MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 2/3/26

21:27Jordan Meiselas:And he's talking to Jeffrey Epstein, and he's basically going to Epstein for advice. this was the then prime minister of Israel. How do I make money off this position? Once I leave this office, how do I profit off my power? And you would think when someone's asking for job advice, you'd say, well, what are you good at? You got any skills, got any hobbies? You know, how do you want to live it? You're 70, whatever years old. How do you want to live the rest of your life? You tell me, but Epstein's immediate advice to him was, give me a list of all the people, you know, who owes you favors, who did you wrong?

21:58Jordan Meiselas:Who did you help out? And it really gives you a mindset. This is how you're going to make money. I know Tony Blair's making X million dollars. I know this person's making X million dollars a year. I could get that for you, but I'm going to need you to give me those names of the people who owe you things. And it's really just a window into the psychology of the way that these people operate, the way these networks operate, and how they do so in a way that enriches themselves at the expense of the people. And when you look at all these events over the past few years, past decade plus, when you look at events like Brexit, right?

22:32Jordan Meiselas:I'm talking major global events. You see that it was this group of people tied to Jeffrey Epstein and these associates and people like Steve Bannon and people like Peter Thiel and people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Prince Andrew and Lord Mendelsohn in the UK and you name it. It was all these people who were involved in shaping the course of our history and leading to where we are today, I almost had an epiphany like, shit's so crazy right now. And as I was reading these things, I'm like, is it because of all of these people? Are they the ones who put us on this path? It's truly, truly mind-blowing stuff.

23:08Jordan Meiselas:And I know Ben's gotten into greater detail in all of his hot takes, which are all incredible, and you should watch and listen to them. But this is honestly jaw-dropping stuff, which I think is even greater, like a much bigger deal and a much bigger story than it's even often presented as brilliant brett i think you're

23:24Brett Meiselas:absolutely onto something there no doubt about it and benji your breakdowns on this entire saga have been so fascinating to listen to and just so brilliant as well and uh to brett's point please if you haven't watched ben's videos on on all of this he he breaks it down in a way where i like to say anybody could really understand the connections to to to all of this so benji you know kudos to you, big bro. I, Brett, I want to quickly go back to the, the Lutnick and Trump relationship of it all. Specifically how they, how they always make themselves the hero in their own stories, especially as it relates to Epstein, right?

24:00Brett Meiselas:What was Trump, what was Trump's thing? I kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. I kicked him.

24:05Jordan Meiselas:Mike Johnson said he was FBI informant to actually help him. And I mean, exactly.

24:10Brett Meiselas:Trump's an FBI informant. Trump kicks him out of Mar-a-Lago. What a hero. Lutnik. Oh, he, Lutnik and those spidey sense instincts of his, the first day he met him, he went to his wife, said, no, this guy's a sleazebag. We're not going in there. Lo and behold, communications decades later shows that they're buddies, apparently. I mean, what other conclusion can you draw there? It's because there's not an honest bone in any of these people's bodies. These people will do whatever it takes to continue to enrich themselves at the expense of anybody else. And really, like the really disgusting portion of it here is that how they decided apparently to kind of, and I'm talking about like the real like deal, like the Epstein, you know, all of that, like the Epstein inner circle is how they just, there's a human element to all of this is what I'm getting at.

25:03Brett Meiselas:And what these men did, and I'm not saying Lutnik in particular, that's not what I'm saying here. But what these men did to these girls on Epstein's Island and how they abused these girls and how they raped these children, to me, is just utterly appalling. And now we, you know, come decades later and the information's getting out there. And now just the re-traumatization of it all with the mishandling of the Epstein file released to me is just absolutely disgusting. And the fact that they just can't own, that they are fumbling the release of these files, that they aren't doing their due diligence, trying to protect the victims to me, is just so, again, disgusting and upsetting for so many different ways.

25:47Brett Meiselas:I don't know how you feel about Benji. Well, I do know how you feel about it, actually. But for you, when you see the mishandling of these documents, to me, it almost feels intentional with just how poorly the redactions are and what we're seeing come out. Can you comment from your lawyer side of it just how badly they're fumbling this?

26:07Ben Meiselas:This is a simple document production. It's actually not complex at all. Every day, back when we had competent federal prosecutors, and for any civil litigators out there watching this who handle complex cases involving financial fraud or what have you, you deal with terabytes sites of documents all the time. The number three to five million documents or pages in my world, when I was a litigator, that's actually not a lot of documents. Why? You work with teams of people to review them. You use search tools that help you. You do it every day and you just sit down and review it. It's not all that hard.

26:58Ben Meiselas:If you have a team of five people, some of these emails and text messages are short. Some of the pages are long because it has a lot of filler or news articles or things that aren't necessarily relevant. So you start to see these patterns when you do your document review. And so typically for me, a three to five terabyte doc review, which may be 5 to 10 million documents, is a 60-day to 75-day task. So if you told me I had until February to January 31st of the next year to do this, plus I had 250 lawyers, maybe more, because if you believe the DOJ, they claim they had 1 ,000 lawyers working on this back last year, 1 ,000.

