MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 6/9/26

24:35Jordy Meiselas:No, he lies. He makes up these fake time frames. He gets the media and he gets people to go along with it. And then the time comes and nothing happens. And he just pretends like it never happened at all. I don't think Trump ever thought, honestly, that we would still be in this war June 8th, 2026, when he went in. I think that he thought that he was going to be able to get in there, leave, get out, boom, done, clean. But now he's been trapped in something of his own making, something because he was completely misguided by this whole thing, whether he didn't realize they were going to control the strait, whether they didn't realize how much they would actually fight back, whether he wasn't listening to the intelligence agencies who were telling him that they had a more hardline faction who was ready to take over if they got rid of the current leadership.

25:26Jordy Meiselas:And we're seeing even internally within the Trump regime right now, so much discord, the CIA not sharing information with the director of national intelligence. You're seeing the fracturing right now of the intelligence community in the United States where nobody trusts each other. And that's why I've been saying as Donald Trump and these Republicans and all these people try to say, look, Iran is so divided into these factions and they have the hardliners and they have this group and they have that group and none of them can agree on anything. That might be true, but that's also happening here in the United States.

26:01Jordy Meiselas:Even within Donald Trump's own administration here, there are a lot of different factions, a lot of different groups. And if Donald Trump actually wants to move forward and secure a deal, he's going to have to piss some of them off. So that might mean pissing off the people like the Fox host crew, like the Mike Levins, or, you know, he might have to piss off Lindsey Graham, right? And not be a warmonger. He might have to piss off Bibi Netanyahu. He might have to piss off a lot of these Twitter grifters who get mad at any sign that there's a possible deal out there. These really kind of hardline right-wing MAGA people, because the only way forward, like Ben said is to actually come to the table on the terms that were already agreed upon and work out the details.

26:45Jordy Meiselas:And yes, you're going to get some angry tweets about it, or there might be some people on Fox News who get mad about it. You can't let that affect your thinking. If you ever actually want to reach a deal that's good for the world, the American people, and not just good for your own kind of vanity project, which seems to be all that he cares

27:04Ben Meiselas:about. I'll toss it to you, Jordy Brett, and it's because we didn't win the war. If we won the war, you would be negotiating a surrender and a submission. But that's not what this is. You're negotiating, basically, based on what went down, a partial surrender by the United States. Because that's actually what happened in the war. Let's be clear. It's not a full surrender, right? The United States did damage and also engaged in a lot of war crimes. And the blockade, I don't want to oversimplify this. The blockade does hurt Iran, and America does have leverage points. So it's not a full surrender, but it's a partial surrender by the US because that's what actually took place in the war.

27:49Ben Meiselas:So to pretend in a fictitious scenario that you won and their Navy's in the bottom of the sea and they don't have missiles, that's not the dynamic. Iran's negotiating from the perspective that they've won and Donald Trump's behaving delusionally. Sorry, Jordy. No, you're fine.

28:05Brett Meiselas:look nanyahu right now he is eating donald trump's lunch there's like there's no way to he's playing trump like a fiddle man you but to borrow a phrase that trump likes to use you know who doesn't have the cards donald trump doesn't have the cards oil prices skyrocketing troops dying overseas affordability in this country is just like at an all-time low right now it's crazy to me when we could take a step back and look at someone like a donald trump who is just spiraling like literally really the worst person to be in charge of this moment is is in charge right now Donald Trump has no idea how to get us out of this Brett I think you're exactly right I think he bit off way more than he could chew and he thought that we were going to be in and out just like that easy peasy let's boost the stock market everyone's going to love this and now no we're just perpetually stuck here because the Straits closed and it doesn't seem like it's going to open anytime soon and Donald Trump doesn't actually know how to negotiate give a little take a little try and figure out hey, where could we mutually meet here?

29:04Brett Meiselas:No, all of that's gone out the window because Donald Trump is the world's worst businessman. And I don't like to put it in that perspective because I don't want to call it business, but to a certain degree, what the president has to do is treat these things as if it's business. As is, hey, how can each side walk away feeling like they both want something and lost something out of this for the better of all of our people, right? But that's not where Donald Trump sits at these moments. He's just a me guy. He's a me, me, me, me, me guy. I mean, you want to know how much of a me guy is is new york city right now shutting down blocks and avenues in new york city around msg just canceling all the watch parties where all the fans get to go out and hang out and it's looking like a damn i don't even know what you could call that it looks like what you see at like airports these days with the whole tsa it looks it looks like a war zone honestly it looks like a war zone what they have at msg right now all to appease one person's ego and that's donald trump because he wanted to go see the game nicks fans be damned citizens be damned but it's just such a you know it's there's such a larger microcosm right here uh of donald trump and the way he treats people right he he doesn't care about the people in new york city he doesn't care about americans he doesn't actually give a damn so long as he gets to do whatever the heck he wants to do at the end of the day that's his north star and i think as we continue to go into this war once again remember they said this was we won this back in february we're still talking about it because there's no end in sight.

30:29Brett Meiselas:I just think and feel like in my heart of hearts, it's going to continue to get worse. There is no out here. I just, I can't fathom how this actually ends with a madman like Donald Trump supposed to be the head of the negotiating table right now.

