but but but the way they lie is the way like a child gets caught in a lie too and it's like okay did you just come up with like the stupidest life like You know something can't decrease by 600 percent. Oh, what he really means. It's like, OK, is this is the American economy, though? This isn't this isn't Brett regifting on Mother's Day when Brett's eight years old. This is the American. This is the American economy right here. So we've got that taking place. Then I want to talk about, though, what's going on in the House of Representatives, because the American people right now are very alarmed.

34:05Ben Meiselas:They're very worried that they're going to be losing their health care, especially if they were on Medicaid. The disastrous budget bill gutted a lot of people's Medicaid. Then lots of people get their health care from the Affordable Care Act exchanges and plans. It wasn't some Democratic talking point. Oh, your premiums are going to triple or quadruple if these subsidies are not extended. It's just it's called a fact. It's just the reality of it. OK, and sure enough, people are seeing that their Affordable Care Act plans that they bought on the exchanges last year, that the premiums have gone up to air to amounts that they can't afford.

34:41Ben Meiselas:You're seeing in all of these states, people are not buying the health insurance off the exchange because they can't afford it. And so something had to be done about it. And MAGA Mike and Republican leadership at Donald Trump's demand as well refused to. And one of the things is, too, because Donald Trump hates Obama. So anything Obama, affordable care, any Obama's achievements or Biden achievements, even if they're good for the country, Trump has to destroy. So that he thinks in that kind of simplistic terms. I think he likes to see people suffering. So MAGA Mike refuses to allow a vote to take.

35:18Ben Meiselas:Let's just let Congress vote on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. What MAGA Mike does allow for is a vote on just like a hodgepodge of like old plans that Republicans had come up with. And like a lot of them like involve not allowing Affordable Care Act plans to like give women reproductive rights. Right. In blue states also, not just the red states that like basically have abortion bans. So just to be clear, not only was Magamike refusing to allow a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, what he put on the floor and what Republicans did vote for was limiting Affordable Care Act plans ability to provide for like maternity and reproductive right care and other types of things that are vital.

36:07Ben Meiselas:But you had four Republicans join forces with Democrats on Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries' discharge petition that would have a three. And shout out to Hakeem Jeffries because he held his ground. And he said, no, you could join my discharge petition or nothing. Like this is what the American people need right now. It's not just like what Democrats want. It's like actually what the American people like actually need to live right now and to have the certainty. And Jeffries was like, look, we can negotiate. You want to talk about other plans, come up with something real. But in the meantime, extend the subsidy so people aren't losing their health care and dying.

36:44Ben Meiselas:So you had four Republicans join forces with the Democrats or sign the Democrats discharge petition to go around Magamike. Discharge petitions are ways to get around the speaker who controls what bills are able to be voted on because Magamike wasn't even allowing the extension to get a vote because he knew if it got a vote, it would be voted on because it's actually something that American people want. So what did Maga Mike do? After this discharge petition was signed, Maga Mike shuts down the House of Representatives. Remember when he did this during the government shutdown, where he could still have showed up and like actually done work, but they didn't want to swear in Adelie de Grijal because she would be the signature on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.

37:28Ben Meiselas:We'll talk more about that on the show. But remember when they did that? So he literally shut down Congress. That's like his playbook. Jordy, to your point, childish. He shut down. He shut it down.

37:40Jordy Meiselas:And he said, everybody think about the think about the two recent times that and the only times that really Mike Johnson has forced the rest of Congress to employ these discharge petitions, which are rarely used, rarely successful. But they've been used twice now in the past few weeks. And the first time was because Mike Johnson refused to put the bill for to release the Epstein files on the floor. And now we have this, a simple, clean extension of healthcare subsidies to save millions, millions of lives.

38:07Brett Meiselas:And I'll give you one build on that, Ben, about how childish that is. So you guys remember when your kids and the older brother's beating you in a video game or something and you turn it off really quickly because you don't want them to win. That's how MAGA Mike is looking at government right now. He's shutting down the government because he's scared he's going to lose because that's how they see this too. They see this as a game instead of just getting - example journey people that one's hyper specific to me i never let the brothers beat me in video games that system would get shut off real quick oh come on that was a ben that was such a ben move

38:39Jordy Meiselas:to come on i i'd be so close to beating ben and like madden football and he'd turn off the game

38:44Ben Meiselas:and i mean that's the classic classic maga mike move i was defending mom's honor and shutting it off classic maga mike style deflection i cannot allow someone who re-gifted necklaces on my Mother's Day to defeat me in a game. So that's why, that's why to the extent I ever did that, that's why I did it. So Magamike was then Geordie, to your point, childish. He ran around the halls of Congress saying, I didn't lose control. I don't lose control. I didn't lose. That's how you know you're in control. And that's what, that's where I would perhaps say, or Geordie would perhaps say, I didn't lose the game.

