MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 12/26/25

20:25Ben Meiselas:Well, it is already, right? We've reached that point. Like when people go, we're in a constitutional crisis. I go, no, we're past the constitutional crisis. We've got an authoritarian regime. And the question is, is will we be able to remove that authoritarian regime as we head into the new years? I'm confident actually that the people will be able to, but it's like 1984, Jordy, perhaps even worse, 1984, the book on steroids, Oral's book on steroids. They want you not to believe anything, right? And so when you take, for example, the letter purportedly sent by Epstein to Larry Nassar, despite the fact that there's a lot of corroborating information that came out previously in internal emails that the Bureau of Prisons produced, that they found this letter at MCC, at the prison, where Epstein was, that it looked to be sent from Epstein, that it was sent out for handwriting analysis at an FBI lab.

21:21Ben Meiselas:No one ever got what those results were. That would help answer the question in 2020 if the handwriting analysis was done. You had Epstein allegedly saying to Nassar if this is an authentic message that they said that they liked young, nubile girls and that Donald Trump, the president likes them also that way. What were words to that effect? Midas Touch was the first to report on that letter also. We've been the first to report on a lot of these things. And by the way, when I do this, it's not just for me to like spike the might as touch this. I want to let you know as a community that while you have people like CBS bending the knee or entities bending the knee and not doing the work, a people-powered network has the ability to be breaking the big stories here, like the NASA story and all of these stories and the missing 1 million documents.

22:12Ben Meiselas:So then the DOJ, their social media account, which is now being controlled by Trump. Like Trump's White House is running the DOJ social media account. They're calling reporters dopes. You're a dope. It's a fake document. We were told to produce everything. So we were going to produce fake documents. Well, let's be very clear. The Trump regimes, as part of their cover up, one of the things that they've always been saying to not turn over other documents. What have they always been saying, Geordie, Brett and Midas Mighty? We're going to focus on the credible documents. We want to put over credible information first.

22:46Ben Meiselas:The credible info is what we're going to get produced. So if they believe it's a fake document and just assume that it is fake, and I'm not convinced that it's fake, I want to see the laboratory results, the forensic analysis that was done in 2020 because that document's being concealed, but just even assume it's fake. Doesn't that make it worse that the regime's prioritizing putting out without context fake not credible documents first to what to torture the victims to make the survivors suffer more. So your priority what you are turning over are the fabricated ones and you're holding back the real ones.

23:25Ben Meiselas:That's how you've interpreted the Epstein transparency. I think it makes it worse if you accept what they're saying is true. And, Jordy, the point of all of this, though, is what they want to do is they want to assault the truth. And they want to wear people down so you don't know what's true or false. And in this chaos, Donald Trump can steal for himself and enrich himself and enrich his family. That's their endgame. There is no endgame to benefit the country. There is no endgame to benefit institutions or democracy. Trump just wants to try to get as much money as he can, hoard it for his family, destroy the country, get the hell out.

24:04Ben Meiselas:You think Trump truly cares if America is strong in the future, if future generations prosper, if Russia takes over Europe? Do you think Trump truly cares about it? Of course he doesn't care about that. He cares about Trump and Trump making money. That's it, and people are seeing that. Let's take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, we've got a lot to discuss. A reminder, check out MidasPlus.com, M-E-I-D-A-S-P-L-U-S.com. That's where we've been breaking a lot of these stories. And those MidasPlus Substack memberships have been a major help in our growth. Also, the YouTube memberships right here have been a major help in our growth.

24:41Ben Meiselas:You can click join. One of the cool features that's so easy to do on YouTube, you click join. And then you can gift as many memberships as you want to others here as well. Give them a gift of Christmas. Give some memberships today. Also, subscribe on audio. Just search Midas Plus on audio podcast. All right, we'll be right back after our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss.

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28:28Brett 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. There's an exit survey. Let them know we sent you a lot of great deals this holiday season. Benji, before I toss it back over to you, I really just wanted to say like, these are probably my favorite episodes, these holiday episodes, because I think most folks think maybe we'll take a day off or do something and not actually show up for the show. We're here at CUS. We love you guys. And this really means the world to us that we could all experience this together on these holidays.

28:55Brett Meiselas:It's been a long frigging year. And I wouldn't want to be in this fight with anybody other than the mightest mighty so thank you all for showing up tonight thank you all for listening and uh all right benji where to next i think one of the

29:08Ben Meiselas:things also though is you know i don't view this as a job like i don't feel like oh my god i gotta work today totally i mean i get to go i get to go on i'm gonna speak to brett and jordy anyway at some point today right we're gonna do we'll probably speak for 30 minutes so we'll probably end up saying oh did you see what he just did can you believe that like so we're gonna have these conversations no matter what. And we love all of you who watch and listen to this. So to me, it's like, you know, it's actually a great way to spend Christmas. I get to hang with my brothers and I get to hang with the Midas Touch community.

