MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 6/26/26

21:02Brett Meiselas:Can I just say this too? Like the devolvement from maybe quasi serious centrist, hotshot, young Republican Marco Rubio to MAGA stooge Marco Rubio that we know now, like over these last 10 years, it's just been astounding to witness. Maybe it's naive. I never saw him just being a total clown, like in the way that he so clearly is these days. Did you guys?

21:30Ben Meiselas:You know, there were signs of it, obviously. You know, at first, you know, when he came up, he was whatever. But then, you know, you saw him give that speech that time at the rebuttal to the State of the Union. and he started like needing the water and just when he was even as part of his villain even

21:47Brett Meiselas:appointed to the position i think collectively even through a modern like today lens people were like okay well marco rubio he's a serious person maybe he'll do a good job like i i think that was the general consensus of all of the picks from cash patel to to to everyone that everyone just kind of was like okay marco he'll do a good job at least we think i'm not sure

22:08Ben Meiselas:everybody. I mean, I think of the horrible options, he was maybe one of the least horrible, but still incredibly horrible. I mean, you got a flavor for who he was after he said all of the negatives.

22:19Brett Meiselas:I guess that's fair. I'm just kind of judging it on the Dambogino's.

22:22Ben Meiselas:That is where the Overton window has shifted.

22:25Jordy Meiselas:I think Rubio is very risk averse. And I think he's very opportunistic. And he clearly wants to be the republicans presidential nominee and so i think he's trying to take what's in his mind the path of least resistance he's trying to ruffle the least amount of feathers he's trying to do what donald trump wants but at the same time trying to kind of duck away from some of the more controversial stuff and duck away from the actual hard work that you're supposed to do as a secretary of state so we see him when it comes to the important decisions you know there's this big kind of joke on the internet, this meme, because Trump keeps assigning Marco Rubio to all these various positions.

23:05Jordy Meiselas:He's the head of this, he's the head of that. But it's like a jack of all trades, a master of none. He's not doing any of these jobs. And he's not doing the most important job, which is his job as Secretary of State. And so on the most important issue of his entire term, honestly, of his entire appointment, there's probably not going to be a bigger issue than this Iran negotiation right now. Yet he has ceded the lane to J.D. Vance because he knows it's a risky bet. He knows it's a risky situation that probably is not going to work out well. So he wants that to blow up for JD and he'll make some other comments on the side and he'll try to deal with things on the side.

23:40Jordy Meiselas:So to me, he's playing a kind of very cynical game and he's trying to do whatever he can to kind of coast along as quietly as possible. And at the same time, you know, send out signals to kind of the people with the money in Republican in circles and and other folks saying hey when this shit hits the fan guess what you you got me i'm gonna be clean of all of this you know so get ready to get ready to do it push behind me come 2028 and so that that's the calculus i i think that he's making also why you see this behind the scenes tension which ben you've picked up on and we've reported on here between him and jd vance because behind the scenes they're rivals for this 2028 position well look in the next clip i'm going

24:25Ben Meiselas:to show you, Marco Rubio, while he's in the Middle East, says the MOU is not a real deal. He goes, it's a framework to have future negotiations. So he says, of course, we didn't discuss the number of years that Iran would have to downblend their enriched uranium. Although Rubio and Trump pretend that Iran's going to give up all of their uranium. The only agreement is to downblend to civilian use. And there's no timeframe on it because Iran would not agree to a timeframe. And they're not going to agree to a timeframe because if they view the Trump regime as in breach, Israel and under Netanyahu continuing to stay in Lebanon and Trump continuing to threaten them, they'll just, if you can downblend, guess what?

25:13Ben Meiselas:You cannot blend pretty damn quickly. And so they don't want to give any, you know, inspection mechanisms or any of that. And so Rubio's asked about it. So what's the time limit? How do you see this? And Rubio acts like this isn't even a deal. So after saying, we didn't talk about the$300 billion. Jordy, I see you wearing a Knicks hat. That's like going to a Knicks game and going, hey, how was the game? You watch the Knicks play and you go, yeah, you know, I just got a hot dog. Okay, but what about, did you want to watch the game? No, I didn't think that was an important thing. I don't know. The$300 billion is kind of like one of the main terms.

25:48Ben Meiselas:The other main term is that the ceasefire includes Lebanon and that Israel needs to leave. That's it. And I'll tell you what's going on in those ceasefire discussions right now between Israel and Lebanon. Lebanon thought the discussion was going to be over moving the Lebanese army into the security zone in Lebanon, as Israel calls it, which is an area in Lebanon and Southern Lebanon being occupied by Israel. You know what Netanyahu who said, we want a pilot zone. And Lebanon was like, what do you mean? The security zone is this, we want more Israeli forces in the pilot zone. So Lebanon's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

26:22Ben Meiselas:We thought we were talking about moving the Lebanese troops into the security zone and moving Israeli troops out. You're saying you want more land? Yeah, we want the pilot. Oh, so now the security zone plus pilot zone. So that's at a deadlock as well. Yet if you look at the markets, the markets are like, we're in normal times. This is far less volatile than under former President Biden. It is not. What are you talking about? So you see the rampant market manipulation that's at play right here. And the issue is the long-term damage here becomes irreparable or it becomes very difficult to solve.

27:00Ben Meiselas:So then what happens in two years, a future democratic president comes into power. And what starts to happen? Oh, all these issues. Oh, how do you screw this up? Oh, you have to fix these issues. And all of a sudden, it's just like, got it. We got our tax breaks. We got our private jet tax exemptions. We got all of that. And now someone wants to tax us more. All right. Jack up the prices. Screw everybody over. Massive recession. Don't you see that that's the pattern? We need to recognize that that's the broader issue at play right here. and it's why you see these pendulum swings like this. We have to get out of this trap.

27:37Ben Meiselas:And that's what's happening in any event. Let's just show you what Rubio says, that this MOU is not real, basically. Let's play. Can you clarify what the role of Michael Burroughs was today? Michael Burroughs? Oh, he's there to see. His brother lives here. He was just there to see me and Ketchup. Was he working on this? No, no, no. There was a working lunch, right? There was, but the conversations around him had to do with, he was just here because his brother lives here and I'm a good friend of Michael's, so we had a chance to catch up. All right, thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.

