MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 7/11/25

22:31Ben Meiselas:And the meeting was between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov. So our Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of Russia had this big meeting in Malaysia. Malaysia is not in the news all that often, but that was the grounds for these discussions about war and peace, about Donald Trump's claim that he's going to be able to secure peace in Ukraine, which Trump lied about. He said, I'll be able to do it in 24 hours. And Trump said, that's a joke. So again, open your eyes now. Once I think some of the light gets in, Brett and Jordy and might is mighty, he now says when he promised there would be peace in Ukraine in 24 hours, that that was him being funny and that he was joking and being sarcastic and that it's actually a very hard thing to do.

23:17Ben Meiselas:And so now they're meeting in Russia. This comes as we've learned that, according to some reports, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, former Fox weekend host, see all the connections, O 'Reilly, all these people. Pete Hegseth, by the way, settled a sexual harassment and sexual assault case against him, which he then claimed was consensual sex while he was married and then seemed to just completely go after the victim during his confirmation hearing. Again, do you see all of these connections? So Hegseth, who was not qualified to be the Secretary of State, who was involved in that sexual assault civil lawsuit that he settled, the claim was that he, on his own, stopped sending Patriot missiles and key weaponry that Ukraine was expecting, that we didn't tell any of our allies at all.

24:05Ben Meiselas:We didn't tell Ukraine. We just shut off the weapons. That was right around when Donald Trump talked to Putin, right around the July 4th period, right around that time period. And then the attacks on Kiev went escalated significantly right around that time period. and the innocent deaths started escalating very quickly right after Putin announced that he had a great phone call with Donald Trump and said that they talked about cultural, bridging cultural gaps between the United States and Russia, making movies and making musicals together. That's what Putin said they were talking about. Anyway, with all of that as context, and then I'll show you in a little bit what Donald Trump said when he was asked, hey, what's happening with the weapons that are being sent to Ukraine?

24:48Ben Meiselas:It's like, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, there's this meeting in Malaysia, right? Big freaking meeting. Our secretary of state, their foreign minister. And then I saw another thing that happened in Malaysia as well, that the United States picked who's going to be their ambassador to Malaysia. Now, especially given the context I just gave you, right, that Malaysia is the host of these discussions between the United States and Russia, we would think, oh, maybe that position has some significant import, right? Like we should probably have someone who's the ambassador to Malaysia who knows what they're doing.

25:27Ben Meiselas:Well, may I present to you the ambassador to Malaysia who Donald Trump just named in the past 24 hours. His name is Nick Adams. He's a self-professed alpha male. This is an official nomination announcement that Donald Trump made for Malaysia while these meetings are taking place. Let me show you this video of Nick Adams, just to remind you who he is. This is a solemn day in alpha male history. I am here in Dallas, outside the Anheuser-Busch facility, and I cannot believe the betrayal that we are currently witnessing. This is Judas level betrayal of the alpha male community and just a week before Easter.

26:18Ben Meiselas:That was when there was a transgender woman drinking a Bud Light. He would make videos like that. I'll show you, this was the video that he posted today announcing his official nomination while the meeting was taking place in Malaysia between our Secretary of State Marco Rubio, although it pains me to say that and Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, as Russia's engaged in a genocide of Ukraine played. It is nothing short of a lifetime's honor to take the president's goodwill and spread it to the great people of Malaysia. It is, Mr. President, my honor to represent you and serve our nation before King Ibrahim Iskander and his people.

27:03To his majesty, I look forward to working with your government to strengthen ties between our friendly people.

27:11Ben Meiselas:So like to the people of the flagrant podcast or to other right-wing podcast bros who are now beginning to sound more like me and my bros all of a sudden, this is not about, and I've always said it shouldn't be like a Democrat, Republican, independent thing. It should be about a basic competence thing. That's who's representing the United. It's not a joke. This isn't funny stuff. This is who's representing the United States as our ambassador. And then we're going to talk more about FEMA and what's happening there. The leader of FEMA is a guy named David Richardson, who during his first meeting, by the way, Richardson has no experience in emergency management.

27:49Ben Meiselas:And during his first meeting back on June 1st or around then, he said that he didn't know that there was such a thing as hurricane season. And then he said that he was joking, that that was a joke, that of course he knows hurricane season, but that was just the way to break the ice on his first day, even though he doesn't come from an emergency management background. Again, do you see it? Donald Trump was joking that there would be peace in Ukraine in 24 hours. The new head of FEMA with no emergency experience was joking that he was unaware what hurricane season is. And where is he right now? Nowhere to be found.

28:24Ben Meiselas:Literally. He hasn't made statements. He hasn't been in the public. I've seen Kristi Noem go out there and lie, but I haven't seen it. The head of FEMA, I shouldn't be seeing the freaking mayor of Kerrville, some judge who showed up from one day who's like the Kerr County mayor and the local sheriffs. You'd always see the head of FEMA saying, here's what we're doing. Here's what we're doing. And I show you the Nick Adams, not to just like mock it and have a laugh at it, but this is serious stuff right here that we're dealing with. And it almost seems like Trump is putting the United States through a humiliation ritual for Vladimir Putin by putting this Nick Adams guy the day there's a discussion in Malaysia.

29:03Ben Meiselas:I don't know how else to look at that, but this is disgusting stuff. I want to talk about that and more. We got to take our first break of the show, but I want to remind everybody about our YouTube memberships. The YouTube memberships are soaring and we don't have outside investors, it's been a major way to grow our independent media network. So if you subscribe right now and hit the YouTube membership, subscribe to our channel, but then there's YouTube memberships. And if you're already a member, you can gift as many memberships as you want to others and YouTube distributes the memberships. So become a member on our YouTube channel, get bonus content as well, including a special new show I do with Ron Filipkowski for our members.