29:42Ben Meiselas:Like that's actually a fun thing for me. So people are like, oh, you're working. It's actually doesn't feel like work. So I'll address that. Anyway, let me show you. Trump supporter, Haley Robson, who's a survivor of Epstein. she was recently interviewed after this just disastrous Epstein file cover-up that was on top of the other cover-ups and she's finally said she's done with Trump she's done with MAGA Mike she wants to see Trump thrown out and impeached she wants MAGA Mike thrown out and impeached watch

30:16Brett Meiselas:what she's got to say let's talk about Trump right just to be clear in terms of pointing the fingers Yes. Yes, exactly. And you said that before, that you have never heard anything to implicate him. Exactly. It wasn't until I started meeting some of the other women from different countries and different states where I really started to hear their stories. And, of course, as a survivor's sister, and going through what I went through, I do believe these girls. But at the end of the day, I am no longer supporting this administration. I redact any support I've ever given to him, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel.

30:47Brett Meiselas:I am so disgusted with this administration. I think that Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both need to resign, and I would love to see number 47 get impeached over this. And I'm just waiting. Should Pam Bondi be held in contempt, you think, for the release of these files? She needs to be held more than in contempt, absolutely. Okay, Haley, stand...

31:10Ben Meiselas:So I do want to provide for anybody who was misled and brainwashed by Trump, even if they're making this realization now an off-ramp as hard as it is sometimes to be like because I could go into it and be like really this wasn't a giveaway or that wasn't a giveaway and this wasn't a giveaway and that wasn't a giveaway I do think that we we can feel that way like nothing's going to change that I could probably do 10 podcasts that last 10 hours each trying to go into that entire universe. I'm not sure if it's a productive exercise. We need to expand a coalition of people who care about empathy and truth and accountability and democracy.

31:57Ben Meiselas:And so I'll take it wherever we can get it. And I think her sentiments are being echoed by a lot of people. I mean, look, even Marjorie Taylor Greene is out there, right? Saying And she's, you know, you know, she's done. So when you got Marjorie Taylor Greene out there saying she's done, you have a lot of these MAGA Republicans even retiring from Congress. You know, to me, I just think rather than get distracted with our time in saying, really, I think it's kind of like, let's embrace people who have left him and let's let's get into accountability. I want to address one thing, Brett and Jordan, and I'll turn it to you.

32:34Ben Meiselas:Every time I see whether it's CNN or MSNOW, by the way, state regime media doesn't even cover this stuff. Like, I don't even know if Fox has done an Epstein story, right? Their big story is some Oklahoma teacher who failed a student because the student didn't respond to the science project and answer the prompt. I forget if it was science or what the topic was, but the student answered it by citing Bible verses. So the teacher.

32:59Jordy Meiselas:No, no, no, no, no. Didn't even cite Bible verses. Didn't even do proper citation. This was honestly the craziest story. And we could spend a whole podcast going through this crazy story that they did there. But she basically.

33:10Ben Meiselas:The way you did, Brett.

33:11Jordy Meiselas:I watched the, I'm like, all right, what the hell is this? Brett's a real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. So this woman, a young woman in college, she wrote an essay for a high level college course. and she wrote all about, you know, transgender bad was basically the thesis of her paper. And rather than making a coherent argument to back up that thesis, she ended up just saying, the Bible says that transgenderism is evil. The Bible says the devil this, the Bible says the Bible says, and didn't even cite like chapters of the Bible or verses of the Bible, just said the Bible said that. And when you actually also read the piece, it was written like a third grader wrote it.

33:53Jordy Meiselas:Cause I read it. It was the worst written essay I have ever seen. And I could not believe this person was accepted to college, um, writing for a college, uh, uh, you know, class. And the professor was like, I'm not giving you a bad grade because of your thesis. And because it, I politically disagree with your thesis. The writing was horrific. You didn't cite any of your sources. You didn't do the assignment. And so now this is the case where Fox amplifies this person's story. The person does the circuit. They get invited to the Turning Point USA type events. They are heralded as some sort of celebrity because they stuck it to those woke professors who were trying to indoctrinate her when in reality, she couldn't even do the basics of writing an essay at the lowest of collegiate levels with sourcing or any it was hard it was horrible it was like bad writing bad bad bad sorry man they're just such whiny assholes and

34:51Brett Meiselas:then they go around and they you know they just play this like weirdo victim card and this is the

34:57Jordy Meiselas:strategy you lose you lose in your race right you you you you do bad instead of actually internalizing and say how do i do better you whine on twitter you whine on the internet you You hope you get the Fox invite. You try to become a MAGA celebrity. You try to make money off your grievances. And that becomes your entire personality. It's really what this whole right-wing ecosystem is fueled by at this point. Losers. It's how you get nuts.