28:08Ben Meiselas:Okay, guys. The structure of a framework of a negotiating hybrid tool. What are you talking about? The MOU has certain binding terms on it. And when you have Rubio out there saying that and J.D. Vance out there saying another thing, again, ultimately the message to our former allies, other Arab nations, allied nations in Asia and others that you can't rely on these. These are clowns. Everybody sees it. I promise you, if I see it, no offense to me, I'm telling you, the world leaders see it at a very clear level what I'm saying. And they also see this. You've got Michael Boulos, Tiffany's husband.

28:49Ben Meiselas:Tiffany Trump's husband is sitting there. I think we've got a photo of it. Rubio posts the photo. He's sitting across from MBZ. and you see right there, that's Boulos. And so Rubio was asked, hey man, why is Tiffany Trump's husband at this meeting of war? Is this some nepotistic internship? Why is dude here? Why is this guy here? Watch what Rubio says. Let's play this clip.

29:46Ben Meiselas:This isn't like, you know, showing up to a meeting with, I don't know, you know, like an accountant from a solo office who brings, you know, their friend's kid in college, you know, who's there for the summer internship or whatever, you know, to a lunch. What's he doing? Yeah, you know, what are we talking about? It's a meeting with MBZ, the leader of the United Arab Emirates about critical issues. The guy's just there to hang out. You're saying it's not,

30:18Brett Meiselas:this isn't bring your son to work day. This isn't what that is. And he walked into the meeting and he was like, holy shit, Boulos? Boulos?

30:25Ben Meiselas:Boulos. Bro. Bro. No fucking way. Your bro is here. He's my buddy and I'm bringing my buddy to just lunch with NBC. Why? Who are these people? I mean, Jordi, to your point earlier, you didn't even know I was going to go there with this show. Why are you forcing these side characters into my, I don't know who these people, I don't want Boulos there. I don't want Kushner peering over JD Vance. Frankly, I don't want J.D. Vance or Rubio even there. But why are these people in these conversations? And it's because at its core, this isn't a Democrat or Republican. This is a basic competence, professionalism.

31:03Ben Meiselas:This is deeply unprofessional, low character behavior by people who don't take our problems and our issues and our national security seriously. It's why they go on apps and start messaging about war plans and they invite reporters on without even knowing it. It's why they bring in Bill Pulte to become the head of the office of the director of national intelligence. They don't care about our lives. They don't care about us.

31:33Jordy Meiselas:In fact, they take joy in our pain. In all of these roles, if you're in a negotiation with such high stakes, you want the best negotiator possible. And who do we have? The president's son-in-law. When you're doing an event to celebrate the United States of America's 250th anniversary, who do you want? You want to find probably the best singer you could find imaginable to represent the United States. Instead, we have Kash Patel's girlfriend, his country singer girlfriend, the one who he's been flying around in those FBI jets and using the FBI jet to go to her concerts and all that stuff. I mean, this is what tin pot dictatorships do.

32:12Jordy Meiselas:This is the stuff that we would laugh at other countries for. And quite frankly, it makes the United States of America look small. It makes us look weak. It makes us look stupid when these are the people in the room, when these are the people at our events and not real actual experts, real actual professionals, people who know what the hell we are doing. It is making the United States of America seem so insignificant in the world. And these Republicans, none of these people would ever accept this from a democratic president ever, ever, ever. Think of all the stuff they said about Hunter Biden, who had no role at all in the Biden administration.

32:51Jordy Meiselas:Donald Trump has basically turned the White House into an entire family business, an entire family affair. It is grotesque.

32:58Brett Meiselas:And he brought the son-in-law that no one even knows either. He brought Boulos. He brought Boulos. At least if you're going to bring one of the son-in-laws, at least bring the one people now. Boulos, that's like a deep cut. You think they dapped each other up? You think Ruben was like, yo, Boulos, what's up? Let's take a seat, man. Take a seat. We're about to get here.

33:13Ben Meiselas:Take a seat. I got MBZ. You know MBZ, right? MBZ, MBZ, Boulos. MBZ, a little bit angry with us because our national security umbrella may have collapsed. You know, we did some quid pro quos. He bought a little bit of Trump crypto. We gave him a little bit of semiconductors, you know, but Boulos is all good. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hang on. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, MBZ, look, look, look, I got Boulos, Boulos here. You know, MBZ is like, okay, man. Okay, these freaking people. All right. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, guys. We will consider the future military base. Absolutely. Call up Iran, G. Call up G.

33:51Ben Meiselas:What do you think is happening? Of course, these people are like, yo, these American people are crazy. This is what's going on right now. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, we've got a lot to discuss. A big court victory by Katie Fang of the Midas Touch Network under the Epstein Transparency Act. Order will discuss the implications there. We'll talk about what else is going on in the country. Much more to discuss. Let's take our first quick break. A reminder, subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio. You've been so helpful in us rising those audio charts, climbing the audio charts.

34:33Ben Meiselas:Help us subscribe on audio. Search Midas Touch. Leave a five-star review. All right, let's take a first quick break.

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38:24Ben Meiselas:Either way, it's on the same day that Apple's raising the price on a lot of its products, its Mac products, its iPads. It announced that it's going to have massive increases. I mean, we're talking about 25, 27 % increases in prices to consumers. Year over year, 25 to 27 % increases. Then Microsoft or their Xbox also announced about 20 to 30 % increases on their various products as well. And a lot of this is stemming from the fact that you have all of this CapEx, this capital expenditures on these data centers and all of the AI build outs in order to basically build these semiconductor, these chips.

39:10Ben Meiselas:It costs a lot of money. And there's a lot of infrastructure in that price. The cost of that is ultimately being put on the consumer. And we're seeing a A lot of these companies do kind of massive debt offerings where they're raising all of this money. They're deploying all of this capital that they're raising in all of this debt. And they're all kind of spreading money out amongst themselves. The Mag 7, as they're called, the Magnificent 7, all of these, you know, kind of companies. And they've been, you know, at least until recently, doing well in the market. But ultimately, where does this all end up?