39:25Ben Meiselas:I didn't lose. I'm actually still the winner. While the winning brother would play, we are the champions and make the other brother cry. Here, play this clip. Hypothetical, we're talking about.

39:37Brett Meiselas:I have not lost control. Because this is the third time. We have the smallest majority in U.S. history. These are not normal times. There are processes and procedures in the house that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities. that when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you know, you don't have to deal with it.

40:04Ben Meiselas:Okay, sure.

40:05Jordy Meiselas:I got that.

40:06Ben Meiselas:They come in there.

40:06Jordy Meiselas:They're like, we have a mandate. We have a huge mandate. We're going to bulldoze through and do everything. Oh, I'm sorry. We actually have a very slim majority and we'd love to get this healthcare. We'd love to do all that. We just can't. We just can. And sometimes things like this happen. Okay. Okay, Magamike. This guy is such a disgrace.

40:24Ben Meiselas:Okay. Well, Magamike. Well, what about the fact that 22 to 24 million Americans are on these Affordable Care Act plans, perhaps even more, and they could be losing their health care now because of what you're doing? And you've never put forward a plan to actually reduce costs. And no, Donald Trump being out there and saying he's reducing the cost by 600 percent, that's actually not a solution. So what's your plan, Megan? Mike, here, play this clip.

40:50Brett Meiselas:But here's the false narrative. The Democrats are pretending as though this affects everybody in the country. It affects 7 % of Americans, this extended subsidy. And of those, even if it was extended, without any reforms at all, it would only reduce that small group of Americans' premiums by 5.7%. The Democrats have tried to pretend as though this is all about health.

41:12Jordy Meiselas:No, I understand that this is not for everybody, but it's 22 to 24 million Americans. and there are some Republican, some Republican,

41:22Brett Meiselas:Republicans whose districts are going to face some real trouble and some real issues with this. We've talked to some of them. I understand that Mike Lawler from New York was particularly upset yesterday that he was kind of furious about it, said it's idiotic, it's political malpractice.

41:38Ben Meiselas:But here's the thing too. It's not just about Mike Lawler or Fitzpatrick. Like, it's about the people. Like, these are, we're talking about people's lives here. We're talking about our viewers, our listeners. Mag and Mike in Louisiana, your constituents, Mike Lawler's constituents. I don't give a s, you know, I don't give a crap about Mike Lawler's job, you know, or, you know, you represent human beings who can die because you have not come up with a plan and you're failing to allow the plan as imperfect as it may be that provides people though with a solution that gives them comfort and that they like, you're also taking the option away from somebody without replacing it with something that could help them.

42:35Ben Meiselas:So that's just cruel and unusual. I think about that term, cruel and unusual punishment. What a cruel and unusual way right to treat to treat the american people it's just very strange brenton very strange behavior and it is it shows a i think a a hatred frankly uh you know for for the american people i mean

42:58Jordy Meiselas:you can see it there mike johnson is treating like 25 million americans like it's some sort of rounding error or something these are real people's lives that's a lot of people and honestly like you talk about ben and and you know i know we've had senator bernie sanders on the show speak about this, that idea of psychological torture, this right here is an example of that psychological torture that we speak about and that so many people in these rallies across America, whether they're Republican, Democrat, independent, doesn't matter what their political affiliation is. This is what they speak about.

43:27Jordy Meiselas:This is what they mean when they're talking about it. When you are faced with this spike in premiums, that is could be thousands of thousands of dollars, some cases like 10 plus thousands of dollars a year. Like how do people afford that? Like I, I don't understand how this is feasible, how this is sustainable. And there is a way that we have made it feasible and sustainable for people. And in any other normal time, this would not even be a question. This would be probably a unanimous vote if this was like 10 years ago, right? Of course, you would extend these subsidies because there are so many lives on the line.

43:59Jordy Meiselas:You're going to push a lot of people into bankruptcy. You're going to make them have to decide between their health insurance or other necessities in their life. But instead, you have Mike Johnson writing them off so flippantly. And by the way, if Donald Trump came out tomorrow and said, yes, I want to extend these subsidies and name them the Trump subsidies, he'd flip in a second because he has no values. He has no principle. He has zero foundation to stand on. These people do not believe anything except doing Donald Trump's bidding. That's all they care about. And because Donald Trump says he does not want these subsidies to pass.