30:43Ben Meiselas:Well, you said February, although that started late February into March, but you're right though, in the sense of, I went back and I was looking at clips from early January and Donald Trump in these speeches he gives right when the new year begins, he goes, we've got a beautiful armada. It's going right by Iran. They're going to make a deal. He started saying that, I mean, probably even before that, but he started talking that they were going to make a deal in January. And then they, and then here's the thing.

31:14Jordy Meiselas:Remember when he made up, I just remember this. Remember when Donald Trump made up that Iran gave him a gift. Like that was something that he ran with for like 48 hours. Iran gave me a gift. And everyone was like, what is the guy talking about?

31:25Ben Meiselas:They gave me a beautiful gift. But then here's the thing. Then the Oman foreign minister actually did a deal and worked out a deal that was stronger than Obama's JCPOA. And the thing is, it's never enough for the guy. When he then gets the thing out of just the insanity, then he still can't take it. It's not enough. And then he destroys it all. And so there actually could have been a great deal, better than JCPOA that was negotiated. And then what happened? That was the night that Netanyahu said, late February, we're going in. We're going in. Are you coming with us? Are you coming? And Trump's like, yeah, I guess we got to come in with you.

32:11Ben Meiselas:And how do we know that? Rubio said we had to go in because we knew Israel was going to strike and then Iran was going to retaliate. And so we had to go in preemptively, defensively, offensively, and then just come up with all these ridiculous stuff. What are you talking about? There could have been a deal. There could have been a deal. And now anything that takes place will be much worse than the deal that was offered in February. And of course, worse than the Obama deal. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. A quick reminder, make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch audio.

32:40Ben Meiselas:Wherever you get your audio, subscribe to Midas Audio, please. And help us grow on audio as well. So search Midas Touch, leave a five-star review there. And tell us in the chat if you're not an audio subscriber. And after this, you will subscribe on audio. It's free, by the way.

32:58Jordy Meiselas:Just go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify. There are a million podcast apps out there that you could use. I could go through a list for the next hour. But you all know the podcast after search Midas Touch Podcast, add the show, leave a five-star review if you can. Let's take our first quick break.

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35:44Brett Meiselas:You'll save over 40%, and when you use promo code MIDAS, you'll get an extra 20 % off plus a free three-piece towel set. They make an amazing gift and with a 30-day money-back guarantee, there's no risk. That's trymiracle.com slash Midas, code Midas at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Shout out to our sponsors. Links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Benji, before I toss it back to you know Trump has a history here of torpedoing deals uh do you remember back in 2024 when the Republican James Langford from Oklahoma he was working in a bipartisan uh agreement for it was a Senate border deal what they were working on and Trump because it didn't benefit him in that time period essentially told all the Republicans to nuke it unless they got everything that they wanted in that bill whatever the hell that meant what what it basically meant was Trump wanted to continue to run on it and campaign off of it.

36:42Brett Meiselas:So he wanted them to nuke it completely. And so Donald Trump here, he has a hit. There are plenty more examples of this type of behavior. But once again, it just goes to show that he actually doesn't care. Like he doesn't care about anything or anyone. And he only cares about one person. And that's, hey, how can this help and benefit me, Donald Trump? It's just, it's so pathetic to me, Ben.

37:05Ben Meiselas:And he's way too emotional to, for this job. He can't handle it. And if there's any knock on some of the videos I do, I'll acknowledge the criticism often is, Ben, you're saying he's having a psychotic meltdown in the morning, or you're saying he looks like he's panicking. And you're a little over the top with those. And I'm like, I really don't think so. I mean, when I see his face in this bright orange and bright red, and I'm observing a human being behavior that I would expect to see at like, you know, I'm not trying to be rude or inconsiderate when I say this, but like, at like a, like, like a mental hospital, I don't know this behavior.

37:51Ben Meiselas:This is not how I'm used to grownups behaving and success is measured in lots of different ways. So I'm not equating success with money or financial success because often sometimes that's some of the least successful people in private. But when I've interacted with all different people in my career when I was a litigator and a lawyer, including lots of billionaires and people who own sports teams. And, you know, I was interacting with a lot of people, you know, who who who did that type of stuff. And then I've interacted with people who run nonprofits and I've interacted with clients who were in Bakersfield and Fresno who were going through tough times.

38:38Ben Meiselas:And I would represent them, no matter what their political part is. That behavior by him is not normal human behavior. It needs to be called, ah! If you think about it, though, the permutations that he goes through, it quite literally is a bit like a little baby. No offense to little babies or children, I mean, like little bratty kids or scared kids. I mean, I think about, you know, a 19-month-old or a 25-month-old because I have a little girl, you know, and we go to the park and I see, you know, the big slides or the tall diving boards, right? And maybe, you know, first they'll do the small slide and then they'll do maybe the medium slide or the, you know, or the small diving board and the medium diving board.

39:31Ben Meiselas:And then they walk up to the high dive or to the big slide in the park. And then what happens? They get frozen sometimes. And then they want to do it, but then they don't want to do it. And then they look around and they don't know what to do. And so the response sometimes is to cry. What do you want to do? Do you want to go down the slide or do you want to go this way? And when I see Trump's face right there, I see that's like what I see. I see someone frozen who's like a little baby who's like. And again, that's just that's not what I'm that's not how adults behave. That's not how children, you know, behave as they as they develop.

