MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 5/1/26

25:28We need to be so big and so scary that they don't want to mess with us. You don't see the United States bombing Russia. You don't see Russia bombing the United States. If we build up our nuclear arsenal, we will be untouchable because they're not going to want to get into a spat with us. And I think that is the psychology kind of behind it and what Donald Trump has imbued in so many of these countries across the world right now, where instead of actually disarming nuclear weapons and denuclearization, which has been such a major thing over the past few decades, Donald Trump has actually encouraged countries all over the world to increase their nuclear arsenal and make it so we're in possibly one of the most dangerous situations that we have ever been in.

26:12as a planet right now. It's all because of Donald Trump. And you notice when Hexeth says they have these nuclear ambitions, that's such an open-ended thing to say about anybody because there's nothing to it. Like the ambitions, they want it. Okay. So then you can use that excuse to bomb anybody, right? You could use that excuse then to bomb Iran at any time, to bomb this country at any time, that country, any time. If ambitions is the marker, I mean, you said you obliterated them, but they still have ambitions. It's the most ridiculous talking point imaginable. And Hegseth really isn't used to getting challenged on that sort of level, I want to remind everybody, because think about the press who he speaks to every single day.

26:56He's kicked out any sort of real journalists from those briefings. He has these fake pro-MAGA press that ask him softball questions. And so he's never challenged until he comes into these congressional hearings, which is why these congressional hearings are actually important. But what I've noticed across all of the Trump administration, no matter what the topic is, it comes down to a simple concept, which is you can't solve a problem unless you acknowledge the problem exists. And when the Trump administration across the board is constantly lying about everything that is going on, and it is refusing to admit reality, whether it's the on the ground situation in Iran, whether it's high gas prices, whether it's the affordability crisis that Americans are feeling at home, then they can never fix it because they don't think there's a problem to be fixed.

27:46And we see that as we, you know, we had Pablo Monriquez and Scott McFarlane on the Hill today. And they were asking very simple questions about gas prices to Republicans. And they were like, actually, I give Donald Trump, he's doing great. He actually brought down the prices. He brought down the prices and everyone's happy. And I give Donald Trump an A on the economy and an A on gas prices. He's just doing incredible. How can you expect that person to work on your behalf as a legislator to actually do things that lower gas prices if they think everything is amazing right now? You can't. How could you expect Donald Trump to change strategy to something that actually makes sense in Iran if he thinks that everything is going amazing?

28:26You can't because he's using bad facts and he is trying to bluster his way through these things and put on a television in performance rather than actually do the job because it's easy to lie to the press. It's easy to lie on TV. It's a lot harder to engage in diplomacy. It's a lot harder to actually engage in the mechanics of and the chess games of actual warfare. And what do we actually need to do to win this thing? How can we get out of this thing safely? What's our exit plan? And that was basically the point that Frederick Merz, the chancellor of Germany, was making the other day when he said the United States has been humiliated by Iran.

29:03been totally, utterly humiliated by Iran right now. And as I'm looking at the situation, Donald Trump and the United States have no exit strategy. It's an objectively true fact. And after Donald Trump's call with Vladimir Putin the other day, what did Donald Trump do? The first thing he did was threaten to remove any sort of US defenses, any sort of US troop presence from Germany. And so he's already taking retribution of him for simply reporting the facts. We've known how kind of malignant facts are to the MAGA movement, how they repel them at all costs, how they want to live in their alternate reality.

29:38Well right now in this war, we are seeing the consequences of people who refuse to admit

29:44Meidastouch Hosts:reality. Exactly, Brett. Really well said. They, being the Trump regime, are just such dishonest brokers of information. You see Hegseth up there just lying through his teeth and he gets called out on it. Wait, I thought we won this war back in March. It's May. What are we still doing bombing? Like, what are we still doing there with our presence there? I thought we're done. Hey, how can we get out? When can we get out? The reality of the situation is, to borrow a Trumpian phrase here, we don't have the cards. The United States doesn't have the cards right now. Donald Trump certainly does not have the cards right now.

30:20Meidastouch Hosts:He has put himself into a situation with absolutely zero clear exit strategy. And we, being the public, being the citizens, being our troops, we're the ones in danger right now. Because Donald Trump is too stubborn to admit that he does not have the cards, that he messed up, and that he is too just, I don't know, macho of a man to figure out like, hey, no, it's actually time to get out. But no, he's going to continue to put our troops on the line. He's going to continue to crater our economy by jacking up these oil prices. I mean, I just don't understand this whole notion why this entire party, this Republican party just bends over backwards to protect him.

31:02Meidastouch Hosts:Brett, you said it perfectly. If they don't admit there is a problem, then nothing in this country will ever actually get solved. And all they're doing every single day of the week is defending Donald Trump with every last breath that they have rather than working for their constituents, rather than working for the American people. To me, it's just deeply painful because when you see Donald Trump up there taking the questions, when we go back to those clips a little bit earlier that we played before, first off, it's a guy that is just totally and utterly unhinged. And I'm not saying that for like clicks and to be like rage bait or whatever.