44:30Jordy Meiselas:Mike Johnson just acts like he is a vessel of Donald Trump and he repeats that. And then he makes every single excuse as to why he is about to be the reason that millions and millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans are going to be forced to pay astronomical healthcare premiums, health insurance premiums that could send them into bankruptcy and really destroy their lives. Not to mention the psychological trauma that comes from that as they receive these bills and as they have to now monitor, what the hell is Congress doing? Are they going to pass this? There's a discharge thing. It's now not going to take the floor until January because Mike Johnson refuses to put it on the floor.

45:05Jordy Meiselas:is it going to pass the house? It should pass the house. Will it pass the Senate? If it passes the house, why should the average American have to worry about these things? They should just be able to pay for their healthcare, their health insurance, and get the healthcare that they need. They shouldn't have to worry about the intricacies of politics and the horse race and who's up for election and who may flip on this because they're more moderate. And in this district or that district, it shouldn't even be on any American's mind. They should be able to go about their lives. And when I think about this notion of freedom, the idea of freedom that Republicans pretend to be these representatives of freedom, there is nothing more the opposite of freedom.

45:41Jordy Meiselas:There is nothing more kind of shackling than having to be worried about these sorts of issues in your life. How could you go about your day-to-day, enjoy your life, when you have to worry about the very fundamentals of keeping yourself and your family alive? It is so hateful. There is no excuse for this.

46:00Brett Meiselas:one thousand percent and going back now to how he started the show with that trump speech how whatever you want to the rally speech that he addressed the nation with that he made us all watch the bizarre part of me really thinks why he did that i'm not trying to get into his mind that's a scary place but we all know the holidays are here they're coming up christmas is right around the corner families are going to be getting together what that sounded like to me was he was giving his base the talking points to kind of back pocket as they roll in. Oh no, oh no. Because look, politics inevitably comes up at these things.

46:32Brett Meiselas:Oh no, it's the Democrats' fault and here's why. And it's at the end of the day, again, people just don't want to be gaslit, man. Like the tone, when you hear Mike Johnson there, it's just so, I'm going to use another C word, I'm going to say it this time, don't bleep me, condescending. It's so evil and condescending and just so arrogant that they just continue to lie to us, to our faces. And I'm proud of this community here, the pro-democracy community who pushes back, who says, hey man, this is not what the data is reflective of. You continue to lie to us. You continue to gaslight us. Here's X, Y, and Z reason why.

47:03Brett Meiselas:Now just, can you tell us the damn truth? Why are our premiums skyrocketing? Why is our healthcare skyrocketing, Mega Mike? What's going on? I'm feeling this in my pocket. I am a human being. Don't talk to me like I'm some sort of constituent that you need. I just want to live, man. So what's going on, dude? Why can't we just be there as a society? How has this MAGA Republican Party so lost its way that they just hate the American people so much that they're willing to let them die so long as they continue to gaslight the sponsors?

47:32Ben Meiselas:Well, they thrive as this opposition, this anti-everything and tear it down and burn it down. And so the contradiction is this whiny, pathetic, orange, Adderall-fueled loser in the White House, like whining and yelling, right? But you're in the White House, so you're in charge. And we're a year in, and you're whining about Biden, and you're whining that the Unaffordable Care Act, dude, you're in charge. I'm watching an address that in the past, we had leaders, presidents, stress the American people on the most serious of matters, whether it was announcing war, whether it was announcing peace, whether it was announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden, whether it is announcing a national tragedy or being there as a consoler in chief, you're there with the trappings of the White House and this whiny, childish, immature, dangerous, racist.

48:54Ben Meiselas:A lot of Americans don't see it. We cover it and a lot of people follow the Midas Dutch Network. We're the most watched digital news network that there is. You know, a lot of people, though, just wanted to watch Survivor. They just wanted to watch Survivor. They wanted to watch their favorite show. And they turned that on and they aren't really following politics like, wait, what? What are you saying? Huh? Now, when we come back, I want to talk about a few things. I want to talk about what Trump is doing to cover up the release of the Epstein files, what I expect is going to happen when they're released on Friday, what's going to be released, what's not going to be released.

