MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 5/12/26

17:31Jordy Meiselas:What's happening is when this first, when people heard about losing Hormoz, they said, oh, this is, it's genius. They're finding other locations. And some of those people, I spoke to them, companies and countries, some of those people are going to continue to go to Texas. They like it better. They said it's an extra 45 minutes. They like it better. And it's sort of amazing, you know, it found its way. So a lot of people thought oil would go to$250,$300. It's not. I mean, today it's at less than$100. Think of that. Now, when this ends, you're going to see a drop like a rock. How long are you going to suspend that tax for?

18:15Jordy Meiselas:Until it's appropriate, yeah.

18:16Ben Meiselas:The other thing that he said there, there's so much wrong with what he said. But when he goes, they like Texas better. It's like 45 minutes. It's like the difference between like a McDonald's and a Burger. It's 45 minutes away. It's just a little bit longer, but it's a little bit better. How is that? How could the president of the United States even say such a thing, right? I mean, it shows zero understanding of the way international oil markets work. Now you're framing losing the straight of her moves as a victory. And then, you know, Trump's sick offense, but yeah, that's what we wanted the whole time.

18:53Ben Meiselas:The win was none of the things that we said, give her on the straight of her moves. Yeah, Obama was so weak to think that Obama stopped Iran from developing nuclear weapons and Iran didn't control the Strait of Hormuz. What are you doing, Obama? And then Donald Trump calls the proposal from Iran over here. And Iran's proposal is we control the Strait of Hormuz. There's no regime change. Remove the sanctions against us. Cease fire in Lebanon as well. And Trump said this is unacceptable. And Trump says, I have a plan, though. My plan is so genius. We've already won with my plan. Here's what Trump says.

19:32Ben Meiselas:Let's play the clip of Trump saying, calls for the proposal from Iran unacceptable and says a lot of people say, well, does he have a plan? Yeah, of course I do. Narrator, he has no plan. Let me look for this one. All right, take a look at that. But Brett and Jordi, I'll let you respond to all of that.

19:47Brett Meiselas:As Brett looks for that clip, I just wanted to say this just to start. First off, Ben, you are so right. The reflecting pool is the perfect like microcosm of Trump's entire presidency, his entire existence. It's short-term thinking, short-term perceived glitz and glam. Think the Ponzi scheme, stock market, think Trump media, think Liberation Day, think Operation Epic Fury, go on and on, right? Like this huge splash moment to make all the magas go, ooh, nah, but there's no substance behind these moves. And there's legitimately no thinking behind these moves, like long-term thinking. And worst of all, all of the moves are in the sole purpose of serving one person and making one person look good.

20:30Brett Meiselas:At least that's the attempt with these things. Donald Trump, without any care for the repercussions or the actual tangible impacts of these moves for the American people at large, people are feeling it. I mean, like literally every day, just one example is the gas prices right now. I mean, they are simply outrageous. I don't know how Americans are doing it. It is crazy. And then not to get into more, you know, even more serious topics like our dead soldiers, 13 dead American soldiers off of this war of choice by Donald Trump. It is ridiculous. Donald Trump, in my opinion, is the single most anti-American president we have ever had in this country.

21:03Brett Meiselas:Every move, every single one is in the interest of him and him alone. And how could they, how could this make me, Donald Trump, look good instead of trying to find the interest of the American people and making long-term impacts for the American citizens at large? There is none of that thinking that ever goes into any of this from Donald Trump.

21:21Jordy Meiselas:Well, it's also like, you know, there's no consistency in anything Trump does. So like Trump always tries to say, oh, I'm always under budget. I'm always ahead of schedule and under budget. And like with the reflecting pool, it's already, the price has already jumped up 88 % to$13.1 million. And it has that 20 % profit margin that Bennett was talking about to a contractor or Trump handpicked with a no bid contract. And this is the same guy who's going after like Jerome Powell saying that he went over budget with the Federal Reserve building. And meanwhile, you remember he's also talking about the ballroom, which he said is going to cost zero dollars to taxpayers.

21:59Jordy Meiselas:Now they're demanding a billion dollars from taxpayers. There's just no consistency with anything he does. It's all one fraud layered on top of another fraud layered on top of another fraud. And he uses any of those other inconsistencies to attack his own political enemies and try to threaten them. I got the clip that Ben was calling for before. Let me play it right now. Can you tell us anything about that proposal? And what, if any, have you made to break this deal? It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people said, well, does he have a plan? Yeah, of course they do. I have the best plan ever.

22:31Jordy Meiselas:Iran has been defeated militarily, totally. They have a little left. They probably built up during this period of time. We'll knock that out in about a day. But I have a plan. You know what I mean? It is a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That's not a plan, okay? That's not a plan. You don't have a plan. There is no plan. There hasn't been a plan. And he could just keep lying his way through it. But the fact is, I think Trump thought that this was going to be a Venezuela type situation where he could go in, leave quickly, claim victory.

23:05Jordy Meiselas:But he's now stuck in a war. And you can't just, it takes two to tango in these wars, right? If one party wants to keep fighting, they could keep fighting. And if that party, in this case, Iran views that they have won the war and by any of those metrics that Ben listed, they have won the war, then they are the ones who get to dictate the terms here. And so Donald Trump needs to come to the table and now Trump needs to make some concessions and he needs to land on a deal, which is going to now be worse for the United States, worse for the way, worse than the way things were then prior to this war, because Trump is going to have to give stuff up.

23:38Jordy Meiselas:And you see Iran already making these red lines around their control over the Strait of Hormuz and getting the United States out of the region. You're seeing regional partners of the United States who have, even throughout this process, supported the United States, like Saudi Arabia. They, I think, at this point, are kind of viewing the United States as more dangerous to their own existential survival than Iran at this point because of what Trump is doing, because of the way that Trump made them a target by having Iran turn their missiles on them after Trump attacked them, with Trump not responding to those attacks at all.

24:17Jordy Meiselas:So right now, the region is incredibly volatile. You see saber rattling now on both sides. You see MB Galiboff, the parliament speaker, hinting that Iran is awaiting the United States' next military action, and they are ready, and they will strike back. This could get very ugly very quickly. I honestly don't think that Trump even wants to get into any more battle. If not, if for anything else, just because he's like bored of it, I think he gets bored of things and he wants to move on. He wants to go to the next thing. It's like, you know, the Fort Knox thing, right? He was looking for gold at Fort Knox.

24:51Jordy Meiselas:And then a reporter asked him about the gold at Fort Knox over the weekend. And he was like, what are you talking about? Gold at Fort Knox? I never said that. I said that. Hmm, that's weird. He says things. And then he moves on to the next thing. And when it's lying about, I'm going to find the stolen gold at Fort Knox, it's a different, it's a bit different of a lie than lying yourself into a war where now you have an entire country trying to take you down, trying to get you out of it. And you cannot just bail. You cannot just say, I'm going home. You know, I, you know, I think back to Ben, when we used to play video games as a kid, when you would lose the game, right?