31:33Meidastouch Hosts:He is totally out of his damn mind fielding these questions. And that's the president of the United States right there. So every other country around is looking at us like we are the damn fools, like we are the assholes because that's our leader right there. Meanwhile, he has his hand, if you're watching this, just he is so embarrassed by the fact that he's got these marks on his hands that he's literally deteriorating before our eyes that he covers his hand on top of his other hand just so no cameras could get any photos of what's going on. That's literally, he is so vain. That's what he's thinking about as he's fielding these questions because that's all he cares about is himself and his legacy and what he could do to put his fingerprints on this world for better or for worse.

32:17Meidastouch Hosts:And meanwhile, it's for worse. It's for worse off of the American people. It's for worse off of our troops. It's for worse off of the world when our leaders behave like Donald Trump. I want to take our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss when we come back. I want to talk about Hegsitt's testimony. I want to talk about what's going on at that PGA tournament in Doral right now, where it seems like nobody showed up for this. Everything Donald Trump touches, this guy bankrupts. I mean, on the 18th hole with some of the biggest stars, there's literally nobody showing up there.

32:51Remember, Donald Trump built this gold statute for himself. The whole thing was very strange. So while you have basically this PGA Tour, just an utter humiliation ritual for Donald Trump at Doral, Donald Trump is also saying that he's welcoming the live golf tournament at his golf course in Virginia, which he calls the Washington, D.C. course. And live is now going out of business because the Saudi look for those who are on audio. I'm showing people what the this is the active PG. This is the tournament. Nobody showed up. There's nobody at there. There's nobody had Trump's to row. This is the PGA.

33:27Those that would be packed normally with people everywhere. You need to have the rafters even higher. And then he's bragging about the Live Golf Tournament in Washington, D.C., and Live is now shutting down because the Saudis said we're not funding anything really in the United States unless it's something essential because America's security and brawl in the Middle East is gone. And Trump's bragging like, I've got Live. Live is coming here. Dude, you destroyed all this stuff. And Trump's expression is like a miracle that will all just go away, like a miracle. What he really means is he's looking for a bailout because he's been bailed out from his failures his whole life, either by his daddy, either by lenders, either by threatening just to like sue everybody or by blaming people.

34:16We'll talk about that and more. Let's take our first quick break of the show. Reminder, will you become a member of our YouTube channel? Click join and gift the memberships to as many people as you can. we know it's a difficult economy now. So if you have the ability to become a member and you want to gift memberships to other people, click join, give people memberships, and you get access to the exclusive podcasts I do with Ron Filipkowski, the emojis that are there, like the taco emoji and more. Let's take a break. We'll be right back after our first week.

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38:26Meidastouch Hosts: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. Benji, where to next? Just going back to that Oval Office presser for a moment, Donald Trump spending a lot of his time attacking NATO allies, Germany, Italy, Spain. Trump thinks that the fact that they don't want to join his war crimes and his unlawful and criminal invasions is a betrayal of NATO when NATO is a defensive alliance. And Donald Trump and Netanyahu went alone when they invaded Iran. But Donald Trump now attacks all of these countries, attacks their leaders.

39:08And Donald Trump's, you know, making social media posts, we're going to withdraw American troops from Germany, from the German base. all right i mean that's not just gonna hurt germany i mean it's gonna also hurt the united states i mean there's there's reasons that america established these bases and ultimately america's uh you know security umbrella and interest in the region were also part of a broader plan to uh help america's economy help uh you know try to create stability in the world i suppose but here's donald trump attacking spain italy and germany you talked about uh possibly pulling out some troops out of Germany.

39:48Would you be considering the same thing for Spain and Italy? I mean, they haven't been exactly on board. Yeah, probably. Yeah, I probably will. Why should I? You know, look, why shouldn't I? Italy has not been of any help to us. And Spain has been horrible. Absolutely horrible. You know, as NATO, it's not even the fact that they're bad. It's one thing they said nicely. or they said, OK, we'll help. But the help's a little slow. But the level. And we helped them with Ukraine. You know, they made a mess out of Ukraine, a total mess. And we helped them with Ukraine. Ukraine has nothing to do, you know, we're an ocean apart.

40:34It has to do with them. It's like for them, it's their front door. We helped them. And Biden gave them$350 billion, which is insane. It's one of the reasons the world. You know, it's always Biden. I don't even know what he's even trying to say there. We had to help NATO with Ukraine. I don't even know what he's even talking about other than yesterday he kept on confusing Ukraine and Iran. And so he's just continuing to go down that path of, you know, mixing up Ukraine and Iran to act like what he was saying yesterday made sense when he was confusing everything. But just think about it from the Oval Office spending his time saying they should have been nicer to me.

41:13They could have just been even nicer to you. What are you even talking about? Do you like at the most basic level, you don't understand what NATO is. You don't care about what NATO is. You're doing phone calls with Putin for 90 minutes talking about economic cooperation, inviting Putin to Miami for the G20, and then just every day attacking NATO allies. I think interestingly, while that was going on, CBS and other news outlets reached out to the State Department and to the Department of Defense officials and said, are you currently working with Germany on a drawdown of troops? Is there a plan to do that?