27:46Ben Meiselas:I would tell you this is a 30-day task. It's easy. But also, you have no leadership at the DOJ. You have horrible actors at the DOJ. You've got Donald Trump's criminal defense team at the DOJ. And so that's why you have the outcomes that you do. A few other points I just want to make, though. Howard Lutnick received$50 ,000, apparently, from Epstein in 2017 when Lutnik received some award. So that communication was happening at least through 2017. So I just want to talk about that. In terms of some of these other events, you have Epstein speaking with people at the highest level about things like Brexit, Putin's annexation of Crimea, Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing extremist kind of dictator guy who took over Brazil and was their Trump, was their MAGA puppet that Bannon helped implement.

28:43Ben Meiselas:And Bannon was instrumental in getting Bolsonaro elected there and talks about it. And the message is with Epstein as they're talking about toppling world governments. So you have Bolsonaro who's mentioned. You have Epstein talking about getting Putin involved in lots of different things, including Bitcoin back in 2013 and 2014. Lots of Bitcoin talk. You have Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel. You have the former Prime Minister of Norway, Thorbjorn Joglund, who was also the Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 2009 to 2019. You had Sultan bin Salim, a royal affiliated person in the United Arab Emirates.

29:33Ben Meiselas:Interesting because we're going to talk later in this episode about Trump's current connections and receiving lots of money from the UAE. And they're talking at the highest level with Epstein as the main connector about world events. And in my opinion, and I'm not suggesting any specific person or this or that or the other, I'm just saying more broadly when I look through these files, the sex trafficking is the currency that was used by Epstein and other predators in order to transact and blackmail each other. And that was part of this as well. It was the currency which was used to transact on their world agenda throughout all of these issues that I'm talking about here.

30:29Ben Meiselas:Now, I want to mention this and then we'll get into some more very much specifics. But you have allegations against Donald Trump like the following. And there's FBI spreadsheets and presentations. The Midas Touch got it right away and then the DOJ took it down and they had to put it back up because we already put it on our substack at MidasPlus.com. But, you know, there are allegations like this about Trump. Jane Doe stated Epstein introduced her to Trump, who subsequently forced her head down his exposed penis, which is subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out.

31:06Ben Meiselas:Or Jane Doe, remember, Epstein introduced her to Trump, saying this is a good one, huh? And Trump responded yes. and there are lots of other stuff. I mean, I could go through, I've done this on all the other videos, but there's lots of stuff. And to be clear, these are allegations, right? They don't appear to have been fully investigated the way they should have been, but these are allegations. But there's, again, 38 ,000 references to Donald Trump and 5 ,000 files. and Trump's closest people were involved talking about Trump and oral sex with people in the White House. I mean, you have Bannon saying things to Epstein about blowjobs and things like that, I mean, this is in the files.

31:56Ben Meiselas:And when Donald Trump says, this has completely vindicated me, the hell are you talking about? There's sick and disgusting stuff in there and we know that more stuff is still being hidden. And then you layer on top of that, not in a conspiratorial way. Epstein was listed by confidential informants to the FBI as Putin's money manager. A confidential source that the FBI was working with called him Putin's money manager. He says he's Putin's money manager, the money manager of Zimbabwe and other world leaders as well. Right in 2016, when Russia hacked the DNC and released all of those files on WikiLeaks, you had Epstein doing lots of meetings at that time with Russian diplomats and Russian people at that time, all kind of taking place right there.

32:58Ben Meiselas:And again, you can go and watch the deep dives where I read the messages. I go one after another. And so I'll show you how Donald Trump is responding to this. And I'll show you how he's responding to all of these things by saying, hey, you know, if anything, it's Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton looks like the bad one in here. Let's be clear. Bill Clinton does look pretty bad in the files. You know, like he's hanging around on Epstein a lot. Like that's not a good look by any means. Trump's like the main person reference. Bannon's one of the main people reference, you know, and Putin's referenced over and over again.

33:34Jordan Meiselas:And the crazy thing about the ban, obviously, is it's during Trump's presidency.

33:38Ben Meiselas:During the presidency. And they're talking about giving information to Trump, what Trump knows, like very detailed stuff during the first administration about what was going on. All right. Let's take our first quick break of the show. On that note, reminder, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. Help us get to 6 million subscribers. Let's try to get there this month. Jordi predicts we will help us get there. Become a member, join the YouTube channel, and gift memberships to others. That helps us grow. Subscribe on audio in addition to our YouTube page. And check out MidasPlus.com. MidasPlus.com is our sub stack.

34:22Ben Meiselas:Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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38:04Brett 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. Really quick, Benji. A few quick housekeeping notes. I got some feedback when I actioned the audio listeners last week to leave a review because, again, I felt bad like I was leaving them out of all the fun that we have on the live show. Audio listeners, again, thank you so much. We got way more reviews. That's awesome. Let's keep it going, though. We're so close to hitting 50 ,000 reviews on audio, and I really want to do that.