40:14Ben Meiselas:And you tell them, look, that's not how you you know, that's not what you're supposed to do. I mean, I think about his parents sending him to that military boarding school, which Trump tries to like pretend he was like in the military when he went to like this boarding school. Like I think about what a disastrous kid he must have been. Also, it's like, dude, just send him, send this guy away. And I don't want to gloss over, you know, that that appearance that he had when he lashed out at Kristen Welker. And it was over him whining about the 2020 election. It's like, dude, regardless, you're unfortunately the president in 2026.

40:53Ben Meiselas:You're the president of the United States right now with awesome and august responsibility. That's who you are right now. You should be, although he's not, obviously, a role model. You should know that all of your behavior is being looked at by foreign leaders and adversaries and allies, if we have any, but also people here in the United States and children are looking at that. And, you know, I think about Obama's behavior. I think about Biden's behavior. I think about George W. Bush's behavior. And then I look at this and I'm like, again, this is not coming from a political angle. It's coming from a human angle and humanity.

41:35Ben Meiselas:And I'm like, dude, what the hell is this? Here, just just watch this quickly.

41:38Jordy Meiselas:Do you think it's appropriate that they have an election and five days later they're nowhere close to picking a winner?

41:45Brett Meiselas:State and local officials acknowledge they are slow. They're urging. No, they're crooked. They're urging the votes to be counted quickly. That's how they vote in California.

41:52Jordy Meiselas:They're crooked, just like you're crooked. Your press is crooked. And meet the press is crooked.

41:55Brett Meiselas:To be fair, I'm not crooked. Really? Well, you play right into their hands. Let's continue.

42:00Jordy Meiselas:You're either crooked or you're stupid. You play right into their hands with this rap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. You know that I won an election in a landslide and I got 94 % bad press. But, Mr. President, you've never presented evidence. You know why I got that? Because you have no credibility.

42:20Brett Meiselas:But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let's keep talking about it. I want to talk about Todd Crutch.

42:24Jordy Meiselas:You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented. Let's talk about... Your elections in this country, we're like a third-world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and Mr. Press is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. But, Mr. President - Your one-sided crooked network. So, let's call it quits, because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time. Mr.

42:47Brett Meiselas:President, let's please - I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've sat in the rain with you. I know. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've sat in the rain with you for an hour.

42:55Jordy Meiselas:On and off in the rain. And I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? Mr. President - A country can never be great with a dishonest press.

43:04Brett Meiselas:Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.

43:08Ben Meiselas:What a weird, dangerous, demented way of just behaving. It's weird also how he touched her. Then he said, like, your elections, as though he's like a foreigner, like, your elections are...

43:21Jordy Meiselas:It's like somebody, it's like Vladimir Putin telling him that and him, like, echoing the point, right?

43:25Ben Meiselas:Exactly what I was thinking, in my opinion, in your opinion, of course. Like, that's what it looked like, was like, are you echoing something? Your elections are... Like, it's like, what's the Will Ferrell movie? Like, where they're like, kill the prime minister. It's like, it was like Zoolander. It was like, all of a sudden you got a Zoolander. Like, your elections are right. It's like, dude, are you like, literally, like, did Putin put one of these microchips like in you? And you're like, just, you know, just spewing these points. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but that's like, there's really nothing more dangerous than

44:00Jordy Meiselas:that sort of rhetoric. And it really is like if you the media could try to be like, why are we so divided? Why doesn't anybody have trust in our institutions? Why doesn't anybody have trust in our elections? Oh, my God, it must be both sides must be contributing to this phenomenon. Just look at Donald Trump there. Right. That right there is the most toxic kind of rhetoric that you could possibly say in a democracy, especially the fact that it's being amplified by the president of the United States. And if you're willing to say this about Los Angeles, Los fricking Angeles, you're going to say it's rigged because a Republican didn't advance in the mayoral race, then you could say it about anywhere, right?

44:37Jordy Meiselas:And this, of course, is to set the stage as well for the 2026 elections and the 2028 elections. Now, I would say one of the interesting things about all of this is that there were all these social media lies that were spread. And of course, this is a coordinated oligarch kind of disinformation campaign. And Elon Musk is a part of this with his X app, which promotes this false information like crazy. And so there was a viral tweet that went all over the place where somebody said, wow, a batch of votes dropped for the Los Angeles election and the zero votes were counted for Spencer Pratt? Zero? Really?

45:18Jordy Meiselas:That doesn't sound suspicious to you? Yeah, I mean, it would, except for the fact that it wasn't true. It was a complete lie. But that didn't stop it from getting something like 200 ,000 likes, millions and millions of views. A lot of people then think, oh my God, this is what happened. There must be fraud in this place. Rather than thinking, oh, this person who is grifting online for likes and Twitter money or whatever the hell they're doing is lying to me. And instead of getting mad at the people who are lying to you, the people like Donald Trump, the people like the folks on Twitter who just constantly spew disinformation, they then get mad at the people telling them the truth.