29:47Ben Meiselas:So there's bonus features as well. And you access the emojis and you can give gift memberships to people who can't afford memberships. And that's always kind of a great way to also help grow this platform. All right, let's take our first break of the show. I should also mention store.midastouch.com. Check out our gear and our sub stack midasplus.com. Check it all out. Let's take our first quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about just the the inexperience that's in the Trump regime, the cover-up, the scandal, and why we can't get distracted. Let's take our first break.

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33:47Ben Meiselas:good match there all right let me just show you before we left i was showing how donald trump appointed Nick Adams as the ambassador to Malaysia on the day that there's a critical meeting in Malaysia. And that's where, Jordi, you know, the way you paired those ads. I think you have to pair these topics together because I don't believe they're entirely unrelated. Malaysia, Malaysia being in the news like that, as Marco Rubio is having these conversations with Sergei Lavrov in Malaysia, we're naming Nick Adams to be the ambassador to Malaysia. Now, the thing with Nick Adams, I thought Nick Adams was doing like a generational Borat.

34:25Ben Meiselas:Like I really thought that his shtick was almost such a parody that it was made up. And one day he was going to say, look.

34:33Brett Meiselas:By the way, like I'm still not convinced he's not. Like what if he's just too deep in it now? He's trolled himself into an ambassador position. Under this administration, I mean under this regime, would anything take you by surprise? Because how could this be legit?

34:49Ben Meiselas:Ben, you want to read these? Yeah. I go to Hooters. I eat rare steaks. I lift extremely heavy weights. I read the Bible every night. I'm pursued by copious amounts of women. I'm wildly successful. I have the physique of a Greek God. I have an IQ over 180. I'm extremely charismatic. They hate this. When a woman is cooking dinner for me, this is how - I just want to clarify. These are real tweets from Nick Adams. These are real things that this individual posted who Donald Trump just nominated to this position. Yeah. This isn't me saying this about myself, just everybody.

35:18Brett Meiselas:so you know i gotta clarify for those audio listeners we gotta clarify for the audience

35:23Ben Meiselas:i haven't just gone rogue um nick adams then goes when a woman is cooking dinner for me imagine if everybody started off without saying the comment when a woman is cooking dinner for me this is i would lose all of our supporters all right keep going keep reading nick adams tweets ben not your this is definitely not ben's words ben my word then keep reading these in the first person when a woman is cooking dinner for me, this is how we split the responsibility. She cooks, I eat, she cleans, I head to Hooters. That's it. Next, alpha male challenge. Go to your local grocery store and purchase the largest bag of M &Ms you can find.

36:00Ben Meiselas:Destroy the bag of M &Ms you purchase and do not let one pass your lips. Take a photo of your crushed woke M &Ms and put it on social. Make sure you tag Mars. Being a straight white alpha male is the toughest job in America. I could go on. There's ones where he attacks Taylor Swift and uses very much - And I get it. It's tough for you. I get it. It's tough. It's tough for you, but you're going to be okay. I promise. All right. But then you go to who is our main counterterrorism operative that Donald Trump appointed, right? It's this 22-year-old Donald Trump super fan. He's put in charge of counterterrorism here in the United States.

36:35Ben Meiselas:His name is Thomas Fugate. And he was a gardener and a grocery store clerk while he was in college. He was a big Trump supporter, and that was why he got picked, because he was like a social media Trump supporter. And so what the Daily Beast was exclusively reporting, and they got his text messages, is that when he was 18 years old, he was in a relationship with a 16-year-old girl, and then he got into a fight with a 16-year-old boy over his relationship with the 16-year-old girl. He's now 22 years old, but there was a a love triangle over a 16 year old girl when he was 18. And then they have, he used to call him.

37:14Ben Meiselas:I think that's one of the big things. This isn't like, this was like, Oh, this was kids being kids 30 years ago. He's two years older now. This was after we started Midas touch. He was doing this.

37:25Brett Meiselas:Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. I mean, that's not just like that's Snapchat. Like that's like an app that people would like use. It's not like it's something that happened. You're right. Like 30 years ago. I mean, that's why you don't like, Like you don't put 22-year-olds with zero experience in such important positions of life or death. And that's why I'm thinking a lot about your comment before about like, is this like some sort of humiliation ritual to put the United States through like for Vladimir Putin? And it's kind of the only thing that makes sense. Like as you see all these appointments, as you see everything, this stuff is just absolutely crazy.

37:57Ben Meiselas:You know, then you've got, you know, from Ghostbusters 2, Vigo. Remember the bad guy in Ghostbusters 2? I'll let you try to find a picture of that to give you reference. But Trump hires people who just look like bad guys. And so the new head of FEMA who replaced the old head of FEMA, the old head of FEMA was an ultra MAGA guy who testified that FEMA should not be eliminated. And then Kristi Noem fired the old head of FEMA immediately. You're laughing because you looked at Bego and it's spot on, right, Brett? That's why you're laughing. Yeah. I have weird, obscure references to certain things. And so, Christy Noem fired the old head of FEMA and then brought in this guy with zero experience at all.

38:40Ben Meiselas:And his name is David Richardson, or as I call Vigo, the bad guy from Ghostbusters 2. And this guy, yeah, keep showing, exactly. This guy - Oh my God.

38:51Brett Meiselas:I mean, it's identical.

38:52Ben Meiselas:It's like literally Vigo.

38:55Brett Meiselas:It's actually him.

38:56Ben Meiselas:Yeah. And I don't even know what made me think. I don't prepare a script like I'm going to say

39:01Brett Meiselas:vegal like it just is ghostbusters 2 like universally known i think i think you're also like it's a pretty hyper specific reference no i i have very i know you were a big ghostbusters fan but like i don't know people like ghostbusters 2 that's definitely a big like you know born in the 80s you know reference like for sure ben had all the ghostbusters toys and he's been like he's on the cusp of millennial that's why so he shows that's an elder millennial i had to ask yeah so I've never seen show sponsors too. That's why. All right.