39:48Ben Meiselas:In addition to the fact that it's causing lots of job losses and a jobs recession because a lot of the build out is removing the workers. I mean, we saw some of the recent data that shows that kind of factory hiring is at kind of levels that are like Great Recession pandemic levels. right now. I mean, we went from like a manufacturing boom under Biden to a situation that's like emblematic of the Great Recession or during really bad economic times, which we're in right now. And then ultimately, it gets passed on to the consumer. The tariffs passed on to the consumer. The cost of these CapEx buildouts, these expenditures by all of these companies you hear about, they're getting passed on to the consumer.

40:34Ben Meiselas:And ultimately, when you look at the data, you You see inflation rising, the PCE, which is the Fed's preferred inflation metric, up to 4.1%. A stat, though, that is perhaps even more jarring to me is that the annual savings rate of an American family went down from 4.9 % in 2025 to 3 % in 2026. In other words, people are dipping into their life savings in order to be able to afford basic necessities right now. And especially when you look at things like core PCE, which excludes food and energy, that's rising as well to 3.4%. So for people who go, well, guess what? Gas prices are going down. So ultimately, would an inflation go down?

41:19Ben Meiselas:Well, when you look at core PCE at 3.4%, that's supposed to be at 2%. And that core PCE is rising month over month as well. and that's being caused by Donald Trump's tariffs against the world. Guess what? It doesn't impact directly overnight. So when the Trump regime is like, oh, I guess it wasn't impacting anybody, like when they did it, remember, Trump's, what he called Liberation Day, I know in Trump years, it seems like this was 30 years ago. It was last April, okay? We're basically a year plus a few months out. So Trump did that. Then he tacoed some. He chickened out on some of them, but some of them stay in place.

42:00Ben Meiselas:He's got those 15 % tariffs here, there, and the other. Yes, he gives certain exemptions to certain types of companies and friends, but the overall impact, guess what? It doesn't take overnight. The same way what Trump screwed up during his first term got passed on to Biden when Biden took the – had Trump been in office instead of Biden, had Trump not got blown out in the election, we probably would have had 15 % inflation because he wouldn't have taken the steps that Biden did to reduce inflation. So true. So Biden had to actually take the steps to give us a soft landing. Everybody expected we'd be in a massive recession.

42:36Ben Meiselas:He got us out of that situation. He had this gentle, soft landing where, look, I'm not saying it was great for everybody at the end of the Biden administration. There was a lot of work, but manufacturing was up, Chips Act, You know, all these things that were leading to the jobs coming back. And then Trump screws it up. And so now what we'll see happen is, you know, another year will probably be bad. Then it'll get worse. And then a Democratic, you know, Trump will start railing at Warsh, his new Fed chair. You know, don't lower the interest rates. Don't lower the interest rate. Don't raise the interest rates.

43:11Ben Meiselas:Don't raise the interest rates. And the Fed's going to probably have to raise interest rates a few times where we're heading, or Trump maybe tries to attack Warsh and coerce him not to do it. But ultimately, the problem then gets passed on to somebody. And then somebody in two or three years has to deal with this mess, while Trump and MAGA and these sociopath assholes, I don't know how to describe them. It pisses me off. Then they're like, oh, we're hawks. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. We're hawks. We're now China hawks. We're this hawk. We're that hawk. They label themselves this stuff. The oligarch media, the regime media, you know, that wants to shill for all of the oligarchs goes, oh, my God, can you believe, you know, it's, you know, whoever it is, you know, whatever the Democratic person who comes in, you know, it's their fault.

44:01Ben Meiselas:And, you know, and then we get into these cycles over and over and over again. And it's like you have to identify what's happening. And I know with, technology and there's so many things going on, I get that it could all be distracting, and especially where you have trillions of dollars being pumped into the veins and propaganda out there. But we have to recognize where the source is. The source of what Biden was dealing with was Trump screwing up COVID, Trump screwing up PPP, Trump screwing up the economy. That resulted in inflation increasing when you had all these supply chains that were screwed up.

44:41Ben Meiselas:Biden had to fix it. He fixed it. I couldn't even imagine what a disaster it would have been under, you know, would have been under Trump. You have to fix the problems anyway. But I want people to be aware of what the hustle is, what the scam is.

44:54Jordy Meiselas:No, it's just, it's so obvious too. It's just also in your face that I don't understand how people could even like debate that. It's all Talafrico.

45:04Ben Meiselas:That's why I get this stupid shit. It's Talafrico, six gender. It's stuff like that. That's like, guys, don't you realize you're being scammed? I'm sorry, bro.

45:14Jordy Meiselas:No. I think one of the interesting things in this Trump era has been how many of these companies and CEOs and people have really shown their cards, I guess for better or for worse. I feel like they used to keep kind of politics a little closer to the vest and you wouldn't see somebody like a Jeff Bezos out there, you know, ranting against Joe Biden or something like that. I feel like that wasn't as common as it is now, but now you see all of these kind of CEOs getting in the mud in a way that you haven't really seen before. And I think one of the most recent examples was the feud that was happening here in California between Governor Newsom and Chevron.

45:55Jordy Meiselas:Like Chevron decided to pick a fight with Newsom, blaming Governor Newsom for high gas prices. And just like, think of that on its face at all. In the midst of this war where Donald Trump has increased to gas prices, Chevron goes, Governor Newsom, it's your fault because of the regulations in California. You're the reason that gas prices are high. And so Newsom then fires back and there's this whole back and forth where Newsom is like, here's a map, okay, Chevron. Here's a Chevron station across the street from this other station your prices at that station that's literally across the street from another station are 60 to 80 cents higher per gallon than the other stations so take your talking points and shove it basically newsom said to them and they had this whole back and forth and i think it just really shows the cards ben when you were speaking about like kind of the market manipulation in the beginning with these with these oil uh markets and and and everything like it it shows you i think how coordinated i i do believe a lot of these companies are and they know where their bread is buttered, so to speak.