41:52You know, Trump said it. So have you alerted Germany to that? And, you know, all of the sources in the notes and no, no, we don't even know what he's talking about. Like, that's not a thing that we're doing. And Germany is actually helping us quietly behind the scenes with a lot of different things. And we actually need that base for a lot of what we've been working on, what we've been doing right now. So you have that. It's just also fascinating, right? Like as Donald Trump praises Pakistan and acts like, you know, Pakistan's the biggest ally. You know, important to note that, you know, Pakistan gave lots of money to Trump's crypto company.

42:30And they said that Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize when India didn't say that Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize. So it's why Donald Trump basically threw in the garbage, you know, multiple decades of building a strong relationship between the United States and India, which is often called the world's largest democracy by population size. But now one of the things that we're seeing is that Iran seems to be using a lot of the land routes that Pakistan's offering in order to move supplies, resources to get around the blockade. also using the territorial waters of Pakistan to get around the blockade as well.

43:07And so I guess Trump thinks that they're being nice to him by investing in his companies. But this is why we have things like the emoluments clause that prohibits these foreign entanglements. This is why we're supposed to have a system of checks and balances. Trump sees himself as America. Trump sees himself as the United States. Trump sees himself having a golden age because he's looting from the American people. And him and his right-wing oligarchs are looting from the American people. The American people are struggling. Trump's focused on UFC fights, golden ballrooms, triumphal arches, putting his face on passports.

43:51That's the new one that the State Department's going to put Donald Trump's face on newly issued passports, putting his signature and face on national park cards and on currency and all of these buildings and this building and that building and renaming the Kennedy Center, which is a memorial in his name. I mean, you could go down through a whole list. And by the way, not that we needed to see a poll like this, but Washington Post AP Ipsos poll showing that like 12 % of Americans support Donald Trump doing most of the stuff at the high end. 25 % of Americans support all this crap with him putting ballrooms in name.

44:28Americans hate this. Overall, Donald Trump's approval is worse than Nixon at the time that Nixon resigned. On the issue of standard of living, Trump has like 11 % approval amongst independents on the issue of standard of living right now, like 11%. Trump's approval overall in the economy is 30 % right now. In every generic poll, Democrats are just destroying MAGA Republicans right now going into the midterms, which is why Donald Trump needs to call in his right-wing Supreme Court to make a ruling like they just did gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation from 1965 that provided for safeguards to prevent racist gerrymandering.

45:08On a bipartisan basis, Democrats and Republicans came together in 1965. One of the crown jewels of civil rights litigation was the Voting Rights Act. I want to repeat that. Democrats and Republicans came together. It was like a Democratic initiative. This was a bipartisan issue, right? All of the civil rights legislation was bipartisan. Environmental protection was bipartisan. This past EPA basically came into existence under Nixon. If you think about it also, campaign finance reform, McCain Feingold, bipartisan basis, right? Democrats and Republicans, yet the Supreme Court, they say, Yeah, the Constitution as it relates to campaign finance, that's an unlawful law Democrats and Republicans came together with because corporations are people.

45:53And so they should be able to spend as much money because it's a free speech issue. Where in the Constitution does it say corporations are people and they should spend unlimited money because it's free? We think that's free speech, corporate free speech. You can't prohibit it. Corporations are humans. I mean, right here, of the Supreme Court this week saying, yeah, Section 2 is basically unlawful because it is already factoring in race as a consideration in creating congressional districts that have majority black congressional districts. And that's racist. What do you mean that's racist? It's implementing the 15th Amendment and other amendments regarding equal protection.

46:34So it's blocking racism. And the Supreme Court goes, no, no, no, no, no. The very focus on racism is racist. If a state legislature says they're not racist and they're gerrymandering for political purposes and you say they're being racist, you being anti-racist and calling them out as racist, you're the racist and you want to build majority congressional black districts and areas to represent, say, 35 percent of the population is black and to make sure they have equal representation That's racist. You're focused on race. The state legislature just says they are focused on political gerrymandering and that they're not doing race.

47:14So we just have to accept them at their word. That's basically what the Supreme Court said. And this is going to have far reaching implications in future elections as well as states are just going to continue to say, hey, we're not doing racist gerrymandering. Sure, we diluted all of the black vote by putting black voters in multiple congressional districts so that they don't even get to elect a single congressmember. But we were doing political gerrymandering, you know, which is perfectly OK. Democrats want to ban all forms of gerrymandering. Republicans block Democrats effort to to block all gerrymandering.

47:50And, you know, I bring all of this up because, you know, there is a path forward, Brett and Jordy and Might is Mighty, where people on a bipartisan basis can work together and do deals. But every time you do it and every time you see the polling data, you know, says, you know, look, Donald Trump and MAGA's policies are detested and despised. What do they do? They call in the favors from their Supreme Court. They, you know, engage in rigging the maps and cheating. And it's like the American people are livid. All of this stuff is going on that we've been talking about in this episode. So MAGA then calls in a favor from their Supreme Court.