25:27Jordy Meiselas:You would shut off the game, theoretically, right? You'd shut off the game. You'd run upstairs before I could actually declare victory. That would be the way that you would do it. Okay, okay. You're going to deny this live on camera? Okay, Ben, I see it. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, he cannot just shut off the game and run away. There are actual repercussions for that other than me crying because I didn't get my win registered against him, you know? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Not that I'm still thinking about it.

25:53Ben Meiselas:Jordy, hold on.

25:54Brett Meiselas:I'm pretty sure it was actually Brett for the viewers and listeners that would shut off the games on Ben and I after we, yeah. Oh, absolutely not.

26:00Ben Meiselas:And not only that, but if anything would happen, when Jordy and I would win, we would play We Are the Champions and Brett would cry. Yes. And then in the future, he would retaliate by shutting off the games.

26:09Jordy Meiselas:Listen, it's not that I'm still thinking about this 30 years later, but I just thought it was important.

26:13Brett Meiselas:By the way, the song from Queen, the We Are the Champions, that was such a staple of our child. Anytime one of us won any of the games, the We Are the Champions song would come on almost immediately. and then one or both other brothers would be crying because that song was playing.

26:27Jordy Meiselas:Yeah, but you know, here's the key of playing We Are the Champions, right? You have to win the game. Yes. And Donald Trump wants to sing We Are the Champions, but he lost. And Iran knows he lost and everybody knows he lost. So there ain't going to be any Queen song playing for Donald Trump right now. He's got to play like I'm a loser baby or something, right?

26:46Brett Meiselas:You actually have to win. You have to win if you want to sleep with the knock hockey puck, which was also a thing that we did. We'd have the knock hockey tournaments and the winner would get to sleep with the puck. But really quick, I'm going to bring this back. Brett, exactly. Donald Trump, right now, what he's doing with Iran is he's treating it like it's some sort of business deal, right? Like he's in an episode of The Apprentice and he's trying to negotiate, like trying to do this hardball sort of negotiation. That's not where we are, right? Like American troops' lives are on the line. There are real economic impacts the longer this continues to go on.

27:18Brett Meiselas:And like I said, people are already feeling it like 10 times over at the pump right now. It's absolutely outrageous and ridiculous. And Donald Trump is out here thinking that he could, you know, just get daddy's lawyers and use daddy's money to intimidate a contractor into just submitting. But in this analogy here, we're dealing with war. We're dealing with a country here that is angry that the United States has also bombed the little girl school during all of this. So it is so like beneath the presidency here for Donald Trump to just kind of behave in a manner where he thinks like people will just get bored, right?

27:55Brett Meiselas:Oh, people are going to get bored that our troops are dying in this war. People are going to get bored by paying tooth and nail at the pump. People are going to get bored about this stuff. No, there are real life implications the longer this goes on. This is not an episode of The Apprentice, and it's absolutely ridiculous that he treats this like it is.

28:10Ben Meiselas:You know, you see the power of media manipulation in this, though, because when all of corporate news and state regime media throws its weight behind Donald Trump's imaginary negotiations with nobody when it comes to matters of war and peace and creates the sense that maybe there's progress. Maybe there's hope right around the corner. Think about when that gets unleashed on Donald Trump's political enemies and the political enemies of the oligarchs, and when they want to basically use the same tactics to go after California Governor Gavin Newsom and say, look, it's the smelt fish. That's why there are all of these fires.

28:46Ben Meiselas:He was protecting smelt and he didn't turn on the faucet. And you use the same media manipulation tactics because that's what Trump is used to doing. He's trying to now win a war with American propaganda media trying to control a narrative and just spread lies and disorient what's actually happening on the ground. And Iran has studied this. It's not a coincidence that Iran's doing the Lego videos or the troll accounts. They're not just doing it to be funny or to troll Donald Trump. They recognize and they've studied the kind of psychological tactics in order to kind of neutralize and push back against Donald Trump's right wing media manipulation that exists.

29:35Ben Meiselas:And you see the power of this thing where, you know, he'll call up this reporter, that reporter, you know, and they will move markets. They will create this phony narrative of, OK, Iran's moving close. And actually, a source tells us this about the Ayatollah. And now a source tells us that like none of it is actually, you know, ending up to be true. And then Iran gets out its messages where it's like this was Iran's reaction to Donald Trump saying that he was upset at how Iran responded to Donald Trump's demand that Iran surrender. This is what Iran told their state media. We just saw the reaction of the so-called president of the United States to Iran's response.

30:14Ben Meiselas:It doesn't matter at all. No one in Iran drafts plans to please Trump. The negotiation team should only draft plans for the rights of the Iranian nation. And if Trump is not satisfied with it, that is naturally better. Trump generally does not like reality. That is why he keeps on losing to Iran. We'll pause there. We'll take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to talk to you about Hegseth now threatening Senator Mark Kelly yet again for pointing out that the United States is significantly depleted in terms of our munitions, the Patriot system, the THAAD system, other interceptor systems and missile capabilities.

30:57Ben Meiselas:I want to talk more about the Trump regime's trying to do Putin's bidding when it comes to Zelensky. I want to talk about what's going on in Hungary. I want to talk more about this bizarre press conference that went on today. A lot of other topics we'll cover here on this episode. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, subscribe to the Midas Touch. YouTube channel and subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio wherever you get your audio podcasts. Search Midas Touch and subscribe on audio and leave a five-star review there. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show.

31:30Ben Meiselas:We'll be right back.

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35:02Jordy Meiselas:i've never heard of hockey yeah i need to see it i need to see people in the comments let us know in the comments if you if you play knock i knock hockey is was the best yeah okay sleeping with the

35:12Ben Meiselas:puck though is not regional that was a weird brother thing that we would yeah yeah we made that up so let me just let me just clarify for the audience and we'll get back to the topic in order to rub it in the brother's face who won the puck would be the trophy and so to sleep with the puck would be the ultimate way to rub it into the brother's face, that you were such a champion that you would sleep with the puck. All right. That's a good transition. Brett's like, let's get on with the show. Donald Trump was falling asleep in the Oval Office press conference today. And we've seen this time and time again with Donald Trump.

35:41Ben Meiselas:I mean, he likes to brag about how he never sleeps. And I've never heard of a administration, although I call this a regime, but I've never heard of past administrations brag that, you know, this person never goes to sleep. I was never a fan. There were always people like that in college and law school. I never sleep. I'm like, that's not a brag. You're human. Humans should get sleep. That's not a good thing that you're not sleeping. In fact, you should look into that because I want people who are well-rested, who sleep during the hours. It doesn't mean the hours you're supposed to sleep. It doesn't mean that you should be sleeping excessively, or if you sleep little, I'm not going to look down upon it, but getting sleep is part of being a healthy person.