46:54Jordy Meiselas:They know who, which party is going to be the one who's going to try to give them more subsidies and screw over the wind energy industry and screw over other clean energy. And they know who, which, which party is going to kind of be bailing them out and propping them up and they act accordingly. And now they're kind of being a little more obvious about it because they're getting into these public spats and, and they are they are doing so like that um but but i just think that whole kind of scenario to watch has been uh i guess a little bit illuminating um along the way and even see trump like you know speaking about some of this price gouging and stuff from uh the gas companies i know he did a post because gas prices are still super high they've come down in some circumstances they've gone back up they've come a little down but they're still very high and uh trump you know is like this shouldn't be the case these, you know, these gas companies are price gouging, they're price gouging, they're price gouging.

47:53Jordy Meiselas:And hey, he's probably right, you know, to an extent like these companies definitely do price gouge. But I think Trump's also just like completely BSing. And he's trying to kind of cover for the people who he's been helping out all along by attacking them in that way. And again, the same way Donald Trump does for literally everything, nothing is ever his fault. It always has to be someone else's fault. So the high gas prices, that's not my fault for starting this war, for getting the Strait of Hormuz closed, for causing this global economic chaos. That is the gas company's fault, or that's Gavin Newsom's fault.

48:26Jordy Meiselas:It's not me. Don't look at me. He handles every single issue that way. The algae in the pool, the fact that it turned bright green and that it's being ripped up, that wasn't me. That was vandals. There was vandals. They cut a 350-foot gas. Yes, I may have said a few weeks ago that it's impenetrable, impossible to cut. I may have had security there, security cameras on the place. I can't show you a lick of evidence, but trust me, it was the vandals who did it. And if you look through everything that Donald Trump has ever done in his life, he gets into these big projects. He takes these big swings.

48:59Jordy Meiselas:He fails miserably after he cons everybody into going along with his idea. And then he blames someone else. Oh, that didn't succeed because of the contractor. I'm not paying the contractor, by the way. They screwed up. It's been the same playbook for decades and decades and decades. ultimately everybody on the other side of that gets ends up getting screwed by Donald Trump but while he moves on to the next thing in this kind of Ponzi

49:21Brett Meiselas:scheme-esque way exactly but in those instances too Brett we have to realize he was a businessman right he was he was doing business now he's the head of the country he's the leader he's the president the buck's supposed to stop with him for me the most upsetting part one of the most upsetting parts of this timeline that we're all in is the absence of leadership and the absence of accountability because it might sound cheesy, but it's like, how are we supposed to show the next generation of what leadership and being an adult and being a person that stands by their word and being someone that looks out for the greater good actually and genuinely looks like if the president of the United States himself cannot do that, if he is unwilling to behave like a rational, normal human being, if he is unable and unwilling to look out for the people of America, the people of the world, but specifically here in this country, he does not give a damn about them.

50:17Brett Meiselas:All he cares about is making himself look good, no matter the cost. And quite frankly, I don't know if that even happens half the time. He tries to make himself look good. I think he makes himself look more like a clown at the end of the day. I think that's pretty obvious and evident. But ultimately, if the leader, if the president of the United States can't just behave like a rational human and try and put country first, then how can we expect these next generations growing up in this country to do the same.

50:43Ben Meiselas:You know, I'm often asked, Hey Ben, is there one thing though, that you can say that Donald Trump has done good or that you would say that was helpful? I guess there is one thing that he's helped expose and shed a light on a lot of the corruption that was being done in secret by these right-wing oligarchs that was being hidden. And because he panics publicly and starts to yell and shout and shows you the cards, the projection helps direct you to, oh, got it. That's how you did that. That's how you did that. And so him being a tool of the oligarchy, but him also being unable to keep it quiet because he's just such a psychopath does allow me to go, oh, got it.

51:30Ben Meiselas:So Brett, your point about Trump saying it's price gouging, it's price gouging. Right now, the manipulation is actually in the other direction that they've managed, as I said at the outset, to keep the price of Brent crude at$73 per barrel with what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz, what's going on with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is$20 less per barrel than under former President Biden in 2023 when the Strait of Hormuz was open. and when things were firing on the right types of cylinders and heading in the right direction, because the market just had a lot more uncertainty under Biden.

52:09Ben Meiselas:But what it does tell me is that the price gouging was taking place under Biden. Trump's in a room with these oil executives, okay? They literally plotted the Venezuela takeover together. How do we know? Because Trump told us. He said, I planned the invasion of Venezuela with the oil companies. So you're accusing the people of price gouging, literally your co-conspirators in the invasion of Venezuela. So he's in the room with them when I'm sure they're saying, hey, this is what we do with Biden. We need you to do this, this, and this. Do this for us. We'll be able to keep it here. We'll be able to keep a quiet look.

52:47Ben Meiselas:When a Democratic president comes back in though, and they try to screw us on the taxes, we're going to have to bring that Brent crude up to like$9 ,500. That's how we're going to get our profit margin. We know that our profits will be less. We can deal with it, but you got to help us on these exemptions. You got to help us on the tax rate. You got to help us on these corporate taxes. That's what's important to us. That'll basically offset the, you know, any types of losses and lower gas. Trust me, that's the conversation that's happening behind the scenes with these people. When I was a litigator, I sued these types of people.

53:22Ben Meiselas:I took their depositions. I've looked across these people's faces. I'm letting you know that that's precisely what goes down and they laugh about it and they find this stuff funny and they, what do you do? You took advantage of that loophole? Yeah, I took advantage of that loophole. What do you think they're talking about when they're golfing? They're talking about taking from you. They're talking about screwing you over. You want to know why Donald Trump is not signing that housing bill and why he's upset with it? Because he's friends with the private equity people who are the ones screwing everybody over.