35:20Ben Meiselas:Mean people, losers, evil, like just shitty losers. Excuse my language. Like, you know, and as a society, it's been tolerated so much that it's like at some point you need to just stand up and say, this is not what strength looks like. Like, this is not what compassion looks like. It's not only tolerated, it's been elevated.

35:41Jordy Meiselas:There's an entire media ecosystem that elevates these people as if they are heroes, as if this is what you are supposed to do. And it's all ironic coming from the party that's supposedly all about pull yourself up by the own bootstraps. The second they get told you lost the race or you're failing that essay, they don't go, how could I do better? How could I be smarter? How could I swim fast? Whatever the issue is, they just whine, whine, whine, whine, whine. It's just like, it's just what they do.

36:09Ben Meiselas:You know, setting aside all of Donald Trump's connections to Epstein and the obvious question, which is when they were hanging out, when they were with 16-year-old girls, 17-year-old girls, 18-year-old girls, 19, 21, whatever, but sometimes as young as 14, you know, at these events, okay? when they would go back to the house, Mar-a-Lago or whatever together, right? And they would all go back. And they were girls that age hanging with men at the time, Trump and Epstein, who were in their late forties, fifties, the obvious, what do you think was going on? What do you think was happening there? But setting aside that, setting aside all of the connections between Trump and Epstein and how Mar-a-Lago itself was used to recruit, was part of the sex trafficking ring.

37:02Ben Meiselas:That's how Virginia Giuffre was recruited at Mar-a-Lago. CNN and MSNOW and these other networks, but there's been no evidence that Donald Trump was involved in anything. And then the guest often buys that premise. They're like, well, no, no, no, look, Donald Trump was found civilly liable for sexual assault. A federal jury heard a case involving Donald Trump sexually assaulting a woman. And the jury unanimously said, yes, he did it. Yes, he did it. And then Donald Trump sued ABC because Trump said it hurt his reputation by calling it rape when he was only found liable for using his fingers to sexually assault a woman.

37:47Ben Meiselas:That was essentially Donald Trump's claim of why he was being defamed because Stephanopoulos called it the R word. And Trump said that's not what it was civilly liable for sexual assault. Trump did a defamation case based on that concept. We have the guy on audio saying that he would go to the beauty pageants. And by the way, we know these beauty pageants had girls as young as 14, as old as 28. But the general age was around 16 to 18 of these beauty pageant girls, some older, some younger. But Trump said, you know, with these beauty pageants, I go in there and I look at them naked. I inspect them.

38:25Ben Meiselas:I look up their body. You know, and how he works that effect. And you get to do it. You get to do it when you're there.

38:30Jordy Meiselas:about Miss Teen USA, he said that. And then those were widely reported statements. And I also, I want to hone in for a second too, just on that Haley Robson clip that we played at the beginning of this segment, because she said something, and I'm not going to go into any sort of speculation about what she particularly meant by it, but I'll let the audience, and I'll just raise the point that she said. She said she was supportive of the administration until the handling of this, But she also said that she spoke to her fellow survivor sisters and heard their stories and she believes their stories.

39:04Jordy Meiselas:And so why would their stories necessarily make her change her opinion on Donald Trump? I'm just going to kind of throw that out there because I think she could have heard things from the other survivors potentially about interactions with Donald Trump. And I want to remind people, too, about this other documented party that we know about here at the Midas Touch Network that's been reported. It was reported months ago, if you remember. There was a party at Mar-a-Lago. I believe it was in the early 90s. And it was a calendar girl competition with a swimsuit contest. And it was organized by this big Florida businessman at the time.

39:41Jordy Meiselas:And Donald Trump had him set up this party at Mar-a-Lago. and the businessman looked at the guest list for the party. Remember, there were all these girls from this swimsuit competition who were invited. And it was supposed to be, it was branded as a party with VIPs. This is going to be a party with these swimsuit girls and VIPs. And this Florida businessman looked at the guest list that Donald Trump had. and the only people on the list, aside from the models that were being sent to Mar-a-Lago for this party, were two people, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Just let that sink in for a second.