45:55Jordy Meiselas:No, actually, there were thousands of Spencer Pratt votes in that batch. Here's the data from the website. You could see it for yourself right here. That tweet was a lie. But they don't accept it. They don't say, oh, thanks for informing me. They say, F you, you're lying, you're fake news. And they repeat the words of their dear leader, Donald Trump. That's what Donald Trump has injected into our politics, into our country. And that is why it is so toxic. I mean, Los Angeles, something like 17 or 18 percent, I forget, people who identify as Republicans. It's incredibly hard, honestly, for a Republican candidate when there are multiple Democrats to advance.

46:32Jordy Meiselas:And, you know, I think everyone for this, I think, was really in kind of their own information silos, right? I think even the media bought into the Spencer Pratt hype. I think a lot of wealthy people bought into the Spencer Pratt hype. Some celebrities bought into the Spencer Pratt hype. Because when you looked on Twitter, which was pushing a specific narrative, you saw a lot of Spencer Pratt this, Spencer Pratt that. Oh, look, he has an AI video. 99.9 % of those people don't live in LA. I'm sure a lot of them are bots. And so it doesn't even matter what they say. You have no idea what's going on in this city.

47:08Jordy Meiselas:You have no idea the makeup of the city. It's not a Spencer Pratt city. And the fact that you could use this LA mayoral race, and for Trump to try to use it as a microcosm that, look, our elections are rigged, to me is a sign, not only of just like what he's doing here in LA, but what he wants to do in the future. One of the most interesting things I was about to say before, though, is that when those vicious rumors spread about, oh, look, these corrupt elections and there were no votes for Spencer Pratt, you know, Donald Trump sent the someone from the Department of Justice, Bill Assaylee, an assistant U.S.

47:42Jordy Meiselas:attorney, I think he is, to Los Angeles to monitor the vote counting. And so he went to the vote facilities and, you know, I think they want to intimidate the vote counters. I think they want to show, look, we're the federal government and we're watching you sort of thing. But the surprising thing is that even Assaley did not go along with Donald Trump's demented lies. In fact, he wrote a tweet online saying there's been a lot of rumors spreading on this app about fake vote counts and Spencer Pratt getting zero votes. I'm letting you know I looked into it and this is false. That's not true. We're continuing to monitor the situation for irregularities.

48:21Jordy Meiselas:And so I think it's interesting that you're even seeing hardline people within Donald Trump's own DOJ speaking out actually against the false rumors while Donald Trump amplifies those false rumors at the same exact time.

48:34Brett Meiselas:1000%. I want to go back to the clip though, that interview with Welker. So I'm not saying this to be cute or hyperbolic. Like that was one of the most deranged interviews I think Donald Trump has ever given that we've actually witnessed play out. I mean, just ask yourself if you're watching this, would you let your toddler talk to you in the manner that Donald Trump was throwing that tantrum? Or would you go ahead and go put them in timeout? There's not many people, if at all any, that you would allow to speak to you in the way that Trump was yelling at Welker. And y 'all know me. I'm no like Kristen Welker fan.

49:13Brett Meiselas:Not really my take there. I do, though, really appreciate a strong fourth estate. And I'm happy to see Kristen Welker there. Stand up for yourself. I'm not crooked. You've presented no evidence. I think that right there is vital. And if those two statements by her set him off so badly, you just have to ask yourself why. And the only reason that I could come to is that he hates this country. And he only wants you believe one thing that he won the 2020 election that's what he that's what he needs you he needs you to believe that in your heart of hearts because if you don't believe that then you're not maga then you're not a republican then then you don't love this country in trump's mind that's that that's that's how he sees this end game playing out here is that he needs everyone to be convinced now the thing is i think history so long as pro-democracy continues to win out and pro-democracy voices continue to shine lights on this.

50:09Brett Meiselas:I think history will expose Donald Trump for the crackpot that he is. And we'll be teaching this in schools as 15, 20 years, so long as this country could hold strong here, as one of the darkest periods in this country, but something that we can reflect on and make sure never happens again. Because what we're witnessing on a daily basis from Donald Trump right now is someone who is cognitively truly not all there. Like you can't watch those clips and tell me that this guy is a full mental state and capacity. Now, I'm not saying this to give him an out ever, you know, if it comes to any sort of criminality that he gets convicted for or whatnot or puts on trial for.

50:46Brett Meiselas:But what I'm trying to say here is like Donald Trump is not well. However, this is also the president of the United States who is in charge of a lot of important decisions that affect all Americans' lives. And to me, that is what is so damning and scary at a time like this.

51:01Ben Meiselas:Well, exactly, because if that's how he behaves when he knows he's on video in front of millions of people, how do you think he's acting behind closed doors? How do you think he's behaving in the Situation Room, right? Remember the reporting that others were doing and we were doing here about how the military wanted him outside of the situation room because he was too emotional and they couldn't have him in there during kind of critical, and they still can't, during critical missions because he's a distraction. And then I look at that behavior and I say, yeah, because that's, it's probably what we saw there times 100.

51:48Ben Meiselas:And what kind of fascinates me from a study of human nature and human behavior is that there are groups of humans who, when you behave the way he does towards you, it kind of makes you submit and that behavior the the flailing and the bluffing and the lying and the screaming and the orange face and the throwing and the cursing some humans look at that and they go oh my god i don't want to i don't want him to get angry yeah he's angry at me i don't want him to be okay well are you angry at you okay oh my god but then by showing weakness you then actually allow someone like him to then accumulate the tools of power to then actually utilize things against you.