53:59Ben Meiselas:Trump doesn't want an affordability housing bill. Trump doesn't want more people having access to housing. Trump wants the private equity companies. Those are his buddies. Those are the people hanging out at Mar-a-Lago and paying$2 a year memberships. That's his crew. So he's not going to sign the thing. And sure, in 10 days, it automatically becomes law based upon the fact that it's a veto proofed if he doesn't veto it. Maybe he vetoes it, though. Who knows? And then it has to get passed to MAGA Mike. And then MAGA Mike tries to delay it. Who knows what the hell is happening over there? But do you think about the housing bill that was supposed to be signed two days ago?

54:39Ben Meiselas:That was actually a bipartisan piece of legislation that would rein in private equity companies from gobbling up housing. It's actually something that Trump could have pointed to and said, this is affordability. Granted, it probably wouldn't kick in and have major meaningful impact based on the inflation. But why doesn't he want to sign it? And he says, oh, I want the Save America Act, which is his voter suppression. That's part of it. But he's using that as well. But his right-wing oligarch friends are the private equity companies. Jared Kushner's hanging over and hovering over the memorandum of understanding because Kushner's become a billionaire.

55:17Ben Meiselas:Kushner's there for his own finances. Witkoff's there for his own finances. These people weren't nominated and appointed through any, why are these people even there to begin with? Why is Michael Boulos there? His family is investors in equity and doing business. Why are these people here? And ultimately the end product, the end result is that you're getting screwed. You watching this, you're getting screwed by this corruption. That's why you're being psychologically tortured. That's why you can't afford a home. That's why you can't afford a rent. That's why you can't afford groceries. That's why you can't afford anything.

55:54Ben Meiselas:You can't afford gas. It's because of this stuff going on. And I don't care if you're a Democrat, independent, or whoever. If you're not channeling that rage that I'm channeling right now, that our community is, you ain't going to win elections. So when people want to be like, oh, well, I think the Democrats will do this or do that or do that. Shut up. And what you should do is fight for the American people who understand everything that I said, because they're feeling that pain. That's what you should be doing. Not worrying, oh, am I a centrist? Shut up. Fight for the American people and actually mean it.

56:32Ben Meiselas:And then if you're in power, actually wield power to fight for them. Con artists recognize the fear and the pain people are feeling. Donald Trump is probably the biggest con artist in human history. He sees the fear. He sees the pain. But what he knows is that he can feast on that and lie and con people. Now, what you should be doing is seeing the fear and the pain and saying, how do I deliver? How do I fight back against the con artists? And how do I rally with people to actually make meaningful change? That's what I want to talk about when we come back with our last segment. We'll take our last quick break of the show.

57:12Ben Meiselas:A reminder, it's subscribe here, but more importantly than subscribing here, subscribe with audio. That'll help us a lot. Subscribe here is very important, but subscribe to our audio. Search Midas Touch. It's really important. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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59:53Brett Meiselas:Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors. The links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there is an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Say something there, Benji.

1:00:02Ben Meiselas:Oh yeah, I was just saying, what's up? What's up, everybody? I wasn't sure if it was stalled there for a second. That's why I was talking earlier. I got like a little frozen. Okay. No, you're good. Let me jump right in then. We'll get back to you. them. Brett, play that clip, though, as state regime media Fox attacking us. They had a host on who's like, you know, all these new Democrats who have won. Maybe they'll get on Midas Touch Network, but they're not really going to make a difference. They'll get on the Midas Touch. Well, we'd be honored to have them on the Midas Touch Network, and they're fighting for the people, and they're going to make a difference.

1:00:33Ben Meiselas:But it's just an it's an odd narrative, though, by the way. Let's let's play this. So you can't dismiss the Tea Party as though it was not influential and then tell me these 10 very well there were 60 of them not 10. these 10 all the energy and by the way this is just to start we're not even counting the graham platners of the world and the others the james tallaricos we have a long way to go we have a long way to go but look here's

1:00:55Jordy Meiselas:the thing when aoc came to office she learned the squad learned the hard way congress is about numbers it's about math and nancy pelosi had to say little girl you don't have the numbers we do They will be marginalized. You will see them on MSNBC and Midas Touch, and that's about it because they won't be doing deals. They won't be involved in legislating. I think the only numbers they care about.

1:01:18Ben Meiselas:You see him at the end? Yeah. You see him after he's done, what the hell, what?

1:01:25Ben Meiselas:You guys like what I said? Oh, was I funny? Oh, did I do a good job? I'm like, dude, what the hell even, what was that also? And what are you even talking, little girl? I mean, who, again, who are these people?

1:01:38Jordy Meiselas:They always get like, you know, the disgruntled guy who like, like, like that's that guy, LaRosa. He used to be like in Biden world and now isn't associated with democratic politics, but they're like democratic insider speaks out. All the guy does is like shit on Democrats all day. Like if you ever look at the guy's Twitter feed, it's absolutely insufferable. I think he works for like a right-wing think tank in DC as well. But his whole thing is like, I'm the Democrat who just talks shit about the Democrat all day. And you see these endless takes from folks like that who just constantly want to be doom and gloom about everything, right?

1:02:11Jordy Meiselas:Something good happens for the Democratic Party. They go, this is the worst thing ever to happen for them. Something bad happens. This is the end of them. And it's like enough of these doomer kind of takes about everything. How about like Ben said, how about you just listen to the people and listen to the message that they are saying? And there's actually, you know, a whole lot of people out there, even on the right and the left right now, that are agreeing with a whole host of issues that a lot of politicians are not speaking about. Issues surrounding data centers, issues like the Epstein files, issues like affordability.

1:02:42Jordy Meiselas:There are a lot of issues and a lot of reasons why people are going out and want to see kind of the new guard come in and replace the old guard. And there's a reason for this energy out there that you're seeing. And not everything has to be, oh, this is terrible. By the way, AOC is like the worst example he could have picked because she's become one of the more effective legislators in the entire Congress. And she is one of the best messengers in the party. And she's actually done so in a way where she has worked to uplift kind of other people in the party and has been incredibly collaborative.