49:27Ben Meiselas:And let's talk about what Trump's priorities are. What's he actually focused on doing right now? Renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, putting his social media posts and attaching it to the White House, like he's doing true social posts on the White House. He's focused on his own Trump media acquired or merged with an energy fusion company. And then all of a sudden, Trump media stocks soared, a fusion company that requires the department of energy approval merges with the trump media because you know trump media as we've always talked about was doing hard you know my opinion was doing really bad i mean lost tens of millions of dollars each quarter so now it announces a merger with a fusion company this technology that hasn't even been implemented yet while trump is getting rid of solar and wind which we know work and reduce energy prices while energy prices are up 13 to 15 year over year I mean, these are the deranging.

50:27Ben Meiselas:He's announcing the Patriot Games. Patriot Games. One male high school student, one female. Battle it out in D.C. at the capital, at the federal capital. May the odds be ever in your favor. May the odds be in your favor. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder, hit subscribe. Help us get to 6 million subscribers. Subscribe to us on audio and video. Just search Midas Touch wherever you get your audio podcast. We'll leave a five-star review there. And if you can go to MidasPlus.com, check out the Substack. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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55:31Brett Meiselas:shout out to our sponsors links in description of the youtube and the audio use the links use the codes if there's an exit survey let them know he sent you benji where to next you know i said

55:41Ben Meiselas:when we come back from a break i'm going to discuss all the distractions and i like just discussed them like i i ended up saying all the things i was going to say when i came back so like i could kind of be redundant about it but yes donald trump said that he was announcing the Patriot Games, which is like the Hunger Games, except it's a little bit different, obviously, but it's literally borrowing the idea. But it's one female high school athlete, one male high school athlete, and they compete each other from the different districts. He's renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, which again is illegal.

56:14Ben Meiselas:The Kennedy Center was named that by Congress. But Donald Trump doesn't care because it's an unlawful regime. They're a gangster regime. They do what gangster regimes do. They've changed the website of the Kennedy Center. So it now already says the Trump Kennedy Center, they're going to replace all the signage, but it requires a congressional act. But the MAGA Republicans won't keep him, won't hold him accountable to all the Kennedys other than RFK Jr. But all the Kennedys like, this is so horrible. Like this was part of the legacy of a fallen president. And like you have Maria Shriver saying some things just leave you speechless and in a rage and in a state of disbelief.

56:51Ben Meiselas:At times such as that, it's better to be quiet for how long I can't say. You have Joe Kennedy III. The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president named for President Kennedy by federal law. It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says. And you had Caroline Levitt over there saying, I've just been informed that a unanimous vote was taken and the entire board voted to change the name. And they're now calling it the Trump Kennedy Center. First off, Donald Trump appointed like 90 % of the board. Like they're all Trump people. It's like Pam Bondi and Steve Scalise and like Dan, not Steve Scalise, like Dan Scavino, you know, and like all the Trump, it's just, it's just Trump's people.

57:33Ben Meiselas:The people who were not Trump's people, their phone was muted during the vote. So they were not even allowed to voice their objection, even though Trump had packed the board with enough people to have the board can pass resolutions. They can't change the name. It's like, again, it's a crime. And frankly, those board members, when everything's said and done, they should be criminally prosecuted, right? Like this is a crime. You can't, it's like, it would be like putting graffiti on it. Like you can't put graffiti on it. So again, another crime that I think these people should actually be, look, there's a lot more that these people should be prosecuted for.

58:09Ben Meiselas:A lot of them are war criminals also, but not all of them, but you know, some of them, Pam Bondi, others. But, you know, it's just every day they commit crimes, crimes, crimes, crimes, crimes. And, you know, screw you, Supreme Court, for giving Donald Trump absolute immunity, because right here is part of the consequence when you treat something, when you say that someone has king-like powers and all they got to do is say, oh, national security or this or that, you know, that's what they claim with everything. By the way, Donald Trump's latest briefing regarding tearing down the East Wing. I did a whole video on this.

58:43Ben Meiselas:You know what he cited? National security because they're building a bunker underneath it. They're renovating a bunker. You think the taxpayers are paying for that? Absolutely, the taxpayers are. They said, the ballroom won't be done until 2028. So judge, it's moot anyway. You can't tell us to stop building. We've already destroyed it. But national security when it comes to the bunker. So they invoke national security for like quite literally everything. So do we have one of the board members, the congresswoman, who said actually what really went down during the vote? I think we have a video of her.

59:21Ben Meiselas:Let's play this clip if we got it.

59:22Brett Meiselas:I'm Congresswoman Joyce Beatty. I'm sitting here in my congressional office in Washington, D.C., just ending a call with the Kennedy Center where I serve as an ex-officio member.