36:24Ben Meiselas:But Trump, I never sleep. And then you always hear people from the regime, it's so incredible. He never sleeps. Yes, he does. He sleeps in front of us. During the press conference, he falls asleep. And it's not like he closes his eyes for three seconds. There are minutes where the guy's eyes are closed and he's full-fledged sleeping. I mean, you can show it right here for our audio listeners. We're showing video of him listening to other people talking, and then he falls asleep. He closes his eyes and then just starts sleeping. And then he'll get startled and he'll wake up. This goes on for a long time.

37:00Ben Meiselas:I mean, I cut it after 15 seconds because you get the point. I'm not going to show you Trump's sleep for two minutes straight, but he sleeps. And by the way, it's okay. Clearly, you're very tired. We all saw you sleeping. You did it. But what does the White House say, rapid response. The rapid response account goes and makes a post. He was blinking, you absolute moron. So responding to someone posting a Reuters photo and a Reuters video of him sleeping, he's sleeping. And the White House calls the person posting it a moron.

37:35Jordy Meiselas:The funny thing is, so this is someone who works with Reuters who posted the image here and they didn't even mention that Trump was sleeping in the caption at all. It's just a photo of Trump and it says, US President Donald Trump attends a maternal health event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington DC, United States, May 11th, 2026. Reuters, Evelyn Hochstein. That's all they wrote.

37:58Brett Meiselas:They tell on themselves.

38:00Ben Meiselas:They tell on themselves. And here's the thing. They called it maternal health. And then Donald Trump spent most of it ranting and raving about the war and how it's brilliant to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. But the focus actually wasn't on the maternal aspect of it. It was focused on men's sperm. And they kept on talking about how do we help men's sperm and that it's because liberals, that the sperm is not as strong. And you have these female politicians behind him who are like these Republican female politicians and, you know, like it looks right out of the handmaid's tail. And they're like laughing at this as like creepy RFK Jr.

38:44Ben Meiselas:who sleeps with raccoon penises, like he cuts off raccoon penises and sleeps with it. And, you know, someone who what he kept a diary of all the people who he cheated on his wife before before before his wife allegedly died by suicide. And then Epstein wrote about that in his emails and wrote, oopsie about that or words to or words to that effect. You know, I mean, you have RFK Jr., you know, who's engaged in some of the most, you know, just violent, disgusting acts. You know, he's out there, you know, you know, talking about sperm and it's a sperm. It's a sperm press conference here. Just play this clip of what RFK Jr.

39:19Ben Meiselas:was like. The fertility crisis for women began in 2007 for men in 1970.

39:26Jordy Meiselas:Men had twice the sperm count as our teenagers do today. This is an existential crisis for our country. We had a series of presidents that were trying to discourage childbirth and motherhood in this country. We now have a president that is trying to encourage it. And I want to thank you again for your leadership.

39:47Ben Meiselas:What the hell was that? I mean, what the hell were we watching there? I wanted to do the voice, but we had... Do it. Do it. We had prior, I'm not going to do the voice. We had prior administrations. It was their fault for not encouraging motherhood. I mean, what the heck are they talking about?

40:06Brett Meiselas:You're so right, though. The faces, too, sorry to interrupt. The faces of the people watching RFK deliver this, whatever you want to call that, is dystopian. It's so freaky.

40:18Jordy Meiselas:It's measuring the sperm count in teenage boys. I mean, it's not a test I remember taking, but RFK seems to know a lot about it. And again, what was this talk supposed to be about? It was about maternal health. But, you know, and they also like to step back from that incredibly.

40:35Ben Meiselas:Maternal health gets right into sex and boy sperm. I mean, just think where they brought it right away, though. Like there's a lot of things you could talk about with maternal health, infant mortality rates, the care that women get at hospitals, disparate treatment for women of color, disparate treatment of lower income women in the care that they get, the issue of pregnancies that aren't discussed with complication. I mean, there's so many things that you could actually be discussing. And they talk about teenage boys. I mean, it's like it's sperm and meds.

41:13Jordy Meiselas:And they talk about everything but the problem. Dr. Oz, during the same press conference, whatever the hell you want to call, whatever that was, Dr. Oz made a comment. He said, one in three Americans are, and this is an exact quote, one in three Americans are under-babied. Under-babied. Huh? He said, that means either you have no children or have less children than you would normally want to have. We have a crisis that is causing our fertility rate to drop. But they try to diagnose, you know, this supposed issue, right? Why aren't people having kids? Which is a very, you know, it's sort of a valid question to ask, you know, in my opinion.

41:52Jordy Meiselas:But putting aside all the very creepy things that they are saying around this and treating women like they are out of the handmaid's tale and talking about teenage boy sperm and all the weird things that they're talking about. But the thing that they want to avoid speaking about is the reason why people aren't having as many kids these days as they were in the past. And it's, to me, a simple reason. And it's probably the reason for most of the problems in our society right now. And that's that income inequality is so vast, and that most people in this country do not have the means to support children.

42:27Jordy Meiselas:I mean, you used to be able to, on a single income, support a family, send a kid through college. You could have a guaranteed pension. You could be assured that your child will live a better life than you in an ideal world. Now we are experiencing the opposite. We are experiencing people who are unable to afford kids. They could barely afford their own housing. They could barely afford their own food. And now we're expecting them to go out there and have a whole bunch of kids. I mean, you have to address the root cause of the issue. And to me, the root cause of the issue is obvious. It's income inequality.

43:02Jordy Meiselas:It's the fact that people don't have money and the people in power are too afraid to admit it because they are the ones extracting that wealth from the people and causing those problems. And now we're seeing this effect ripple through the entire economy. We're seeing some of these CEOs of these various companies speak out and they're starting to say, like McDonald's CEO, like, I know we're starting to see slowdowns at McDonald's that are very similar to the slowdowns that we were seeing before the financial last financial crisis and the housing crisis in 2009. We're seeing CEOs like the Costco CEO, and Costco does actually a lot of really good things for their workers, I will say.

43:40Jordy Meiselas:But we're seeing the Costco CEO say, we're looking at our inventories. We're seeing people have moved on from purchasing chicken to now purchasing more canned tuna. And that also was a recession indicator from previous recessions. And when you really parse all of it, what you realize is you have all these billionaires in this society who have extracted all of this wealth, and they're happy to see themselves get richer and richer and richer as the stock market goes up, as they make all this money on everything they're doing. And then ultimately, somewhere down the line, you got to pay the price because these people didn't become billionaires by selling to nobody.

44:20Jordy Meiselas:For Jeff Bezos to have money, people need to buy products on Amazon, right? For the CEO of whatever company, there need to be people to buy their products. When you all of a sudden have a society that can't afford to buy anything. That's a major, major, major issue. And I think that's why we're kind of in this bubble right now that's essentially propped up by like seven tech or AI companies. And it's just like a house of cards that's way to topple.