1:03:19Jordy Meiselas:And if you look at all the coverage of when AOC was elected, you would see the same kind of fear mongering, right? that this is the doom, this is it, this is over, the radical, they're going to use her to, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop buying into this bullshit, okay? Stop buying into the right-wing bullshit. Stop buying into what Fox is pushing. They're injecting that stuff in right-wing audiences every single day. You don't have to buy it.

1:03:43Brett Meiselas:I'm genuinely saying this. I know I'm not of the three of us. I know I'm not like the smartest brother, but I also have no idea what that guy was even trying to communicate. Like it just felt we were on his mind. Like it just felt the Midas Touch Network was on his mind that he's like, no matter what, I'm going to say Midas Touch during the segment. Because if you play that back, it's not a logical thought. Like it really doesn't make any sense. I think what he's trying to say, I don't even want to get into it. But again, these people are like, it's not a left or a right thing. That's an unwell human being right there trying to communicate.

1:04:21Brett Meiselas:I don't know what type of point, but clearly we're on his mind. He's trying to say. The thing is with the platform that we have here and that we continue to build with this great, incredible group that supports and watches and all that, and the mightest mighty, is we just want to get the facts out. It's not about us. It's not about the brothers. It's such an egoless movement. And we just want to platform facts and truth tellers and experts in a world where I guess that's hated by, you saw that guy, hated by that guy, hated by Fox News. hated by all of these other entities out there, except for us here, who was like, no, bring on the facts, bring on the experts.

1:04:58Brett Meiselas:And yeah, heck yeah, we'll platform them 1000%.

1:05:00Ben Meiselas:I mean, these sociopaths though, will truly say with a straight face that right now, Trump has delivered on everything he promised. And that this is incredible, that God put him here to do this. And this is divine actually. And the golden age that everybody's experiencing right now is literally the gift from God that Donald Trump and God and Jesus came up with a deal at Butler that Donald Trump hasn't even released the medical records. And they came up with this arrangement. And that's why everything is amazing right now. They literally said, do we have the clipboard of Tom Emmer, the MAGA Republican Congress member.

1:05:44Ben Meiselas:He's like the whip. And he literally says today, I mean, Congress is shut down right now. They shut it down because you have Donald Trump sycophants like Anna Paulina Luna are boycotting what's called passing the rule that lets you even set an agenda for the day. So MAGA might can't even put any agenda on because Donald Trump said, don't let the House even do work unless the Senate, which doesn't have the votes to pass what Trump calls the Save the Merck Act, which is Voter Suppression Act, unless the Senate passes that, then he doesn't want the House to be able to even function or to do any work.

1:06:24Ben Meiselas:So then you have Tom Emmer, though, give a speech where he's like, this is God. God did this. Jesus did this. And that's why we're all so blessed. Well, watch what he says. here. You got to talk about something called God's will, right? There's a reason why Donald Trump is still here. God's will is that his work is not done. By the way, our president knows that. I mean, our president, who likes my wife much better than me, and he makes that clear every time. And then I'm reminded by my staff that everybody likes your wife a lot more than you. I get that. But he told her. He told her he knows that he should not be here.

1:07:05He knows the reason he is here is because God has a job for him to finish.

1:07:10Ben Meiselas:You know, when I watch that sometimes, I feel like I'm on an alien planet. Like even the people laughing at that, like, what are you laughing? What's even funny here?

1:07:19Brett Meiselas:No, Ben, it's funny because he hates his wife. That's what people are laughing at. That's why, Ben, if you didn't pick up on it.

1:07:25Ben Meiselas:You know, people are suffering right now. Trump's promise, if you want to say that, was to reduce inflation. Inflation's going up. Things are monumentally worse. So let's just say, let's say you hated Biden. Just assume arguendo, you hate Biden. okay biden left with what was it like 2.7 percent inflation 2.8 percent inflation say it was to call it three call it three okay heading down to two right now it is 4.1 percent higher than last year under trump which is three point whatever it was 3.2 percent higher last year 3.3 % than Biden. So if you add the last two years combined right now already in Trump, you are 8 % to 9 % higher inflation than the last year under Biden's term.

1:08:30Ben Meiselas:And then if you want to aggregate all the other years of Biden and the inflation that he had to inherit and deal with, this is 8 % on top of that. And Trump's thing was, I'm going to make your electricity bills 50 % cheaper. I'm going to bring down housing costs. Everybody will get a house. I'm going to bring down the price of this and that. I'm going to end the war in Ukraine. The guy started wars everywhere and then lies and says that there were eight, nine wars that he solved and just has been lying about everything. He gave this speech last night where there was maybe 1 ,000 people, maybe tops.

1:09:09Ben Meiselas:We saw it. We could see the amount of people. There was 1 ,000 people in DC watching this speech, and most of them were leaving in the middle of the speech. Here's what he posted moments ago. He's been silent all day, but here's what he posts. Last night's rally was packed, 45 ,000 people. July 4th will be a step beyond anything you've ever seen. The military flyovers will be the best ever, the most planes, the newest planes, the fastest planes. I'll be there to speak about how great our country is and making America great again, Donald J. Trump. There's not 45 ,000 people. And the thing is, when you lie like this also, and it goes back to what we said at the outset, in Iran, they clinically diagnosed him as a psychotic person.

1:09:53Ben Meiselas:And so they know that they are actually dealing with someone who's mentally ill. And I'm not saying that for him to escape the accountability that he must, but that he is literally someone who is actually malignant narcissist and mentally ill. But we all know that we don't need clinical psychology. We see it. I don't understand with his behavior being so not normal. Again, when you hear people like whoever that guy was you know de la rosa whatever the lorosa whoever did the that line about um you know about midas or whatever he was like he's like spot on did you do you like it you like i was i was practicing that line i was practicing that line can i say i nervously google to make

1:10:43Brett Meiselas:sure he did not have like a tick or something and confirmed does not have a tick so we can continue to make fun of them?