59:35Jordy Meiselas:I am bringing this to you live today because what you may hear is that there was a unanimous vote to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump Center. Be clear, I was on that call. And as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted. Participants were not allowed to voice their concerns who were online.

1:00:13Brett Meiselas:Yet it was said at the end, it was a unanimous vote. Clearly, the Congress has a say in this.

1:00:21Ben Meiselas:They muted the Congress, like who literally required to pass a law. They muted Congress's ability to object. And they said it's unanimous. I mean, Jordi, that's, I mean, yes, it's childish behavior, but it's like, this is, these people are thugs. I mean, this regime, this gangster regime, I mean, like, look at their behavior. I don't know how anyone looks at this and goes, oh, yeah, I like this. Oh, I like this, Brett.

1:00:46Jordy Meiselas:Yeah, I mean, it's Orwellian and it's just fascist behavior. I mean, this is, you know, it's how like fake trials are run in Russia. You know, it's straight out of 1984. It's unanimous. So why? Because you muted all the people who object and the way that they stack these boards with, you know, all of these Trump sycophants. I mean, you could go down the list. It's just like atrocious. Like they made a mockery of all of our institutions and the American people hate it. Like no one's even going to the Kennedy Center for events anymore. Like they've just totally desecrated the place. It's just so, so appalling.

1:01:19Jordy Meiselas:I mean, you've got people like Susie Wiles, Usha Vance, you've been said Dan Scavino before, Lee Greenwood, Laura Ingram, the Fox host, the Maria Bartiromo, Elaine Chao, who was in Donald Trump's administration, Pam Bondi, Sergio Gore. All of these people are the people who are making these decisions about the Kennedy Center. So it's not like some independent board. It's Trump's sycophants, and it's against the law, as Ben said. But that doesn't matter to them. They just press ahead. And I think it's very ominous when we see them doing things like this, when we see things like them, you know, make calling it the Donald Trump Institute of Peace.

1:01:59Jordy Meiselas:When you see at the Department of Labor, Donald, a giant poster of Donald Trump's face. I mean, these are the things that we would look at, you know, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or we'd look at North Korea and we'd go, wow, what an effed up society that is. You know, I'm thankful to live in a country where that's not how things are here. But Donald Trump has quickly transformed our society into that thanks to all the enablers

1:02:23Brett Meiselas:around him for me you know i look around sometimes and i'm hopeful that we will get out of this one day i really am and restored normalcy here and really put our best foot forward as a nation but i'm talking like 15 20 30 years down the line when we all sort of reflect back on these cowards who just bent the knee so willingly to donald trump and for me i'm just so curious as to genuinely why. Is it money? Is it because you don't want to get called a bad name? Do you not actually like this country? Do you not actually want this country to be better off for its citizens? There are so many ways to look at this thing multiple times.

1:03:07Brett Meiselas:And it's frustrating. And only time will tell. And I hope we're all around collectively still in this country still standing for us to kind of see the light of day on this and actually have that debrief here and understand why. But it's, it's, it's genuine, it genuinely upsets me as someone who truly loves this country. Truly. Yeah.

1:03:28Ben Meiselas:And I mean, you just, with all of these and they're incompetent, you know what, Trudy, because a lot of the people who take these positions though, who are willing to say these things and behave in this way would not otherwise on their merit be able to get into these positions, you know? And so they're, they, you know, like Akash Patel being the FBI director, right? Pam Bondi becoming the, you know, attorney general. I mean, you know, Dan Bongino, who's quitting, but becoming the deputy, the deputy FBI director, Pete Hegseth becoming a secretary of defense. And like, what, what are, what, what, you know, Trump picks.

1:04:10Ben Meiselas:And this is the thing about authoritarian regimes in general, Like he picks the most unqualified people. Do we have the clipboard of Lori Chavez de Reamer from one of the appearances she gave this morning where she at least was asked by Fox about the bad job numbers? And if they're coming from, you know, jobless claims are up 54 percent, unemployment's at 4.6 and rising. I think it will probably be at about about 5 percent soon. And here's what she and she's like, yeah, AI isn't a big deal. Like AI is not take you're the labor secretary and you're saying AI is not a threat to labor. Here, play this clip.