38:33Brett Meiselas:Please leave five stars and a review. It really helps us in the algorithm. Last thing, Benji, really quickly. So as our listeners know, this is going to be just a little lighter note here. I live in Pittsburgh. I love living in Pittsburgh. I've been here now for about five years. We had a really big snowstorm the other day, and my mind's blown. I'm open to this whole new thing called a parking chair. So apparently, when it snows in Pittsburgh, like we got, like we're still recovering. It was a big storm. Folks, I went to the city, and then folks who were outside their apartments, if they shovel their spots, that's their spot.

39:08Brett Meiselas:And they put a park, yep, we have a photo of it. They put a parking chair of it. And by the way, I'm not, I'm not bad mouthing the parking chair. I respect this a lot. So if you shovel out your spot next to your apartment, that's all yours. I had no idea this was a thing I was driving around and I'm like, why are there so many chairs just like off the side of the road? I'm trying to find a parking spot. My wife's like, it's a parking chair. Duh. Didn't you have this growing up? I'm like, no, we didn't. So I posted it onto threads and it's a thing. It's totally a thing. You can't touch somebody's parking chair.

39:39Brett Meiselas:otherwise you're a jag off you don't do it apparently parking chairs are also relevant in chicago and philly so if you are familiar with the parking chair trend let me know let me know where you're from and uh and if you do this because my mind's blown i love it i'm all for it i want to i want that to be clear all right benji now that uh that's out of the way you know i i'm really not

40:01Ben Meiselas:sure even how i could top that after that parking chair how am i gonna even you didn't know i was talk parking chairs how am i going to take command of the show and talk about you know the news of the districts you know i'm going to do my i'm just kidding that's how the brothers get along i'm not teasing jordi no no comments about bullying jordi and and we feel bad for jordi jordi and i are very very good all right let's take a look though about what went down in the oval office today where donald trump said the doj should just move on from epstein it's done no one's talking about it anymore we're good right we're good and obviously you know they're covering up much more.

40:36Ben Meiselas:Go back to what I said at the beginning. This is kind of textbook 101, how bad actors behave. And it's done in almost a way that feels like parody because it's so obvious, like you couldn't script it more. But here's what Donald Trump says. Let's play it.

40:52Brett Meiselas:I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. And in fact, if you look at the DOJ, they announced, you know, they released three million pages. It's like this is all they're supposed to be doing. and frankly the DOJ I think should just say we have other things to do because that whole thing has turned out I mean other than Bill Clinton and you know Bill Gates and lots of people that have there are a lot of questions about it but nothing on me but it was even sort of better than that because they found that Jeffrey Epstein and this sleazebag writer named Michael Wolff were conspiring against Donald Trump to lose the election so Epstein was conspiring with a writer for me to lose the election.

41:33Brett Meiselas:So right there, you know that I had nothing to do with this guy. But yeah, it's a terrible thing. The amount of time that's being wasted. You know, when Epstein was alive like 10 years ago, nobody cared about it. But they're only doing it. But now it's really hitting back on them because Bill Clinton is such a big part of it. The Democrats are pushing it. And the problem is that it's turning out to be the Democrats that were with and conspired with Epstein. So I think you're probably going to see a little pullback from them. But think of it. They were working together to try and help me lose the election.

42:11Brett Meiselas:But this is the Oval Office, so I guess that didn't work out too well.

42:16Ben Meiselas:38 ,000 references to Donald Trump on 5 ,000 documents, okay? I mean, when he says these things objectively, I don't, again, care what political party you're from. This is not political. This vile individual who's sitting there in the Oval Office is just a massive liar. What aspect is he lying about? Quite literally everything that comes out of his mouth. He's acting like he's vindicated. He's telling the DOJ to move on. No one cares about this. Should be noted that former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, according to reporting earlier today, they're going to be testifying. They've agreed to show up and testify before the House Oversight Committee.

43:07Ben Meiselas:There's really no significant precedent for having someone like Hillary Clinton testify or a former president testify in this situation. They've tried to negotiate in good faith the terms of the deposition, but they're showing up. You know, so if they're showing up, shouldn't Donald Trump have to sit for a deposition or does James Comer say, well, you know, that's unfair at this point. Why would we do that? He's vindicated, right? You have, Brett, do we have the clip of Mike Johnson from this weekend where he was on the weekend shows and he was out there, he was asked. So do you think there are questions about Trump or what do you make of the fact that he's on there?

43:52Ben Meiselas:You know, I've been satisfied. You know, I think we're good. We're good to move on. I mean, come on. How weak and pathetic are you here? Play this clip of Maggie Mike Johnson.

44:01Brett Meiselas:President Trump's name appears throughout the Epstein files, including in many of the new documents released this week.

44:08Jordan Meiselas:Now, we want to stress appearing in the Epstein files does not amount to or imply criminal wrongdoing. But do you have any outstanding questions given that about the relationship between President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein?