39:28Ben Meiselas:So he shows up to FEMA about 45, more than 45 days, about 60 days ago or so. And he goes, someone says, well, what are our plans for hurricane season? And he goes, I've never heard of hurricane season before. And it wasn't like, I'm joking. He just goes, what's hurricane season? So that leaked to the press. And then he subsequently said, I was joking. Of course, I know what hurricane season. That was my way of basically being funny. But in that very first meeting too, he like shows up and there was like a video of this where he's like, you better realize 30 % of you are not going to make it here in 48 hours.

40:02Ben Meiselas:That's how I run organizations. 30 % of you are just not going to be cut out for it. So if what I'm saying gets you, gets you angry, leave, leave. That was his open. I kid you not. It was basically like word for word that, but this guy's nowhere to be found. Right. Have you seen normally during a catastrophic disaster. And by the way, in addition to what happened in Texas, there have been numerous catastrophic natural disaster events in Kentucky, in Arkansas, in Indiana, in Missouri, in Mississippi, and across the country where there's been separate and aside from this mass casualty event, there's been hundreds of deaths that largely have been ignored other than in local media.

40:47Ben Meiselas:and we cover it on the Midas Touch Network. He's nowhere to be seen there. He's nowhere to be seen here. And one of the things we've now learned, and we posted about it, CNN got the initial scoop, and then the Department of Homeland Security attacked us for saying it, is that Kristi Noem did not authorize FEMA's deployment of urban search and rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN. What would normally happen in a situation like this is that FEMA would be activated and pre-positioned the moment you saw a bad storm heading in that area, which they knew on Thursday, you would start red alerts right away.

41:29Ben Meiselas:Now, you don't want to escalate, of course, too soon and have emergency evacuations, but the moment you saw the storm, you'd be like, let's get ready. As you started to watch that storm Thursday night into Friday morning, which is July 4th, right around 1 a.m., you should have known, boom, this is a serious emergency. And you as the feds working with local officials would go, what's in the nearby area? And you would go, oh my God, Camp Mystic, do they have alarms? Do they have alerts? Wait, they don't. Are they in the flood zone? Are they in an area where in most other states and cities, you're not even allowed to build because it's literally in the flood path, which is viewed as an area so dangerous that you're not allowed to build near.

42:16Ben Meiselas:Not only is the Guadalupe River known as being one of the most dangerous rivers that exist, period, based on prior flooding that took place, but then within that area, you're not supposed to be building near the floodway corridor. And here Camp Mystic was literally built in the floodway corridor. Now, to me, at a local level, why didn't they have alarms? That's a major problem. Why didn't the local people kick into high gear and do the stuff they're supposed to do? I agree. Why was there this overall systemic failure there? But also, the feds would be involved at every step of the way, holding the hands of local officials, because local officials don't know how to do this stuff, really.

42:59Ben Meiselas:They don't have to deal with it all the time. The feds deal with it all the time because there's always catastrophic storms in the United States, but there may be one every five or seven years in certain locations that aren't fully ready for it. So that didn't happen. And then what's supposed to happen as well, before the storm hits, you pre-position all of your rescue equipment. So you have, in this case, the urban search and rescue teams, they're ready to go. But Kristi Noem, as her gutting of FEMA with now a FEMA leader who's just MIA and no one knows where he is, it required Kristi Noem to personally sign off herself on checks more than$100 ,000.

43:40Ben Meiselas:And obviously activating an urban search and rescue team costs more than$100 ,000. So the people at FEMA are saying we were ready with our urban search and rescue, we couldn't find her. She wouldn't sign off. So we weren't able to activate the urban search and rescue team. Now she responds to our post or the Homeland Security account attacks us and says, this is a lie. This is activist journalism. They then say, they act, they say, while these journalists slept comfortably in DC, secretary gnome deployed in Texas, just pause there. Like she deployed in Texas, like she's a soldier. You mean she was doing her job?

44:21Ben Meiselas:She deployed in Texas. They then say she saved over 900 lives. They then talk about the heroism of the Coast Guard. No one doubts the heroism of the Coast Guard. When you sign up for the Coast Guard, you sign up to save lives. And they are American patriots and heroes. That's what they sign up to do. And they do their job. But they're being hamstrung also by the Department of Homeland security, but they were doing their job. But then here's where it gets into it, where at the very bottom, they go, President Trump approved a major disaster declaration hours after Governor Greg Abbott's request.

44:55Ben Meiselas:Okay, well, when was that, by the way? And then finally, by Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers providing support and shelter for hundreds of people. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem's leadership, DHS is reforming FEMA to prioritize state-led, locally executed disaster response as Texas has exemplified. So exemplified. They're saying this was a good response. 120 dead, most of them young girls with what, 100 more people still missing. This is going to be one of the biggest mass casualty events in recent histories involving a storm. And they're saying this exemplified what it should actually look like.

45:36Ben Meiselas:But then they say by Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers. Get your calendar out, folks, because Tuesday's July 8th. You know when the storm hit? Friday, July 4th in the early hours. By Thursday, we knew a storm was heading in that direction that could cause flash floods. So it took really the night of the 3rd until July 8th until 311 staffers provided support. And then the language at the end also gives away the game, that they were there just to basically help out the locals. Eh, just help out the locals. And by the way, if you've seen some of these press conferences by the mayor of Kerrville and by the judge who's like the top county person, it's precisely why you need the feds to be involved.

46:26Ben Meiselas:I'm only going to show you one of these clips of the mayor of Kerrville who spent his entire time during the press conference yelling at the press. is like, you're in Kerrville now. We're going to do it my way or the highway. We're in Kerrville now. Here, play this clip. Able to use that warning. I'm sorry. I do not know. Listen, people are yelling and I didn't really want to. If you offer only three questions, then you're going to have. Guess what? You're in Kerrville and we're going to do it my way. I understand that. Morgan Chesky, please. We're in Kerrville. We're going to do it my way. And by the way, Greg Abbott is holding an emergency session of the legislature, but do you think it's to address what's happened from the storm?