44:44Brett Meiselas:Yeah. Look, you want to know why people aren't having kids? It's because this country didn't live up to its end of the bargain for a couple generations here, right? I'm not going to go deep down this, but there is essentially sort of like an unwritten handshake agreement between call it upper, you know, sort of millennials, Gen X with this country that said, Hey, if we follow these subset of rules that this country has laid out before us, we go to school, we work hard, we get a job, we do all of these things, then we will be able to live as good of lives, if not better lives than our parents before us as they raised us.

45:17Brett Meiselas:And as that sort of generation continued to get older, the wealth disparity in this country and the wealth inequality in this country grew larger and larger. And so all of a sudden, you have a lot of millennials and Gen X and older generations too, but I'm specifically focusing on this group right here, looking around and saying, hey, we lived up to our bargain. I went to college. You know, I spent a lot of money. I'm in debt, but I was told that after I got out of college and I get the job, then I could pay off the debt and, you know, maybe go on one or two nice vacations a year and take this money and put my kids through college, buy a house, do all of these things that, again, I thought, I think we were all assuming if we followed these rules that we would sort of get to do.

45:59Brett Meiselas:But the reality is that that's just not where we are. That's not the buying power that the money has right now. That's not the types of jobs that are actually paying its citizens. And then you see these AI companies out there just taking more and more jobs from folks. And it's getting scary as far as, okay, now that we have kids, what's this going to be in another 25, 30. how much more is this wealth disparity and this wealth inequality can continue to grow look

46:22Ben Meiselas:consumer sentiment is the worst it's ever been since the university of michigan survey has uh been out in the first place and so the university of michigan survey has been um you know around for about 60 years measuring consumer sentiment the worst reading was last month or two months ago. And then that was surpassed by the month after that as well. And so it's been the worst. Why? Because to your point, Jordi and Brett, the American people are suffering, frankly, worse than they suffered in the Great Recession or other financial crises. It used to be during financial crises, it was kind of a shared crisis, right?

47:09Ben Meiselas:And because the income disparity was still big, but not so vast that Americans shared the pain. And now all of that pain is what trickles down and the wealth remains at the top. And that kind of props up the GDP. So you don't have consecutive quarters of GDP that are negative, which would be the technical definition of a recession. So while the technical definition of a recession isn't met, most Americans feel that they're experiencing a depression because in their own personal life, they're experiencing foreclosures. They're not able to pay their credit card bills. They don't have health care.

47:52Ben Meiselas:They can't afford health care. They can't afford gas. They can't afford basic things. But what Trump said during this weird maternal health press conference is he says, you know, young people today, they feel like billionaires. I used to say millionaires, but now you say billionaires. And he says that young people feel like billionaires today because a billionaire, the billionaires, the Dell family agreed to help the government put some money into Trump baby bank accounts or whatever so that that money can then be invested in the market to then go back to the oligarchs. And that's how they say, you know, now Americans feel like billionaires.

48:34Ben Meiselas:The young people feel rich. There's no young people who feel like billionaires or millionaires even. But this is what they do. They hold out this illusion that, don't worry, you're like one of us. You're part of the billionaire club because we threw$1 ,000 in your account that you invest in the stock market, which props up our stock price, basically, which benefits the billionaires. Here, play this clip.

48:59Jordy Meiselas:And that's another one that's gone through the Trump accounts where young kids, they turn 18 or 20 or 21, and they feel like a billionaire. You used to say a millionaire, now you say a billionaire. But they certainly feel rich, as opposed to having absolutely nothing. It's so popular.

49:16Ben Meiselas:Right, and then Trump in this weird presser says that he was the hunted, and now he's hunting. Now he's the hunter. Let me play this clip.

49:25Jordy Meiselas:You know, I was hunted. I was the hunter. Now I'm the, you know, I was the hunted then. and I had to devote a lot of time to that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been too effective. If I was out of office, I wouldn't have been. So I was hunted by some very bad people. Now I'm the hunter. It's much better when you're the hunter, but these are bad people.

49:45Ben Meiselas:And again, for those watching on video, you could rewind that a little bit and watch the faces of the women behind him. It's really deeply problematic that they're normalizing this behavior, and they smile. I mean, what are we... whether you're a mother, a father, a business leader, whoever, anyone, if somebody behaved like that in front of you, it's not funny. It's not a laughing matter. It's not anything like they're smiling like, dude, he's saying the dumbest, most dangerous stuff. Like, you know, someone in the room needs to be like, no, no, stop it. What are you saying? What are you talking about you lunatic you freaking psychotic maniac you animal what are you talking about you sicko you vile piece of trash but what is that what are we talking about and then what he turned so so after you have rfk talking about sperm and men's sperm and teenagers and sex and all of the weird creepy stuff after you have donald trump saying that he's the hunter he then tells the women who are there and other don't speak too long i'm waiting for generals don't speak too long okay i'm speaking to generals about iran that's how they pronounce it iran here play this clip

51:02Jordy Meiselas:as you think and dr alex adams and you'll speak not too long because i am being waited on by a large group of generals and that's also important you know having to do Having to do with the absolutely lovely country of Iran. That's the way they pronounce it.

51:25Brett Meiselas:I mean, Brett, he just looks, he looks extra sleepy too as he's talking about all this. It's just so pathetic and disgraceful. I commented on threads in Blue Sky about this earlier. Just the way Donald Trump behaves, just the way he puts forth this, that's the President of the United States right there. He's literally falling asleep at the table. and we have corporate media out there that just glazes the guy and pretends he's some like hard worker like it really it just blows my mind like i just want to like shake somebody be like hey can we just can we can we figure this out like that's the guy that's the guy in charge him i i

52:02Ben Meiselas:thought ben was playing a prank on me because like oh i want to wish every all the mothers i'll tell you what i was just doing i want to wish all the mothers a happy mother's day out there as well and so UPS was supposed to bring the Mother's Day present on Friday and then they gave me the wrong hour so I missed it on Friday and they were coming again on Saturday and I brought my wife and he meant it to the so I missed so this would have been my third strike and I and I put a big note outside I'm like I'm here please don't go third time they would have returned the Mother's Day

52:32Jordy Meiselas:gift and I was already a disaster it's already a disaster enough that you missed Mother's Day

52:38Ben Meiselas:Well, twice they gave me fake times. And so that's what that was. Anyway, let's take our last. Wait, I have a Mother's Day. I just signed for it.

52:45Brett Meiselas:I'll tell when we come back from break. Why don't we go to our last quick break and we'll come back right after that.