44:22Brett Meiselas:I do not. I mean, I've spoken to the president about this privately and personally many times, and he's spoken very candidly and openly to the public. He says the same things privately that he does publicly. He's never had any concern about that. Remember, President Trump was one of the first people that called Epstein out. He kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago off the property because he heard of some of the nefarious things he was engaged in. He's never had any concern about that at all. He did at one point call these files a Democratic hoax. But let me ask you about something. Well, what he said specifically was the hoax of the Democrats trying to turn this into a political issue and use it against him.

44:58Ben Meiselas:Let's be clear. The Mar-a-Lago spa was brought to Epstein's home. Epstein didn't even have to go to the spa. Trump and Mar-a-Lago sent the spa to Epstein. And there are messages throughout about Epstein back-channeling communications, whether, you know, potentially to Trump, about going to Mar-a-Lago in 2012 or being invited over there. Again, all of these relationships with people in the Trump regime. I mean, it's just, it's so evil what these people are doing right here. So -

45:33Jordan Meiselas:Let me just show you, I just want to show you this one before you move on, because he brought up other people in the Trump regime. Let me show you just this back-to-back exchange with Steve Bannon quickly. And there are so many messages. And when I say so many, I mean hundreds and hundreds, it's not thousands of messages between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein, all very recent. And let me show you this one just because I think it sums it up. Epstein says, of course, if you think I can be helpful in strategizing, you are welcome to come to Palm Beach. My plane will fly you home for the holidays if you like.

46:09Jordan Meiselas:And Bannon says, you are always helpful, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I mean, if that doesn't show you the friendly relationship that these with one another while Donald Trump was in office, while Donald Trump was in office, that was 2018. 2018. You cannot talk about the depravity enough here of what was going on. Well, here's the thing too, right?

46:35Ben Meiselas:Let's assume Donald Trump is not in the files 38 ,000 times and 5 ,000. Let's assume that's not the case. But you learned that Steve Bannon was having all of these communications with Epstein about figuring out ways to utilize your first administration to be involved in all of these geopolitical outcomes, and that there were all of these communications happening, right? As a leader, wouldn't you condemn Bannon in a situation? Let's assume you truly had nothing to do because why would you want to associate with someone then who objectively is all over this? By the way, there's messages from Bannon to Epstein in April of 2019, a few months before Epstein is arrested saying, let's come up with a plan to rehabilitate your image.

47:31Ben Meiselas:Let's make sure that people stop calling you pedo. And we'll figure out the best way to rebrand you as a philanthropist right here. And let's rebuild your image, right? This is Bannon to Epstein, April, 2019 in text messages. And again, there's so much stuff about Trump. Now, if you're Trump and you have to comment about Bannon today, and you're a leader because that person worked with you, who's all over the files, wouldn't you condemn it? No, here was Donald Trump's post about Bannon today. He posted a photo of Bannon and says, two very good guys who were treated so unfairly by sleepy Joe Biden, but now they are bigger than ever.

48:15Ben Meiselas:DJT. So you're praising Bannon. And by the way, it's not like Trump posts photos about Bannon all the time. It's like the first time he's posted about Bannon in a long time. So obviously Donald Trump is communicating it's like we're not stupid like we know what you're doing right he's communicating with Bannon and basically saying you still got a place with me you're still my friend right we're good I got your back don't screw me up that's clearly what the message is by posting that photo like are we supposed to be so dumb to be like I wonder why you posted about Steve Bannon today oh what a coincidence and that's why these MAGA Mike Johnson and all these MAGA scumbags just piss me off.

48:59Ben Meiselas:And it's, again, not a political thing. These are just scumbags. These are thugs. These are evil, evil people involved in depravity. That's why I don't like them. I don't care that they're Republican. These are bad humans who are either the stupidest humans ever, or they're so malicious and they think we're so stupid. By the way, here was Donald Trump and the Oval Office today too, suggesting he was going to sue Trevor Noah for mocking Donald Trump during the Grammys. But Donald Trump refers to Epstein's Island as Jeffrey's. Jeffrey's Island, your pledge. It's what you call a tell, folks. They want to see a shutdown, either.

49:42Jordan Meiselas:Mr. President, are you going to sue Trevor Noah last night in a post you alluded that something could be coming?

49:47Brett Meiselas:Yeah, well, he said that I spent time on Jeffrey Epstein's Island. I didn't. I mean, he's a lightweight this guy he's a terrible i thought i think he's terrible i thought he did a terrible job at the grammys i thought the whole grammys was terrible i watched part of it it's not watchable but he was a lousy host i'd say not as bad as jimmy kimmel but pretty close and no he made a statement about me and jeffrey epstyn's i have nothing to do with that i have nothing to do with jeffrey epstyn and in fact if you look at the doj they announced uh you know they released three million pages it's like this is all they're supposed to be jeffrey's Jeffries.

50:26Ben Meiselas:I want to let me show one other clip right now.

50:29Jordan Meiselas:Hey, when we were hanging on J-Dog's boat, when we were, when we were on the J-Dog's Island, I, what was that? I mean, I mean Epstein's Island.