40:23Jordy Meiselas:I feel like people don't focus on this party enough. I mean, this is one of the craziest things. And the direct quote from the Florida businessman, and I will read it right now, He said, you're telling me it's you and Epstein? As in like, those are the only guests at this party that you were doing? It's just a, how do we skip over things like this?

40:43Ben Meiselas:Here's the thing too, like, let's not like, when did all of people's minds go to mush? Like, you know, like, or people were so afraid, you know, corporate news being so afraid to report on this. What do you think they were doing or intending to do? what do you think they were doing or intending to do this isn't a difficult concept it's a sickening concept I think we don't like what the answer is but what do you think was gonna happen like are we ridiculous come on like what are we talking about the guy who says that when you're rich you can grab women by their vaginas and they let you get away with it because rich guys you know get away with it then when he was asked at a deposition about it he goes yeah that's true He goes, true.

41:29Ben Meiselas:Fortunately or unfortunately, for millions of years, he has to come up with a year, millions of years. This is what rich guys would do. This is what you do. So let's just cut with the crap other than, Jordy, what's the end game here? The end game, almost certainly, again, I'm giving you my opinion though, of course, First Amendment protected speech, all this, this shows 100 % First Amendment protected speech opinion, is there must be devastating, devastating information and devastating beyond anybody's worst nightmares, right? Because it's beyond everybody's worst nightmares how the document production's been handled so far.

42:09Ben Meiselas:So the only logical leap the same way, the only conclusion you could reach, by the way, there's a legal concept for it. It's called an adverse inference. When somebody behaves this way in a litigation case, so let's say, Jordy, in those document productions, I catch a party. like I'm suing a massive Ponzi scheme case right and there's four million documents they've turned over 500 ,000 they hide the rest do you know what I get to tell the jury Geordi and Breton Midas in a case like that an adverse inference instruction I get to say the reason that they're hiding it and the judge will instruct you is they're covering up their criminality

42:43Jordy Meiselas:and then the jury finds them liable and think about other things they're hiding right Ben think about just like the most basic things and this is why Trump's approach has been a complete and total disaster. Trump said Trump was like, yeah, I knew him. He knew everybody. We really weren't good friends. We know you guys were like best friends. Like, like he called you like my best friend, Don, you guys were best friends. You said very nice things about him in public. You said very nice things about him to magazines. We know about the friendship. So like, why would you deny the part that people know about?

43:10Jordy Meiselas:He also denied ever going to Epstein's office, uh, an assistant in one of the documents said that Donald Trump was at the office quite frequently. So why lie that you never went to the office. Donald Trump lived like, what, a half a mile away from him in Palm Beach. Donald Trump was at all these events with him, including the Victoria's Secret fashion shows and all these things. They sat like right next to each other. And by the way, the guy who ran the Victoria's Secret fashion show was Les Wexner, who runs limited brands. And he is listed as one of the potential co-conspirators in the Epstein files in the documents.

43:44Jordy Meiselas:And Donald Trump ran beauty pageants. He ran Miss Teen USA. He ran all these other beauty pageants. And we have exposed all that other footage from decades ago of Donald Trump leering at these young girls during these beauty pageants, girls as young as 14, 15, 16. We've posted that footage online. It's all out there for you to see. Many of these model agencies that Donald Trump was connected with and the folks that Donald Trump was connected with in this circle, like Jean-Luc Brunel and all these other people who were there, they were people who were also credibly accused of the same things that Epstein were accused of.

44:19Jordy Meiselas:Some of them met a very similar or the same fate as Epstein ultimately. So look at the circles, look at the documented proof, look at what people are saying. There was also that quote from the Epstein assistant, which was just like one of the grossest quotes that we saw that said that Epstein would basically put Donald Trump on speakerphone and Trump would say like the grossest, most grotesque things, like speaking about girls' pubic hair and the length of the pubic hair and asking if you were able to floss your teeth with the pubic hair. I mean, these are all documented things. And people want to pretend, oh, just because they were friends.

44:59Jordy Meiselas:But Donald Trump is denying even the most basic things, and we're finding out all this stuff.

45:04Ben Meiselas:Yeah, and Donald Trump said he was never on Epstein's plane. Remember back in January 2024, Trump made a social media post, never been on the plane. And then Trump just says, like, everything's like AI. It's AI. I was never on the plane. Well, we know he was on the plane. There's also an email from the prosecutors, January 8th, 2020. For your situational awareness, wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than has previously been reported or that we were aware. Then there's Donald Trump denying that he sent Epstein a 50th anniversary, a 50th birthday card, you know, and his 50th birthday back in, what, 2003 or 2004, whatever it was.