52:51Ben Meiselas:And it becomes kind of a self-fulfilled fear based on the yelling that you're handing over your agency to someone like that who's just yelling and screaming at you when the normal reaction is kind of what you saw with Kristen Welker or other humans who, okay, dude, shut the, when you do it, shut the F up. Okay. You realize how pathetic you look, dude, get the hell or just walk away. Just, okay. If that's how you're behaving, I don't want to roll. You're not my friend. I don't want to roll with you. I'm not like, I'm not following you. You're a crazy person. Like get the hell away from me. But there's some people and it's a large group, And it's the MAGA Republicans.

53:33Ben Meiselas:There's a group of people still, no matter how bad Trump is, no matter how bad, they'll be that 25 to 35 percent. They are magnets to the abuse and to the toxicity and to the screaming and to the threats and to the death cycle and to the chaos. And then there were people who were like, no. But the thing is that that behavior then has the ability to pollute everything. So then people generally see it and they're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like everybody's crazy and everybody's horrible. I don't want anything to do with any of this. And what he wants to also do is make voting so toxic and so questioned.

54:25Ben Meiselas:And he wants everything to be polluted by his hatred that people are just like, you know what? I don't want to even confront this because when you roll around with pigs, you get dirty. I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want it to rub off on me. And I think, unfortunately, the public took for granted that all these institutions would just hold up and do the work for them. I don't have to worry about it because they're going to do it. I don't know if they're going to do it and they're going to do it. And now we're seeing that that's not the case. You got to do it. You've got to stand up for yourself because if you don't stand up for yourself and you don't stand up for others who are being treated poorly, and they're coming for you, and they're coming for your family, and they're coming for them.

55:13Ben Meiselas:So you have no choice in the matter, just thinking logically. I want to take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to highlight a few other things from that interview. And then I do, I want to talk about not just the game, which is taking place right now. I want to talk about FIFA and how Donald Trump is imposing more ICE and Border patrol restrictions and escalating there, which is having, I think, a real catastrophic impact already on FIFA. Talk about the UFC fight lawsuit and a few other things. A reminder, subscribe to our audio, double check wherever you listen to audio podcasts, or even if you don't listen to audio podcasts, just go on whatever podcast device you have, and then subscribe to the Midas Touch on the audio podcast.

56:02Ben Meiselas:It helps us a lot. So even if you don't think you're going to do it, just do it anyway. It helps a lot. And we appreciate you for doing it. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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59:30Brett Meiselas:let's go shout out to our sponsors links in description both the YouTube and the audio use the links use the codes if there's an exit survey let them know we sent you really quick quick funny story so I deal with a lot of like interesting folks when I you know contract the ad reads and stuff like that so my Willie's contact when we were inking this deal he's like you know Willie watches the show I'm like no way he's like no no he watches every episode that's it done let's get let's bring them on let's bring them on so shout out Willie's man definitely check them out links in description show them some love might is mighty we love it

59:59Jordy Meiselas:benji that's that's that's willie nelson jordy's talking about just oh yeah so that's what my

1:00:05Brett Meiselas:contact says says never misses he said jordy never misses an episode so wow benji okay when you think

1:00:12Ben Meiselas:about all of the things that donald trump promised that all of those promises have been broken one of the main ones was no new wars right he said that over and over again he said that he He was going to end Russia's war against Ukraine on day one. He was going to bring down prices on day one. Electricity prices would be cut in half. Manufacturing jobs would be booming here. Inflation would be cut significantly. The tariffs against the world were going to make everybody rich. There would be Doge dividend checks given to everybody and no new wars. That was something he, no new wars. That's what he said in the campaign over and over and all of those other things.

1:00:57Ben Meiselas:So when Kristen Welker was asking him questions about that, he would, I never said that. I never, I never promised no. I never said that. You know what? I don't know. Like, is this, is this like a, is this thing also like a hypnotic thing when you do that, like in circles and you just keep doing it over? Oh, you, dad.

1:01:15Jordy Meiselas:He's moving his hands in the Trump style for those listening.

1:01:18Brett Meiselas:He's just trying to keep his balance. Like, you know, ordinary people like stand on like a balance.

1:01:22Ben Meiselas:You know, when people watch you say that and you do that, does it like go, he must not have said that, you know, I'm like, you know, and that works on like a subset of people. You just keep doing that. I'm, I'm, I'm actually, I'm actually being serious. Like I haven't studied, you know, is there.

1:01:37Brett Meiselas:It's like, it's like Star Wars, Ben. You're a big Star Wars guy. That's what they used to do, right? They would like put their, like, you will let me pass. And they're like, okay.

1:01:45Ben Meiselas:I never look, look, look, look, look, I never said it. I never said it. I mean, just so you saw, here's what he says to Kristen Welker. Let's play.

1:01:53Jordy Meiselas:When you say, I promised, I didn't promise anything. I don't like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We've been doing this for three months. Much of it has been under the form, a pretty good form of ceasefire. The blockade has been amazing. Our Navy is amazing. Our military is the best in the world. Hey, we took over a very powerful country, Venezuela, a very lot of soldiers, big, strong military. We took over Venezuela in a matter of minutes. We destroyed the capability of Iran in a matter of days. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Now I'm going to finish it. Okay.