47:09Ben Meiselas:Nope, nope. Greg Abbott just released an agenda for a special session that's going to take place in the next two weeks about redrawing the Texas congressional districts to allow Republicans to win more congressional seats in the midterms. They know it's going to be unconstitutional, but unlike Trump's cases to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court likely won't take up the unconstitutional gerrymandering for the next four or five years. So their plan is let's get the Republicans unconstitutionally a few more seats while everybody's focused on the flooding. I'm not even going to play this clip of Greg Abbott because it makes me so angry.

47:46Ben Meiselas:And I don't want to play any more clips of any of these people, frankly, because it makes more angry. But Greg Abbott was asked, what are you going to do about it? Like, what happened? Why was there such a miscommunication between the feds and the state? Local officials are saying they didn't get the notifications. What happened? And he goes, in Texas, we like football. Football, okay? And in football, you don't blame. You don't do blame. If you were a winner, like we're a winner in Texas, you go for it. And we don't do blame because we play football in Texas. That's what Greg Abbott said. 120 plus people are dead, mostly young children at every level of this from where the camp was built.

48:29Ben Meiselas:Oh, by the way, in the other report, four minutes is what it would have taken for those girls to get to higher ground, an area that they call God Mountain is the name of the area, a four minute walk to get on top of what they call God Mountain. Four minutes if they just had an evacuation plan and if they were contacted. That is something. And by the way, and I'll toss it over to you, Brett and Jordy, but this one fires me up. And no, it's not too soon for me to talk about it. Okay. You know what? It's too soon to do saying we're not going to address what happened and just thoughts and prayers, prayer, I can give thoughts and prayers and I will, I can have real empathy for the girls who have died.

49:08Ben Meiselas:And my heart goes out to them, their families and everybody. And I mourn for them. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore what just took place. I'm going to call it out. And if that makes you mad, sorry, I'm not going to cower away. Those MAGA Republicans, every storm that would hit, they would spread lies and disinformation about Biden. They would spread false facts while Biden was actually doing what you were supposed to be doing to actually cause more deaths. Now that there are real facts and real situations caused by real gross negligence and maliciousness by Trump and Texas. No, you don't do your politicized, not politicizing shit.

49:48Ben Meiselas:I'm talking about what freaking happened. Sorry, Brent Jordan. Yeah, it's a complete failure of governance at every level of the government, from the federal government to the Republicans who run these towns and the Republicans who run the state. Every time I see these clips, you're right, they weaponize religion. They weaponize, it's too soon. They weaponize all these kind of phrases and thoughts and prayers and you name it in order to try to deflect blame and say, we don't have to talk about that. And every time I've heard these people in Texas speak, these politicians, You know, the mayor as well had a similar comment as Abbott had been that you were saying before where he was like, listen, we don't look backwards.

50:27We look forwards. We only look ahead. So stop asking me about what happened. We got to know what happened, actually. And one of the kind of tells for me also is how I've seen multiple Texas officials say, Ben, what you said, which is this. They say this is the most you don't understand. This is the most dangerous area in the country. This is the death trap of the country. You don't understand how deadly this area was, so don't blame us. Well, what you're saying, it's the most deadly area in the country. And A, you built a camp where little girls go to camp on the deadliest area in the country.

51:01And then beyond that, you didn't think to take extra precautions or even after the fact, you waited three to four days to even deploy the search and rescue squads to help because Christine Ohm was too busy posting on her Instagram. Should I be this picture or this picture? Should I be this picture for my, I'm doing a poll, everybody. What should be my official governor's portrait while I'm in a costume on horseback? This was literally what they were doing. And it's sickening. And you're right, Ben, you know, I vividly remember all these storms, obviously, that we've witnessed over the past few years.

51:33We've been covering them here at the Midas Touch Network and storm after storm after storm. We saw a concerted effort by these MAGA Republicans, by the Republican Party at large, by these online influencers to hinder the rescue efforts, to make it so that people were confused, to make it so they think that they couldn't actually get the aid that they needed to get that the administration was offering. I remember we would get emails from the Biden administration because we would have the people on. We would get the FEMA spokesperson on, Jacqueline Rothenberg at the time, I believe, was the FEMA spokesperson.

52:04They would be like, we want to get on because we want to be on as many channels as possible so we could speak directly to the people. I thought that was a cool thing that they reached out to us and said, we need to get the truth out to the people. And then they would come on before the storms. They would come on during the storms. They would have to come on to debunk Donald Trump's lies about the storms. And now Trump and these Republicans have the nerve to go out there and say, this was a perfect response. We did a great job. Great job, everybody. Let's do it again next time. It's absolutely appalling.

52:35It's appalling, even if there were no lives lost to see how this is being handled. And the fact that we have all these deaths, the fact that they are young girls makes it that much worse than the callousness of the administration. And once again, like the Epstein stuff, by the way, the people who are covering for these just incredibly overtly evil human beings. It's like, what are you doing? Every time I see the footage of these Texas politicians, it just makes my blood boil. It skeeves me out. Like it reminds me of like that kind of old boys club that people talk about that you kind of see in the movies when you have these really corrupt politicians, often in these kind of southern states, and the way they speak to each other, the way they speak to the press with such disdain, the way they speak about their own people with such disdain.

53:21We saw it after Uvalde, and that was absolutely despicable. We saw out of people like Greg Abbott and the lieutenant governor and the local officials and the police there. And now we're seeing it here in this situation as well. We see these just very slimy figures who just want to evade blame at all costs. And the costs are real. The costs are people's lives.