1:10:49Ben Meiselas:You know, I'm edgy, Jordy. You are edgy. Remember we did the RFK voice? That was crazy. I did. I'm edgy. I'll just leave it at that. You don't know what you're going to get. Sometimes I don't know what you're going to get when I'm doing it live. So we have Congress shut down right now. Brett, you talked about those bipartisan issues. And one of them, of course, is we don't want a regime covering up a child sex trafficking, Kind of bare minimum government, can you not be aiding and abetting child sex trafficking? Like, we good there? Oh, you can't clear that hurdle? That's why I believe what Katie Fang did was, frankly, on behalf of all Americans, she filed the first of its kind lawsuit under the Epstein Transparency Act to release the Epstein files that have not been produced.

1:11:41Ben Meiselas:And she very strategically focused on a core set of documents that have Trump's name on it, that we know they're covering up that involve Trump and accusations from girls involving Trump. Also, demanding that the Justice Department produce its privilege log or redaction log, which if they were withholding millions of documents, which they are, they can't withhold that. The law requires that if you withhold, you have to create a log that identifies the basis of why you have withheld certain things. I know there were a lot of doubters out there whether Katie Fang would have standing, whether her lawsuit would be viable.

1:12:22Ben Meiselas:Well, I'm so proud to say, and I'm so honored to have her part of this network, that she prevailed with the preliminary injunction. And a judge ordered the Trump regime to show cause by pretty much next week at this point, why they can't produce the log and why they can't turn over their emails or to turn it over immediately. And the judge found that Katie Fang had standing as a member of the public protected by the Epstein Transparency Act. That ruling is so big because that means you have standing to sue also. The whole country has standing to bring these lawsuits right now under the Epstein Transparency Act because the law was created to protect us all.

1:13:11Ben Meiselas:It'd be interesting to see if everybody filed a lawsuit under the Epstein Transparency Act at this point because, as Katie says, you have the right to the documents. I have the right to the documents. Your neighbor has the right to those documents. And now what's the Trump regime going to do? They're going to appeal, I'm sure, to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Then I'm sure they'll try to appeal to the United States Supreme Court. And this issue will be teed up. And I think when you see the Trump regime fighting so hard for not, and Katie was so smart with the filing. It wasn't like she even said yet, we need every document.

1:13:51Ben Meiselas:She said, I want these documents for now, the core group, and produce the privilege log. So the Trump regime is going to say, no, we don't have to produce a privilege. Nobody can sue us. Nobody has the right. The Epstein Transparency Act, nobody has to follow. Also, the judge denied the Trump's request for a stay pending the appeal. So the Trump regime, I'm sure, will have to file right now in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal and request a stay from the DC circuit. And so now they're going to have to ask, and there are some right-wing justices or judges on the DC circuit. Hey, will you be complicit with us in the child sex trafficking racket?

1:14:33Ben Meiselas:Will you be complicit with us? Is what the Trump regime is going to have to say. That's where we're at right now. This is a bi-pub, you know, housing, affordability, not going into endless wars, being against genocide, in Gaza, being against genocide in Lebanon, supporting peace.

1:14:59Ben Meiselas:These are not trick questions. These are not, oh, where do I stand on the issue? What's this group going to say or that group going to say? You stand for something or you fall for everything. And if you don't stand for things, one of the big issues is, and we saw this, the con artist comes in who sees the pain and suffering and says what the people who are suffering want to hear. Donald Trump, the Pied Piper con artist, he would go to the Palestinians in Michigan, in Dearborn, and he would say, here's what I'm going to do for you. We're going to help you. He would go to a Jewish community made up of people who have certain views about Israel, and he would say, I'm going to do the exact opposite.

1:16:02Ben Meiselas:He would go to farmers and he would say this. He'd go to that group and say that. He would go to this group. That's what he would do.

1:16:09Jordy Meiselas:Let me show you what he's saying to farmers today. How about that? Because we could say all these historical examples, but literally he's still doing it and it's the same con that he's been doing from the campaign. It's the same con that he's done his entire life. So his new lie is one that Ben touched on earlier today and in various reporting where he keeps telling the farmers, don't worry. This is just kind of sell because we're giving Iran all this money. Don't worry. We may be freeing up all these billions and billions of dollars for Iran, but guess what? That money's coming right back to you.

1:16:41Jordy Meiselas:All the suffering that you've had because of everything I've done, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. You're about to get a windfall. And it's always like you're going to get rich, is Donald Trump's kind of whole framing. You're about to get rich because Iran, They need crops and they are going to be buying it from you, farmer. And he gives people this false hope over and over again. And that's what makes these lies particularly evil to me, telling people that I'm going to make you rich as you screw them over. So listen to what Donald Trump said today. This is very recently, within the past hour or so. Let's play this.

1:17:13For the American farmer and after years of getting ripped off by other countries on trade, we've reduced the agricultural trade deficit just this year by 42 percent opening markets to the American exports. And all over the world, we're opening up markets for the farmers. And we have another one, a new market coming up, and that's called the lovely country of Iran. It's a beautiful place. Would anybody like to go there? The Islamic Republic of Iran. They're having a hard time with food. And we're going to be taking some of their money and we'll spend it. And we're going to be buying wheat, soybeans and corn, a lot of it.

1:17:52And that process is going to be starting pretty soon. It's going to be pretty big, too. I think it's going to be very big. We have an expanded market, dairy.

1:18:02Jordy Meiselas:That money is never going to go to the farmers. He's lying. He's lying. He's lying. Even M.B. Goluboff, Iran's parliament speaker, said today, before Donald Trump made these latest remarks, he said the following, America falsely claims our unfrozen assets will buy their agriculture. Interesting. The only crop we're harvesting is what you planted. Decades of mistrust. It's organic, abundant, and homegrown. But apparently, the US only exports GMO soybeans, broken promises, and trash talk. I mean, that's a pretty stern statement from Goluboff there. But the fact that this is a complete lie, it's not going to stop Trump.

1:18:41Jordy Meiselas:He's going to say this now at every rally he does. He's going to say this when he's speaking to people nonstop. He's going to keep tweeting about or truth-socialing about how all this money is going to our great farmers. Get ready. You're about to get rich. Brace for the windfall. It's coming any, any day now. I guess it's coming after their tariff rebate checks or their Doge checks or one of the numerous other scams that Donald Trump has put forward throughout this term.