1:02:31Ben Meiselas:So we have the clips of him saying, I mean, there's so many things about that too. His pivot to Venezuela. Just think about an American president bragging about just taking over. We took over them. That's not what America's, Biden could have taken over Venezuela. OK, you know why? Like, let's just say, OK, Donald, you took it over. Got it. You gave the power to an extension of the authoritarian regime, OK, Delcy. And you've also now sent a message to the rest of the world that this is just how the thing's done. If America is taking over Venezuela in minutes, China says, OK, it's fair game. Why can't we take over Taiwan?

1:03:14Ben Meiselas:on. Russia says, great, we're going, this validates us taking our view, you're taking over them, we take over. America's message is that we don't do that. We develop strong international alliances. We put pressure on authoritarian regimes to try to change behavior, but only unless there's a real imminent threat do we engage in regime change? Because we've seen how anytime it's tried, it's not worked out well. Brett's showing the video right here of just this, again, deranged behavior. And just think about that behavior though, when you're thinking about this is the guy in the situation. Don't think about a Democrat, Republican, independent.

1:03:58Ben Meiselas:Just think about this is the guy. And just think about meetings that you may have with people you know, in, in, in your life. Like if you, you know, I don't know, like you show up at a fast food joint and you know, you're, you're ordering whatever. And the person behind the register is like, ah, like who's, who behaves? Like, I'm just, I'm just trying to fathom who behaves. Anyway, I digress. Let's just show him saying what he said in the campaign over and over again. Let's just play it.

1:04:28Jordy Meiselas:Oh, he's going to start a war. Cause, cause they said I had that personality to start a war. They remember that? Oh, we can't vote for him. He's going to start a war. No, I used my personality that we didn't have to have wars. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. Who started no new wars. No new wars. No new wars. We don't need the wars, foreign lands, countries you've never heard of, countries that don't even want us there. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars.

1:05:05Ben Meiselas:All right, that goes on for five minutes. You get the point, right? I mean, he says it like every day on the campaign. That was like one of his go-to lines. And now he brags about starting wars. He's a warmonger of the highest degree, you know, probably no bigger warmonger in the history of United States than this guy. He's got like a blood, like a lust for it. It's very weird. And again, more lies, more lies. And we need a, I mean, that's why you got to hold the guy accountable for these things. And not just mention the lies, but again, its impact on the country, how bad our economy is doing right now for most Americans who are suffering, how horrible it is here, how inflation is surging, and how he's making it worse.

1:05:56Ben Meiselas:And again, I say this as someone who truly despises everything he's done to this country, everything he stands for, and all of the harm that he's caused. But it's like, I'm just like, come on, man, just do a deal. Just figure this out. Come on. Can I help? Just please figure this out. This is hurting so many Americans and this is so embarrassing to all of us. Just figure this out. Grow up. Do a deal. Get it done. Just get it done. Grow the hell up. It's just every damn day that passes and we hear the stuff. I don't know how you feel watching or listening it's like uh i feel like it just feels actually humiliating that this is what our country is and it's humiliating still when he goes around and granted he's speaking in front of very tiny crowds now but it's just like that people clap for this i'm like come on man you you're into this seriously you're into this what what are you doing like he i'm sure he screwed you.

1:07:05Ben Meiselas:Like, do you not realize that he's actually screwed your life and that he hates you? Like, you don't get it. We're just going to keep doing what we do every day here, though. Keep grinding, keep getting the truth out. And I would say, I said, at the outset of this, again, everything this guy touches dies. Everything that he does from tonight's game, tonight's Knicks game, where they've shut down the five blocks and two avenues around Madison Square Garden. It looks like a fortress around there. It went from the most joyous scenes of raw emotion New Yorkers who have been waiting for this moment for decades and decades to now it looks like, you know, one of Donald Trump's quarantine zones or war zones is what it basically looks like.

1:07:52Ben Meiselas:When we talk about FIFA, you're escalating ICE and Border Patrol operations. Marco Rubio announced more visa restrictions right now than ever. I mean, they're doing like retaliatory things against like the Iranian football team. Now, whatever you think about the Iranian regime, whatever you think about this war, there's a tradition in sports where you don't retaliate against the sports team. And so the US didn't approve visas for Iran's like coaching staff or a bunch of their major coaching staff and their managers didn't get visas. The team got visas. And like, I think their main manager did, but like a lot of the assistants, they did not, they got their visas denied.

1:08:39Ben Meiselas:And it's like, why, what are you trying to prove by that, by, by doing that? You're the host of the World Cup. Act like the host. But it's not just Iran. I mean, there are stories of all of these Middle East nations and African nations where the visa rejection rate is in some nations over on average visa rejection rates overseas are like 40%. So almost half the people from most countries that are attending this get their visas rejected. They can't watch their teams. And then in some countries that just basically appear to be like, are you in Africa or are you in the Middle East is kind of what it comes down to.

