MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 7/2/26

22:30Jordy Meiselas:But think about all the people who have decided to go against Donald Trump. Essentially, all of them right now, essentially none of them are going to be returning to Congress in the next session because Donald Trump found people. He recruited people. He ran people against them in primaries. And he got MAGA to show up. While MAGA may be a small and dwindling movement, it's enough in those Republican primaries, especially in red states, to oust people that Donald Trump does not like. That strategy doesn't quite work in the general elections, but it's definitely working very well for him there. And so they are kind of running on, I think, and this is not defending them at all.

23:05Jordy Meiselas:I'm just trying to get in their head. This is their survival instinct, right? And they are also scared of the kind of stochastic terrorism that Donald Trump instills in people. When Donald Trump starts directing people to attack somebody that he doesn't like, those people start getting death threats. They get phone calls. They get people coming to their homes. Their families get threatened. This is a pattern that we've seen throughout the years. And so at a certain point, some of these people, they just don't want to go through it. They don't have a spine. So they go, oh, I'm just going to be in survival mode.

23:37Jordy Meiselas:You know, I'll I'll go with the flow. This will be done eventually. And I'll be praised for doing this. Right. It comes down to incentive structures for me, and that is the incentives that the Republicans have right now.

23:51Ben Meiselas:Yeah, look, when you look at the distribution of profits for the Trump meme coins or his crypto scams or World Liberty Financial, it looks just like the K-shaped graph that people describe the United States of America, where you have the kind of core group of insiders, the people at the top, the Whitcoffs, the Trumps, the Bessons, you know, that whole class, the right wing oligarch class. they're crushing it. They're making a lot of money. And then you have the biggest distribution of losses, right? So Trump's meme coin stuff,$2 billion or so in profits for him and the insiders and like that crew,$2 billion in losses for most of the investors, World Liberty Financial.

24:41Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump and the Whitcoffs and everybody, they made most of the profits, 78%, 79 losses distributed to a lot of the people who, in my opinion, are the marks, right? The kind of pump and dumps in our economy. The dump is basically really the 99 % of everybody else and the 1 % are doing good and they are manipulating this and they control these right-wing propaganda machines. It's why they want to own and consolidate all the right-wing media. It's why we're a threat to them here on independent media on the Midas Touch Network, because we can actually call that out and be the voice of a pro-democracy movement.

25:23Ben Meiselas:So how do you, though, run a Trump meme coin scheme and then convince all of those people who are suffering the losses that it's not your fault? Well, you create an enemy. In fact, when you take a look at this Reuters article that was just released. A lot of these Trumpers who gave their life savings to the Trump meme coin, they blame the Democrats for shorting Trump's meme. They've come up in their mind that the Democrats shorted Trump's meme coin, and that's why they've lost their life. People have put$40 ,000 because they assume, I want to think about how rich Donald Trump will make me. I got an opportunity to buy the mean coin of the president.

26:09Ben Meiselas:I'm going to make all this money. And you read some of these comments and people are saying, well, I don't think it's Donald Trump's fault. And so then when it comes to the economy, what is what do they do? It's the same exact tactic. You just have to create the other. And that right now it's, oh, we were going to do great, but it's the democratic socialists and oh, we were going to do amazing. but they screwed me over. Mom Donnie screwed me over. This person screwed me over. I don't want your communist thermostats, Mom Donnie, like New York City Mayor Mom Donnie posted the exact same kind of suggestions that were on the Department of Energy's website.

26:53Ben Meiselas:Set your AC to 78 degrees. Turn off lights and electronics you're not using. It's hot out there. Let's work together to make sure the power grid keeps on working because it's working overtime right now to keep us cool. There's no difference in what he said than what the Department of Energy website said. But the Fox machine kicked into high gear. They attacked Mamdani. The one thing they forgot is, whoa, the Department of Energy website says the same thing. So the Department of Energy just deletes it. They delete their own suggestions and their own suggestions are the right, helpful, scientifically proven suggestions for how people can get through heat waves collectively and avoid these massive power outages that can result in the types of deaths that we saw happen in places like Texas and other places where they screwed up their grid in the past.

27:47Jordy Meiselas:And by the way, the same recommendations that we've seen for decades, I think, and I think this story, as stupid as it is, is the perfect microcosm for how this media works on the right, this right-wing MAGA ecosystem. It's like they wake up every day and the past doesn't exist. Like there's, there's no history at all. It's just, they wake up anew and they have something to complain about it. It doesn't matter if they're being hypocritical or not because at all, and it's all coordinated, like all at once you saw everybody from Spencer Pratt to the Fox host, like Harris, Harris Faulkner to people in Trump's orbit to Nikki Haley, to even Marjorie Taylor Greene, And all these people, they're all saying the same thing.

28:25Jordy Meiselas:Ron DeSantis, the socialist. Oh, is this the warmth of collectivism? Communist. Okay, come Donnie. Okay, show us your thermostat, Mom Donnie. When this was literally the same guidance that was given not only by the Department of Energy then, but also by Mayor Giuliani when he was mayor of New York City. Also the same guidance given by the people who are complaining about Mom Donnie doing it. Nikki Haley had a very similar post from when she was governor, urging people to do the same exact thing. The Florida Power Department recommends the same thing. The Georgia Power Department recommends the same thing.

28:59Jordy Meiselas:You go through all the states, they all recommend the same thing. But Mom Donnie does it. A Democrat does it. It's a front page New York Post story. They got to do the full spread. This is the perfect example. And if you're one of those people, or if you know somebody who is like a New York Post reader, and they're like, ah, fucking Donnie, 78 degrees, show me your thermostat. I'm going to put mine at 65 just to prove something to you. Okay, but let's do what you want at the end of the day, but let's be intellectually honest here and consistent here. You're okay when Donald Trump does it. You're okay when all these other people do it.

29:39Jordy Meiselas:Or are you just using this as a way to try to get angry at somebody that you don't like? And are you being used as a tool by this right-wing propaganda media? Are you being rage-baited so that you can give these same billionaires who are making billions and billions of dollars like Donald Trump is while you're suffering so you can continue to give them the distractions they want while they rage bait you and make money off your back. Because that's what you're doing when you're the mark here. And there are a whole lot of marks out there.

30:13Brett Meiselas:Also, they've run this playbook before. Do you guys remember Biden and the gas stoves? This is a continuation of this stupidness. It's not the gas stoves anymore, y 'all. It is the thermostats. And this is the brilliance. And I mean that like not like a good brilliance, But this is the evil brilliance of the trillion dollar propaganda operation, the Fox News, of all this right wing media, is that on the next day when Trump's financials come out of the one point four billion dollar crypto that coming to light and everyone losing their ass on the other side of it, all the MAGA people who invested on the crypto dollars, they lost their ass or their life savings or whatever.

30:52Brett Meiselas:Don't be mad at Trump, y 'all. Have you seen your thermostat lately? Mamdani's coming to change that. He's going to put that at 78. You can't let him do that. That's communism. That's crazy. Don't be mad at Donald Trump that you're broke now because you put all of your life savings in the meme coin. That's so yesterday. Mamdani's coming after your thermostat, and you better watch out.

31:11Ben Meiselas:Look, look, you just have to give him something, and that's all the Trump support, something to validate the cult. And they're like, okay, got it, got it, got it. Like the reflecting pool. It's vandals and criminal algae. Donald Trump said it. Okay, got it. It's vandals and criminal allergy. Meanwhile, you take a look what's going on in the Democratic Party right now as you head to the election and you see all of these fights taking place. Oh, my God, the new Democrats who are out there trying to help people and deliver. Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine it? And I'm like thinking to myself, I'm like, I'm trying to think like, how, how is it that every election, you forget sometimes, then the election starts to happen and you start watching it go down and you're like, hey, do we all realize that we're in an existential moment right now?

31:59Ben Meiselas:And do we realize that there could be different approaches to how we help people? But ultimately, on the one hand, we have this fascist rot oligarchy that is destroying the world. On the other hand, we have honest debates about what's happening. Could we please just get it? That's why I watch and that's why I often say on this show that even though the Midas touch obviously is we cover politics, what matters most to me are the human values and principles behind it all. because the most important skill is, are we listening to the people and are we fighting for and delivering to what the people say and stop forcing certain candidates and certain people who are not responsive to what the people are actually saying?

32:52Ben Meiselas:We need fighters out there like the Mamdani's who are standing there with the people. We need fighters like the Bernie Sanders who are standing there with the people every day. And you can see it in the crowds. It's like Bernie Sanders, AOC, draw 30 ,000, 40 ,000 people in Salt Lake City, or they go to West Virginia on off years. And people are like, yeah, but I just don't know. I'm like, are you watching? Just look, it's clear what people are saying. Listen to what people are feeling. And they're psychologically tortured under this Trump regime. Deliver for the people and stop imposing whatever you think is the framework to listen and deliver and fight for people.

33:38Ben Meiselas:You know what I got to say?

33:39Jordy Meiselas:I just want to say while we're on this note, very quickly, you know, I like that we're political outsiders, right? I like that we are never consultants, that we were never, because we don't play the same games that these people play. But I think one of the most eye-opening revelations to me being in this world of covering this world of politics is how there are so many factional intraparty fights amongst people, not based on necessarily ideas, but based on consultant versus consultant. This consultant represents this person, and they don't like that this person represents another person. And there are these factional wars just based on people wanting power and wanting jobs rather than thinking, what do the people want?

34:26Jordy Meiselas:Okay. What do, what do the people want? And oh, that person's candidate one. Well, why, what was it about them that they liked? Maybe there are some ideas that we can learn or some strategies that we can learn, but instead it just becomes attack. Okay. That candidate one, now we need to burn them to the ground because that consultant is stealing my jobs and my platform and, and my ability to earn money in politics. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that should not be why you're in this. It's again, why I am thankful that that is not what we do here. And that's not our experience going into Midas.

35:00Jordy Meiselas:Instead, we're just people who are concerned about things, not people who are these consultants who just want to manipulate everything, apparently.

35:08Ben Meiselas:Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, please subscribe to the Midas Touch podcast wherever you get your audio podcast. That's really helpful to the growth of this network. So even if you're not an audio listener, help us out. Go look at whatever app you have on your phone or computer where you can get audio podcasts. Subscribe to Midas Touch. It's free. It helps. Please, if you can. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

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38:25Jordy Meiselas:Go to shopify.com slash Midas. M-E-I-D-A-S.

38:35Brett Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors, y 'all. 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. There is a non-zero chance that I'm going to have to take my shirt off during this episode. I am melting. I see the comments. I'm not doing anything. They're like, I'm totally fine. I'm just melting. You're listening. So hot. I love my father.

38:59Ben Meiselas:You're following the advice of the Department of Energy or mom dying? It's 78 degrees.

39:05Brett Meiselas:It's at least 90 degrees in this room. I'm going to make it to the episode.

39:09Ben Meiselas:In all seriousness, though, it is important for best safety practices and it is important to follow science and guidance. And so, you know, I like to be told, hey, Ben, what a great prediction you made. I mean, how'd you predict this, that, or the other? And I'm just like, well, wasn't it kind of obvious that if they used the same water source for the reflecting pool and there's algae in it, that it's going to grow algae? Because that's like, I don't know, the way that algae works, unless they figured out some new advanced technology and painting the bottom blue isn't going to change that. Like when I look at this event that is shaping up for July 4th, where it's going to be 107 degrees in Washington, D.C., which is hotter than the room that Jordy is in right now, although there is a heat wave.

40:01Ben Meiselas:Jordy's on the East Coast where he is as well. But 107 degrees. Jordy, if you're actually not feeling good, you could take a break. No, we're good. I got it. 107 degrees in Washington, D.C. And Donald Trump was bragging and boasting during that weird speech he gave in North Dakota that he was going to give a very long speech to show how strong he is during the 107 degree heat. And he wants to do it late at night based on the security regulations. They need to have everybody kind of wait for Donald Trump's speech for hours and hours and hours. Fireworks won't begin until 11 p.m. while this heat wave is taking place.

40:43Ben Meiselas:The heat wave is so bad that there have had to actually been, you know, So, you know, lots of, you know, whatever has been opened at this fake state fair, whatever you want to call it, they've had to shut down certain things because it's been so hot right there. But Trump's going to whoever's going to show up. And I think the Trump regime is terrified that no one's even going to be at this event because so late and it's hot and it's Trump and he's unpopular and all of those things. But you're going to be bringing people into a death trap. Like you truly don't care that you're bringing people into a death trap.

41:18Ben Meiselas:I mean, you think about when Donald Trump ruined the one Nick game where they lost. Like he literally did kill the vibe. There's a other presidents can go to the Super Bowl and can go to these games. They don't because they have respect for the people in the cities and the communities and the places because they know that their presence creates inconvenience for everybody else. Not only does Donald Trump not care about that, Trump doesn't care when he creates these death traps. And because, I mean, I want people to pay attention to this because I know this will be a big story in 5, 10, 15 years from now, because also my background as a litigator, although I did not handle asbestos litigation, I worked with lots of lawyers who did handle cases where people got mesothelioma from asbestos contact.

42:07Ben Meiselas:And I know the way Donald Trump ripped down that east wing of the white house that contained a lot of asbestos i did a report on it and so when i'm proven to be right how'd you know that it had a specimen i don't take joy in the fact that there are a lot of people in that area and neighborhood who could potentially be getting serious serious health issues down the road because these micro particles that they've ingested but but what you would need to do to go through a process if you were doing a construction site like that and you had union workers and you did it the right way, they would guard against asbestos.

42:45Ben Meiselas:But Trump didn't do that. So as you look to this July 4th event, 170, 107 degrees, Trump is creating a literal death trap there. And if you look at how they even dealt with this so-called great American state fair as well, fortunately, there's like very little people attending because it's straight up dangerous. And there was an incident today that Aaron Parnas was the one who broke the exclusive, Aaron from the Midas Touch Network, of these young girls who were rehearsing for the July 4th event. And the stage literally collapsed on them and almost killed the young girls. And of all, they almost, yes, it did.

43:26Ben Meiselas:I'm going to show the video. Fortunately, nobody was injured or hurt, but you'll see that the stage almost fell down on the young girls And there's a broader point to connect this to as well. I mean, if you think about the way Donald Trump even got involved in this catastrophic and unlawful war against Iran in the first place, who were the first people that he killed? a group of young girls in Manab Elementary School and didn't even care about updating their logistics about what was happening in Manab when it was known that was an elementary school by all of our intelligence officials. And they slaughtered at least 168 little girls, and then they cover it up.

44:09Ben Meiselas:Look at the Trump and Stein regime covering up the Epstein files and the horrors and atrocities inflicted on little girls. I understand that they inflict this pain on the American people writ large. But when I look at what's happening here, too, I don't think it is not right to compare what you see here to how Donald Trump has such a dim. He doesn't care about anybody's life other than himself, a little bit his family, but mostly himself. And just watch what happens as this stage literally fell apart. Let's play it.

44:58Jordy Meiselas:For the audio listeners, some large piece of equipment from the kind of, you know, ceiling from the top of the stage came down and it looked like a big heavy piece of equipment and it fell right, like just right behind. It looks like one of the girls who is dancing, a young girl dancing during this rehearsal. That video is actually hard. You know, there are a lot of things to kind of laugh about about this Freedom 250 event. But when I saw this video, I was actually horrified because that was honestly near feet or inches away from from killing a little girl or multiple young girls. The negligence there, like if this was any other kind of company and not Donald Trump in the White House, the amount of lawsuits that could stem from even what we just saw.

45:43Jordy Meiselas:But but thankfully, you know, we avoided the worst of what could have happened there. But but this is how Donald Trump runs everything. Right. He's always cutting corners. And we actually did this whole, you know, a great report, Scott McFarlane on Midas News dot com. We were one of the first to break this this morning. The way and we've talked about this before on this on this podcast, The way that Donald Trump ultimately funneled the money that was going to the nonpartisan America 250 organization that was set up to host events like this, that was going to be a great big event with incredible acts and entertainment and a really solid plan.

46:26Jordy Meiselas:and how Donald Trump funneled that money to his own private organization called Freedom 250 of Trump allies and misled donors who thought they were giving their money to a nonpartisan event, who then that money came through, went right into the pockets of Donald Trump's allies, who then distributed it to other Donald Trump allies. And this goes back to that kind of no bid contract situation. I don't know what the deal is with that stage in particular. So here's the article for those watching right now, Democrats alleged Trump allies misled donors to bankroll Freedom 250. You could read this at MidasNews.com.

47:04Jordy Meiselas:But it goes back to this no bid situation. I don't know what happened here, but I assume it was just, you know, a Trump friend or, you know, a Trump ally friend who is setting up the stage. But something bad happens. It could have been catastrophic. And they will either just completely ignore it, or they'll try to blame somebody else. And you can also see the level of derangement, even if you look at the comments in the videos that you see. That video, Aaron Parnas posted the video. One of the comments is from a Trumper like, oh, you sick libs again. You sick libs. One of you probably did this.

47:38Jordy Meiselas:It goes back to the whole vandal thing, right? They're constantly looking for someone else to blame when the most obvious answer is the answer here. Donald Trump is to blame. He's the connective tissue throughout all of this stuff. and just like it was risking the life of those young girls who were dancing on that stage, it's risking all of our lives.

47:59Brett Meiselas:Absolutely. That video brought to us again by Aaron Parnas, that's going to be on our Instagram. So definitely check it out, at Midas Touch. If you want to see what we're talking about here, it is absolutely horrific. It's at Midas Touch on Instagram. Go check it out. You might have to scroll down a couple posts to see it. You know, our producer Salty, that many of y 'all know, he worked live events and he is just appalled by the shoddiness of how all this has been coming together. Look, someone is going to get hurt at Trump's DC rally over this weekend because Donald Trump hates you. Like not you watching, but yeah, he hates you too.

48:31Brett Meiselas:But like, he hates you, MAGA. Like he hates his own base. The people that are going to like watch him speak, like someone's going to get hurt inevitably. He doesn't care about your life. He's using you as a prop. And like, I just want to shake someone. Like, don't you see this, right? Like as Ben mentioned, DC has like these emergency warnings region-wide right now. It's supposed to top 104 degrees or something like that in the next 48 hours. But with the DC swamp-like conditions, it's going to be much higher than that. Scott McFarlane here at the MySuch Network, he reported on all of this. He said, given the security of the event, that there are also limitations of like what could be carried in.

49:08Brett Meiselas:So like no like thermoses, like you can't bring your own thermos. That feels like a really dumb idea. Just from start to finish, this event's supposed to last around 10 hours. Like when you check in to like finally when the fireworks go off at 11 PM that night, a sane leader would maybe relocate the event, maybe hold it indoors, maybe not even hold the event at all. But what does Trump tell his lemmings? I want you to risk your life to watch me speak. You don't love me if you're not willing to die to watch me speak. I know it sounds like I'm being hyperbolic. I'm really not. You almost wonder if you want something to happen so it could go, I told you we should

49:47Jordy Meiselas:have had a ballroom.

49:48Brett Meiselas:This is a loyalty test. And you are as a great point. This is a loyalty test that's literally life and death, camouflage as like a celebration of our country. And Brett, I have not heard that perspective 1000%. I just want to reiterate that here. Brett said, this is going to be another excuse for almost Trump to hope something goes.

50:07Jordy Meiselas:listen if you want to call me a genius you could call me well it doesn't even have to make sense

50:10Ben Meiselas:because it doesn't have to make sense because it's a firework show too so it's like we were going to do the ballroom but now we need like uh when does when does it have to make sense

50:19Jordy Meiselas:when do when do the trump like record fireworks also the whole thing is a threat it's a threat to public safety it could start fires there there have been reports of the washington post earlier today uh reported that the uh the way they're doing the fireworks is going to cause the air to become very toxic and could make people very sick who are in the area. Like they don't do anything by the book. They don't care. Jordy, you're 100 % right. It's insane.

50:43Ben Meiselas:And look, it's about that. But then this is the same driving force when they go, tariffs are going to make us rich because it is a tax on the countries and not on the importers that are passed on to the American consumers. And then if inflation didn't rise like right after April when Trump had the Liberation Day, which was like actually liquidation day. Look, we told you it was like it's hitting now because that's the way the economy works. Like Donald Trump's disastrous first term bled into former President Biden's term and then Biden had to fix it. And then Donald Trump screwed it all, screwed it up again.

51:23Ben Meiselas:And so now all these tariffs against the world compounded by the catastrophic war in Iran. And then Donald Trump just lies and says, you know, look, we were going to bring in all of this money, but then we got screwed over by all of these judges. It's the judge's fault. And then Trump's like, we brought in twenty one trillion dollars. I mean, he makes up a fake number. I mean, the same type of thing that's like, OK, there's criminal algae in the people, the criminals and vandals. They didn't just take a box cutter to shred it, by the way. Did you notice that Donald Trump was running around with scissors yesterday?

51:56Ben Meiselas:I'll just point that out in North. When he was in North, he was running around with scissors and wanted to put it in his pocket. It was like a very, very, very, very, very odd thing. But on the vandal, there's the vandal found the vandal with the scissors, with the box cutters. He literally tried to put it in his he tried to put it in his jacket pocket. And then people like, what are you doing? Like, like, like, like chill. But he says the criminals threw the algae in the reflecting pool. And it's the same people who are like, yeah, the tariffs against the world are going to work and we were going to be so rich.

52:24Ben Meiselas:But then but then the Democrats screwed us or then this one screwed us. And it's not just the lies, though, too.

52:30Jordy Meiselas:It's it's how they then take the lies and then they implement them in the most authoritarian ways imaginable. Like today, we saw Judge Boxer Wine, Janine Pirro, trot on out there. And she announced her indictment of that two time Olympian. And he was a canoeist, I believe, back in the day. And they indicted him for touching the water in the in the pool because they need somebody to blame. They always need somebody to blame. So they're trying to say that because he touched the water and touched the sealant that was peeling off in the pool due to their shoddy work. He's to blame. So he's one of the vandals.

53:06Jordy Meiselas:I mean, that thing's going to be laughed out when they go in front of a jury in D.C. and we've seen the way that they've handled themselves in front of grand juries in the most deceptive ways imaginable in all their past cases. That's all been coming to light to get these indictments in the first place. But like, but that level of authoritarianism, they take this thing that is just so stupid that you almost want to laugh at, right? Oh, these things, they say they put algae in the pool. This is so freaking stupid. But then they go the step further and they start indicting people all to try to help their dear leader, all to try to say, see, these insane, ridiculous, pathological lies are true because, look, we caught one.

53:45Jordy Meiselas:What a scam, just what a stain on the United States of America and the entire legal profession. Everyone in this Department of Justice should be absolutely ashamed.

53:55Ben Meiselas:Well, and then they blame the judges when the case gets thrown out. Ah, it was a liberal judge, these federal judges, and it's so unfair. And then that reinforces their conspiracy theory, kind of deep state, you know, rhetoric. And then even when you debate with them, you know, I watched that CNN fight show from time to time and had tipped Adam Mockler because he does a good job on the debate show. But one of the things that I've always thought to myself personally is like, I don't know, sometimes just even being there to debate these people almost legitimizes their side as a side that is worthy of a debate.

54:34Ben Meiselas:On the other hand, if you just let it go, then they'll just keep on saying it louder and louder and louder. So it does create the situation where the Overton window is kind of pulled in a direction where people are like, well, I assume the truth lies in the middle. And when special counsel Jack Smith was on MS Now, did an interview with our friend, Nicole Wallace, he was making that point. He's like, you know, the hard part for me, he's like, as a lifelong prosecutor, I'm used to dealing with facts and reliable evidence, where hearsay and propaganda and lies don't get into the courtroom because they're filtered out through the pretrial proceedings.

55:21Ben Meiselas:So he goes, you know, what's interesting is that when I talk to people out there, he goes, even if people disagree with me, what I find is that by and large, people care about ethics. They care about the truth. They care about facts. But the issue that's hard for me to confront as someone who's used to accurate data and accurate facts is they've been, they're using and harnessing a set of things that really aren't based in reality. And so then I have to get like into a debate with them. And once they're already entrenched into views that are not actually true at all, it's truly hard in these interactions to change someone's mind who constantly is being bombarded over and over and over and over again, that this reality is a real reality.

56:13Ben Meiselas:I mean, I'll show you on State Regime media, Fox, you know, they have the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, and she's been a person saying farmers are in a golden age and everything's amazing. So she's the propaganda piece to say, ah, 150 ,000 people showed up at this event, the state fair. And it's been, it's met all of our expectations, right? It's the same exact lies of all the, how did this meet your expectations? Like it should be okay. And Brett, you said this on the prior episode, like if it was a failure, you kind of mock it. Hey, man, I screwed up. Like I was supposed to be big. You know, did you see that like a T-Moo archer arc?

56:53Ben Meiselas:I was screwing. Okay. The real one's going to look much better. I get it. But no, they go in and they go, not only is it 150 ,000, but like, if you criticize it, we're going to like criminally prosecute you for it. So let me show you what Brooke Rollins had to say. Let's play it. They are keeping their spirits up and believe the critics

57:11Jordy Meiselas:that have been pointing to the crowd side will be proved wrong by the end of the weekend. From my perspective, it is hitting exactly every mark that we had hoped it would hit at this point. I do think this weekend we're going to see massive, massive crowds. But, you know, my goal is that people can come and walk and experience it. And 150 ,000 people coming to celebrate the Great American State Fair over the last five or six days, I call that a huge success.

57:38Ben Meiselas:But that's the person also who is saying that farmers are experiencing huge successes right now. And she's the one who's out there saying that a lot of these like flesh eating bacteria that's killing cattle, that that's not happening. And then Chris Wright, the energy secretary, is out there saying everything's amazing. The Kevin Hassett's of the world. This is a regime of con artists and liars. And I know that may be hard for some people to digest and understand that there are truly evil people who truly want to hurt you, but they are. And they're in control right now. And they are truly the ones hurting you and harming you.

58:19Ben Meiselas:And they want you to die. Like they don't care about your life. They hate you. They hate America. They hate everything other than enriching themselves. Let's take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, we've got a lot to talk about. We'll talk a little bit more domestic. We'll talk international. Let's take our last quick break. A reminder, help us out by subscribing to the Midas Touch on audio. It really goes a long way to help us. It's free and it makes a big difference and leave a five-star review. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

58:56Brett Meiselas:We have an important message to share from our friends at Americans United for separation of church and state. The Trump administration's excessive Christian nationalist rhetoric is only building as we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. AU is highlighting a case involving federal workers caught in the crossfire. A multi-faith group of federal employees filed a new lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violating the separation of church and state and the religious freedoms promised in our Constitution. Americans United received emails from multiple USDA employees saying that the proselytizing Easter email sent by the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke L.

59:34Brett Meiselas:Rollins, to more than 100 ,000 USDA employees is an abuse of power that violates the separation of church and state promised in the First Amendment. They are absolutely right. The hits keep on coming from this administration, and Americans United is doing their best to keep up the fight against Christian nationalism. If you want to help, head to au.org slash Midas to learn more about their work and how you can get involved. Americans United, supporting everyone's right to live as they choose, so long as they don't harm others. That's au.org slash Midas.

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1:01:43Brett Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors. Links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links. Use the codes. there's an exit survey let them know we sent you sorry i know i'm kind of chuckling right now my wife turned on the ac and we're gonna get yelled at probably later but it's okay

1:01:56Jordy Meiselas:it's worth it i'll keep it above 78 buddy no it's good for you

1:02:02Ben Meiselas:where to next let's jump right into it donald trump gave an interview with cnbc joe kiernan the ultra mega business guy on CNBC. It's just very bizarre to see a guy like that just spew just total propaganda. But he interviewed Donald Trump and he was asking, he's like, so Donald, in the disclosure that you did, the amount of money looks pretty much like an outsized number, that outsized number of what you call$2.2 billion in crypto schemes, 21 ,000 stock trades in one year. A little bit outsized there. What do you make of it? Watch what Donald Trump had to say in response. Let's play it. One in AI.

1:02:48In the disclosure this week, the amount of money that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. I was just saying, did you, were you know about the crypto venture? So that was just something. By the way, I could know about it. I didn't. I mean, there's nothing illegal. There's nothing wrong with it. I could know. There's a specific, I think it's, I remember our Title 18, Section 208 from Congress, you, the Vice President, and you do not have, you would have to recuse yourself. I didn't even know that. You would have to recuse yourself on every decision that could, running the country that could have anything to do with you.

1:03:25So it just isn't feasible to do it.

1:03:28Ben Meiselas:What are you giving him the argument? I know he's giving him an argument. I mean, you're telling me he doesn't know that he made$2.2 billion on crypto. It's certainly not worse than being involved in the crypto scheme. But the very idea that the argument is, I didn't know that I made$2.2 billion in crypto. I just know no clue. Joe Kiernan, who's supposed to be the business guy, right? He's supposed to be the guy who the financial community looks to, he isn't, for accurate financial data about how's this company doing, how's that company doing, what do we think about this, what's going on with interest rates.

1:04:17Ben Meiselas:And that's what he does right there. That's what he does right there. Then, during the same interview, Donald Trump says that my kids do trade on. Of course, my kids, everything's inside information. Everything is inside. Here, play this quote. I feel badly in a way for my kids because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or they go and do a bill, Anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything, if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know, sort of like, how's my energy policy? So therefore you have a conflict. Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information.

1:05:08uh so uh it's it's pretty tough in that sense i tell my kids stay away from as much as you can

1:05:17Jordy Meiselas:stay away from but they also have a life you know they okay they're buying drone companies they're buying drone companies before you start a war he's he talks about these kids like they're

1:05:28Brett Meiselas:also like they're setting up a lemonade stand too right no it's drone drone companies it's not a Also, how do you think cupcakes are made? I know it's like his brains going all over the place here, but cupcakes and the energies.

1:05:43Ben Meiselas:It's mines in Kazakhstan and all of these things are backed often by the most of them are backed by like the federal government giving loans and cutting government contracts and and all of these deals. And so they went from and the problem with this is what I mean. The problem with the debate is because, and I mean this as someone who studies language, that the problem is language has a limitation. And it's hard to fully channel through words the outrage that this is. And what I mean by that is, is that all you have to do is arm a MAGA person with any kind of talking point, right? So you go all of this,$2 billion, a billion dollars here,$2 billion here, inside trading here.

1:06:29Ben Meiselas:They invest. And what do they go? Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden. So once they have their thing and then you have to explain it. Once they start to shout, which they do, Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, Hunter. And then you start to debate. It's actually very hard to debate someone who has, you know, they have their thing and then they start yelling because then to most outs, not hard to debate, but hard to persuade a public who watches because then people, it's all gross. It's all gross. Like when you think about Hunter Biden being on a board of Burisma from 20 what after Biden was not the vice president and before Biden was.

1:07:13Ben Meiselas:So during the years that Biden was not in office, you had a guy like Hunter who was on boards before appointed by George W. Bush, a guy who went to Yale Law School. Sure. Was it helpful that his last name was a Biden? Absolutely. But he was qualified for that. He was actually a qualified board member because he sat on major boards before, including administering international aid for the UN. And he controlled billion dollar budget. So he would be someone who would be considered for that. He was making$50 ,000 a month,$50 ,000 a month and was not there when Joe Biden was actually in office. So at most, if you wanted to compare, at most, it would be the difference between like a traffic ticket versus like a mass murder in terms of like what was actually going down.

1:08:06Ben Meiselas:And the Trump regime would argue it's all basically it's all the same. It's all the same. And now their argument with the Trump kids is actually, of course, they're doing insider work. everything's I tell them try to stay away from it try to stay away from it but I bring them with me and then they have these conversations and also that's why I believe the two billion is just the tip of the iceberg I believe the real number when all is said and done will likely be 20 billion dollars or perhaps more because I think Trump just has to disclose like his own like direct stuff and by the way I think he's probably hiding in my own opinion I'm just giving you an opinion I could be wrong, in my opinion, hiding and concealing more than what he's showing there.

1:08:48Ben Meiselas:And I believe that doesn't account for other vehicles, other ways to kind of hide securities, future interests that don't best that he doesn't have to disclose yet. And so, you know, that's what, you know, so I also think Donald Trump's big play with the super pardon to waive tax audits and waive tax liability was the big play of why he sued the Treasury Department and why he sued the IRS. Because if you read the release and the waiver of claims, it waives everything that predates the settlement agreement, which to me would include all of these billions of dollars. And whether you're talking about capital gains or regular income tax, that settlement could have saved Donald Trump potentially billions and billions of dollars, not just$100 million that people just, you know, say was that issue.

1:09:43Jordy Meiselas:So let me read this example for a second, because it's so brazen and salty. Our producer reminded me of it, but this is from Yahoo Finance, and I'll just read it for you. It says 14 days, 14 days. That's the gap between President Trump's trust purchasing between$1 million and$5 million in Axon Enterprise stock on February 10th and ICE posting a notice on February 24th seeking a five-year,$220 million taser contract for roughly 17 ,800 new devices. That purchase would quadruple ICE's current inventory of about 4 ,300 units. The ICE documents specifications a 45-foot range, 10 individually targeted probes match only Axon's taser 10, according to procurement reviewers cited by CNBC.

1:10:27Jordy Meiselas:No contract has been a word of no law was technically broken. I mean, this is like the craziest thing imaginable, right?

1:10:35Brett Meiselas:This is also what I'm getting at too is, I don't think Donald Trump's the one, you know, physically making the investment himself and going there and putting the cash down. Who in his orbit is he allowing to have this confidential information about these certain companies or these certain dealings prior to the American people, you know, finding out in the way that they should. It's a security issue too. It's a security issue just as much as it's a grift issue with Donald Trump. Well, look, the security issue has unfolded, right?

1:11:04Ben Meiselas:The catastrophic war in Iran, Donald Trump was entangled in a myriad of conflicts of interest, right? I mean, he's photographed on the Qatari jet. The Qataris are the mediators. I'm not necessarily saying should they or should they not be the mediator? I don't know, but I will say that they are certainly having a prominent role. It didn't hurt that they gave him a$400 million jet that then the American people gave a billion dollars to. The Pakistanis, who are mediators, they created a crypto fund that gave money to World Liberty Financial right around the time that there was the India and Pakistan war, where Donald Trump claims he saved 30 million Pakistani lives.

1:11:52Ben Meiselas:He didn't. Or millions and millions of Indian lives. Trump takes credit for stopping that war, which he didn't. But the Pakistanis let Donald Trump take credit for doing it in India. Modi didn't because Modi said, why would I let you do that? But in any event, that endeared Field Marshal Munir to Donald Trump. And now Pakistan has had a prominent role. But meanwhile, if you actually listen to what Pakistan's prime minister and Field Marsh will say they are, one, they're going to be at the former Ayatollah Khomeini's funeral, and they're going to be there and having a very prominent role right there.

1:12:29Ben Meiselas:And also, they've been giving speeches about how China is the main dominant global superpower right now. And also their interests seemed closer aligned, I'll just say, with China. But they managed to gain a great deal of influence vis-a-vis India with the United States through Donald Trump's crypto entities. You look at the United Arab Emirates. They gave Donald Trump massive amounts of money through World Liberty Financial. And you think about, did that impact the strategy of war there? You take a look at Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia gave a lot of money to Donald Trump. How did that impact things?

1:13:07Ben Meiselas:And obviously, one of the leverage points that Saudi Arabia had was to start defunding projects to Trump and Trump's buds like Live Golf and other things that it was previously funding when it felt that the Trump regime, you know, was basically violating its sovereignty and continuing to bring it into all of the, you know, to bring it into the war in Iran. And so Donald Trump and the Trump regime and American foreign policy would threaten, okay, okay, we're not going to give you Saudi Arabia, Patriot interceptors and certain things while basically blackmailing and extorting Saudi Arabia because we have air bases there.

1:13:47Ben Meiselas:So Saudi Arabia has become a target because of our air bases. And then Donald Trump says, then we're not going to give you the interceptor missiles that we need even now that we've made you a target. So Saudi Arabia is now kind of stuck. We have your bases here now. So what do we do? while MBS is like, okay, well, we're going to not fund this and that and the other thing because we know that these are personally important to you. I can go on and on and on and on. You get the point. But these entanglements, first off, we should never have gone to war in the first place. We should never have been involved in this catastrophic, you know, and unlawful war.

1:14:21Ben Meiselas:No, I can get into Netanyahu in Israel that Donald Trump's second top donor other than Elon Musk is Miriam Adelson, who gave Donald Trump literally hundreds of millions of dollars to moved the embassy to Jerusalem, you know, and she's pursued a very right wing extremist Netanyahu style agenda there, in my opinion. And so you have people like her leading the way and pushing Donald Trump, you know, you know, you know, to that, you know, not that he, you know, he's a horrible person to begin with, but this is the dynamic at play. And obviously, you know, when you see him stuck and frozen after making catastrophic decisions, just think about these leverage points that everybody has on him from every angle right now.

1:15:05Ben Meiselas:You are quite literally compromised. It's not, Jordy, to your point, it's not a hypothetical compromise. It's no, this is why we have an emoluments clause in the Constitution, specifically to try to avoid things like this. And one of Donald Trump's reasons why he doesn't like Zelensky is Zelensky hasn't offered in these things. Like Ukraine hasn't given Trump views Ukraine as just taking and taking and taking. And it's like, what are you going to give me? How do you behave? Like there's a lot of other reasons because Trump obviously, in my opinion, is a Putin bootlicker. And but Putin will say, I'm going to give you a trillion dollars.

1:15:46Ben Meiselas:And I just, you know, it just plays to Donald Trump's kind of vanity. And Trump had been to Russia in the 80s. And Trump had always had this view of Russia as the kind of peak and pinnacle thing that he viewed and kind of, in my view, his like racist white utopia. I'm just giving you my opinion of like what his view of Russia was. But you have, you know, Donald Trump viewing Zelensky as someone who's not going to give him all of these things. And so what we've seen recently too is Donald Trump's not giving the Patriot interceptors to Ukraine. He's promised that he, well, he promised, he said that he would sell the interceptors to NATO and to European countries, but he hasn't even done that.

1:16:27Ben Meiselas:So the big problem that they have in Ukraine right now is they could shoot down these drones, the Shahid drones from Russia, but they literally need the Patriot interceptors to stop the ballistic missiles. The only thing that really stops these ballistics are the Patriot interceptors or the fads, but they don't have these. So what we saw happen in the past 24 hours, and Russia realizes this, is they're going to use their drone swarms, mostly as decoys. Drone swarm is what Russia does, and then they do their ballistic missiles, and they know that Ukraine has to decide and make these choices. Which ballistic missiles do we shoot out?

1:17:11Ben Meiselas:Because every ballistic missile we shoot is one less Patriot interceptor that we have. And also Russia tries to use dummy ballistic missiles and they try to draw out the interceptors with other drones and other decoys that look like it to draw out the Patriot interceptors because Ukraine is running low. And that's why we saw Russia was able to really strike hard in Ukraine. They hit one of the major five-star hotels in Kyiv. They hit a number of residential areas in Kyiv and Kharkiv and Zyprishia and other areas. But that's what we've got going on there. And then meanwhile, just to round this all out with discussing what's going on internationally, you have that going on.

1:18:01Ben Meiselas:You look at what's happening in Venezuela right now, you know, and Donald Trump wants to be like, oh, this is like some great, you know, great story about how the people of Venezuela love him. I mean, Trump's effectively, you know, the leader of Venezuela. I mean, he's running a puppet government that's run by Delce Rodriguez. The people are livid that Delce Rodriguez is really hoarding the supplies and the emergency response has been horrible. You know, it's just interesting too, because, you know, I think about Trump's post this morning where he posted about Micron and saying Micron's giving$250 million to these Trump accounts, which are investment accounts.

1:18:38Ben Meiselas:So Micron's giving 250 million dollars to an investment account to basically invest in the market to invest in stocks like micron when in fact microns received billions of dollars from chips act funding which basically led to the growth of micro they've gotten billions of dollars trump posted about them i guess hoping that would manipulate their price it didn't the micron stock has not been doing great of late although post-biden it did do great because of the chips act uh investments but you have you know noted i i i mentioned that because you have like trump saying look we gave 150 billion 150 million dollars to venezuela it's like okay but you took five billion dollars of resources god knows where that money's gone the same way microns got x billions of dollars and they put 250 million into the account and they want applause like they're doing it.

1:19:33Ben Meiselas:And meanwhile, the people right now in Venezuela are suffering from this back-to-back earthquake. And I've raised the red flag as well. And I said, I don't want to go down this conspiratorial route because I can't make the direct cause and effect yet. But with the excess fracking and excess drilling, that's been known to cause seismic activity. And so I also don't know, is there a cause and effect? Because these back-to-back earthquake. A 7.24 quake followed by a 7.5 is unheard of rare to have two back-to-backs like that. So is any of the drilling activity causing that or enhancing that? But regardless of whether that's happening, clearly Delcy's not doing a great job.

1:20:16Ben Meiselas:That's an understatement in getting the resources out there. And meanwhile, you have Machado who had to give Trump the Nobel Prize. She's like, I want to go there and be with the people. And the Trump regime is putting out there to the Wall Street Journal and others. Ah, she's just doing publicity stunts. We don't want her out there. And now we're hearing that they're planning on cutting a deal, potentially with Maduro, so that Maduro can say that he rigged the 2020 election for Biden. And if Maduro says that, then Maduro can get a deal. And again, there's nothing out there that is off limits for the corruption.

1:20:50Ben Meiselas:As I start off, the rot, the rot, the rot, and we're seeing it. So I'll leave us with that. I did a whole video on special counsel Jack Smith, but I discussed it before. I don't need to show any clips of that because you've seen what he said. He's just said that it's just been a total breakdown of law and order. And the Justice Department right now under the Trump regime has zero credibility and they've lost their best lawyers. And it's a big problem. And especially now when you have potentially Justice Department lawyers planning on doing this deal with Maduro, we'll see if that happens. Those are the rumors.

1:21:25Ben Meiselas:You know, that's the kind of people who are there. I mean, it's no different than North Korea at this point. In fact, one can make an argument that it's more corrupt than North Korea, that our country is more corrupt. I don't think that's an exaggeration under the Trump regime. majority before we go anything you want to say benji i really enjoyed doing this episode with

1:21:46Brett Meiselas:you brett not here anymore he had to go run but love this episode brothers might is mighty thank you guys so much for tuning in please subscribe to the audio please subscribe to the audio feed wherever you get your audio the might is touch podcast 1000 free just do it right now super helpful thank you guys for joining us tonight really appreciate y 'all and as always shout out to the might is mighty The Midas, Midas, standing strong

1:22:13Jordy Meiselas:Against the fascists we sing our song We begin it right whenever Want to stay plugged in?

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