48:26I mean, it's utterly pathetic. And what happens immediately after this? Well, Ron DeSantis specifically hold a bill that they were working on in order to rearrange the Florida maps to attempt to add four seats because this Supreme Court case basically allowed that to move forward. It was going to be unconstitutional. This basically gave them the green light. Now it's to be determined if this Florida gerrymander will actually be a dummymander, as they've been calling it, because it relies on the Latino vote a lot from the previous elections, which of course has shifted dramatically. But it shows you where their minds at that was one of the first things they did.

49:03Also, we saw Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency. And to me, this should be like a major, major, major, major scandal that anyone does this. But he literally canceled the state's upcoming congressional elections that were happening so that they could do their gerrymander based on the Supreme Court decision, because that's what the Supreme Court decision was about. It was about this majority black district in Louisiana. And so they said, so the governor said, nope, suspending the election. It's not going to happen until these maps are passed. It's so corrupt. And Ben was speaking about how unpopular the Republicans are.

49:40And I think so many people ask, like, I've seen this in our comments. I've seen people email me this and leave it in my comments. And they'll say, Brett, why are people, why are these Republicans still supporting Donald Trump and all of this chaos when his approval rating is in the 30s, when all these policies are so unpopular? And I started talking about this a little on the last episode, but I'll bring it back right now because it applies to this horrific Supreme Court decision. And that's when you have these gerrymandered districts, the voters aren't choosing the politicians, the politicians are choosing the voters.

50:16And so they're able to carve out these districts where they pack into the most extremist MAGA people all in the same district, or they put in as many Republicans as possible into a district and they dilute these other districts. And who ends up coming out to these midterm elections? Well, it's usually the most diehard of the supporters, the most MAGA of the supporters. And so, so many of these politicians know that if they are not completely subservient to Donald Trump, somebody even more radical, even further to their right, I mean, that's why we keep moving further and further and further, is going to come along and going to primary them.

50:54And this is something we've seen over and over and over again over the past few years in the Trump era of people who maybe at some point reach a breaking point to decide, I am going to not go along with Donald Trump on the Epstein files, right? Like a Thomas Massey. And then you see Donald Trump try to uplift a candidate to try to force somebody like that out. That's why they are so afraid of Donald Trump, despite the fact that he is the most unpopular president that we have ever seen. And we've now heard people like Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announce that Democrats are looking at these plans.

51:30I also want to be clear, like the effects on these upcoming midterms are going to be fairly minimal. I mean, you see what Florida is doing, you see what Louisiana is doing, but the real impact of this is going to be seen kind of 2028 and beyond. But what we're noticing is Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic leader, you're seeing all these governors now say, okay, well, if this is the new standard, we're going to gerrymander our seats. We're going to redistrict it. We're going to be super aggressive. I've seen people throw out saying, hey, in California, we have 50 plus seats. We're going to make those all Democratic seats.

52:05I've seen Jeffrey say that he's going to target four different states at minimum in order to try to do this. And now I 100 % agree with the need to fight fire with fire. And they absolutely, they need to do this, right? They have to do this. But I will totally acknowledge and admit that I hate it. and that I think that this is horrific for democracy because this sort of brinksmanship that we are seeing, it dilutes the power of the people. It makes it so that your vote counts less, whether you're a Democrat or whether you are a Republican, because it turns all of these seats that should be competitive into safe seats for the incumbent congresspeople, for the party who has selected those maps.

52:47And as somebody who is pro-democracy, as a network that is pro-democracy, I am extremely against that. But like I said, Jeffries, he's got to do it. These Democratic governors, they have to do it right now. Hopefully, as I said in the last episode, the brinksmanship becomes so intense that at a certain point, we see actual legislation, actual sort of reform here that creates independent commissions that draw these lines fairly across the country, some sort of national standard. I'm incredibly doubtful that that will happen but we need to get there i mean that is kind of one of the big ways that we could save democracy and it will not only save democracy it will tone down the extremism because everything kind of flows down from the extremism that results from these gerrymandered districts imagine if these politicians instead of having to play to the most extreme of their base had to actually compete in competitive districts against each other you would see a much different perspective They would actually be terrified that gas is over$5 in a lot of the country.

53:54They would actually be terrified that things are super expensive and that people can't afford things and that Donald Trump is a maniac who is destroying the entire world. But as of now, the incentive structures are not there. And if the incentive structures are not there, then they're not going to do it. Plain and simple.

54:12Meidastouch Hosts:Well said, B. And look, we just really have to get back to a point of our society where our public servants, our quote unquote leaders, actually want to work for the people, want to better the lives of the citizens in this country. You know, I agree, right? The Democrats have, they have to do this, right? But it's also just such a damning indictment of our society and our democracy that this is where we are at this time. It's deeply concerning, especially someone who has a kid, another kid on the way. You guys have young children as well. and not just for our families right but for everybody's families like we love this country not to get too preachy or whatnot but we genuinely love this country we want to see it succeed but it has to start with our leaders our public servants serving the people trying to do what's best for everybody how can we how can we make housing more affordable for for all the generations how can we make health care more affordable what should we do about you know reproductive rights like these are like issues that genuinely people want to figure out and solve and yet there's an entire constituency of leadership out there that don't actually want to solve it.