50:37Brett Meiselas:I mean Epstein, sorry. Jeffrey Epstein.

50:40Jordan Meiselas:Old habits kick in sometimes. I thought comedy was legal again. I thought comedy sums up everything as well, though.

50:47Ben Meiselas:Take a look at this as Donald Trump talks about the Wall Street Journal report about his family being funneled$500 million from the United Arab Emirates or the UAE family. And the person they call the spy shake because he's taking our classified information and potentially giving it to China. So they call him the spy shake. Well, that was the concern, at least, that prior administrations had, why they didn't give semiconductor classified data to the United Arab Emirates, because they said the UAE is just going to give it right to China. OK, and let me be clear when the Trump regime says we're not worried about that.

51:26Ben Meiselas:We've got the safeguards in place to track and prevent that technology. Y 'all can't even redact documents appropriately in the Epstein files. You think that you're going to be able to track United Arab Emirates semiconductor chips being laundered to China through a covert black market? I just I don't think you guys have the capability. But here's what Donald Trump says when he's confronted about a fact that his family got paid$500 million where their company with Whitcoff didn't even really have a product at the time. It has got$500 million. And thereafter, the UAE gets this incredible classified information that has now sabotaged our national security.

52:09Ben Meiselas:Let's play. Mr. President, the Wall Street Journal reported that the royal family of Abu Dhabi invested hundreds of millions of dollars in World Liberty Financial. Can you explain why you decided to take that investment? Was that a transaction?

52:22Brett Meiselas:Well, I don't know about it. I know that crypto is a big thing and they like it. A lot of people like it. The people behind me like it. My sons are handling that. My family is handling it. And I guess they get investments from different people. But I'm not.

52:37Ben Meiselas:I have all I can handle right now with Iran and with Russia. Pull up the graphic, World Liberty Financial and who's involved in it. Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Don Jr., Baron Trump. Steve Whitcoff, Zach Whitcoff, Alex Whitcoff. Again, don't treat us like we're stupid. I don't know anything about that. I don't know what you don't know that you made$500 million from the United Arab Emirates personally, and then you visited the United Arab Emirates and gave them our classified semiconductor chips, and you've now sabotaged our national security. You don't know that. That's new data for you. That's new information.

53:18Ben Meiselas:And again, let me say the following. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, or Independent. That right there is just a liar. That's the liar who has bankrupted casino after casino, company after company, and has destroyed lives his entire life. That is the liar who just destroyed the Kennedy Center, a crown jewel, and national treasure. As the performers canceled, the staff quit, and nobody attended after he vandalized it by putting his name on. It's just objective facts that we're talking. I don't know anything about that. Shut up just enough. And people here in the United States are psychologically tortured, living paycheck to paycheck if they're lucky enough to get a paycheck as they're being left behind in this disastrous economy where right-wing oligarchs are sucking up all the resources, where we have a jobs recession right now, where America has killed its alliances abroad, where healthcare has been ripped away from people.

54:21Ben Meiselas:And guess what else? Donald Trump sues his own IRS for$10 billion. He sues our government. The IRS is under the Treasury Department. So the defendant, it's Donald Trump versus Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. And Trump is now entering into a settlement agreement with himself for$10 billion of our taxpayer money to go to him. So when you pay your taxes, which Donald Trump, what he pays zero dollars in taxes, and that's what was uncovered when Donald Trump's taxes were leaked like 10 years ago. And that's why he says his reputation was harmed when every other president released their tax returns except for him.

55:02Ben Meiselas:And now he says his reputation was harmed. When you pay your taxes and actually pay them, the fact that it's now going to pay Donald Trump to settle his phony and frivolous cases while you're suffering in this economy, while he's screwing you over. Again, I don't care what political party you're from. That should piss you off. And it pissed off people in Texas State Senate District 10. So when we come back, we're going to talk about what took place there. State Senate District was a nine or 10. State Senate District 9 or 10, which flipped Democrat. It was a plus 17 Trump district. It went plus 14 in favor of the Democrat.

55:41Ben Meiselas:We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Trump shutting down the Kennedy Center and more. let's take a Senate District 9. Let's take a quick break. We will be right back. A reminder, make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel and make sure you are also subscribed to our Substack, Midas Plus, and subscribe on audio as well. We'll be right back.

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59:25Let's go.

59:25Brett Meiselas:Oh, shout out to our sponsors. Links in description of both YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. I do not have another parking chair story coming back from this break. So Benji.

59:37Jordan Meiselas:It was a good story. Way more common, by the way.

59:40Brett Meiselas:Just so the audio listeners know, people in the chat were like, we use parking chairs. So again, I was out of loop. I'm not talking bad about parking chairs.

59:47Jordan Meiselas:You're concerned about parking chairs. I'm nose deep in the Epstein files. I mean, you know, we all have our... I gotta say, when I was looking through the files and everything like you really feel like a crazy person when you're looking through these files because it's like all of these things that you think that might be happening or things that have always felt funny you're like oh here it is in writing like this is actually real this is actually crazy and it was just honestly like a just a really kind of just dark and horrifying experience uh going through these things because you can see like random people you don't expect right?