45:47Ben Meiselas:I mean, it's Trump's signature. It's Trump's handwriting.

45:49Jordy Meiselas:And then here's why the denials of something like the Larry Nassar letter, here's why Trump's lies come back to Burnham. And here's why he shouldn't lie about things that are obviously true. Because that birthday letter, in my opinion, is obviously a real letter. It's Donald Trump's signature. It was in the birthday book that was released with other people. No one else is disputing their signatures in that book. Donald Trump is, of course, suing and he is denying it. But the fact that he would deny something that, in my opinion, is so obviously real and true, all of a sudden then, when you start denying things that may or may not be true, like the Larry Nassar letter, you've lost all credibility.

46:30Jordy Meiselas:I don't know anymore. All I know is I cannot trust you. So I need to see what the actual investigative results are, what the actual, you know, agents who worked on this case actually discovered about things. Because the word right now of Donald Trump, of Pam Bondi, of Kash Patel, of everyone else in this administration means absolutely zero. Yeah.

46:55Ben Meiselas:And then you look at their explanations that are obviously so false and you're just like, you think we're stupid. You just think we're stupid. Do we have this clip, Brad? I could go in any other area right now, but you have Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary. I'm not going to go on this whole tangent, it does seem like the books were cooked as well on the GDP numbers the same way that they claim they brought down inflation, cherry picking numbers with the government shutdown to be like, oh, look, everything's going great. And lots of economists, again, are saying when it comes to the GDP numbers, they don't look right.

47:37Ben Meiselas:Shouldn't shock you because, again, this is the same people who are saying that Donald Trump was never on the plane with Epstein. These are the people covering up a child sex trafficking ring, right? When you're willing to cover up a child sex trafficking ring, do you think they're willing to fudge the numbers of GDP by 1 %? There's no depths to their depravity.

47:56Jordy Meiselas:Covering up the child sex trafficking ring, that's okay. Covering up a bad GDP report, that's one step too far. One step too far.

48:04Ben Meiselas:We're not going to add an extra percentage point on that GDP. Why would they ever do such a thing like that? Because the people know they're suffering right now. Like the people know the economy isn't good. You go outside, you know, it's bad. You know, the job market's horrible right now. You know, everything's, every metric is bad, but okay. So now they go, the GDP's third quarter increased 4.3%. And guess what? In the UK, it's 0.1%. Well, they probably are doing an accurate number one. Okay. They're probably giving the real numbers there. And then also you go, you go through it again. He's like, that makes you 4.3 % richer.

48:40Ben Meiselas:We just made you 4.3 % richer. Here, play this clip. The 4.3 GDP growth, beating it by a full point of 3.3.

48:47Brett Meiselas:How does that affect our bottom line, our pocketbook issues? So just think, the whole world out there in the third quarter, the United Kingdom grew 0.1, the European Union grew 0.4, and Japan fell 0.6%, fell 0.6%. Donald Trump's economy grew the United States of America, the biggest economy in the world, 4.3%. What that means is that Americans overall, all of us, are going to earn 4.3 % more money. We're making a raise. It's a simple way to do it. We've got more jobs, lower energy costs, and lower interest rates coming. This is the golden age coming. 4.3 % this quarter means Americans on average are making more money, more money in their pocketbooks.

49:45Brett Meiselas:That makes for a great Christmas. He sounds, I mean, he literally sounds like one of those bad car salesman commercials that you get fed to at like 3 a.m. in the morning. That's the exact delivery that you would say, oh, this guy's trying to scam me. Well, guess what? That guy right there that you just listened to, he's trying to scam you. They think you're stupid.

50:06Jordy Meiselas:They think you're stupid, right? I mean, come on. And by the way, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Lutnick lived next to Epstein's townhouse and then ended up buying the Epstein townhouse that was previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein. Just a weird connection. Remember that podcast he did with the New York Post? I think it was with Miranda Devine at the New York Post or something where he spoke about going to Epstein's house and he said, oh, it's disgusting and da, da, da. And then he's like, I have no doubt that high profile associates of Jeffrey Epstein participated in activities with Jeffrey Epstein, bad activities with Jeffrey Epstein.

50:45Jordy Meiselas:I have no doubt about it. And people who are denying that fact, it's because they were involved. I'm like, did you just hear what you just said? Do you know who your boss is? This is like, what's happening here?