55:17Meidastouch Hosts:They want to use it as issues to kind of like raise money and just make you angry at the other. It's deeply disappointing and deeply concerning. The other thing that honestly keeps me up at night, Ben, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, like are these Donald Trump weird quirks where he's just putting his name on everything now, right? Whether it's the triumphant arc that he wants to build or renaming the Kennedy Center or the Trump Kennedy Center, putting his face on the passports. He's just such a malignant narcissist that just needs to see literally his fingerprints on anything. It's very obvious that he is sort of coming to grips with his own sort of mortality, that he needs to leave his mark on this world.

55:57Meidastouch Hosts:Like in his mind, he physically needs to leave his mark on this world in some way or some form. And yet he's now surrounded himself by yes people that constantly tell him how great he is and what a great job he's doing. Whereas the American people at large don't agree with that know what a horrible job he's doing because we all feel it in our lives and this person donald trump this thing is just at this point where i i am concerned like there is a nuclear option here where quite literally there's a nuclear option here where he just wants to leave his mark on this world so badly that he will do whatever it takes to make sure that trump print the stamp, the face, the whatever you want to call it, is left on this world.

56:41I do think that's so much of it. He wants to have something that lives beyond him. I think he's made comments, especially recently, about his own mortality, not going to heaven, all the kind of weird comments he makes. And I think a lot of that is a reason, honestly, if you dig deep into his psyche, is one of the reasons for the ballroom, for these posters, for his name on these things. I completely agree.

57:03Meidastouch Hosts:I compare it to the pharaohs and the pyramids for the pharaohs. That is this modern version of that, the ballroom or the triumphant art. That is that. Which is why I think any future candidate who's running for office, one of their big priorities, honestly, should be de-Trumpifying everything. Just going through every agency, getting rid of the people he put in. Going through, if he builds the ballroom, at minimum, taking his name off the stupid ballroom. Take his name off everything. Take his photo off everything. change the passports, change the money, change whatever he's going to do. There needs to be a process of removing all of that.

57:35And I think when you look at all of these things that happen, especially when it's an issue like the Voting Rights Act, this has become such a priority for this Republican Party. And we've seen it. We saw it coming because even when you listened to like Charlie Kirk before this election or big things that he spoke about, well, what did he say was the biggest mistake. The Civil Rights Act, he said, was the biggest mistake. They've gone after the Civil Rights Act. They've gone after the Voting Rights Act. That was one of the biggest things that hurt these people on the right. If you really want to go back all the way, I think you can make a pretty solid argument that the Civil War never really ended and that we've been in a cold Civil War ever since.

58:19While the factions have shifted and they may have had a D in front of their name when it started, and now they have an R in front of their name or behind their name. It's the same kind of arguments that are playing out and the same kind of racist forces at play that we're now seeing in 2026. And they've seen an opportunity with Project 2025, with stacking the courts, with having Donald Trump in office, with having this Congress where they think we could finally actually push these racist policies forward and we could dilute the black vote. We could dilute the vote of anybody who doesn't look like us.

58:53And we want to ensure our power in this society. You know, the ridiculous argument that always comes from the Trumpers and things where, you know, nothing makes sense is when they go, but the Democrats were the party of slavery. The Democrats were the party of the confession. Well, who's flying the Confederate flag right now? I'm going to say, you're not seeing too many Democrats flying the Confederate flag right now. Perhaps the parties shifted. Perhaps they flipped because y 'all seem to be the ones who are supporting them. You guys seem to be the ones who every opportunity you get are trying to pass legislation in order to ensure that black people don't vote, don't have a say in our society.

59:27And you are trying to make a white ethno state here in the United States of America. So I think your actions speak much louder than your BS arguments. Well, if you think about it, right, just how did Donald Trump and MAGA react to losing in Virginia on the yes referendum, which is in response to all the MAGA Republicans gerrymandering. It's rigged. It's so unfair. How could Democrats do gerrymandering? It's like, this was your game. You started this mid-decade redistricting, and now you're whining about the results in Virginia. And if you go back and you look at these pieces of legislation from the 1960s or even the EPA and all of the environmental protection, I mean, these were, again, bipartisan laws that were Republicans, Democrats came together, passed a law.

1:00:11It was signed by a president. And ultimately, a group of people didn't like the outcome of the rules. And so rather than live within that framework of equality, of just a better way of living, they sociopaths are like, how do we cheat? How do we break it down? All right, let's invade all of the courts and let's have the courts say it's unconstitutional, even though these laws were passed on a bipartisan basis, intrude on the laws and say that the laws aren't real, and then just don't enforce the laws and all that. And so what comes with it is this MAGA idea is we're not going to play by the rules.

1:00:53We're just going to cheat. That's how we're going to do it. The whole thing is one big kind of cheating racket. Then accuse the other side. You've rigged it. You're a cheater. And that's the biggest tell because everything is projection with them. They just accuse the others of everything that they're doing all the time. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to share with you what was going down with Hegsit's testimony. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Gavin Newsom getting into the discovery phase and more. Become a member. Click the join button right now.