52:49Ben Meiselas:Okay, we'll take our last quick break of the show. A reminder, we got the Mother's Day present. It's all good. Hit subscribe. We're on our way to 7 million subscribers. And also make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio as well. Wherever you get your audio podcast, search Midas Touch. Even if you don't plan on listening to it on audio, you never know. People like listening to this on audio. And anyway, it helps the show. So go subscribe. All right. Last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

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54:32Brett Meiselas:And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20 % off all IQ Bar products, including the Ultimate Sampler Pack plus free shipping. to get your 20 % off text truth to 64 ,000 text truth to 64 ,000 that's truth to 64 ,000 message and data rates may apply see terms for details let's go shout out to our sponsor link in description of the youtube and the audio use the link use the codes exit survey let them know we sent you i wanted to highlight iq bar in that slot alone usually we have at least two but i wanted that offer from iq bar one of my favorite

55:10Jordy Meiselas:sponsors on the network is i gotta say jordy also nice nice mtn yeah yeah and then there's

55:16Brett Meiselas:a real quick quick mother's day story again shout out to all the mothers out there y 'all are literally the backbone of this entire movement of this entire country so thank you guys so much from the bottom of our hearts we love you guys uh i sent mom flowers for mother's day um but they came wednesday they didn't come on mother's day i definitely like one thousand percent checked mothers like on sunday and usually like hey these will have to be delivered saturday because of the week and so i said okay agreed to all that all of a sudden i get a text from mom on wednesday like hey thanks so much for the flowers i'm like where did the flowers come today worst of all i'm a big like emotive like emoji guy like i like to do like the slash and the three icon to do a heart like that's like big for my texting and when i did this i guess there was no special characters sort of allowed so it just said i love you so much mom thank you for everything uh love jordan and then I did the slash, you know, heart thing, but they didn't do the slash.

56:10Brett Meiselas:So it just said three. So it said, love you so much, Jordan three. And it was a very, I got, let me, let me just say this

56:16Jordy Meiselas:Jordan. Yeah. I don't think it's an issue if the gift comes early. I think, I think gift, gift arriving early, no problem whatsoever. I mean, the thing you don't want is to, you know, miss the delivery of the gift or miss the window. And then the gift comes like, I don't know, like the Monday after Mother's Day. Like that would be bad, you know? Like if that happened, I'd be like, Jordy, you're in big trouble. But coming Wednesday - Yeah, I was over-prepared. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, you know, I can imagine though if it came like today - I wouldn't want to be the guy.

56:49Ben Meiselas:I was a day late, but look, UPS gave me the - And he gave me an incorrect window on Friday. An incorrect window on Saturday. And so today was my final day. I was three strikes away. and then they returned it back to the sender. So I heard that I heard him, I rushed, I ran, I had to do it. And there you have it. Let's get a time moment on the podcast. Let's get, let's get, let's get back to the episode, which is, you know, so, so also, I mean, we, we, we lose sight of this sometimes, you know, and we don't hear it. The Midas touch network. And sometimes people are like, well, why do you do stories about what Donald Trump is posting?

57:23Ben Meiselas:Because I never want to normalize it ever. Because if any other president or any other leader in American history posted these things, it would be automatically disqualifying. And we shouldn't have a standard that applies to Donald Trump. I mean, we should not be okay that there's a literal lunatic in the Oval Office. We should not be okay that there's a felon in the Oval Office, that there is an actual sexual predator who's been found civilly liable for sexual assault in the office. We shouldn't normalize that ever. And so I'm going to say it every damn day and I'm going to call it out. So when we're in the middle of a war that we're not winning and he posts AI images that say bye bye drones and it's a photo of a American destroyer shooting laser beams at Iranian drones, even though the Trump regime has claimed that Iran has no more Navy since weeks ago, but apparently no more air force since weeks ago.

58:22Ben Meiselas:Bye bye drones to which Iran responds, POTUS needs better AI image generators for depicting his dreams. Honestly, it's just sad and pathetic that you have the United States that's just being ridiculed and mocked by Iran, and that you have Iran after wanting to meet with the United States for decades and to try to get sanctions removed and to try to do anything. Other countries would do anything to have a meeting with the president of the United States, right? Last week, President Lula of Brazil didn't want to be on video with Donald Trump, didn't want to be in the Oval Office because he knows that it's a circus and he does not want to be involved in some circus.

59:07Ben Meiselas:That's not how he wants to conduct himself. You know, you have Iran -

59:11Jordy Meiselas:Or at this point, become like Donald Trump, threatening them, you better agree to my proposal. or I will post some banger AI memes and just wait till that meme drops on my Truth Social account, you're not even gonna know what hits you, man.

59:28Brett Meiselas:The meme is the new all caps post.

59:30Ben Meiselas:Yeah, it's pathetic. And here's the thing though. Think about the way corporate news dissected every little thing that Biden did here to everything or Obama from the tan suit to the this and that and everything. Oh my gosh. Every time Kim Jong-un tested cruise missiles, it was like, how could Obama let that happen? Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un didn't have nuclear weapons. Iran didn't control the Strait of Hormuz. It's like a whole different set of rules with corporate news applies to Donald Trump. Why? Because they're an arm of the oligarchy. When people talk about the K-shaped economy, which is a euphemism for the fact that everybody in America is getting screwed except the 1 % that's above the, it's not even a K.

1:00:22Ben Meiselas:It's like a little teeny tiny thing that control above the horizontal line in the K that represents where all the wealth actually is. Well, population-wise, everybody in America is mostly suffering, which is why you see those consumer sentiment numbers. And the corporate media is a tool of the corporate oligarchy, And that's what's going on. And that's why they like they normalize this stuff. And then you'll have, you know, you know, a Democrat take office. And it's like, oh, my gosh. I mean, just even think when former President Biden was in office, just even think about how the oil markets responded to Biden being in office versus now the entire Strait of Hormuz is closed, essentially, right?

1:01:06Ben Meiselas:Right. Zero ships or one ship, you know, was allowed to leave with Iran. And then all of a sudden, you know, corporate, you know, America, they figure out a way to basically keep this Ponzi going. And you know what they're going to do, whether the Democrats take control of the House in the midterms or when a Democratic president takes control. That's when, you know, after taking all of this wealth, that's when they all sell, they hoard. and then they go, oh, look, look, you screwed it all up. Look, everybody, look who did it. Look who caused it. And then they wait until that there's another, you know, administration that removes all of the regulations and lets them run free and engage in all of their corruption.

1:01:50Ben Meiselas:Then they prop it back up. That's what's actually happening before our eyes. I mean, just look at Donald Trump's own business. I mean, I know I talked about this end of last week. I'll just mention it passing here because it's related to what I'm saying. Trump's own business, Trump media lost$406 million in the first quarter of 2026. It made$871 ,000. Sales of 871, losses of $405.9 million. That's their net loss. If Trump can't run Trump media, how is he supposed to be running the country? And this is how he's run his casinos and Trump steak and Trump water and Trump airplanes at Trump University and all these things that have gone out of business and or have gone bankrupt.