1:04:50Brett Meiselas:Back to this weakening of the numbers. Do you believe that the weakening of the numbers month to month on jobs and the unemployment rate ticking up, is that a function of AI or is that a function of some weakness in the broader economy? Absolutely not. It's not a function of AI, again, because we want to make sure that we're answering the call. These market demands, you know, post covid, there was a lot of companies who who, you know, increase their employee growth numbers. And maybe they're laying off for those reasons and they have to answer that to the American people. But I will tell you, at the Department of Labor, what we're doing is focusing on the apprenticeship program.

1:05:26Brett Meiselas:We're focusing, you know, we've registered almost 300 ,000 new apprentices. We're answering the call for 700 ,000 jobs in electricians, machinists, plumbers.

1:05:35Ben Meiselas:Again, did you see that she was basically attacking companies for hiring labor? Right. She was like, they're going to have to answer for hiring all those people or keeping people hired or, you know, it's like, you're the labor secretary. and you're saying that AI isn't a threat and it's answering a marketing demand. You could say that there is a that AI, like if you're the labor secretary, you should say what? Yes, we need to harness the power of AI, but we need to make sure that we protect labor. Like, isn't that like literally your whole job is? And then it's like, why is energy bills going up 13 % right now since Donald Trump took office?

1:06:14Ben Meiselas:Because it's like literally going rampant. Why is heating costs going up? Like, why are all these costs are going up? I wonder why, Brett.

1:06:21Jordy Meiselas:I wonder why. It's all skyrocketing, too. It's like it's not even close. Like electricity prices, I think you said this stat before. They're up 13 % since Donald Trump took office. Heating costs are expected to rise 9.2 % this winter. So think about all the other costs we talked about this episode, right? Healthcare costs and things like that. On top of that, all of these costs, in addition to prices for everything being more expensive. And Trump just makes it worse because he keeps canceling all of these clean energy projects. So while he's giving all of these kind of AI companies carte blanche to build all these data centers in all these towns, he's canceling these clean energy projects that would actually help the energy load that are actually clean ways to help with this energy load.

1:07:01Jordy Meiselas:So already Trump has either threatened to cancel or canceled 324 clean energy projects or companies. He put 165 ,000, more than 165 ,000 clean energy jobs on the chopping block. $53 billion in clean energy investment is gone. And these projects, just like so you could wrap your head around it a little bit, they would have generated enough electricity to power 13 million homes. But they're gone because of Donald Trump. And all of this, think about the other orders that Donald Trump wants to sign and what these Republicans right now, what they're fighting for. They're fighting to stop any regulation on AI, like to not allow any states to regulate AI whatsoever so that they can allow these billionaires to build these data centers, which are destroying communities, straining the energy grid, consuming massive amounts of water.

1:07:46Jordy Meiselas:In many cases, they're even making water unsafe to drink in the towns. They're just allowing them to build these carte blanche with no guidelines. and no guidelines, obviously, for the end result of AI for its many use cases that could be quite dangerous. AI, if harnessed correctly, could be a good thing. It could be used to improve efficiency. It could be used to help find cures to diseases. There's a lot of great use cases for AI, but it's also a very dangerous technology that also needs a lot of regulation. They do not want any regulation on this. And then that brings me to another really important story that I don't think is getting nearly enough attention, but the Trump administration just moved to dismantle the country's leading climate research center, which is the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

1:08:34Jordy Meiselas:It's like world-renowned, one of the top research centers in the entire world. People all across the planet rely on this facility for life and death information about natural disasters and so much more. But the administration says because they report on climate issues and give actual data on the climate, not cooked books like the Trump administration gives out, but they give actual facts to the people. The Trump administration says that that is alarmist and woke. I wish I was being facetious when I said that they called the work that they do woke, but they literally said that it's woke. It's woke to know about natural disasters.

1:09:08Jordy Meiselas:It's woke to have information on the climate. It's woke to save lives, I guess. And it's all because they're just giving truthful information that goes against this regime narrative. It's part of the danger of having these sycophants, of having a regime that doesn't care about the facts and just wants to push forward its agenda without any regard for anything else.

1:09:27Ben Meiselas:Yeah, I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the Epstein files, though, for a moment. First off, on Thursday, the New York Times dropped an incredible expose. By the way, Brett, that was a great segment. New York Times dropped an expose. The headline, Don's Best Friend, How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women. The article talks about, and it's very well sourced from like people who worked with Epstein at the time, Epstein's assistant, like all the people who knew what was going on at the time. The two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other's closest friend, the Times found.