1:01:22Help us get to 7 million subscribers as well. Gift emojis for people by clicking join. And then you can gift emojis to people and give other people memberships to some of the exclusive bonus features here. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

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1:05:14Meidastouch Hosts:Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors. 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, where to next? I want to talk just very briefly about Donald Trump's new Surgeon General pick, Nicole Sapphire. She's basically a talking head on Fox. That's how Donald Trump picks members of his cabinet and top officials. You'll recall Donald Trump's prior Surgeon General pick, like really didn't believe in conventional or traditional medicines and didn't really believe in like current, like modern science practices and lots of conflicts of interest.

1:05:53Also, people were alleging regarding products that she would kind of push and sell that she didn't disclose that she had an investment in or had a stake in while pushing that as an alternative to other forms of medicine. But his new Surgeon General pick is someone by the name of Nicole Sapphire. And you may remember her from some of the clips we would pick of her from Fox, like where she said, inside out elements, people are not interested in these woke ideologies, special men who are watching these movies. This is the type of ideas that come from her. Even younger, too, some of the animated, like Jungle Book, Hercules, Aladdin, Peter Pan, all of those, what has happened in the last decade when it comes to Disney is demasculinization of all of their characters.

1:06:41And while they're wanting to lift up the women to be these strong characters, instead of having an equal man, they had to push that man down. And you even hear, you've heard directors and producers and even some of the talent coming out and saying, Maybe she was talking about Snow White. She was saying how we can't have him give. There's no consent to the kiss at the end that like whatever it is, they're taking away from it. And men are not interested in this. You look at Inside Out, which is one of Pixar's movie. And it was they had an anxiety character elements, which was another animated movie.

1:07:12They had a non-binary character. People are not interested in a lot of these woke ideologies, especially men who are watching some of these movies. You have to get back some of that testosterone and that adventure. and I'm sorry, but these movies just don't cut it. Just the oddest conversations that nobody's having. No one sits around their dinner table and says, you know what really bothers me? This demasculinization of the Disney male characters. It's really becoming a barrier for lots of adult males to watch Snow White. And it's becoming a big problem here. And that's what Americans are really thinking about right now.

1:07:45No, I mean, what do you... That's, though, part of their culture war attacks in order to try to create divisions from the real issues that most Americans share. The struggles of affordability, the struggles to afford a home, the struggles to afford gas, the struggles to access health care and have education and to have a job with dignity. They don't want you focusing on those things, which Donald Trump and his right-wing oligarch buds are ripping away from all of you. They want you to focus on demasculinization of of Disney characters and that that's a major issue that we all have to confront.

1:08:23So that's who Donald Trump wants to be, the Surgeon General. I mean, just beyond weird. Going to Hegsitz, I don't think we need to address that anymore. Going to Hegsitz testimony, want to share something that he repeated over and over again. And well, first, let me share with you what Hegs had said. Let me show this clip first, where Hegs had said the biggest adversary that we face as a country, the biggest adversary that we have right now. You would think, who's the biggest adversary? Is it Russia? Is it China? What's the biggest adversary? We're in war with Iran. Is it Iran? Because we're at war with them.

1:09:03And you say they pose an existential threat based on their ambitions. Is it Iranian ambitions? Is that what's the biggest threat? Is it Al Qaeda? What is it? Tell me, Pete, what's the biggest threat that we face right now? Here, play this clip. Unfortunately, as I said yesterday, and I'll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans. Defeatists from the cheap seats who two months in seek to undermine the incredible efforts that have been undertaken and the historic nature of taking on a 47-year threat with the courage no other president has had to great success and great opportunity for preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

1:09:53It's beyond pathetic. Then Congress Member Goodlander asks, do you agree with the statement that the military won't follow unlawful orders? Do you agree with that? The military shouldn't follow unlawful orders. Pete? Our service members follow lawful orders and lawful orders only. Is that right? Do you agree with the statement, quote, the military won't follow unlawful orders? I do. Mr. Hegseth, do you agree with that statement? I do, but understand what you're insinuating at a partisan point. I'm not. I'm actually quoting you directly, Mr. Hegseth, from April 12th, 2016. And I appreciate that on the record, you've clarified this important principle of American law.

1:10:32We also take a look at the exchange between Hegseth and Moulton, where Hegseth dismisses concerns over the Strait of Hormuz being closed because the U.S. blockaded Iran's blockade. And I'll show you what Congress member Moulton had to say. Let's play it. OK, so let's just just imagine, which, by the way, every other every Obama administration, including the first Trump administration, they had prevented them from having a nuclear weapon. So, listen, how is this war going? Do you think we're winning? Militarily on the battlefield, it's been an astounding military success. But are we winning the war?

1:11:07Absolutely. Okay, so do you call Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz winning? Well, I would say the blockade that we hold that doesn't allow anything to come in or out of Iranian ports. Okay, so we've blockaded their blockade. So they blockaded us, and then we blockaded their blockade. That's like saying, tag, you're it. Or, you know, if President Madison had said, well, the British just burned down Washington, but don't worry. we're going to burn it down as well. Let me show you Senator, that's a good point. Let me show you Senator Blumenthal next. Let's play it. Yesterday, the president said that Ukraine has been, quote, militarily defeated.

1:11:43I assume you don't agree with that assessment.