1:02:36Ben Meiselas:And so now what's Trump media doing? What's their next play? They're merging with a fusion company with the type of energy that hasn't even been proven to have commercial use or use in any way yet that has contracts with the Department of Energy, right? They're merging with a fusion company and that's going to be the next gambit. And I'm sure the stock price will go up with the fusion when the fusion merger is approved. And then, you know, and then we'll just keep manipulating the market over and over and over again. I want to talk about this is one other thing. I want to talk about this press just to show you that everything this guy does is weird.

1:03:13Ben Meiselas:Like everything is strange. So he has the Indiana football team, college football team. They won the national championship. And Trump made this press conference into like the weirdest thing ever. Whether you're a sports fan or not a sports fan, I want you to watch just what he did. So first off, he tells the Indiana team, a little bit like your team, our country was laughed at a year and a half ago. Also, Jordy, you may know college football more than me. Indiana started getting good like two seasons ago. So it's not even like tech. Like I think if you went back two or three seasons, Indiana, you know, got the new coach.

1:03:54Ben Meiselas:But he goes a little bit like your team, our country was laughed at. Like, why even make this? Like, just be normal. Just say, congratulations. You know, your team represents the heart and spirit of America. It's always great to see, you know, champions here and great to have you here. You know, what a great story to see the Indiana program rise and congratulations. Like, that's all you have to do, right? That's what this is about. You shake their hands, you smile, you throw a football maybe. This couldn't be a bigger layup for the president. And here's what he turns it into. Let's play the first clip.

1:04:28Jordy Meiselas:Things are happening. Things are happening right now. Our country, you know, a little bit like your team, our country a year and a half ago was laughed at. We were mocked. And now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. There's nobody close. We're the greatest military in the world. We're unparalleled and we're doing a job. We've made America, great again. And this team has got a tremendous future. Don't lose the coach. She said, we can't lose the coach. It's a piece of work, right? We're not going to lose him.

1:04:59Ben Meiselas:Who's the coach, Donald? Who's the coach? Do you know who the coach is? Did you maybe want to just do, I don't know, 10 seconds of research before the team showed up? I'll give you a hint. His name rhymes with Bert, could be Kurt, and he's standing right next to you on the stage. And lots of people know him because if you just knew of anything about Indiana, you know. But even if you didn't know anything about Indiana's story, maybe you just look, maybe you just spend, I don't know, just 10 seconds of research because probably the coach is going to be standing by yourself. Maybe you would want to know that.

1:05:39Ben Meiselas:I don't know. Maybe I would want to be just slightly prepared. Watch as Donald Trump goes, Kurt? Who, who, who? Kurt, who's Kurt? Here, play this clip.

1:05:48Jordy Meiselas:Think of this. The press conference in 2023, shortly after joining Indiana. Kurt, who's Kurt? Kurt Signetti. Where is Kurt Signetti? Right here. Huh? Oh. Come here. Come here. Kurt Signetti has turned out to be, I believe, I think he's the coach of the last decade. Okay.

1:06:14Ben Meiselas:And then Donald Trump turns around to one of the male football players behind him and says how handsome he is. I don't like good-looking men at all. Let's play this clip.

1:06:25Jordy Meiselas:I said, how good is he, coach? He said, he can play. Let me see. He's a good-looking guy. I don't like good-looking people. I don't like good-looking men at all, believe me.

1:06:36Ben Meiselas:And then regarding Indiana's former star quarterback, who was the top pick in the NFL draft, the Heisman Trophy winner as well. Fernando Mendoza, who is not there, who said he wasn't going to be showing up, and whether that's because he's in training camp or whatever, he says he wasn't going to be there. It probably would have been easy to get there. But Trump makes it into this whole weird MAGA thing, and he's a Trumper. We all know Mendoza's a Trump. He likes Trump. We know that his family's a big Trumper.

1:07:08Jordy Meiselas:Here, skilled people this season was also historic because starting quarterback fernando mendoza now the reason he's not here he was so nice he called because he has actually jd's a big fan of ours you wouldn't believe it because he didn't show up i'm not happy but that's okay the reason he didn't because he's at spring training right correct and i actually said you really let him he's got to win and I think he's going to win pretty early coach right you think pretty good time will tell he's going to be a good one a lot of people said they're going to win but I think he will no he's been great and he's at spring training like his first day or something I said you better go there but he became Indiana's first otherwise if I didn't do that I believe me I wouldn't have even talked about him I would have not if if he was not here for other reasons like

1:08:01Brett Meiselas:Trump is just such a fraud too. Like it's so obvious for many reasons, but like it's not called spring training in the NFL. Like if you even know sports, like just a little bit at the NFL, it's OTAs. I know that's like really technical here, but it just goes to show you like his absolute brain rot. And then with Kurt Signetti right next to him, like he wasn't like joking for our audio listeners. Like who's Kurt? Where's Kurt? Kurt was literally standing four inches from him on his left-hand side. And he has no idea where the guy is. Trump has no idea where he is when he's giving these speeches.

1:08:29Brett Meiselas:I mean, again, it just blows my mind that so many people are just okay with whatever the heck that was.

1:08:36Ben Meiselas:You know, it's all part of the circus too, right? Because I think there's a lot of tie-ins in this episode, starting with painting the reflection pool blue and how that's how Donald Trump approaches everything. Just the announcement, you paint it blue, ignore the actual problem while the problem gets bigger and bigger and bigger. and things that can be solved, or at least that should be addressed, end up becoming catastrophes. That's part of his entire life. Another theme I think throughout this episode though are, you know, people around him who normalize that behavior. I mean, Signetti, you know, Jordy, and for people who know him, you know, is like this, you know, it was like this badass coach.

1:09:17Ben Meiselas:I mean, that's how he portrays himself. You know, there are some people who like his kind of arrogance and cockiness. There are some people who that, you know, rubs them the wrong way, how he behaves, but he's, he behaves right. You know, Jordy and, and, and Midas might even know the guy, like he's like a no, he's like a no nonsense disciplinary and coach. Here's how we turn around the program. Right. But then you see a guy like that being insulted by Don, like the, not even knowing who he is number one, you know, and then Trump saying all of these things that are incorrect and inaccurate about football and then going in and talking about the war.

1:09:52Ben Meiselas:And then But here's the ballroom, Brad. Just play the ballroom one quickly.

1:09:56Jordy Meiselas:You're amazing. You have made the fans really proud and inspired millions. All of you, the coach and the players, and reminded everyone that with determination and lots of hard work, anything's possible. And I said to the coach, you know, we have a very special area. Well, that's very special. We're building a beautiful ballroom. You can see it's not too small, coach. We need it for 150 years. They've wanted a ballroom. We're going to give them the greatest ballroom anywhere in the country. i'm very good at ballrooms i'm very good at building things but you know and then the coach for those on audio is nodding his head yeah yeah yeah yeah nothing he's saying is making sense

1:10:32Ben Meiselas:he's a demented individual like i i we need people with moral clarity you know to to stop you know enabling that you know and one of the things you know at least like when mom donnie goes into the oval office mom donnie tells donald trump to his face yeah i i disagree with you you Your policies are horrible. I think he's the worst. Yeah, I think he's authoritarian. I told him. I said, I think you're a fascist. I mean, Madani says it to the guy's face. And by the way, if you're going to go and do that, stop. You should do that. Because to me, all of Signetti's, his whole persona, to me, when you do that, it shatters it in my view.