50:55Ben Meiselas:Yeah, look, energy prices are obviously up. We all know, if you've looked at your bills lately, you know that the energy prices are significantly up. We know that jobs are down 54%. Isn't it interesting that when you get the data that doesn't come from the government, you actually start looking at private sources that report the data, that you actually get to see, oh, wait a minute, these private sector jobs are down. Huh, that's interesting. But when it comes to the Trump regime data, it's all, you know, manipulated anyway. They think you're stupid. You're not. We're not. and we're going to stand up to this regime every step of the way.

51:29Ben Meiselas:All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. Homestretch coming up, a reminder. Make sure you hit subscribe here. Become a member right now of the Midas Touch YouTube channel. And on Christmas, why don't you give the gift to other people who can't maybe afford a membership here? So you just click join. You can gift as many memberships as you can to others. That's a great way to help grow this channel and give others a gift to our in this chat. Can I say this?

51:52Jordy Meiselas:A great gift to us if you're watching this. Let's go into our sub stack, MidasPlus.com. And also add the Midas Touch podcast on audio platforms. It helps more than you know. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, search the Midas Touch podcast, add it. If you've already done that, leave a five-star review. It really, really, really helps the show. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays, everybody. We're going to be right back after this quick break. Do not go anywhere.

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56:07Brett Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors. There's links in the 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. Benji, how's your Christmas, buddy?

56:17Ben Meiselas:My Christmas is great. I want to spread Christmas joy. I want to spend time with the Midas Mighty and my family and brothers, everybody around. You know, it's a time to spread joy, to spread love. You want to do the Christmas PJs. Yeah, exactly. You got nice Christmas PJs there. But you know, it's a time where in the past, you'd have great, great PJs. You'd have leaders, former presidents, governors, you know, posting photos with their family, right, saying Merry Christmas, wishing everybody the best as we reflect on the season. You know, we wish you, you know, happy and healthy. You say nice words, right?

56:55Ben Meiselas:Pretty basic. But what we've been living with for the last 10 plus years in the United States is Donald Trump and this Trumpism and this behavior, which I've described before as frankly loser behavior that's been normalized, evil behavior that's never been really called out as that's evil. That's bad. That's not how we should behave, right? No one speaks about it. They talk about, oh, the Republican. No, no, no. This isn't a Democrat, Republican, independent thing. These are bad humans. These are bad people. These are people who behave in ways that in normal times, a civilized society would say, this is not civilized.

57:40Ben Meiselas:This is not how human beings should act. With Donald Trump as the leader of this MAGA mush movement, whatever you want to call it, it's been viewed incorrectly through a framework of political prisms. And that's the wrong way to look at it. I think one of the things that Midas Touch does is say, stop with that framework. You have to look at it as evil behavior and call it out and call out the morality, call out the despicable conduct. I mean, this is what this guy's doing on Christmas. He posts Merry Christmas to all, including radical left scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.

58:21Ben Meiselas:We no longer have open borders, men and women's sports, transgender for everyone, or weak law enforcement. And then he goes on to say that there's no inflation. He goes, there's lowest crime numbers in decades, no inflation, he says, and tariffs have given us trillions of dollars. Just things that are obviously false. And then he goes on to say, this is what he's reposting on Christmas as tens of millions of Americans are worried that they're not going to be able to get on their health care exchange from the Affordable Care Act plans that they're used to because they can't afford it with the subsidies not being extended by MAGA controlling all branches of government.

59:02Ben Meiselas:Trump posts, it's time to abolish the Barack Obama Affordable Care Act. That's what you're posting. It's time to abolish the Barack Obama Affordable Care Act. The election was stolen. Trump was correct, he writes. Then he goes on to post about how former President Obama needs to be prosecuted, that people demand accountability. Obama should be charged and prosecuted. And by the way, none of this will get covered anywhere other than here. Well, you won't see a line about it in the New York Times, setting aside even buried on page 20. You won't even see it. It's not even a thing they talk about.

59:38Ben Meiselas:Why? Because they've so normalized that this is how he is. So why do we cover just who he is? It's not newsworthy. What's newsworthy is you have an evil, evil regime, an authoritarian regime that should be covered as such. And the question is, is will authoritarianism define us or be a horrific blip in our history? And I think it needs to be discussed in those terms right there. Tell you how they're talking about us in Europe, French General Nicolas Rochaud. The USA are now systemic adversaries. Systemic adversaries. Similar measures banning entry into their area is essential unless one is willing to drop one's pants.