1:09:19Ben Meiselas:And are you certain disfavored South American or Caribbean countries? You know, your rejection rate is in the 60s to the 80 percent. I mean, we're seeing like, you know, Donald Trump hates Somalia and Donald Trump attacks Somalia over and over and over again and says the most raceful and hateful things about Somalian people. Somalians are frauds, he says. They've destroyed Minneapolis and Minnesota and that's why. And he does the whole Somalian thing. So he carries that racism and hatred into not allowing a Somali referee, Omar Artan, who's one of the top referees in football or soccer. They prevent him from getting his visa.

1:10:01Ben Meiselas:They reject his visa because he's Somalian. And I think about this and I just think of already you've poisoned the World Cup. You've poisoned this experience. Also, you have Rudy Giuliani's kid, Andrew, is running it. And there's just going back to the beginning about just the raw incompetence. So the World Cup is in Canada, the United States and Mexico. So I showed you the stats of not approving visas. But when visas are approved, sometimes it's a one-time travel visa into the United States. So if you're following a team that has a game in Canada or Mexico, lots of people are finding that their visas only allow from country of origin to the United States, but don't allow United States to Canada and then Canada back to the United States or Mexico back to the United States.

1:10:54Ben Meiselas:So lots of people like, well, what do we do if you didn't approve the multi-country visa? And given that we knew that this was going to be an issue for a long time, And when Trump took office two years ago, I wish I can't wait till I say three years ago and four years ago, we're going to get we're going to get their folks together. Wouldn't you plan? Wouldn't that be one of the first things that you do if you're Andrew Giuliani and you're running FIFA in the United States and you're the World Cup czar? Wouldn't you want to figure that out? No, they don't want to figure that out. you know, this UFC fight in front of the White House.

1:11:33Ben Meiselas:There's a emergency hearing there that's going to be taking place on Thursday before a federal judge. There's some good arguments that are being made by the plaintiffs to try to block this thing from going down. And basically the argument is, so what is this thing? Because it appears to just be a promotional event where you have to watch, if you were going to watch it on TV, you have to have a Paramount Plus subscription. So it's not open to the public. It's on public property, but it's not open to the public. And so this deal seems to be collusive and inappropriate. Donald Trump has invested in TKO, the parent company of UFC, and UFC is selling tickets, apparently$1.4 million to be in the kind of front row to right-wing oligarchs.

1:12:28Ben Meiselas:So the military is going, but then the right-wing oligarchs, I guess, are paying for the recoupment of the cost, basically the outlay for UFC when you add up the$1.4 million. So does that constitute, this is a legal question, an improper quid pro quo or bribe? And Trump's claiming that when I had the authority to plan America 250 events, this falls within that umbrella. Well, this isn't an America 250 event. It's not even a Freedom 250 event, which is Trump's propaganda arm organization, not the nonpartisan one. You were never delegated any power to do this event. You just said, let's do it. And now you're also saying you want this gigantic claw, which makes the White House look like a junkyard to be there forever.

1:13:20Ben Meiselas:And so the lawsuit also says that's inappropriate as well. If you were going to make some sort of permanent whatever, you've got to, again, go to Congress for all of that. That's the thing our country is. We have multiple branches. You have the House and the Senate. You have two chambers. That's Congress. You have the president who faithfully executes. Congress passes the law. The president faithfully executes. And then the courts are supposed to be the referees in this process. and Donald Trump wants to go around all of that. And, you know, look, that's why when you see with this Kennedy Center lawsuit that Trump had to take his name off the Kennedy Center, that's going to be used as precedent.

1:14:00Ben Meiselas:And I think also in the UFC fight to say, see, that was improper. So if it's improper to do that, this should be improper also. And you have to block it from taking place because Trump, the argument is we can destroy the Statute of Liberty. And once we destroy the Statute of Liberty, you can put it back together. That's the argument with the East Wing. So we don't have a remedy after the fact. We only have a remedy before. We, the people bringing this lawsuit, we just uncovered the designs for this now because Trump's now given information about what this really is going to be. And now that we know about the$1.4 million tickets for the oligarchs and the Paramount Plus covering this.

1:14:46Ben Meiselas:And this is not what our system is. So let's see. And what Trump's going to argue, there's no standing to sue. There's no standing. And our laws didn't fully grasp that you would have somebody in the White House that would not faithfully execute Congress. That's your faithfully executing the laws, the take care clause, to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That's the ultimate implied covenant of good faith built into the constitution, which constantly gets violated by Trump all of the time.

1:15:22Jordy Meiselas:I think Trump gave it in the ballroom lawsuit, just to interrupt for a second, when his lawyers in court the other day arguing for the ballroom and why essentially the courts or Congress cannot do anything about the ballroom. The Trump lawyers essentially said, yeah, well, you know, if we act quick enough and if we tear something down quick enough, you can't do anything about it. And the judge was like, so if you wanted to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and you did it fast enough, you're saying that we can't then punish you or do anything to stop it or anything after the fact. And Trump's lawyer said, yeah, that's exactly what we're saying.

1:15:59Jordy Meiselas:We can bulldoze the Statue of Liberty if we wanted to. I mean, what a metaphor for the way Donald Trump treats the United States of America, first of all. But secondly, I mean, that shows you their mindset right there, right? It's that kind of move fast and break stuff mindset. Donald Trump has brought that into the United States government, and that's what he's doing. They're trying to just constantly break this, break this, break that, break this agency, remove this agency, remove that destroy this building, destroy the East Wing, destroy this monument, whatever it is. Their plan is just do it quick enough because they know that our system is a slow system by nature.