1:00:21Jordan Meiselas:Like there was an email about Joe Manchin and you're like, you know, Joe Manchin, that guy was so annoying. He, you know, blocked Biden's agenda. He blocked so many good things from happening. Why was he behaving so funny? Right. And then you learn that like he's in the files and I'm not saying he did anything wrong or anything, but I'm just saying apparently Joe Manchin was, uh, Epstein was involved trying to get a yacht for then Senator Joe Manchin so that he could host a boating party for 22 people in the Virgin Islands. This is something that's in the Epstein files. And I just kept seeing that all these people here, like, why did they turn?

1:00:55Jordan Meiselas:Why did they become the way that they are today? How did they kind of go down this weird path? RFK Jr. I can tell you the RFK Jr. story, if Ben lets me. But, you know, all of these things, you see what's in the files here, and you're like, holy crap, okay. It's all connected. All these people are intertwined. And there's something else at play here, where you almost get the sense that these people are just all protecting each other and are doing everything they can to just do whatever they can to avoid getting into trouble themselves and also just to gain as much power and money and wealth that they can as possible it's not even a smoking gun the

1:01:35Brett Meiselas:the gun is is on fire the proverbial gun in this it when you go through those emails brett ben Might is mighty. Jaw-dropping. Jaw-dropping.

1:01:47Ben Meiselas:And people's reaction, though, too, Brett, to your message. We don't know what happened on the yacht. We don't know if the yacht was rented. We don't know. So let's be clear. But why is the senator from West Virginia talking about yachts off the coast of the Virgin Island? And there's so much of that right now where connecting this to the suffering of people here in the United States and how these elites and these oligarchs have been sucking up the resources and the futures of people. and when you see what's going on in these messages, the level of disdain and hatred for other people who are just trying to go and live their lives, right?

1:02:39Ben Meiselas:You know, and live with their families and go to the parks or see a movie or have brunch with each other, right? And have hobbies while you have, you know, quite literally, you know, and Epstein and Bannon and all of these people like trying to puppeteer destruction and devastation amongst people's lives. And people are like, I'm just trying to, I just want to live my life right now. And I think that part is important to mention, you know, which to me actually connects to Trump shutting down the Kennedy Center. And one of the things that Trump says is it wasn't profitable. It wasn't profitable.

1:03:21Ben Meiselas:And so I have to shut it down. First off, it's a memorial for former President Kennedy, was shot and killed, assassinated. It's a memorial, and it's a nonprofit. Not everything has to make profits. It's a nonprofit, but it had net income of$40 million. So it was actually not losing money. So with everything Trump says, you always have to like look at the data. So I wanted to just look at it and say, what were the expenses? What was the revenue? The revenue, because I think I have to give you the facts. And if it was like losing all of this money, by the way, I'd be okay with it because it's a nonprofit and its goal, sometimes things don't have to make money.

1:04:11Ben Meiselas:Sometimes things can bring cultural enrichment and inclusiveness and bring people together. And that could be the purpose of something. That's okay. In fact, that's laudable in sometimes. But its revenue was$306 million. Its operating expenses were$266 million. So it had net income of$40 million. So it was actually being run pretty efficiently and people like the Kennedy Center and Hamilton played there and some of the most interesting and exciting and well-known orchestras and symphonies played there. And then Trump goes, I'm shutting it down for maybe two years, maybe longer, I don't know. And Trump says it was a disaster.

1:04:53Ben Meiselas:It's doing horrible. So I'm shutting it down. You're shutting it down? And again, just add it to the list of lots of other Trump things that have been shut down and destroyed. So look, people are fed up with it. So go to Texas State Senate District number nine. Apologies for calling it 10. It's number nine, where you had this election between a Democratic candidate there, Taylor Remitt, who beat the MAGA candidate, Lee Wamsgans. Now, Donald Trump endorsed Wamsgans. The Ultra MAGA is on her bio. Ultra MAGA. This was a plus 17 Trump district in 2024. I mean, Trump endorsed over and over again. I know her.

1:05:41Ben Meiselas:I support her. She's amazing. Don't let me down. Make sure you elect her. I mean, messages profusely endorsing her over and over again. She loses. No one expected it. MAGA Republicans put$2.5 million into that race, which was basically$2.5 million more than the Democrats put in there. And it wasn't a low voter turnout issue. It was that independents almost all went Democrat, which is what we've been seeing in a lot of these special elections. And a good chunk of Republicans voted Democrat. You had the Democratic candidate Remit, he was talking about workers' rights, affordability, kitchen table issues, the MAGA candidate, social issues, and I'm here to be Donald Trump's rubber stamp.