1:00:30Ben Meiselas:The problem is many in Europe only listen to their courage, which generally doesn't tell them much. We need to treat America like an enemy, is what the generals are saying over there. You've got everybody from the deputy prime minister and prime ministers of places like Poland and the European Union Commission and French President Emmanuel Macron. They have to post, we stand in solidarity with Denmark against the United States. We respect Denmark and the sovereignty of Greenland, which is still part of the kingdom of Denmark, after the Trump regime continues to talk about conquering it. The United States is imposing sanctions against Europe while lifting sanctions against Russia and against real free speech, civil rights, humanitarian icons in Europe.

1:01:23Ben Meiselas:Like some people who are viewed in Europe as heroes against discrimination are being sanctioned by U.S.

1:01:33Jordy Meiselas:and banned by our State Department. They always use that Soviet-style language as well to justify all these things. Like they will attack free speech and they will present it as we are protecting free speech. It's that 1984 framing that we were talking about earlier in the show. And that's what Donald Trump and this administration does when they do all of this stuff. And so the sanctions story, I think, is honestly one of the biggest stories, maybe, of the administration. But it's such a massive story that happened this week that sort of went under the radar because, rightfully so, of the Epstein files, but also because of the chaos that the DOJ and their handling of the Epstein files.

1:02:12Jordy Meiselas:But these sanctions, I mean, it basically, when you look at it also, it kind of also stems from the fact that these, the EU fined X, aka, you know, formally Twitter, Elon Musk's social media app, fined them like$140 million basically. because they were breaking European law. They were breaking European law on deceptive advertising practices. Their verification system violated the law because it was presenting verified figures who were not actually the figures behind the account. It was duping people. There was all this disinformation that they allowed to, because what Elon Musk and all these authoritarians around the world want to do is they want to be able to weaponize social media and control the flow of information the same way that they do here in the United States.

1:03:00Jordy Meiselas:They want to be able to do that everywhere else. And so because there was this fine that was imposed by the EU on Elon Musk on X, the United States government retaliated basically in defense of Elon Musk, in defense of the world's richest man. So if you needed any additional proof that the United States is an oligarchy, Well, here you have it. The full weight of the United States government, our trade system, sanctions being levied basically to protect the world's richest man. That's where this all stems from. And they're sanctioning these figures. They're threatening EU officials who are in the United States with deportation.

1:03:45Jordy Meiselas:And as Ben said, simultaneously loosening sanctions, removing sanctions from Russia. And the irony, of course, of all of this is that Russia and a lot of these countries that Donald Trump is basically, you know, bending the knee to at every, everywhere you look, they literally ban Twitter. They ban these social media apps outright. They don't even allow them to exist. People need to try to figure out, you know, how do I access this? Maybe a VPN, whatever, how do I get it? They don't even allow people to go on these platforms. And you just think about what this regime has done and the censorship that happens here at home.

1:04:24Jordy Meiselas:This has been the most anti-free speech regime that we have ever seen in United States history. And they present themselves as these warriors of free speech. It is so utterly backwards. I mean, just think of what they did by banning these news organizations from the press room and installing these MAGA loyalists in the Pentagon. And you could go list by list by list attacking students for writing op-eds. This is an anti-free speech regime. And they are trying to act like they are, you know, bringing free speech to the world. It's just such a backwards thing. And that disinformation and the platforms like X and other platforms that these billionaires own are all part of like pushing that disinformation and spreading these 1984 style lies.

1:05:11Brett Meiselas:It's also why it's so important, too, that independent media is just more important than ever before. And so we take great pride here at the Midas Touch Network of this community, this pro-democracy community. There are others doing incredible work as well. And we really all need our collective voices in this time to push back against this regime. You know, we say all the time here at the Midas Touch Network, one sec, we say, we are not going anywhere. As long as we have the microphone and as long as they don't pry it from our hands, which they would have to do, we're not leaving. You know, this network marches on and it's too important at this point for the collective we hear, for any one of us to stop.

1:05:53Brett Meiselas:And so I just want to use this moment to just thank our audience for using your individual platforms that you all have to advocate for the pro-democracy causes. Sorry, Brett, go ahead.

1:06:01Jordy Meiselas:I'll just put it this way, Jordy. Did you ever imagine that in 2025 in the United States of America, that people, millions of people would be rushing to try to find a bootleg copy of a 60 minute segment that did not air and watching a bootleg version of a news report on what our government was doing to migrants? I think that right there alone sums up where we are at. Yeah, absolutely.

1:06:32Ben Meiselas:Do you think that in 2025, you would have the governor of Louisiana appointed as a special envoy to Greenland for the purpose of acquiring it, of annexing it, invading it, and then going on a state regime media and talking about why the United States wants to invade and take it over? We have Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana, who has, by his own admission, he posted, I have been appointed the special envoy for a purpose of making Greenland part of the USA. And then he goes on state regime media and says the following. Obviously, you're now appointed a special envoy with comments like that.