1:16:33Jordy Meiselas:And so they basically want to get to the point of no return and then say, oh, it's too late now. I mean, what are we supposed to do? We already bulldozed the East Wing. What, it's supposed to be demolished, a construction site for the next few years? Okay, I mean, I don't think so. That's kind of the devious part about what they're doing. And it's what they're doing kind of all over the world. They just break shit. And then they, you know, hope that because they broke it, that that gives them the full right to then just do whatever they want with whatever it is. That's just not how things are supposed to work in the United States of America.

1:17:03Yeah.

1:17:04Ben Meiselas:And that's how Donald Trump behaved before the presidency, right? This whole idea of frameworks of deals, frameworks to negotiate. Why? Because he's never intending to faithfully execute on his terms. He views the negotiation as a way to lure people into implied covenants of good faith and fair dealing of good faith. And then he sucker punches you when you're in a good faith. That's why he doesn't want anything reduced to writing. And then when it is reduced to writing, he then wants it to be as ambiguous as possible so that he can violate it and he can't be bound by the terms. And then when he is bound by the terms, he just wants to create such a mess for everybody that you're just like, oh, right, just let him get away with it.

1:17:56Ben Meiselas:And we can't. And, And, you know, as I mentioned at the outset, I'll just give a few other data points as well. Ruining a D-Day commemoration. How do you ruin a D-Day commemoration? You know, you send Pete Hegseth to Normandy and then he goes out there and he says, you know, you know, there was once a time where we were invading and we were storming the beaches of Normandy together in order to stop the Nazis. Now, a different type of storming the beach happens. An invasion of the beaches that the European countries, the globalists, are letting take place. It's like, this is how you're using your Normandy speech while you're in France, while you're on this hollow ground.

1:18:44Ben Meiselas:And the people of Normandy and the local press, they're like, this guy's persona non grata. He's dead to us. We don't want him here. Get him out. He should not be here ever again. They were horrified by what he said in Normandy, which again, just be normal, man. Just go there. Respect the veterans. Respect those who died fighting for freedom and democracy. Acknowledge the allies, the sacrifices, and get out. That's it. That's it. None of these people act normal because they're not normal. They're hateful, spiteful, dangerous people. And they all are attracted to each other like gnats are attracted to fluorescent light or mosquitoes are.

1:19:28Ben Meiselas:And that's what you see over and over again. So you've got that taking place. And then we're on what, day nine, or if you're listening to this on Tuesday, day 10 of the Albanian protests against Jared Kushner and Ivanka for taking over a protected Albanian island and using Kushner's equity fund to try to do this 10 ,000 room oligarch, weird tunnel filled resort that could certainly harm the wildlife there. And they're calling it the Flamingo Revolution against Kushner and Ivanka. And people in Albania are livid. And also now Albania's desire to ascend to the European Union is running into some roadblocks because the European Union is saying now, well, you've waived your own ecological and environmental requirements to allow Kushner and Ivanka to do this.

1:20:31Ben Meiselas:And that goes against some of the chapters of the European Union's environmental protection. So we want to know what's going on there. Also, we have anti-corruption provisions, and we're aware within Albania, there's a group called SPAC, and they are launching a criminal investigation into this enterprise that did this JV, I suppose, with Kushner into their involvement in breaking down some of the important laws and preservation requirements. And so that's being looked to as well. And then you have E.D. Rama, who's their prime minister there, who's out there, again, playing the victim. And he's like, no, this is not actually Kushner.

1:21:20Ben Meiselas:It's his company. And actually, there's a multi-level war that's being fought against us and propaganda and people that hate the Trumps. No, no, no, no. You are allowing Kushner and Ivanka, and they're out there talking about it on podcasts, to go in and take over this island and create some haven for all of their investors. That's what has been described, that their right-wing oligarchs will take over this island. And Kushner and Ivanka are acting like they discovered this island, Like they identified it. So that's a microcosm of what's happening around the world as well. Ivanka, the Cezanne Island will not be your daddy's next Epstein Island are some of the signs that we see right there.

1:22:14So we'll keep covering this.

1:22:16Ben Meiselas:We'll keep getting out the truth. A reminder, please subscribe to the Midas Touch audio. I just want to really let you know because sometimes I'm asked, how can we help? It's a free way to help. And it really helps the show. Like I can't even stress enough that the audio growth and the continued audio growth is a critical pillar of Midas Touch network growth. And so if you want to know what can you do, it's free, it's quick, and it helps us immensely. So when the show ends, just search Midas Touch on audio and subscribe there. And so we will be doing breaking news throughout the evening into the morning.

1:22:59Ben Meiselas:Of course, we're grateful for you. We appreciate you, Brett. Anything else you want to say?

1:23:03Jordy Meiselas:Nope. That's it for me, Jordy. Take it away.

1:23:06Ben Meiselas:Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

1:23:08Jordy Meiselas:The Midas Mighty is standing strong

1:23:16Jordy Meiselas:Against the fascists we sing our song We will get it right whenever Want to stay plugged in?

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