1:11:13Ben Meiselas:And I understand the counter argument is, well, it's the White House. It's not political. We're just showing up. It's an honor to be invited. No, no, no. Trump made it political. Okay. He made you a political prop and a political pawn in genocide, in fascism, in economic suffering that American people are feeling in war crimes. You're a prop. That's part of what you've been used for. And you stood there and you nodded your head and you could have done what Mendoza did. Just blame it on his Geordi says spring training, but you're there, you're a prop, you're an enabler right now of fascism. That's how I feel about it.

1:11:53Jordy Meiselas:You have to know it's part of Trump's strategy too. And I think it's all intentional. I mean, think about anytime he has anybody around him, anybody kind of behind them, whether it's a sports team or children or whoever, women, whoever it is, he always starts asking them inappropriate questions or he'll say things because your silence behind him or you're even just kind of nodding behind him registers on television as some sort of tacit approval, whether you mean it or not. And I'm not even saying that any of these people necessarily even mean it when they're just kind of nodding behind him like, oh yeah, this crazy guy is rambling again about ballrooms or whatever.

1:12:32Jordy Meiselas:But that's why when he has the kids behind him, when he has the women's team behind him and he goes, no men and women sports on no men and you don't want that. You don't want, he wants to get his deranged, his deranged point of view about everything. His just constant gaslighting and lies. He wants to get that out, but rather than himself just saying it, he wants the tacit approval of these people who people in other aspects of society respect in some way that is beyond politics. So he is using you to launder his political statements, his oftentimes a very offensive rhetoric. He's laundering that through you by your reaction in the White House.

1:13:18Jordy Meiselas:And I think that's something that's worth, it's just worth knowing if you're going to show up at one of these things, why he is having you there and what his plan is when you actually do arrive.

1:13:28Brett Meiselas:Exactly. And look, I just want to say this. He's obviously a very incredibly selfish person, And every step of the way, he wants to make these moments about him while using y 'all as props. That's what he does. He's using you guys as props. And as you sort of nod and you think you're being polite, it looks like you're cosigning the behavior. That's just what it is. Just let me ask you something, right? Where are the Iran pilots? Where are the pilots, the American pilots that we rescued from Iran? Where are they, right? Because Donald Trump, every step of the turn, likes to use folks as props. He likes to use the Indiana team as props to talk about the ballroom.

1:14:01Brett Meiselas:He likes to do – we've seen this countless times. So I just – I have to ask the question, where's the update on those pilots and why did everyone, specifically corporate media, stop caring about that?

1:14:14Jordy Meiselas:It is a great point. And we're in this bizarre world where Trump is used to just bringing people out and using them as props and showing off these kind of trophies and making big stories out of it. For that, though, he's been oddly silent. but he got his headline already and bringing it back to the beginning of the episode, you know, in some respects, he's just happy that he got the headline. He's happy that he got all these publications to be speaking about this daring rescue and not question if there was anything deeper happening during when all of this was going on. If we're actually getting the true story, I'm not saying we are, or we are not.

1:14:51Jordy Meiselas:I'm just saying we're no longer, people are no longer digging for that information because they feel like they, they already got it. And, you know, I think Ben's concept that the painting of the floor blue at the reflecting pool is a metaphor for everything that Donald Trump does is an apt one because Donald Trump is constantly metaphorically painting the floor blue, despite the fact that he is making everything uglier and worse off for people. I mean, if we're even just looking at this, the way that Trump, their new thing over the past 24 hours, they want to get rid of the gas tax. Do you guys see this?

1:15:25Jordy Meiselas:We're going to get rid of the federal gas tax. The gas tax has stayed the same now for many, many years. It's like 18 cents on, it's like 18 cents. And so it, taking away the gas tax would add between two to two and a half billion dollars to the national debt per month. And gas has, of course, as anybody who's been to a gas station knows, gas has already went up far more than 18 cents. So 18 cents is not even a dent in the amount that gas has gone up already. I think gas has gone up like$1.50 or so since the war began. It's an average of around$4.60,$4.65. It's expected to have$5 at some point down the road.

1:16:08Jordy Meiselas:And so that 18 cents is, again, that's painting the bottom of the pool blue. It's not doing anything to make it better, but you know what it's going to do? Further down the line, that is going to screw over our country because that is the money that's used to improve our federal highways. That is the money that's used to improve our federal roads. And so all of a sudden, we're not going to have any revenue from that. And this isn't due to some sort of force majeure situation where we have to do this because there's been this external crisis that now we have to take these extreme measures. Donald Trump is the cause of this with his war.

1:16:42Jordy Meiselas:And I could be more sympathetic to suspending a gas tax in my personal view if there was some existential thing happening, some external factors happening overseas that we could not control. The fact that Donald Trump himself is the one responsible for driving up these gas prices and now he wants the American people to thank him because he's considering taking 18 cents off your gas bill is absolutely outrageous to me. And you just see this pattern of conning people over and over. I'll just show this chart. I saw Sarah Eisen post earlier today on, she's CNBC, Jordi, your show, I think she does Squawk Box.

1:17:19Jordy Meiselas:Sorry. But Sarah Eisen said, ahead of President Trump and Xi meeting this week, important to note that fentanyl deaths in America have come down recently. And she shows this chart. And the chart shows Trump one, Biden, and Trump two. And what Sarah Eisen, she is somebody who I think it's fair to say has been very sympathetic to Donald Trump. on the air. And so I think she's posting this chart. And I saw a lot of Trump people reposting this chart, trying to credit Donald Trump with fentanyl overdose deaths coming down. But if you actually look at the chart, it shows fentanyl spiking under Donald Trump's first term, then Biden having to deal with the crisis.

1:17:59Jordy Meiselas:Biden is actually the one who reversed the trend. And now Trump is riding that trend out. And I think this is just the perfect representation of everything that Donald Trump has done. Frankly, this isn't even unique to Trump. I think Democratic presidents are used to this trend constantly of being left with a disastrous economy, a country that's been completely decimated from the inside out. Then the Democratic president comes in. They have to play adult. They have to pick up the pieces. They have to reverse the trends set by those Republican presidents who screwed everything up. And then eventually, three, four years down, it doesn't even take that long, but the Republicans start complaining that everything's bad and people say it's not getting fixed quick enough.

1:18:40Jordy Meiselas:Then they put these Republicans back in charge who mess everything up again. And then the process just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating. So I think, you know, we need to identify these trends. We need to work to break these cycles and we need to call out the con because the con is an obvious one. It's just a matter of kind of surfacing this data and making sure that people understand the strategy that's happening behind the scenes.