53:40Brett Meiselas:I know. Yeah. And the costs in this case too are little girls' lives who are at summer camp. The Trump regime, they fail, absolutely fail these girls. Every time I think of this story, man, you guys saw me talking about it last week. I get visibly upset. I know we all do. It's really brutal. What upsets me so much, outside of obviously the clear loss of life for these, again, children, the little girls at summer camp, is just the total lack of accountability from the Trump regime, the blame shifting from the MAGA base, from the MAGA Republican Party. Just all of it has just been so freaking disgusting.

54:22Brett Meiselas:These were kids. And the people that were elected and put in charge, Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, Abbott, they failed these girls. They're gone because of them. What's the Trump regime doing? They're yelling at CNN for actually doing some good reporting. They're yelling at Midas Touch. They're yelling at Midas. They're yelling at CNN for reporting that the federal government was delayed in responding to this catastrophic event. Greg Abbott's out there doing some like weirdo speech about football and Texas, as Ben was saying. Leaders, they take accountability. And right now in the government, on the Republican side, they don't have leaders.

55:05Brett Meiselas:They have demigods. And if you don't pledge your fealty, your allegiance to dear leader and acknowledge that there's nothing he could do or there's nothing his people could do that that's wrong, then you're not a quote unquote Republican in 2025. And it's just, it's eyeopening and disgusting to see this play out at a real cost of human kids, their lives. And instead of wanting to get to the bottom of it, what are they doing? They're shifting blame. They're holding what, Ben, special investigation into congressional redistricting? What are we doing? How have we gone this so far left as a society, this far gone as a society?

55:44Brett Meiselas:It's disgusting. thing.

55:45Ben Meiselas:I want to remind everybody about those YouTube memberships. We don't have outside investors, so we've grown through those YouTube memberships. The new PodScribe data just came out. And so not only have we beat Joe Rogan in podcast downloads, we beat him by three times as many, three X Joe Rogans. Everyone's like, oh, he gets all these downloads. In a given month, we get three times as many downloads as Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan has got unlimited funding. So if you can become a member to our YouTube, it unlocks emojis, it unlocks some special membership features here on our YouTube. And you can gift as many memberships as you want to others who may not be able to get memberships for themselves.

56:32Ben Meiselas:And it helps grow this independent media platform. Also, Ben, I just want to say, we have a whole lot of people watching right now. And so I also want to keep the momentum going. So you're watching this right now. Make sure you go ahead and add the Midas Touch podcast on audio platforms, Apple, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever audio platform you use. Help us stay on top. It's so important in getting the message out. So go right now, open up your Apple podcast, your Spotify, whatever you use, go ahead, add the Midas Touch podcast. If you've already done that, go ahead and leave a five star review.

57:03And if you're currently listening to this on the audio podcast, thank you. come and check us out on YouTube.

57:08Ben Meiselas:So ice raids taking place earlier today in the farms in California, Central California area, just going after the hard workers who pick the crops, pick our food, who allow – I mean, right now, California is the fourth largest GDP in the entire world. And Donald Trump has declared a war on the state whose funds are basically funding the federal government and subsidizing most of the red states, which are taker states. Let's talk about that and more. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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1:00:39Brett Meiselas:Go to trymiracle.com slash MIDAS and use the code MIDAS to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40 % off. Again, that's TryMiracle.com slash MIDAS to treat yourself. Thank you, Miracle Made, for sponsoring this episode. Okay, real talk. I looked in the mirror the other day and thought, where did all these grays come from? The grays in my hair, both on my head and my face, were showing up like uninvited guests. And I'm not trying to throw a full science fair in my bathroom with all those messy drugstore dye kits. You know what I'm saying? The salon, way too much time and money. I needed something simpler.

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1:02:34Brett Meiselas:thank you to simpler hair miracle may definitely check out those products check out the codes use the links let them know we sent you and and here's the thing i know this top secret for folks who are still listening to this part before we toss it back to benji is some people love the show and they're like hey jay love the show know you guys are independent network but the ads man there's so many of them well now we have a new feature on apple our membership feature where you could actually listen to the episode without the ads so we do two versions of the show we do one version And when you're a member of the Apple Podcast Audio, you become a member there.

1:03:04Brett Meiselas:You can listen to the whole show without ads, or you can just listen to it standard and enjoy the cool offerings that we have from our sponsors. Benji, where to next?

1:03:11Ben Meiselas:Let's take a look at international affairs, then let's bring it local in my backyard here on Los Angeles. As ICE is currently raiding farms right here in California, sending helicopters down. And you see the workers literally sprinting away as they get hunted by ICE officers. It is a scene that breaks my heart and literally a war going on declared by a authoritarian regime against its own people and against the state that it's its wealthy and most prosperous state. Also, if you were to think about everything this regime is doing to destroy our great country, they are doing each and every one of those things.

1:03:54Ben Meiselas:I want to mention this, this from the New York Times earlier today from an Israeli intelligence assessment. Some of Iran's enriched uranium survived the attack. Israeli officials say Israel has concluded that some of Iran's underground stockpile of near bomb grade enriched uranium survived American and Israeli attacks last month and may be accessible to Iranian nuclear engineers. Let's just be clear what that means. It means the mission was an utter failure. Okay. Just say what it is that go to the next statement. It failed. And that isn't a criticism of the B2 bombers. They're heroic. I get it.

1:04:37Ben Meiselas:You know, they ran a mission. I'm sure they would like to finish the missions that they run and have competent people giving the orders and instructions. I'm sure they would like that as well. But does it shock you that this was another incompetent move and then cover up by the Trump regime. And how has the United States benefited? If anyone Iran's benefited, they're doing more deals right now with China who's buying the Iranian oil. And then Iran's able to ship its Shahid drones over to Russia to be used against Ukraine more than ever right now. And then Trump's view was I'm done with Iran now.