1:07:15Ben Meiselas:President Trump has certainly made it very clear that he has a great interest in Greenland. What is going to happen next? Will you travel there? Will negotiations begin? Because I did see the Danish prime minister saying that he does not want to get on board with this.

1:07:33Brett Meiselas:Well, the one thing I can tell you is everyone in Louisiana now wants to go to Greenland for summer. It gets real hot in Louisiana. And everywhere I go in Louisiana now, the question I'm asked is, can you take me to Greenland with you, Governor? When do you go? Please let me know. I want to go. It really is. And you know what's amazing is over a year ago, no one was talking about Greenland. OK, the whole time Russian subs would circle Greenland, the whole time the Chinese would pluck rare earths out of the Western Hemisphere. Then all of a sudden we have the election of President Donald Trump.

1:08:06Brett Meiselas:He comes in and says, you know what? The Monroe Doctrine is a real thing. We need to protect America's interests in those countries and territories in the Western Hemisphere. And again, Europe's just ignoring Greenland at the time. I mean, they don't even have first class status at the UAE. This is an opportunity for Greenland to be invited to an economic table with the United States, the strongest, most advanced economy in the world. And we care. We care about them with the fastest security route to give them the security and the protection. It's about an hour away from the United States.

1:08:42Ben Meiselas:This is what an abuser sounds like. That's the language that Putin and Lavrov use about Ukraine. Again, you belong to us. You're part of us. You're part of our territory. He references the Monroe Doctrine there and this idea that Trump has that if you're in the West, this is how Trump and Rubio have described the world. Western hemisphere belongs to the US. Everything else are vassal states. They must bend the knee. Canada belongs to the US, Mexico, Central, South America, Greenland, that's the US. Europe belongs to Russia, and then Asia belongs to China. If you understand that that's how they see the world, everything makes sense.

1:09:28Ben Meiselas:That's how Trump and Putin see the world and Xi Jinping. That's the plan. And the discussions about conquering Greenland again come at the same time where Russia's special envoy was in Miami meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. And so these are the conversations that they're having behind the scenes. You've got that one. Go after group. We get Ukraine. We get this one. And by the way, if you take a look at what's happening in Ukraine right now, you have Zelensky winning some major battles with his incredible drone forces against Putin. And Putin's out there in a very Trumpian fashion claiming that he's taking over territory that he's not.

1:10:10Ben Meiselas:Like Putin's out there saying that Russia controls this area called Kupiansk and they're making great advances in Ukraine. Two weeks ago, Zelensky went to Kupiansk. He had to do a video of himself there. He's there himself. The leader of Ukraine goes to the area that Russia claimed it was occupying. He goes, we took it back. This is ours. We staved off Russia. And Russia uses those tactics of like, It's the same exact language that Trump uses, that Orban uses, that Bukele uses. It's an authoritarian playbook that's international in scope that is reactionary and responsive to centuries of liberalism, of neoliberalism, of enlightened thinking, of a pushback against authoritarianism.

1:11:05Ben Meiselas:There are broader forces at play here. And when we adjust our framework to understand that this is international authoritarianism trying to reroute itself after the expansion of democracies for some centuries. And now authoritarianism wants to do that. And with AI, with the quantity of information, it has actually eroded the quality of information. And so you're back to a situation where authoritarians say, aha, the information disparity between the lords and the peasants, as they see it, is very futile in nature. And we could create that dynamic again because the expansiveness of info allows for there to be proliferation of disinfo.

1:12:00Ben Meiselas:So when they're doing the sanctions against Europe, you have to, again, expand the horizons of the way we think about things. Europe wants to protect against bots and disinfo and all of the things that Musk claimed he was against but was actually for in order to spread disinfo for the 2024 election and what all these right-wing oligarchs want to do. So the authoritarians internationally see what Europe is doing to try to preserve and protect its democracies as a threat. So they weaponize it by saying that they're free speech absolutists when what they really want to do is flood the zone with bots and lies and foreign disinformation to erode the democracies there.

1:12:45Ben Meiselas:That's the fight that we have right now. And I think that's how we have to expand our way of looking at it. And that's not captured in how regular news talks about things. So I'll leave everybody with this. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy spending time together. Happy relax a little bit. And let's regroup. Let's recharge and let's make 2026 a year of accountability for this regime. That's what I got to say before I go. Brett. Jordy, take us away.

1:13:38Brett Meiselas: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.

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