1:10:04Ben Meiselas:The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women, I could say girls, but chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. female bodies were currency. There's also photos that the Democrats from the House Oversight Committee released, and it's like Epstein with like, it looks like very young girls in the photo. Their faces are redacted, but it looks like very young girls in this photo. You go to what the New York Times also reports, and they say, one of the assistants who worked for Epstein, who would work late, recalled that sometimes when the office emptied out, Epstein would check to see that she was at her desk and put Trump on speaker.

1:10:49Ben Meiselas:Mr. Trump, she said, seemed to enjoy regaling Epstein with tales of his sexual exploits. And Mr. Epstein seemed to delight in how uncomfortable it made her to overhear them. She remembered one call in the mid-1990s in which the two men discussed how much pubic hair a particular woman had and whether there was enough for Mr. Epstein to floss his teeth with. Epstein frequently mentioned his friendship with Trump, according to several accusers, telling one he had a bedroom reserved at Mar-a-Lago. So while this is going on, Donald Trump has also assigned a national security team, a national security team at the Department of Justice and FBI to work on the redactions, which is removing things and hiding things or not disclosing the names before the deadline, which is on Friday.

1:11:44Ben Meiselas:If you're listening to this on Friday, it's today. And so like hundreds of national security employees, lawyers, FBI agents, potentially in the thousands. Interesting thing to think about though, because didn't they do this in March also from the FOIA requests that we know that Bloomberg sent out? We know that redactions were made in March. Remember, there was one week where there was 1 ,000 overtime hours that were spent by the FBI and the various teams there. There was also, I think, national security teams and other teams that dealt with these redaction teams back then. Yeah, a million dollars, I think it was.

1:12:22Ben Meiselas:I think it was 1 ,000 employees that worked on it in March and over a million dollars in overtime pay in one week alone. And that's when Bondi said they were going to release it. And then, of course, they didn't release it and said they're not releasing anything. So I think given what we know, Trump's not going to produce things that have his, you know, it's either going to be redacted or not produced. They'll probably produce, in my view, duplicates of what the estate turned over. And I think they'll produce some things that have Trump's name on it. But just to be like, oh, you see, his name is on it.

1:12:57Ben Meiselas:But like, you know, but I think they're going to produce a lot of things that implicate people who Trump views as like just other people, not him, other people that he would perceive as enemies. Anyone who's friends with him, I'm giving you my opinion, friends with him, him, I think they're not going to produce it or just produce a little bit, enough to be people like, hey, you see, we turn stuff over. I think they're also going to be sloppy. And I think we're going to find out pretty quickly, and you can go back to this tape when it happens, that they will probably violate a lot of actual privacy issues of the real victims and survivors.

1:13:30Ben Meiselas:We saw them do this before in other settings where they like give social security numbers. So like, I think there's going to be a great degree of sloppiness that we're going to find out right away. But I think there's going to be a lot of cover up. And I think a lot of the work's going to begin in terms of exposing what their cover up is. So we will be on that every step of the way. I just do want to show these two other points though, just before we go. and there are just two separate hearings. And I just want to make sure I give everybody this info. You may have seen it on hot takes that I've done, but I want to show you some of the Democrat cross-examination of witnesses that took place in the Senate.

1:14:08Ben Meiselas:The first one where you had Democratic Senator Blumenthal cross-examining Trump's pick to be federal judges. So you see who are the future federal judges that Trump is pushing forward and that the MAGA Republicans are are pushing forward. And to what we described earlier, I think you said, Jordy, who would want to, like, who would do this? Who would debase themselves? You know, these people want to be federal judges, and they're willing to say anything. And they know that if they say January 6th was an attack on the Capitol, that they will not become judges. So they say, I can't answer the question.

1:14:45Ben Meiselas:And you'll see how people like this bend and break. And these are disgraceful human beings. They're vile human beings. And I hope that their children and their grandchildren see this and say, you know what? These individuals in my family were utterly disgraceful.

1:15:01Brett Meiselas:Was the United States Capitol attacked on January 6th, 2021?

1:15:08Ben Meiselas:And again, Senator, as a sitting judge under Rule 2 of the Missouri Rules of Judicial Ethics, I believe that there are cases pending in front of courts. And so due to pending or impending litigation, I cannot comment on anything of political controversy.

1:15:25Brett Meiselas:I'm not asking you about a specific individual. Was the Capitol attack?

1:15:33Ben Meiselas:And again, I do believe that there are cases currently in front of courts. And so as a sitting judge under Rule 2, I cannot answer.

1:15:44Brett Meiselas:Mr. Lee? Same answer, and I would add that as an employee of the Department of Justice, I would refer to the Department of Justice's positions and briefs. Mr. Olson? Senator, the January 6th events are a matter of public controversy and debate on how to characterize those, and I think to wade into that.