1:05:15Ben Meiselas:I did what I needed to do. Just keep telling me I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize, and that's all that matter. But we have to call out what happened. The mission was a failure. The mission was a failure. The mission was a failure and a bigger failure more systemically in terms of the geopolitical aspect of it because it's made Iran stronger, right? It has made their Ayatollah stronger. It's drawn people more towards the Ayatollah, not away from it. It wasn't like the people were like, yeah, I like Netanyahu more right now. You think that maybe Netanyahu could pick our next leader of Iran with Donald.

1:05:57Ben Meiselas:You think that's what's happened? The Houthis, who are funded by Iran, they're out there shooting down more ships in the Red Sea right now. Remember the mission against the Houthis and the signal chats where Hegseth said, here's where we're going to attack and when, and then all of a sudden our drones got shot down, like seven Reaper drones and two fighter pilots that we lost, costing us about $500 million in losses in addition to the underlying cost of the war. By the way, in Israel, we use like 20 percent of our missile defense system for shooting down the ballistic missiles that were being shot into it, shot into Israel.

1:06:39Ben Meiselas:So there's there's that data point. There's the Houthis who are out there doing what they need to do right now. Putin is out there escalating attacks against Kiev each and every night. Things have gotten worse. And then Trump at the press conference that took place the other day, I think was asked a pretty basic question, a few basic questions. So let me break it down. The first question, Trump's tariffs against the world, trade war against the world. You know, he sent these fifth grade letters out. He's tariffing Brazil 50 percent. Brazil, which provides most of our orange juice and coffee and other critical stuff that we utilize on a day-to-day basis because Trump wants Brazil to stop prosecuting Jair Bolsonaro, who led a coup, the former president of Brazil who launched a coup the way Trump did.

1:07:31Ben Meiselas:Trump has an affinity for coup leaders like Jair Bolsonaro and said, that's why I am tariffing Brazil's president Lula 50%. And here's what we're doing against Brazil and other countries like the Brunei got tariff 25%. Iraq was like 30%. You know, he just tariffed all of these countries, this whole list of countries. So a reporter said, how are you calculating this? What's your calculation? What's your methodology? Here's what Trump says. Let's play it. Sir, can you explain how you calculated your latest round of tariffs? Was there a formula that was used? And do you expect any of these countries to face tariffs as well?

1:08:08The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits based on how we've been treated over the years and based on raw numbers. And we're going to have a couple of more coming out today. Brazil, as an example, has been not good to us, not good at all.

1:08:30Ben Meiselas:We're going to be releasing a Brazil number, I think, later on. Okay. Common sense, he says, it's going to be based on deficits. We've gone over this a hundred times on this podcast. What do you mean by it? So now is your expectation that Brunei is going to all of a sudden open up all of these factories in the United States and buy all of these United States? The fact that they view deficits as an example of a tariff against the United States, it shows how absolutely absurd it is. But then when you go to a country like Brazil, America has a surplus with Brazil. America has a surplus with Australia.

1:09:13Ben Meiselas:America has a free trade agreement with South Korea. And then when you think about like America going after Japan, for example, Japan employs nearly a million Americans. The largest employer of Americans from a foreign country, Japan does. Japan holds about a trillion dollars plus of American treasuries, the most of any country. The most actual investment in the United States of any foreign country comes from Japan. Canada is close as well. And you just think about it. You're attacking like Japan. You're attacking Canada and all these countries. Like what are you doing? Then you ask him, how are you calculating this?

1:09:53Ben Meiselas:He's like, common sense, common sense. We got to mention Ben, the justification that he used for Brazil because like you said, he said in that piece that we just showed you that it was because of trade deficits. But as Ben mentioned, we have a trade surplus with Brazil, but also the whole trade deficit concept is stupid. That would be like if you went out to dinner and you paid for your dinner, you paid 50 bucks for your dinner, and you got your dinner. If you then complained that you had a trade deficit with the restaurant, you got something for that money. You got your food. That's what it means to be at the other end of that trade deficit.

1:10:28It's not necessarily a bad thing. You got something for that money. And so what Donald Trump is doing here, he released a statement threatening Brazil with this tariff, telling them that the tariff is because of their horrible and awful treatment of Bolsonaro because they are in the middle of prosecuting Bolsonaro as our country should have done here for his attempt to overthrow the government there for his attempted coup. And so their justice system is actually taking care of it right now. Bolsonaro is obviously a big Trump ally, but like all of these criminals, both internationally and in the United States, Donald Trump has an affinity for the criminals.

1:11:07Donald Trump has an affinity for the people who break the law, and he happens to rush to their defense, whether it's Netanyahu in his criminal trial, Bolsonaro, whether it's freeing the J6 criminals, doing all that stuff that he did. And so that is what Donald Trump is using as justification for the Brazil tariffs. And these letters are just so embarrassing, poorly written, ridiculous. And they just – it adds to this whole appearance to me of just utter weakness. Like you failed at the one thing that you actually – you claim to be good at. You claim to be the dealmaker. That's like your whole image that you've created, right?

1:11:38That's the whole thing you say. You couldn't make a deal. You said there would be 90 in 90 days. You couldn't like make one. You made like three half deals that weren't really deals, like intense to make a deal. And then you just give up and you just send some letters. I ran one of these through chat GPT, one of Trump's letters. I said, just great. I didn't put any – I didn't put my finger on the scale. I said, grade this letter. If we were to write this letter to a foreign leader, grade it like a teacher would grade it. It gave it a D plus, which I think was a little high to be honest. and it just was very, very vicious about Donald Trump's writing style.

1:12:14But even AI knows how horrible and how stupid these things are, what Donald Trump is doing. And at this point, it's like, do you take it seriously? Do you not take it seriously? He always tacos. It always gets pushed down. The economy goes up, the economy goes down. It's obviously this kind of stock manipulation scheme. There always happened to be these weird spikes just before Donald Trump makes his announcement, like when he says, we're going to be putting these tariffs on copper. Oh, just a few minutes before, suddenly a lot of people started stocking up or selling it. It happens every time.

1:12:46And so something's going on there also that is worthy of an investigation, I will say at minimum.