1:19:02Ben Meiselas:Look, think about the surgeon who identifies a very serious illness that requires surgery, right? The surgeon can tell the patient, you're fine, you look great, everything is amazing, while the patient gets sicker and sicker and sicker, or the surgeon can intervene and perform a surgery to try to help remove whatever the ailment is. That procedure is often going to be risky. It's going to be bloody. It's going to be complicated. It's going to take work, and it may temporarily make things worse before it gets better. But once the medicine kicks in, things can get better. It would be much easier for the surgeon to say, things are fine, like a miracle.

1:19:52Ben Meiselas:It's all going to go away. If you take that example, and you can bring it to the reflecting pool as well. Someone looking at the reflecting pool can say, aha, we've got a major problem. It's algae and it's cracks and it's not gonna be easy to fix this, but here's how we actually fix it. You're gonna have to put a lot of money. It's going to be shut down. It may look dirtier before it gets better, but you basically can fix the problem. Or you can say, actually, we're just gonna paint it blue and it'll look good for a little bit, but you're not addressing kind of the main problems. Eventually, if you just ignore it and say it's all going to go away, someone down the line is going to have to deal with it.

1:20:36Ben Meiselas:And what Republicans do is when the surgeon is now performing the surgery, when the fire department is stopping what the arsonist did, when the person is fixing the thing, When you see, if you looked at that chart of fentanyl decreasing, it went up a little bit before it all of a sudden started sharply going down under Biden. But all Republicans would do the whole time is blame the person who's in the middle of the surgery, the fire department in the middle of putting out the fire that was created and then trying to blame the person fixing it for the problems. And then when they get into power, just claim it doesn't really exist or it's all fine.

1:21:19Ben Meiselas:And, you know, and just continue to make the problem worse and worse and worse until an adult comes in the room or the surgeon comes in the room or the fire department or an actual builder who tries to fix it. Then it's easy to attack the person who's actually rolling up their sleeves and trying to get the work done because you can publicly see a person grappling with problems. It's easy. Anybody can basically see Dr.

1:21:44Jordy Meiselas:Fauci.

1:21:46Ben Meiselas:It's easy to blame someone who's trying, who's grappling with the science, who's trying to figure it out, who's using, you know, you know, scientific methods of trying to identify these things. and then just, and it's easier to say, you know who caused it? You know what it is? The China virus. You know, they did it like a miracle. It's going to inject yourself with bleach. Oh, it's their fault. It's this person's fault. You know, and then, you know, you have someone like a Mark Kelly. I don't think I need to show the clip. You know, he'll point out things. We are running low on munitions, red flag, big problem.

1:22:20Ben Meiselas:And what does the Trump regime say? Well, Pete Hegseth goes, Captain Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he's blabbing on TV falsely and dumbly. This is how the Trump regime talks about everything. I mean, their language is such the behavior of just scumbags. I don't know how else to deserve. Now he's blabbing on TV falsely and dumbly about a classified Pentagon briefing after he received it. Did he violate his oath again? department of war legal counsel or if you know you idiot you were he was cross-examining you at the hearing you had this conversation in a public hearing with you why is everything oh we're going to prosecute there's a real issue we're running low on munitions right now and we the world knows it stop trying to cover up just to show him everyone brett just play the clip of what went down at this hearing where he was cross-examined they had this conversation in a

1:23:13Jordy Meiselas:public hearing let's play how many years to replenish that's the question i think that's exactly the right question to senator because the time frame we were existing under it was unacceptable okay well this budget does i mean months and years last year i mean we're building new plants in real time so just to replace what we have expended i said months and then you said years both it depends on the weapon system but two to three four x of what we have today so yes we're dealing with the reality under the previous administration of what they sent to ukraine and what they allocated elsewhere. Okay, I got it.

1:23:45Jordy Meiselas:So we fired years worth of munitions. And it is clear that these are being expended to try to achieve some objectives. That was the plan. But Mr. Secretary, this war is stuck. The Strait of Hormuz is closed.

1:24:06Ben Meiselas:The Iranian regime is in place.

1:24:09Jordy Meiselas:the nuclear material still in their hands. Americans are being crushed by higher costs, and it's not clear to them at all what the goal of this war is.

1:24:24Ben Meiselas:And you also saw Higgs that say, you know, and it was rightly pointed out by Senator Kelly, it'll take months and years. Okay. And then he goes, okay, so it'll take years as well. I said months. You said months and years. I mean, everything that they do is like a scam and a lie. And everything is a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up. It is all painting the reflecting pool blue. That's what it is. It's painting it blue like a miracle. It's all going to go away. Secret solutions. I mean, easy fixes, Doge will solve it. Gold cards will solve it. $18 to$21 trillion that isn't coming in. That's going to fix it all.

1:25:05Ben Meiselas:I mean, that's what's going on. And now you have Donald Trump taking a trip to China to meet with Xi Jinping. You have the entire American oligarchy apparently showing up with him. Every CEO of big companies are taking this trip to China. America's never been in a weaker position. And it's obvious to anybody following it, China's going in with a plan. They want Taiwan. Donald Trump wants China to say that there's going to be a fake deal and a trillion dollars is going to be invested into the United States. And so, you know, that's what Trump wants out of it. Xi Jinping knows, like Donald Trump just wants a press release.

1:25:41Ben Meiselas:I'm going to get something tangible. China still controls the rare earths. All of those munitions that need to be replaced require rare earths from China, right? We already know that China outmaneuvered the Trump regime when Trump tried to tariff China, 135%. China cut off the rare earths and Trump and Hegseth folded immediately, just like they folded in Iran. They went from, we're going to decouple with China, China, China, we're going to go after them, to Donald Trump, oh, Xi Jinping is my king. He is the king right now. Oh, he's so strong. We get along so well. All Xi Jinping said, all right, we're cutting you off from rare earths.

1:26:19Ben Meiselas:And the Trump regime folded like that. American power used to mean something. Walking soft, carrying a big stick or talking soft, carrying a big stick. Our words mattered. Our conduct was deliberate and intentional. And now it's arbitrary, capricious and Donald Trump fraud. Painting the reflecting pool blue, painting a picture that doesn't exist, passing it off to the next guy or gal in the Oval Office and then blaming them when they have to perform the surgery to fix it. There you have it. Everybody, make sure you hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Also, subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio.

1:27:02Ben Meiselas:If you like some of that Midas Touch gear you saw Jordy wearing during the commercial break, store.midastouch.com. Thank you, everybody, for watching. We appreciate you. One more time, store.midastouch.com. Subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio. Subscribe to our YouTube. We'll see you next time, everybody, on the Midas Dutch Podcast. Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

1:27:22Jordy Meiselas:The Midas Mighty is standing strong.

1:27:30Jordy Meiselas:Against the fascists, we sing our song. We will get it right whenever.

1:27:40Brett Meiselas:Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.