1:19:07Brett Meiselas:Supposed to run after he delivers the healthcare plan.

1:19:10Jordy Meiselas:Yeah, the healthcare plan after he gets Melania's immigration status press conference. I mean, he could go back, right, over and over. And just, I don't understand how anybody could fall for this at this point, because it's the same scam run every time. But the thing that you have to realize is there's, as Ben has said, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars pumped in to making people believe this stuff every day and using these culture war issues to make people vote against their own interests. And when you watch Fox or if you see, even when you look at Twitter X or whatever it is now, and you see the way that things that are blatant lies are just artificially boosted, right?

1:19:56Jordy Meiselas:You'll see a tweet that says, Vandal caught, you know, knifing a 350-foot gash. Looks like Trump was right. And it will have like 100 ,000 likes. And it's just a BS. That's why Elon Musk spent$44 billion to get the platform. so that they could spread things like this. That's why the oligarchs want to control the flow of information. That's why they're buying up all these media companies. That's why you're seeing all this consolidation. That's why Trump has quite openly said that he wants to see changes at CNN once this merger goes through and everything.

1:20:29Ben Meiselas:And Brett, let me take it one more step further. That's why Elon Musk bought the platform for$44 billion. Who was funding it? These oligarchs, Middle East nations. They bought debt. these different banks that are now supporting Donald Trump and helping him manipulate the markets. They were debt holders. And do you know what then happened? Then X got brought into SpaceX, which got all its money from government contracts based on all of the hype from the government contracts, IPO'd all of those debt holders who were there originally got so extra wealthy. Elon Musk then changes the rules for NASDAQ and for mutual funds so that he can then stick his SpaceX right into your mutual funds and your 401ks right away.

1:21:18Ben Meiselas:SpaceX goes public. It shoots up right away before tanking. All of those people who were there got super rich for putting the money into SpaceX in the first place. Then you get stuck holding the bag because your 401k and your mutual funds now have to buy SpaceX on the way down, basically, regardless of whether you want it or not. And while that's going on, Donald Trump's out there as part of that same speech, Brett, saying, Iran wants to make a deal with us so badly. We're going to do a deal. Just you wait. They're going to make the biggest, best deal with us. And when I hear him say things like that, I don't know if you at home, I'm not even going to play the clip because I go, I literally feel like I get hit.

1:22:05Ben Meiselas:Like I feel like it's a physical feeling. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You did the MO. What do you even mean? And this just makes us look so dumb and so stupid. What do you mean they really want to do a deal with us? You did the MOU, you, you lost the war, you gave them everything that we're seeing what happened in you. Now you're out there. And, and now there's still going to be people, you know, Brett, to your point in this country who were like, I think they want to do a deal with us. I think he's going to, I think the, I know the farmers are really struggling, but Donald says that Foreign Minister Arag to NBGalaboff are going to buy some crops from the Nebraska.

1:22:42Ben Meiselas:No, they're not. How do you not see it? How do you not see it? Jordy, I'll give you the last word.

1:22:48Brett Meiselas:No, absolutely, Benji and Brett. I think you guys synthesize this perfectly. I just come back to this. I'm so excited about foundationally what we're continuing to build here at the Midas Touch Network and people who are truly just like the anecdote, I think, or the antidote, sorry, to the Fox News of the world, to this misinformation chamber that just quite frankly exists too nonchalantly in our society. And I truly feel that this country could be great if we fight for it to be great. We just can't assume that things are going to go back to normal. We can't just assume that our standing in this world is ever going to be, I think at at least what we assumed it once was, it's going to take all of us.

1:23:33Brett Meiselas:It's going to take the village to continue to hold truth to power here and continue to demand answers, continue to demand transparency throughout all of Trump's failing efforts here and just not stop the fighting. Like it is so important now more than ever to like literally dig in and lock the F in because who knows what could happen, but at least we're gonna go down swinging.

1:23:56Jordy Meiselas:I want to just talk for a couple seconds about the Fox propaganda operation, just because I saw just a personal anecdote before we get out of here. I was watching the World Cup the other day, which was on Fox, the broadcasting channel, and they ran an ad for Fox News. and it was the most over the top, almost like a, I don't know, Team America kind of parody of an ad for this. But you see exactly what they're doing in the ad, right? They don't say any of the crazy things in the ad, but the American iconography they use and like the way they are so ham-fisted with everything, it may as well be like a sketch on Saturday Night Live or something, right?

1:24:38Jordy Meiselas:It's like, you know, a big car drives, then an eagle flies and there's an explosion and there's a flag that wraps her like the whole thing the way the entire ad is built shows you their whole strategy which is let's figure out how to screw these people but let's do it in a way that makes them feel good that plays to their lizard brains that says america fuck yeah you know that's what they're doing and i almost i want to find the ad because it was it was so outrageous uh you know but that's what they do they present themselves in a certain way And that imagery is very important to the con. They want to present themselves where, look, we're a real news network.

1:25:16Jordy Meiselas:We have nice graphics. Look at that nice glossy set we have. Look at, look at our sound effects. Look at our present. It's all part of it. Look, there's a giant American flag behind me. We're going to talk. We're patriots. We're patriots. Don't you love this country? We're patriots. And so they say that while they're just screwing you. And it's just, it's a fascinating thing to watch. And to the unsuspecting viewer, you can see why something like that could be intoxicating, because it's playing to your kind of primal, tribal kind of fears and, you know, love of the country and whatever it is, while they just infect, you know, you with the most toxic stuff imaginable and make you vote against your own interests and and do everything you can possible to really screw yourself over, screw your family over while they make themselves millionaires and billionaires.

1:26:10Jordy Meiselas:It's a very evil play done by the oligarchs. Too many people are falling for it. So let's keep fighting through it. Let's keep building up these platforms. Let's keep growing pro-democracy networks. Let's keep spreading the truth, folks, and fighting back. It's more important than ever. Jordy, wanna take it away? Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

1:26:48Brett Meiselas:Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.