1:12:51Brett Meiselas:Brett, can you please just quickly replay the clip of Trump explaining how he says he's doing the tariffs? Just real quick. Sir, can you explain how you calculated your latest round of tariffs? Was there a formula that was used? And do you expect any of these countries to face tariffs as well? The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we've been treated over the years. Dude just said he tariffs by vibes. Can we just talk and reflect on how dumb this guy? This is elite level of ridiculousness here from the regime. Also, is he trolling himself? Is someone trolling him?

1:13:34His makeup every day now is more ridiculous. like this is like the least of our worries, but it's getting like silly. Like it's just, it's blackface at this point. Like, let's be real about it.

1:13:42Brett Meiselas:When you put them next to other human beings, it's really, the contrast is really, you know, stark, Benji. Yeah, it's the real border.

1:13:49Ben Meiselas:I'll just say this, the stock market goes up and down, but the stock market is enjoying a Ponzi scheme economy where the rich can get richer at the expense of people who don't have the luxury to kind of day trade or to sit around and think about how are you going to game these scenarios. The economy is suffering. If you look at ships coming into our port, if you look at the actual job numbers of private payrolls, even looking at the manufacturing numbers in Trump's what I believe to be bogus job numbers, because he couldn't hide the data that comes from the third party sources. He inflated his job numbers by claiming there were all of these government jobs that were created.

1:14:37Ben Meiselas:And that's how he got out 147 ,000 after private payroll dropped 33 ,000 jobs. But even in the numbers that Trump couldn't hide, there was a loss of 7 ,000 manufacturing jobs. And his whole claim that he was going to cut the government jobs and make the manufacturing boom, right? And he's not done that. And so, oh, you look at the dollar, the worst start since 1973, as America increasingly becomes not the world's reserve currency anymore. You look at online shopping, which is down for the first time in a very long time. You look at recessionary indicators of how human beings are living in this economy, not what the Trump regime and cable news is putting out there.

1:15:27Ben Meiselas:And it's obvious what's actually really happening. And in many ways, this is a lot worse of a scenario because he's going to keep on covering this up as slowly but surely the bridge that is the American economy starts buckling just kind of cord by cord by cord by cord. And if you think about what set off the Great Recession in 07, 08, and you think about just a specific sector that then spirals, right? It was just an issue with these housing and these subprime mortgages that were packaged. Well, we have right now a hundred different examples of that type of poison pills, like the way subprime mortgage being bundled together and sold.

1:16:19Ben Meiselas:We have a hundred different ways that that's happening, that any one of these things can set off the cascading domino effect. And then everything's often reported in the news as like a shock. This is a shock. This is a shock. This is a shock. There should be no shocks. The guy sending these bizarre letters in all caps that look like a fifth grader wrote it, where he's tariffing Brazil because he wants a coup d 'etat leader to be released. There's nothing shocking about what is happening. We see Canada and the EU entering into deals together for joint defense. We see, by the way, Marco Rubio earlier this week, no one's really talking about it, wrote an op-ed in USA Today.

1:17:00Ben Meiselas:Buried in the op-ed is he was imploring NATO members to buy defense equipment from the United States. Why would they be hesitant from buying their defense equipment from the United States anymore? You would think that that would be one of the first places. Oh, no, wait a minute. They think that Donald Trump's going to extort him and blackmail him. So they're looking elsewhere to buy their military supplies right now. So we're actually seeing a world order completely shifting with the United States being iced out while Donald Trump's out there, you know, just and he's being asked questions like at the press conference.

1:17:34Ben Meiselas:I'll just show you this one other one. He's being asked, who ordered the weapons to stop going to Ukraine? Who gave that order? Do you know? That's a pretty big deal. You're the commander in chief. Who did it? Did Hegseth do it? Who said they stop? Because everyone's acting like that's a surprise now. Here's what his response was. Yeah, please. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was weighing whether to send another Patriot air defense system to Ukraine. Can you confirm that reporting? They would like it. They've asked for it. They're very rare indeed, you know, because a lot of systems have been sent to Ukraine.

1:18:18But they would like to. I know they made the request. We're going to have to take a look at it. It's very expensive, very expensive system. It's a shame that we have to spend so much money on a war that would have never happened if I were president. That's a terrible, terrible war over there. And it's a shame. It's a very sad. You know, when you talk about a system like that, highly sophisticated, tremendous amount of money and they're doing it because they want to prevent death they're getting hit hard very hard

1:18:47Ben Meiselas:so we're looking at it also on rush and brett was there one more clip like that i'm not sure if we had there was one others where he was asked um you weren't aware who ordered it i'm not sure if we have the other one let's let's see if it's this one the response has been incredible and no i'm the order. Don't you think that I would know? And I should know. I don't know. It was just a bunch of words. And then he continues to use the same line. This would have never happened if I were president. That's the, okay. You also said it was going to be over in 24 hours. And by the way, you remember what Trump and MAGA were saying right before Russia invaded Ukraine, what all of them were saying?

1:19:32President Biden at the time was saying, Russia's about to invade Ukraine. We all need to be prepared. The United States intelligence arm, we're all saying, we have evidence that Russia is about to try to invade Ukraine. What was Trump and MAGA and all those influencers saying? Fake news. That's bullshit. These are liars. They're trying to hype us up again. They're trying to lie. They're trying to get our troops into war. They said that the government was lying to them. Guess what? That intelligence assessment was spot on. President Biden was spot on. You know who was not spot on? Donald Trump and all those MAGA influencers who denied the reality that was standing right before them the way that they have done throughout every single topic, I believe, that we have discussed this entire episode.

1:20:16Ben Meiselas:No doubt. And I want to just talk briefly. It's a developing story. I'm going to do a take on it. As soon as this episode ends, make sure you check the YouTube feed because there'll be a whole take on it. But the Trump regime sending helicopters, sending basically the military, ICE dressed as the military into our farms here in the kind of the central California area and trying to terrorize the farm workers. The mayor is basically telling everybody to stay inside shelter, you know, and hide because the ICE officials are trying to kidnap the people and beat them. Let me show you what went. This is what the mayor said.