1:11:49The negative nature in which you characterize the incredible and historic effort in Iran is part of the reason, Senator, why the American people view it the way they do. It's why I looked out at our press corps of the Pentagon and called them the Pharisees in the press. Because they look for every problem. I'm asking you about Ukraine. You look for every problem that exists. And you've missed. Ukraine has been militarily defeated. You've missed the plank. I would submit, based on my nine trips to Ukraine, that is a false narrative that the president's buying from Vladimir Putin. We are two months into a historic military success in Iran, and you want to call it a defeat.

1:12:23And it's defeatist Democrats like you that cloud the mind of the American people. You're just really a scumbag. Like when you think of like a real vile piece of trash, human, I mean, it's Pete Hegseth and comparing the press and Congress members conducting oversight to the Pharisees. So is Donald Trump Jesus in this? Is that is that what this is? Trump is Jesus. The press asking questions is Pharisee. I mean, what a weird dude. And also the constant use of him, of the right wing Christian nationalism and the religious extremism. You know, it's like you you're looking because you're like you're looking at the at the propaganda and the battlefield and what's taking place.

1:13:07And you're seeing that the Trump regime is saying, you know, the Iranians, they're a bunch of religious extremists screaming Allah bar and they're out of control. And then I look at the Trump regime and I've got, you know, actually the religious extremists. I got that guy right there talking about Pharisees and Jesus told me to do it. Everything that you said that they were is how Trump and Hegseth and this regime is basically, you know, is behaving basically. I've never in my life seen a political party treat the other side of the other political party in this country, other major political party with such disdain and so attack half of the United States of America.

1:13:54No matter how intense political campaigns got all my life, whether it was George W. Bush or whether it was Obama, they all had outreach to the other party. They all made it a point when they were in office, when they were president of the United States to reach out to the others and say, we're all Americans. And Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime and all the people around him who view anyone who is not them as the enemy. And not only the enemy, which is bad enough, but the worst enemy imaginable, worse than any of our adversaries, worse than people who we are literally at war with.

1:14:31And that is a dangerous, dangerous thing. and you see the power, the way they're wielding this power in all different facets. Like when you see Todd Blanche going out there with all this James Comey nonsense. And I have no fan of James Comey, but the fact that they're going after him for these clearly political reasons over this completely BS indictment shows you how they just want to attack all their enemies. And frankly, I believe that any of the people who are involved in this, the Todd Blanches of the world, anyone who signs these lawsuits, these are the people who should be criminally prosecuted and shunned from society when this is all said and done, because this is grotesque behavior.

1:15:08I want to go back to that blockade that they keep bragging about over and over very shortly, because this also is not getting enough attention that Pakistan opened apparently six land corridors with Iran to help them route around the naval blockade, because the blockade only works if Iran is actually isolated, but Pakistan is actively running cargo now, essentially opening up a huge hole into Iran, which basically makes the whole blockade useless on its face. And so, and by the way, Pakistan, obviously, of course, as you know, is the mediator in this process. They're people who J.D. Vance has been in touch with, who the United States government has been in touch with.

1:15:51So to show them giving like an FU to the United States in the middle of all that also speaks volumes. It also shows how they are just so out of their depth in everything they are doing in this region right now. And they are causing this country to go to the brink of Varun. And they just don't seem to give a damn. And as I said earlier, all of this is only possible with the lackeys, the sycophants who agreed to live in this alternate reality, even when the objective facts show otherwise, when the objective facts, the data, show you that there is a reality that exists, not both sides or he says one thing, he says another thing.

1:16:33So it's probably somewhere in the middle, but someone's actually telling the truth here and someone's actually telling a lie and the truth is not somewhere in between. So that's why we had our incredible reporters on the ground today in Washington, D.C. interview these members of Congress and ask them very basic questions like, what grade do you give Donald Trump on the economy? What do you think about gas prices? And as I hinted at earlier in this episode, they all would just lie about it, say that Donald Trump's doing great for the economy. A, the prices are actually down. Everyone's happy. Here's an example.

1:17:07This is Representative Byron Donalds. And I think this is an especially important clip because Byron Donalds is running to be the MAGA candidate for Florida governor. And let's see what he thinks about the affordability crisis in this country and the job that Donald Trump is doing. Once again, this is from our reporters in Capitol Hill. Congressman, do you think Donald Trump has delivered on his promise to lower prices? Yeah, he actually has. I know gas prices are a little bit higher because of what's happening in Iran, but across the country, a lot of prices actually have stabilized. I think, you know, inflation is hard, but I remember where we were with the Biden administration, you know, airline tickets jump 50 percent.

1:17:48It was insane. So he's doing a great job. We need, you know, the other side of the aisle to come and help us to do common sense business. But the president's doing great. If it were a report card, what grade would you give him on the economy? Oh, he gets an A. An A? Yeah. An A. An A on the economy. Prices are down. Everything is great. gas prices, not a problem, according to Byron Donaldson and these MAGA Republicans.