1:06:34Ben Meiselas:And the people of Texas, State Senate District 9, rejected it. And what's really important, I think, as well, because Trump and Abbott gerrymandered Texas the way they did, believing they would create five new Republican congressional seats there. In order to do that, you have to dilute and remove people from existing Republican seats to try to get rid of the blue seats. So seats that were maybe plus 16, you may reduce them to plus eight in order to turn a Democratic seat into, say, a plus four or five Republican. because you have to remove people and put people in other districts. So now there are all of these districts that are below plus 15 because Trump and MAGA were going by the 2024 results when they also won a lot of Hispanic votes in the state of Texas, where their approval amongst Hispanic voters now, Trump and MAGA, is like 25 % to 24 % approval.

1:07:44Ben Meiselas:Some of the highest net negatives ever, even worse than in the past before Donald Trump lied and was able to rally some Hispanic voters. So if what occurred in the state Senate District 9, if you repeat that and had a plus, let's just say you had a plus, if you had a plus 31 over performance, then all of these seats are going to go, like every single one, like including ones that no one even expected would go Democrat in Texas. But let's just say you did a plus 14 overperformance, not a plus 31, plus 14, plus 15, plus 16 overperformance. All those plus 10s, you're going to flip right now. But let's take a look at what Donald Trump said in the Oval when he was in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend when he was asked about that Texas State Senate district race.

1:08:37Ben Meiselas:Let's play it.

1:08:39Brett Meiselas:The Pressure is a Democrat. A Democrat won in a special election in an area that you had won by 17 points.

1:08:46Ben Meiselas:What is your reaction to that? I don't know.

1:08:47Brett Meiselas:I didn't hear about it. Somebody ran where?

1:08:50Ben Meiselas:The Pressure is a special election for legislative seats. The 9th state Senate seat.

1:08:54Brett Meiselas:I'm not involved in that. That's a local Texas race. The President is a Republican. You mean I won by 17? You did. And this person lost. Things like that happen. The Pressure is a Republican. Well, you don't know whether or not it's transferable. You know, I'm not on the report. the ballot so you don't know whether or not it's transferable but you know you put the democrats in you'll end up with open borders again you'll end up with crime all over the place we have no crime anymore and i mean think of it the country is the lowest crime it's had in 125 years in recorded history the year 1900 that's a long time ago so it's very good no i don't know anything about it i didn't know i mean i know there's a race going there and uh it's too bad what can i

1:09:36Ben Meiselas:to say, I have nothing to do with it. Yeah. Brett and Jordy, let me toss it over to you. But the theme I want to share with you in this episode, Epstein, I know nothing about it. I had nothing to do with it. United Arab Emirates getting hundreds of millions of dollars personally directed to him and then giving our classified semiconductor information over to the United Emirates. I know nothing about it. I don't know anything. I know nothing about it. He loses the race that he endorsed on. I know nothing about it. I don't know nothing about it. I never know. I I don't even know who she is. Now, we showed you all of the data throughout this episode that he's on the files 38 ,000 times.

1:10:15Ben Meiselas:We know that he's on the board because there's websites that have his face on it. And you would know if you brought in$500 million for yourself. And we're showing you his endorsements that he made. I could do this on any issue. But I hope the point I'm making on this episode is one that actually isn't partisan at all. but is factual. By the way, partisan could also be factual, but what I'm explaining to you is that set aside your politics. I've showed you three egregious lies. Corruption, Epstein, losing. What more do you need to be lied to your face before you go, yeah, you think I'm stupid?

1:11:05Jordan Meiselas:The only other thing that I want to add is on many of these episodes, I've talked about how these billionaires have put forth a concerted effort to control the flow of communications, to own the TV networks, to own the social media apps, to take over all the ways that you are receiving your information. Look what just happened with TikTok, right? Now, I want to take that and I want to line that up with some of the other things we learned in the Epstein files because I think they actually match up. And I think it's part of this kind of brainwashing and the lying that we see from Donald Trump. And that's that there are...

1:11:50Jordan Meiselas:When you look at the Epstein files, you see that Epstein was having these meetings with the people who created the 4chan politics board. That was a big way that a lot of this disinformation spread before the 2016 election, especially. It was like a main source and it continues to be a main source of a lot of crazy stuff that comes out there. And Epstein, allegedly, it appears that he played a big role in all of that. It appears that Epstein played some sort of role in the WikiLeaks stuff. We've learned through these documents that Ghislaine Maxwell was a Reddit moderator. She was a moderator on Reddit, controlling what content people see and what content people don't see.

1:12:33Jordan Meiselas:I mean, just think about how crazy that is. Then we obviously see that Elon Musk, we know that he purchased Twitter. He's all over the files. We see that Peter Thiel, who is all over the files. He controls a lot of the flow of information. He started Palantir and all this other stuff. So we see all of these figures out there and we, in some cases are able to transparently see their takeover of these media companies and social media apps. And in some cases, we just don't know. You know, you don't necessarily know who's the person running 4chan. Have they met with Jeffrey Epstein in secret or whatever it is, right?