1:16:05Ben Meiselas:All right. That's, you know, very low-character individuals, very shameful individuals, right? But there are going to be federal judges deciding cases. How do you think they're going to decide cases that involve Donald Trump and MAGA? Such low character, such scumbags, frankly. I mean, I don't know how to describe these people. Such shameful humans. They can't say that. But look, if they want to, not being asked to opine on do you agree with Donald Trump's impeachment, which should be an easy answer. I mean, sorry, Donald Trump pardons should be impeached. you know but you know but also i mean they weren't asked to opine on what are your what are your thoughts about trump's impeachment in his first term like they weren't asked about like those

1:16:44Jordy Meiselas:questions and they they were literally not even by the way ben they weren't even asked is donald trump responsible for the events on january 6th like was there an attack on the cap it was simply was the capital attacked on january 6th this is common knowledge that we all know happened and And they refuse to even say that. Yeah.

1:17:03Ben Meiselas:Okay. So then you have Brendan Carr, the current chairman of the FCC. FCC is an independent agency. It's always been. Their website said it was independent until Brendan Carr said what I'm about to show you. Then they deleted their website language and removed independent agency from the website. Okay. But it's supposed to be an independent agency. and Brendan Carr, and it's great questioning by Senator Lujan, watch what Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, this is the guy who threatened Kimmel and ABC, and he's been threatening all the comedians. This guy's the guy who threatens all the networks, that if you don't say what Donald Trump wants, say I'm coming after you as the chairman of the FCC.

1:17:45Ben Meiselas:And so he's asked by Senator Lujan, like, so do you believe that the FCC is an independent agency? Again, not a controversial question. The answer is yes, of course, it's an independent agency. And it's his own agency that he's supposed to defend. His job is literally to defend the independence of his agency. Watch what he says. Let's play. Yes, you see an independent agency. Senator, thanks for that question.

1:18:09Brett Meiselas:I think yes or no is all we need, sir. Yes or no, is it independent? Well, there's a test for this in the law in the key portion of that test. Yes or no, Brendan? The key portion of that test is. Okay, I'm going to go to Commissioner Trustee. So just so you know, Brendan, on your website, It just simply says, man, the FCC is independent.

1:18:25Ben Meiselas:This isn't a trick question. Okay, the FCC is not. Is it yes or no?

1:18:28Brett Meiselas:Okay. Is not independent. So is your website wrong? Is your website lying? Possibly. The FCC is not an independent agency.

1:18:34Ben Meiselas:Okay, can I read this to you? The FCC's mission on the homepage of the FCC. It's an independent agency. And you see how Brendan Carr was going to go into his, like, state regime media BS. Well, you know, and I like that Senator Lujan's like, hey, Brendan. Hey, Brendan.

1:18:50Jordy Meiselas:answer the freaking question yes or no but by the way what they did after that hearing like within the hour of brendan carr saying that you might think oh they corrected him they showed him oh this actually it says it on the website no they changed the website they changed history they changed the website despite that being the history of the fcc forever they that that was the way they

1:19:09Brett Meiselas:handled that situation the only thing is he missed an opportunity at the end of that to just say thank you brendan would have been just really funny for the the one person that made that that gets that joke. I like that.

1:19:23Ben Meiselas:Well, on that note, Jordi, and the hilarious conclusion of the episode, we covered a lot. Covered a lot. I just want to thank all the Midas Mighty out there. Thank you all for standing strong. It's been people-powered resilience. Institutions may have bent and broken. we've seen a lot of leaders, a lot of people bend the knee, a lot of disgraceful behavior, but the people have stuck together. And I've said this before and I'll say it again. The country is far worse off right now, but I think there's a lot more hope because of the resilience of people. Whereas last year, I think there was far less hope, but the country was far better off when Biden was still in office.

1:20:06Ben Meiselas:This was around the time when I had interviewed Biden in the Roosevelt Room a year ago. It's almost probably exactly a year ago. And when I asked former President Biden what he wanted his legacy to be, he said that I kept my word, that everything I said I was going to do, I did. And I didn't care if you were from a red state or a blue state or a purple state, you were an American and I fought for you. And those words back then seem so distant, yet what we should all be aspiring, I think, in future leaders. And so I'll leave you all with that. Thank you all for watching. Brad, anything else you want to say?

1:20:40Ben Meiselas:Paul Jordy. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!

1:21:07Brett Meiselas:daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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