1:18:10Meidastouch Hosts:He was also able to fit in a Biden mention in that response too. Joe Biden, yeah. He's the whole gamut of the MAGA responses. Yeah, you got to throw in a Joe Biden. By the way, prices are far higher today than when Joe Biden was president. Inflation is higher today than when Joe Biden left office. And remember, this is a thing, inflation continues to add on. And yes, there was extremely high inflation early on in Biden's term because we had a global pandemic that Donald Trump completely bungled, but they don't seem to ever want to mention that fact. And all the people who were complaining about prices back then are suddenly oddly quiet.

1:18:45I saw a funny tweet online today about this actually, because there was a viral tweet when Biden was president from an individual. I think this person works at like Real Clear Politics, which is like a right-wing website. And they were talking about their Outback Steakhouse bill. And they were saying how bad inflation was you know people at all income levels notice it and they were talking about their 150 outback delivery on like doordash that they ordered and we were the reason why this became so viral back in the day if you if you're looking at a 6.7 million views on this tweet is because they were complaining about their steak and lobster dinner prices being so expensive and so they said i have two teenage boys two blooming onions a steak salad lobster tails of filet a chicken sandwich and a sirloin plus tip and tax 125 on doordash right now it is crazy.

1:19:32That was December 13th, 2023. And so I noticed somebody yesterday, they said, I randomly started thinking about this Bidenflation tweet back from December 2023. So I downloaded DoorDash and I decided to put in the same items that they ordered and see the price. And so that same order, that was$125 that this guy was complaining about back in December 2023 came out to about$220 today, an 85 % increase under Donald Trump. Yet those same people who complained day in and day out during the Biden administration, suddenly it's no problem. A plus economy. Everything is great. Jordy.

1:20:12Meidastouch Hosts:To your point earlier, Brett, which you so brilliantly pointed out, like the Byron Donald's response right there is exactly the issue that we have with this Republican Party. If they refuse to admit that there are real issues with affordability or with anything, then how can we look to our leaders in a bipartisan way to solve these issues? We just simply can't. It is so ridiculous. And the last thing I was going to say, it's going to make a little bit less sense now, Brett, but I was going to interrupt you a little bit earlier and tell you to, hey, Brett, why don't you tone down the rhetoric over there?

1:20:44Meidastouch Hosts:I mean, corporate media is just like there's such potts, honestly. Right. Because anytime there's ever, you know, a situation or whatever, their, their, their initial like instinct is to blame like the Democrats rhetoric. We were talking about this earlier, uh, like earlier in the week with Shapiro, when Caroline Levitt was like going after like misquoting stuff from Josh Shapiro over here, governor of Pennsylvania. And she's like, yeah, we, we, they really have to tone down their rhetoric and the media just like eats this stuff up and they'll like bring a democratic politician on for example and they'll go hey jamie raskin is it time for democrats to to tone down the rhetoric and meanwhile like every clip that we showed like this wasn't old footage this stuff just happened this week this just stuff happened today the rhetoric from these magas from hegseth from trump from literally everyone that we saw it is out of control like out of control five alarm fire shit and i it's unbelievable to me that legacy media out there just does their bidding for them.

1:21:42Meidastouch Hosts:But it makes sense, right? These are the same people that hang out with them behind closed doors that actually like them, that want them to win and succeed and want all of their billionaire buddies to win and succeed at the expense of the American people. It's deeply disheartening. But not to end this show on a bummer, I do feel like there's a way out of here. And that's with communities like this, with independent media with with asking the byron donalds of the world like hey affordability where we rank in trump on the economy and getting his response and now holding that footage forever to show his constituents hey if you're suffering right now the guy that's that's running over here he thinks that that the economy is great that everything's an a plus so look i'm grateful for this community i'm grateful for the entire network i'm so excited uh to continue to grow this network alongside everyone here.

1:22:33Meidastouch Hosts:So let's just keep doing it, y 'all. Just can't wait. Thank you guys so much for listening. Benji? I'll just say this quickly, Jordi. The statement on Josh Shapiro was, Josh Shapiro said, and heads need to roll because of the corruption. Like he wants to rip their heads off. He's using an expression, heads will roll. And they're like, so that's the equivalent of Donald Trump posting photos of like Biden being hogtied and like looks like, he said head roll. It's like, OK, come on, stop it. Just like let's like let's be real. Just quickly to really shout out to Governor Newsom for bringing that lawsuit against Fox, pushing forward with that case and now getting to the next phase, getting to discovery as the case was not dismissed.

1:23:16And that means Newsom can do document requests and depositions. And Newsom can bring in all the Fox executives and really find out all of their communications with Trump regarding the National Guard. And it's fascinating because, you know, he's not a traditional litigant who's going to be swayed by money, you know, personally. So he's going to get all this discovery. And I think it's going to be like, if you're Fox, this is like a catastrophic ruling for you right now that Newsom prevailed because Newsom, again, is motivated by getting out the information. and so Newsom is just going to go hard on Discovery.

1:23:55Think about, we know that Donald Trump talks to reporters and text messages because we see that. Newsom is going to get all that stuff and so to be continued there. Stay tuned. That's all we've got. Thank you so much for watching. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Once again, the number one podcast in the country. We appreciate it. That's all. Thanks to you. Jordy, take it away.

1:24:18Meidastouch Hosts:Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

1:24:22is standing strong. Against the fascists, we sing our song. We will get it right whenever...

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