1:13:06Jordan Meiselas:But this is more proof that that's what's happening. And so when you're on these social media apps, when you get hit with a deluge of hate or whatever, just remember, this is coming from somewhere, right? Whenever you're like, there's no way there are all these people who are like this. Remember, it's all coming from somewhere. These are the same people. Epstein may be gone. He may be gone. Maybe he's not. I don't know. But Epstein may be gone. But I'm telling you, the structures that were there, that Epstein was the kind of in-between of, those all still exist. and all that is still happening.

1:13:40Jordan Meiselas:And all those people are still enriching themselves, expanding their power, doing everything they can to avoid accountability and to control people. And so I think that's what we're seeing. I think it's something we need to stay on top of and understand that Donald Trump is integral to that goal and to that kind of elite group of people who are all involved in this sort of stuff. And we're not gonna let up. We're not going to relent. We're gonna stay on top of these stories no matter what. And that's our pledge to you. And thank you for your support. Absolutely. And look, to that, I just want to go back to what I was saying earlier in the show with Donald Trump.

1:14:16Brett Meiselas:There is not an honest bone in his body. It's clear. It's crystal clear. By all of the times we've played the clips, it is crystal frigging clear. The guy takes no accountability for himself. but we're also seeing with with maga mike and the entire maga republican ilk right now is that they don't care about you the american person they just they simply don't they are going to lie cheat and steal so long as it continues to enrich themselves and so i am hopeful that um for example what we saw in texas is a sign of things to come and i think we've seen this over the year with all the special elections that we've seen as well.

1:15:00Brett Meiselas:It's just time that people are frankly fed up. And that's where we stand, right? I don't view myself as a political person. I view myself as someone who's pissed off, who's someone who's angry, who's someone who just simply wants the best for my fellow Americans. I know that for future generations. And so just to see the smugness of which these Republicans continue to lie at the rate they continue to lie about, just knowing that they don't care to actually help the American people. They just want to enrich themselves at the end of the day. It hurts me deeply, personally, on a personal level. And it looks as if it is hurting the American people on a deeply personal level as well, just from what we saw with those independents in Texas, Benji.

1:15:44Ben Meiselas:I want to leave us with this. I can't believe I'm even showing this. But Donald Trump's number two at the Department of Justice, his former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanch had the following to say about his response to Trump and others being all over the files. Just play the clip.

1:16:08Jordan Meiselas:Is there any chance that any of these individuals who partied with Epstein and engaged in relations with minors will be prosecuted? Any chance?

1:16:19Ben Meiselas:we i'll never say no and we will always investigate any evidence of misconduct but as you know it is not a crime to party with mr epstein and and so as horrible as it's not a crime to email with mr epstein and and some of these men may have done horrible things and and if we have evidence that allows us to prosecute them you better believe we will but it's also the kind of thing that that the american people need to understand that it isn't a crime to party with mr epstein it isn't

1:16:47Jordan Meiselas:crime didn't look like that's all that was going on on some of those photos i mean if the photos could speak they some of them look pretty bad that's right and unfortunately photos can't speak

1:16:55Ben Meiselas:and so we need witnesses and we are there videotape the witnesses are in the files the survivors and victims are in the files the photos of the people do speak we can see them we We can actually hear the audio. We can see the grotesque photos. You're the DOJ, so you could reach out to these people. They've been actually trying to reach out to you and you re-traumatize them by showing their faces and their information in the files. Again, this regime should horrify you, not because you're a political this or a political that. But just because you're a human being, that's what I want to leave us with right now.

1:17:42Ben Meiselas:A reminder, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel and help us get to 6 million subscribers. You may think you're subscribed. Double check and hit subscribe if you're not. Become a member of the YouTube channel. It's becoming a paid member. And you can gift paid memberships to people. that helps sustain the operations of this network and helps us grow. We're in growth mode right now with our Washington, D.C. Bureau on the ground reporting throughout the country. That's thanks to you. I think you've seen the growth over the past month as we head to February. Your help is always appreciated there.

1:18:20Ben Meiselas:Subscribe to the audio podcast by searching Midas Touch. We recently launched Aaron Parnas' audio podcast, The Parnas Perspective. Subscribe to his audio podcast as well. Subscribe to our YouTube channel too. That's all I got. So go to MidasPlus.com and also check out store.midastouch.com for the Midas merch and the Midas gear. If you're in Canada, we make Midas Canada gear, Maple Midas gear, exclusively made in Canada for you so you can continue your boy and we have the other gear made in the US made by 100 % unions here. All right, I'll leave you with that. Thank you, everybody. I know we covered a lot.

1:19:03Ben Meiselas:I know some of this material was difficult to get through, but it was important that we stick with the facts. And we'll leave you with that. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Keep checking our videos throughout the day. We'll keep uploading new videos, as always, with breaking news content. And thank you all so much. We appreciate you. Stay in the fight. Stay in the fight. Jordi, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

1:19:26Jordan Meiselas:Midas, Midas, standing strong.

1:19:33Jordan Meiselas:Against the fascists, we sing our song. We will get it right whenever...

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