1:20:54Ben Meiselas:Here, listen to what the mayor said. The city of Paris has received reports of ongoing ICE operations within the area. We urge all residents to remain calm, stay indoors when possible, and know your rights. Do not go out unless necessary. Stay at home and do not open the door to strangers. This message is for awareness and safety. The city is committed to protecting the dignity and well-being of all our residents. Please stay safe and continue to monitor official city communications. If we have a video, Brett, of what the raids look like, I think we have a video. Protesters who have showed up to vehemently protest what's going on here.

1:21:31Ben Meiselas:And just in the last few minutes, Customs and Border Patrol helicopter has entered the scene here. They are landing in the middle of the farm as we speak. It does appear that they were not planning to be here as long as they have been. And so this helicopter that you're looking at here, guys, apparently just made a run over to Van Nuys Airport for some cases of water, which is what they're bringing into the scene here. So there are a whole team of ICE agents at the farm. There are other agents down there as well, as well as the National Guard police standing guard and protecting Laguna Road as this enforcement action takes place right here.

1:22:07Ben Meiselas:They're not protecting the road. They're not protecting the road. They are terrorizing the community. There is military operations against Americans taking place right now all across the country. We saw the ICE military move through MacArthur Park. And what they're going to do with that money from the budget bill is they're literally going to run invasions into the United States. For our audio listeners, we're showing B-roll right now of what's taking place as farm workers are running away, as people are running away from a military operation against farms in California. California, and I think it needs to be said because it isn't.

1:22:58Ben Meiselas:You know, Brett and Jordy, there hasn't been an official declaration of martial law, right, military rule, because I think the Trump regime knows that that would be very unpopular to say that. We're living in martial law right now. I want everybody to reckon we live in a military state in the United States under military rule by a dictator. And I know no one said it like that on cable news before. That's what exists right now. It is martial law. It is a military rule. It is the Gestapo. It is a dictator. And every day they are attacking people of this country. That is actually what is happening.

1:23:44Ben Meiselas:And if we saw it in another country, that's exactly what we would say is happening. And now you wonder, why is tourism down? Why aren't people – I don't know what's going to happen with the World Cup and what's going to happen with the Olympics. But I don't know how foreign countries are going to want to come here. If I were them, I wouldn't come here. Honestly, I would be making plans to have them elsewhere. I mean especially given the fact that they're – I mean in Los Angeles, the Olympics. And like you're going to have all this going on. This is supposed to make people feel safe. And I think they've already said that they're going to have ICE agents like at these facilities.

1:24:17So you're going to have all these people come from foreign countries to the United States for this incredible event. And that should be a celebration of the country and a celebration of the city, by the way. And then you're going to have people fearing for their lives that they can end up in El Salvador in prison camp or sent to one of these random countries that the Supreme Court is now allowing Donald Trump to send people to war-torn countries, send them to Sudan, send them to wherever. I mean, this is, you know, I would say this is not America, but it is America. And, you know, and that's the thing that really, you know, tears at my heart.

1:24:51This is, these images just truly, truly crush me. And it's, like you said, Ben, it's in our backyard here. So I know it hits, you know, it hits home even more. But, you know, it's just seeing everything that's going on all across the country is just, it's all very sad, you know. And that's why, you know, it's why we got to stay in this. It's why we got to remain active. It's why we got to continue to, you know, push back, expose the truth, say the things that, you know, corporate media may be too afraid to say, say the things that, you know, folks just aren't highlighting. We need to highlight these stories constantly.

1:25:25We need to continue to get out the truth. And that's why I'm so grateful to have this community that's, you know, uplifting all this.

1:25:31Ben Meiselas:I want to remind everybody, if you can become a member of our YouTube channel, become a member. That's different than a subscriber. So you become a subscriber and then separately you become a member and it costs money to become a member. Now, one of the things, if you can afford the membership, you can gift memberships to people who may not be able to become members, unlimited amounts. YouTube delegates the memberships and finds people who really want memberships and it helps this network grow. It's easy. It's like one click on the YouTube. You can see where it says member. You just click it and it's an easy transaction and it helps us grow.

1:26:08Ben Meiselas:We don't have outside investors. We've grown. We get more views than Fox and any cable news network. And that's thanks to you. So please, if you can become a member, do it. Store.MidusTouch.com. You get that Midas Touch gear, the pro-democracy gear. Check that out. And then we have MidasPlus.com. That's our substack. That's one of the fastest growing substacks or the fastest growing substack in the world and one of the largest substacks. So that's where our editor-in-chief, Ron Filipkowski, writes some great articles. I contribute as well. Go to MidasPlus.com as well. Next week, we will do a Patreon meeting with our Patreon members.

1:26:48Ben Meiselas:You probably have been noticing I've been able to sit now for long periods of time, and my back is getting much better for now. Hopefully, it continues to get better. But I feel confident that by next week, I'll be able to sit for more than an hour at a time. So let's shoot for next week to do that. Join patreon.com. And then make sure you subscribe on Apple and Spotify and wherever you get your audio podcasts. And please leave a five-star review as well. Covered a lot in this episode. A lot, a lot, a lot. Really enjoyed all of the details and data in this episode. So I'll leave it at there. Brett and Jordy, if you want to say anything else.

1:27:34Ben Meiselas:Jordy, take it away.

1:27:36Brett Meiselas:Shout out to the Midas Mighty. The Midas Mighty is standing strong.

1:27:45Against the fascists, we sing our song. We will get it right whenever.

1:27:55Brett Meiselas:Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.

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1:28:45Brett Meiselas:Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back. so I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills but it turns out that's very illegal so there goes my big idea for the commercial give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch