MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 9/11/26

23:08Jordy Meiselas:And it's been amazing. Do I get credit for it? No. Do I get credit for building a ballroom with my money where I have I'm the only one I build a ballroom no money no tax I don't want tax money I don't want anything it's me and a gunship patriots they put up lots of money to build this which is desperately needed and it's going to be beautiful and everyone's going to say oh thank god no it's going to be beautiful zero tax dollars for the ballroom zero tax dollars and what happens I get criticized it's the most incredible thing anybody else would do that they say what a nice gesture.

23:47Ben Meiselas:Brett, I want to get your reaction to it.

23:49Jordy Meiselas:We got to study the people behind him and the people who are actually attending this thing. Like obviously, I know

23:53Brett Meiselas:we're brothers, Brett, because I'm sorry to cut you off, but that's exactly where my mind was going to. Sorry, I'll let you cook.

23:59Jordy Meiselas:And then I want to get all these people behind him with these vacant stares and these smiles on their face. Like, oh yeah, ballroom. Like, what are you doing? This guy is actively ruining your life. The guy's an idiot. The stuff he's saying doesn't even make sense at all. Everything is objectively horrible and getting worse. It's like, do you just, do you like being conned? Do you like being mocked? Do you like being lied to at all times? It's truly difficult to fathom how anybody who isn't being kind of paid or isn't in this ecosystem and getting deriving some kind of financial benefit or some other benefit, How could you even support this?

24:38Jordy Meiselas:Like everything about this is crazy. None of it is conservative, by the way, for all the people who are like, well, I'm a conservative, so I got to vote for Donald Trump. Nothing about this is conservative. Everything he says is a con. And this entire event, and we'll get to more of the event, you know, I'm sure after the break, but the entire event was just so weird. And at no point at all do you actually hear any sort of concrete plans to help people. And it's like, are we forgetting what it even means to be a politician? Are we forgetting what it even means to be a president, to be a congressman, to be a senator?

25:10Jordy Meiselas:These are jobs. They should be boring jobs. They should be jobs that are going through legislation that are trying to figure out, OK, how do we improve this aspect of Americans' lives? How do we improve this aspect of Americans' lives? And it's like all they have is like, well, God has a penis. That's what I want to talk about. God has a penis. And James Tallarico is a vegan. It's like, what is this messaging? What are you talking about? How does this help a single person? What is your message to the American people? I truly cannot even comprehend how anybody could be okay or support any of this.

25:47Jordy Meiselas:But I guess that's why Donald Trump's approval rating with like independence right now is like 20 % or something crazy.

25:53Brett Meiselas:Brett, exactly. What's his message? He doesn't have a message. He's got nothing to show for his previous two years as president, and he's got no vision for the future. Usually, if you're the president of the United States and you're going to go and you're going to speak at your convention to rally up everyone, to go and vote for XYZ, vote down ballot, all of that nonsense, you'd be touting all of your legitimate accomplishments. I don't think Trump even uttered one clear path or vision forward to address the affordability crisis in this country, Because again, to him, there is no crisis. It is the most financially beneficial presidency in the United States history.

26:35Brett Meiselas:Guys, these two years, more money than any president. And the lemmings behind him, Brett, to your point exactly, cheer him on. If there's anything scarier than Trump talking about whatever the heck he wants to talk about while he's up there, it's always the people immediately behind him because they are so far gone. And I know there's always theories out there. Oh yeah, they're literally paid actors that go by. I'm not here to say that or not, but those people behind him, they are drinking the Kool-Aid. They need to be studied, honestly. They need to be studied, but also the question we always get asked here at the MySuch Network, how are you breaking through to those MAGA people?

27:11Brett Meiselas:I'm not breaking through to those people. I don't want to talk to those people. Those people are chomping at the bit for another 4, 10, 20 years of Donald Trump running this country into the ground. Those are the people we're trying to talk to, or at least not me specifically, because they are so far gone. They those people behind Donald Trump hate this country with a capital H. They truly do. They pledge allegiance to one man. And that is Donald J. Trump. Benji.

27:41Ben Meiselas:Take our first break of the show. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about what's been going down at this deranged Republican midterm convention. I want to turn our attention to a lot of these international developments that have been taking place. I want to talk about the United States Supreme Court actually making a good decision upholding what the Missouri State Supreme Court did regarding the map that will restore or keep in place a 6-2 Republican -Democrat map instead of the unlawful MAGA gerrymandered 7-1 map. We'll talk a little bit more about also some major resignations at the DOJ, a top Trump loyalist tendered a resignation before we went live.

28:28Ben Meiselas:We'll talk about that and more. So let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, our book is called WTF America, The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. We have a QR code that you can scan. We'll put a link in the description below where you can buy the book. You could also Google WTF America. Just make sure you get the right one. And we appreciate all of the support we have for the book. We lay out kind of a generational platform about how we get out of this hell. And boy, we need to get out of this hell. That should be one of the main takeaways thus far. Let's take our first quick break.

29:05Jordy Meiselas:Wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to say something. Let me say exciting news over here. We all actually recorded the audio book. and we're super excited for you to hear the audiobook. Jordy was the last of us to finish it because of baby stuff. Jordy was in the studio. Here are some pictures of the J-Man in the studio recording the audiobook. So for those asking people, they're always like, is it available on ebook? Is it audiobook? Hardcover? All the above. You get it. And then once again, links are in the description below. I also want to tell everybody about a couple deals that some of the stores are doing on WTF America.

29:39Jordy Meiselas:So Barnes & Noble right now is running a pre-order promo and it ends September 11. So if you're listening to this, that's today. They're offering 25 % off pre-orders and an additional 10 % off for premium members. If you use the code pre-order 25, code pre-order 25 at Barnes and Noble on their website. So go check that out. And bookshop.org, guys, we're a bestseller on bookshop.org. That's super, super exciting. And bookshop.org right now is doing a 15 % off deal. And they're giving a free sticker, which is pretty cool, a WTF America a sticker if you use code WTF15 at checkout. That's code WTF15 at checkout at bookshop.org for 15 % off and a free sticker.

30:20Jordy Meiselas:So check it out. I don't know how long these last, so make sure to take advantage of it. And thanks to everybody who's pre-ordered and let us know in the comments if you have. All right, we'll be right back after this quick break.

30:29Brett Meiselas:Wait, wait, wait. I know longest tease ever for an ad break. I just want to say, so obviously you saw me in the booth. We are all reading. We're reading the book. We've broken the book up into different chapters that each of us are going to read. It's incredible. For me, I am an audio pod. I'm an audio book listener. I am. I'm not, I'm not afraid to admit it. I love it. Then I also usually buy the hard copy as like a way to like put it on. So people think, you know, maybe I'm that smart. And I love listening to it. I have always loved when it was like the people who usually I listened to are actually the ones reading it.

30:58Brett Meiselas:And so we've all carved out, you know, endless hours in the studio, reading chapters personally. And well, we hope you all enjoy it. With that, let's cut to our first commercial break. Thank you. The wait is over. Football is here and so is DraftKings. DraftKings is now live in all 50 states. One app, every sport nationwide. New DraftKings customers sign up with code MIDAS. Spend five bucks to get$200 in rewards within 21 days. Includes all markets. That's code MIDAS. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777.

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32:27Brett Meiselas:I did the math on how much I spent out eating this summer, and honestly, I don't want to talk about it. Now that I'm easing back into my normal routine, Home Chef is helping me cook more and order less, and my wallet is thanking me. Home Chef makes cooking simple, fresh food delivered, easy recipes to follow, and meals that actually taste great. Take the stress out of your week with convenient weekly deliveries that keep your fridge stocked and eliminate meal planning and grocery runs. No long shopping lists, no complicated prep, and best of all, easy cleanup. It's perfect for busy schedules. Whether you need a 30-minute meal, an oven-ready tray, or even a quick microwave lunch, Home Chef has you covered.

33:06Brett Meiselas:And it's not one-size-fits-all. Home Chef has over 30 meal options each week with choices for different tastes and dietary needs, including calorie-conscious and even GLP-1-friendly meals. Home Chef's GLP-1 friendly meals also make it easy with pre-portioned ingredients and dietician approved nutritional guidelines. They're packed with protein and rich in fiber to help promote fullness, appetite regulation, and blood sugar stability without compromising the variety and flavor. And people really love it. Home Chef is rated number one by users of other meal kits for quality, convenience, value, taste, and recipe ease.

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34:15Brett Meiselas:if there's an exit survey, let them know he sent you. For the audio listeners, that was one of those ads that I pre-recorded earlier. And yeah, I'm going to fess out. I did not shave, still have not gotten a haircut. It is remarkably challenging with two children under three years old at home, but we're doing our damnedest. Benji, how you doing, big bro? Where to next?

34:34Ben Meiselas:I'm doing good. In a little bit, I'll share with you Maga Mike Johnson's speech from earlier today at this bizarro midterm convention. It was more lies And I'll show you what he was saying. He was like, we need a little more time. It takes a long time to stop the inflation and to stop Biden's this and that and the other. It's like, no, you don't. OK, you're two years in. OK, grow up. OK. And Donald Trump promised on day one he was going to solve these problems. They really are just a bunch of con artists. And you saw Donald Trump's speech where he said, because of what we're doing with Venezuela, we've been able to replenish our strategic petroleum reserve stockpiles.

35:17Ben Meiselas:65 billion barrels are ours. That's ours right now. Listen to these lies about Venezuela and this deranged arrangement that he made with Venezuela. Let's play it. But getting back to oil, okay?

35:32Jordy Meiselas:We, you are doing, and as I said, you're the biggest, we're now the biggest in the world. We were nowhere near that. Now you're the biggest in the world. And that's without Venezuela, which we've just added to our little stockpile. It's it's the biggest oil deal and probably it's the biggest deal in the history of our country. Sixty five billion barrels are ours. And you know what they say it is lifetime. time, 500 years.

36:08Ben Meiselas:Oh, so I guess the price of gas is going down, right? I guess the price of diesel is going down, right? I guess the overall price per pound, right? I mean, if it's ours, if it's added to our stockpiles, if you really get a deal, Donald, what do we be? Oh, wait a minute. Oh, do we get to see the deal? No, I saw some press releases. Apparently, because private businesses view Venezuela as uninvestable by and large. You had to create a Trump oil company within the Defense Department to do deals with Delcy Rodriguez and this guy Alejandro Bentecourt, a very corrupt person over there. And it sounds a little bit communist to me, communist authoritarian to me, but okay.

36:49Ben Meiselas:You want to maybe tell the audience that all of that 65 billion barrels is hypothetical, its potential, that it would actually take tens of billions of dollars and years, maybe even hundreds of billions of dollars, and decades before the refining can really even begin, that that type of oil doesn't go into our salt caverns and our strategic reserves in Texas. And those are just facts, Ben. Why would we do facts? The people behind him, they just want to see Shamu eat some sardines. That's more of a seal, but that's like, is that what you want to see? is you really want, I saw some people posting clips of idiocracy.

37:29Ben Meiselas:This is far more deranged than idiocracy was far more coherent than what I've been observing right here. And then Trump goes, I think we're going to call the Hormuz straight, the Trump straight. You know what I think I'm going to call it, Donald? I'm going to call it two more tankers were struck right before I went live. That's what I'm going to call it because Iran continues to control the straight Hormuz, this past week, two more unmanned U.S. submersives, these cutting-edge technology drones that go in the water, they were captured by Iran one today, one two days ago. And the Trump version was like, that's an old model.

38:07Ben Meiselas:I mean, they're all new models. It's not an old model. We didn't care about that one. Oh, really? Because Iran's going to reverse engineer that one right away. They probably already have right now. But this is what Trump, I'm going to rename it. I've renamed Lake Ontario. I've renamed New Mexico. And it's like, what stupid crap is this? What stupid crap is this? Here, play this clip.

38:30Jordy Meiselas:During my administration and food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. And by the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now. We'll win it. We're winning it. We control the hormone straight. I think we should call the hormone straight, we should call it the Trump straight. I should get something out of it. The Trump straight.

39:04Jordy Meiselas:It's going to be called. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll have an announcement.

39:09Ben Meiselas:Yeah, I mean, real sick stuff. And Jordy...

39:12Brett Meiselas:Is he calling it the hormone? The hormone straight? I don't think it's going to be good. He can't even pronounce it.

39:18Ben Meiselas:But anyone who's clapping, I think I should get something out of it. That's the revealing line.

39:24Jordy Meiselas:I was going to say, it's revealing to his entire thought process about everything he does that he's always in it to try to get something for himself. And we keep going back to Jordy's point in the beginning. He's constantly trying to extract from other individuals, from companies, from whoever, and it's all to benefit himself, his family, whatever. And, you know, that's why when you see some of the people get up at this convention, the things they say are also just like, it's like, do you live in this on this planet? Like, what the heck are you saying? Anna Paulina Luna, a congresswoman from Florida, got up there yesterday and she decided to give her whole speech against like enriching oneself in public office.

40:03Jordy Meiselas:And she's like, all these people stock trading while in office. Donald Trump literally a few days ago, not only as all the stock disclosures come out showing that he makes thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of trades and has made a ton of money stock trading, presumably off a lot of inside information, in my opinion. But you also have Anna Paulina Luna going out there and trying to talk against this while he is then posting memes on his Truth Social account depicting himself stock trading in the Oval Office and saying, I got rich off these stocks for you. It's the sickest messaging ever.

40:38Jordy Meiselas:And he's like throwing it in their face. Can you imagine? Jordi, I know you love this game. Can you imagine if Joe Biden posted an AI image of him stock trading in the Oval Office? I think like Biden, I think they'd give the guy death penalty as well. This is the craziest stuff that we are witnessing. It is such blatant criminality being propped up by all of these con artists, by all of these hucksters, by all of these charlatans. And then they bring religion into it. They have preachers and pastors, these people to say this person's James Tallarico, evil man, evil man. Ken Paxton, great guy. Ken Paxton, the corrupt guy who was indicted on security charges, the guy who cheated on his wife and got divorced on biblical grounds, the guy who was just a all-around horrific individual.

41:24Jordy Meiselas:That's a great guy. James Tallarico, evil. Donald Trump, great guy, great guy, biblical, biblical, incredible. And it's like they live in this inverted world, but it all is enabled by this fraud. Everybody who's involved in it is just fraudulent in some sort of way and as a huckster really just manipulating people and doing it in such a

41:47Brett Meiselas:vile vile vile way right goes very evil very very evil especially how they weaponize religion for a lot of people who really believe and you know no knock on anyone whatever their beliefs are but like really believe and how they twist that and so bastardize that to just promote a political party you want to talk about someone who is actually deeply religious joe biden went to church every Sunday. But what do we, what do we even talk? Donald Trump, I don't think has ever stepped foot in a church for prayer. What are we talking about here, folks? It's not even close. What we saw out of this convention and we'll continue to see these people are freaks.

42:24Brett Meiselas:These people are absolute freaks, the lowest of the low, the scummiest of the scum. And we have to figure out as a society, how we move past that, how these people got so weird in general and how we start to fix this damn country that Donald Trump has so deeply broken. Right.

42:44Ben Meiselas:I mean, if you study what these Iranian generals are saying and leaders, one of the things that surprised them since the Trump-Netanyahu invasion, and that they didn't fully appreciate the depths of it, while they assumed that Donald Trump was corrupt and stupid and all of these things, they were shocked that he literally doesn't care about the national interest of the U.S. They were not prepared to deal with someone who truly just cares about himself. And similarly, the purported negotiators, Witkoff and Kushner, dumb and dumber who travel around the world and, you know, are basically the pied pipers for their own funds, we learned.

43:27Ben Meiselas:That Witkoff made, what, 100 million plus dollars last year. We sort of somewhat knew it already, but the disclosures had to be made public from his crypto schemes with World Liberty Financial, which had major investments from Middle East countries, which further compromised us in those areas. But these IRGC generals and military leaders and politically is like, wow, like they just don't care about the U.S. And so once you understand that Trump is not operating from the U.S. interest, you do what Putin does, which is you bring out Kirill Dmitriev and Yuri Yushikov, the money guys, and you make everything about deals with Trump and figuring out ways to, you know, to talk about even even when there lies, you know, Putin does the Trump shtick.

44:17Ben Meiselas:You know, Trump says, I'm going to do this, that Putin's like, I'm going to bring you trillions of dollars. Donald, personally, trillions of dollars will make sure you get when, by the way, Russia's GDP is less than Canada's GDP while Donald Trump attacks Canada. Right. I mean, Russia's GDP is less than California's GDP. be. And, you know, that's how you play Trump. You just say, hey, I'm going to get you something personally. And, you know, you saw this approach, Saudi Arabia and UAE and all of these countries, they did it as well, except they believe they were getting a U.S. security umbrella out of it.

44:54Ben Meiselas:But as Saudi Arabia has now seen, as Iran's backed Houthis or Iran's ally, the Houthis, as we went live, struck the east-west pipeline right by Medina. I mean, that's going to be crushing to Saudi Arabia's economy after numerous refineries on both the east and west coasts of Saudi Arabia have also been destroyed by the Houthis over the past several weeks. And remember, Saudi Arabia used its Saudi-aligned government group in Yemen to strike the Sanaa airbase, which was area controlled by the Houthis back in mid-July. And Saudi Arabia felt, all right, we can do this. The U.S. has our back. We've got the weapons.

45:42Ben Meiselas:We're ready to go. We're going to prove a point. Because back then, there was supposed to be a meeting between Iran leadership and Houthi leadership in the Houthi capital of Sanaa. And before the plane even arrived, Saudi Arabia struck the airbase. And the Houthis, they had just been kind of sitting in the background preparing. And they're like, got it, game on. That's when the Houthis really began in earnest to start doing a blockade in the Red Sea. And then they started saying, all right, you're coming after us. We're going to strike in Saudi Arabia. The Houthis experience is the same experience that Iran saw.

46:19Ben Meiselas:And they learned together, of course, when Iran was striking U.S. military bases in the region. It's got it. The U.S. security umbrella doesn't work. Trump got rid of all the top generals. The U.S. doesn't know what it's doing. Pete Hexeth is running the show. This guy is not just a malignant narcissist. He's an idiot also. And he doesn't know what he's doing. So the Houthis, day by day, just like Iran, got more and more emboldened. And they said, oh, crap. If Iran was able to bring down the U.S., we can bring back Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is getting its weapons from the U.S. Saudi Arabia is backing the other government group that occupies its capital in Aden in Yemen.

47:00Ben Meiselas:We can, let's go, let's go on our offensive. In the past 24 to 48 hours, the Houthis have been able to take over 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 kilometers of areas in western Yemen. They took over Al-Mokha, the key port city that's 60 kilometers away from the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The Houthis are continuing to advance. Notably, the Houthis were welcomed by various tribes, also Sunni tribes. The Houthis are Shia. These Sunni tribes were greeting them. And I've been noticing this recently as well, that you're seeing the populations in these areas increasingly feel, got it, the U.S. security umbrella is broken, meaning all the U.S.

47:42Ben Meiselas:proxies in the region are weaker. And they're feeling a more, they're feeling that they have more of an ability to work with the Iranian back groups and other groups. I mean, when we were showing you the footage of Iran striking in Jordan, what I noticed and was one of the reasons I showed you this footage, the Jordanian people who were eating on the rooftop restaurant, seemed very metropolitan people, you know, who were eating, you know, who were having dinner there. They were cheering on Iran striking Jordan. So if you're the Jordanian monarchy right now, you are very nervous. If you're the Saudi monarchy, the Houthi advancements in Yemen, taking Al Mokha, taking the Hanish islands, and pretty soon the Houthis will have all of Western Yemen.

48:32Ben Meiselas:They basically already do. And their question is, are they going to go and take over Aden, which is the stronghold for the Saudi-backed government, but you don't even need to. The land that's most valuable is all along the coast. And the Saudi-backed government's last stronghold was MOCA. And if you could take MOCA, you can take the other areas. But if you're the Saudi monarchy right now, you're thinking to yourself, can we defend Saudi Arabia? Think about beyond Yemen. Can the Saudi monarchy survive this right now because a lot of their power emanated from this deal, not just with Trump, but over generations that the United States provided the security bill.

49:14Ben Meiselas:All of these monarchies and Iran did not agree to that. Iran created its own access. And so we're seeing that development happen now. China rise, Russia feeling more emboldened. That's the broader geopolitical story here.

49:29Jordy Meiselas:You know what it kind of reminds me of? And they're obviously all incredibly different situations. So it's certainly an oversimplification. But you see certain countries like Saudi Arabia, you know, they what do they do? They really tied themselves to Donald Trump in a lot of ways, you know, with the way they, you know, gave all that money to Jared Kushner with the very close relationship with Live Golf. I mean, they really made their relationship very close. And in a similar respect, you saw that in Canada, right, with the Maple MAGA folks, Pierre Polly Eves, you see these folks, they tie themselves to Donald Trump.

49:59Jordy Meiselas:And the thing that people always find out the hard way is that everything Trump touches dies. It's a cliche for a reason. And it's true. And so kind of all the everything's coming home to roost right now with all of these kind of, you know, deals cut with the devil, so to speak, whether it's Saudi Arabia, whether it's the Maple MAGA folks. And you see them in real time now trying to deal with the consequences of this and Trump's and ultimately it takes until there is an existential threat to those individuals themselves or to their power structures that it takes for them to realize, I better stand up to this or I got to do something or we have to adjust what we're doing.

50:36Jordy Meiselas:Because right now, as you look at it, like I think you could, in some respects, kind of look at the Saudi monarchy really in dire conditions right now and having to make a choice right now because they have to choose. Am I going to stick with this relationship with Donald Trump that right now is screwing us over? Or am I going to protect my people here? Ironically, that kind of idea, you know, Donald Trump's America first, everybody take care of themselves sort of strategy. Right now, people in a lot of these countries are thinking, I don't know why I tied myself to this guy. I got to be thinking of my own country.

51:08Jordy Meiselas:And I think it's particularly interesting with people, you know, like the Maple MAGA folks who were all in on Donald Trump, right? Some of these people like Doug Ford, like Pierre Polyev, all in on Donald Trump, right? And then what happens? Donald Trump does stuff. He attacks them. He attacks their countries. He threatens their people. And then all of a sudden, they're forced now to completely change their entire way of speaking everything they do. In Canada, one of the things that really struck me over the past 24 hours or so was Pierre Polyev, the Maple MAGA figure in Canada who had run for – who would have been prime minister if his party won, who ended up losing his riding, which is essentially like a congressional district in the United States before reemerging like a video game character in another riding, stealing someone else's seat.

52:00Jordy Meiselas:You know, he was asked about Mark Carney by the media. I think it was an American. I think it was an American channel, if I'm not mistaken. I think it was like CNBC or one of these channels. And they kind of set him up to try to criticize Mark Carney. At any other time, he would happily criticize Mark Carney. He would happily, you know, try to back Donald Trump's policies and that sort of rhetoric. This time he said something interesting. This time he said, I am not about to come on American television and smear our prime minister back at home. Like there's a line that he would not cross right there.

52:35Jordy Meiselas:And you see a lot of the people in Canada right now having to realize that they almost have to choose a side, right? Am I going to support my own leadership here in our country? Am I going to support my own people here? Or am I going to kowto to Donald Trump's threats as he tries to destroy us in every possible way and completely, completely destroy our sovereignty here? And so the reckoning has really, I would say, begun. But we are so far past the reckoning beginning. It is in full swing.

53:07Ben Meiselas:Well, we got a lot to discuss when we come back. I want to show you what Maggie Mike had to say. I want to talk a little bit more about the Supreme Court ruling. actually a good ruling by the Supreme Court, upholding what the Missouri State Supreme Court ruled. And the Missouri State Supreme Court has five Republican justices and two liberal justices. And they unanimously agreed that their MAGA AG and Secretary of State were completely out of control, even finding the MAGA Secretary of State of Missouri in contempt. But then they pulled back the contempt finding when the old maps were restored.

53:42Ben Meiselas:We'll talk about all of that, But let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder, WTF America is our book. Pre-order it right now. Scan the QR code to pre-order. We'll put a link in the description below as well. You can get the audio. Look at Jordy, everybody recording the audio. We each brother recorded a certain amount of chapters in the audio. And so we're really excited about the audio product also. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

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58:07Brett Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors, y 'all. Links in the description of both YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let they know what we sent you. Benji, you threw me off. You're like giggling over there. What's so funny? What you got?

58:19Ben Meiselas:No, I was happy. Just happy to be with the brothers. I enjoy the show. Just happy. I like being with the brothers too, man. This is nice.

58:25Brett Meiselas:This is the first time I think we spoke today, brothers.

58:27Ben Meiselas:Yeah, look, it's, you know, but, you know, I was speaking to Jessica Tarlov about, it was great to have her on. She's got a book coming out also. And one of the things that, you know, I think we both talk about in our books is family. And, you know, that's one of the ways I think we can speak across political parties. You know, and I think objectively, Donald Trump, who you see how he behaves around his family and the horrors. I mean, he brought his kids around Epstein and, you know, and how Donald Trump is behaved his whole life. You know, whatever. But but but we I think we can recognize that Trump has attacked the American family.

59:11Ben Meiselas:he has attacked the ability of people to just live their lives so he's he's constantly in your face and the predatorial behavior and you know it's always about me me me me me and by the way ben

59:28Brett Meiselas:they all are the entire trump family are they're just so weird and they make it so about themselves as americans are suffering they're they're continuously like touting their wealth and and their importance. I don't, you see that Ivanka thing where she was like riding on a horse so eloquently across the sunset. Like what was that post? Like, who was that post for? Ben called Ivanka demonic in college or whatever, but she gave like a room tour of her super, like maxed out a dorm room, which is like better than 90 % of people's homes. It's like, they are so tone deaf. I would say that, but yet they don't have any tone.

1:00:06Brett Meiselas:It's all always about them. And they're continuing to win and profit off the American people and the American misfortune, but they don't care about that. And they can't even see it through their own lenses, man. It's wild.

1:00:17Ben Meiselas:Yeah. And so much of what government's supposed to do, Brett, Jordy, you talked about this earlier, is just the basic blocking and tackling, right? It's not supposed to be a reality show. It's not supposed to be dramatic or bizarre or any, it's supposed to just be like, you know, delivering the mail, right. Uh, ensuring that people are able to, uh, get access to services. Um, it's, uh, to ensure that, you know, people are able to, um, you know, live and prosper and just go about their day. And the same way Trump and Hegseth don't give a shit about logistics when it comes to war. Trump and Besson don't give a shit about logistics when it comes to basic economic things.

1:01:10Ben Meiselas:They deal in this whole propaganda world. And not only are the basics of what this is all supposed to be about get ignored, but they're just under attack. It's It's like the parallels here are so close. It's like the reason that the aircraft carriers were not getting supplies and still really aren't is that Iran struck the logistical hub that the U.S. military always used in Bahrain, right? It's like, how do you not recognize that? Like, we got to protect Bahrain and we got to protect our bases because that also supplies a complex network of food because our sailors and our Marines need to eat.

1:01:47Ben Meiselas:if you have them out there and you're going to do a never-ending war, which we shouldn't do. You got to make sure you have the supplies. But no, the Trump regime is too worried about whatever scheme or scam. They don't do that. And then you can get away with it for a little bit. But then as we've always said before, we talk about in our book, just like with the reflecting pool, the algae always comes back. Your fraud gets exposed. You can't do it forever. And the more you compound the problem, the worse that it gets. And that's why we're in this situation with these gas prices surging. And you may all have thought that.

1:02:19Ben Meiselas:I hope you didn't think that I sounded a bit hysterical a few months back, 60 days ago, when I was warning about these things happening. And I gave you specific details about the reserves, about what's going on in Yemen, about what's going on. I was talking to you about pipelines and things that really weren't being covered. And I hope you didn't think that I was just doom and gloom and just saying these things because whatever, they were inflammatory. I really wanted to give the roadmap of what I saw developing by the end of August, early September. You know, we're seeing a lot of those things happen.

1:02:52Ben Meiselas:So, you know, that's why Donald Trump, then, you know, he goes rinse and repeat at the midterm convention. You all heard him say it. I don't need to play the whole clip again. I'll play a little bit of it. But he goes, I'm the only one who can do it. If you vote Republican, but it's under this one condition that you vote Republican, I will give you all$5 ,000. Congratulations. Congratulations, really. You now get$5 ,000. And then I went back and I was like, I remember he would send all of those emails with Doge, the$5 ,000 Doge dividend check he promised that he would email all of his supporters.

1:03:26Ben Meiselas:I'll give you a$5 ,000 Doge dividend check, but you got to pay my MAGA PAC money and donate to me. And then I'll give you a Doge dividend check or tariff rebate checks or all of this stuff. And I mean, I just think it looks so utterly desperate. I think the American people see it for what it was. But here's what he said again last night. So you can see it for yourself. Let's play.

1:03:47Jordy Meiselas:That only I can make this promise to you. And here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic.

1:04:12Jordy Meiselas:And I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for$5 ,000.

1:04:37Jordy Meiselas:Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders. Or like last year when I gave our great members of the military, 1776. Remember?

1:04:55Ben Meiselas:Again, this era is going to be studied. It needs to be.

1:04:58Brett Meiselas:It's just the weirdest thing. I mean, if you're watching that clip, first off, he's hugging the podium as if he's hugging it to make sure that he doesn't fall over. And it is like the voice inflection of how he even speaks. It is so utterly bizarre. And then he makes it a game show. He makes it a contestant. He goes,$5 ,000. Real frigging road rules, man. It's absolutely pathetic.

1:05:22Ben Meiselas:And only if you do this thing.

1:05:24Brett Meiselas:Only if you do this, though. That's how you get this. You got to vote.

1:05:27Jordy Meiselas:As if it wasn't a bribe, as if it wasn't clear enough that it was a bribe, I want to tie it directly to the election results if you do this thing. Right. And, you know, I think one of the most devious things about all of this is if you kind of step back and you remember just how much Donald Trump has just crushed the average person in this country. Right. And, you know, Ben was saying, you know, just before how he uses these moments to commit more fraud by then sending emails out to his supporters and saying, you want to get that five thousand dollar check? Well, do this one thing. You've got to give me money first.

1:06:01Jordy Meiselas:And when you give me money, you're going to get rich in a little bit. But first, just send me money. Right. It's like those like Nigerian Prince emails. Right. Send the money here and this Nigerian Prince will make you rich in a few months. You're going to get a million dollars. But you just need to send right now a thousand dollars to this prince. and you need to help them out. It's really no, honestly, it's like there's no daylight between the two things. And then Trump followed it up earlier today by saying, in addition to the$5 ,000, we're going to give away these$500 rebate checks to 1 million lucky people who suffered under Obamacare.

1:06:32Jordy Meiselas:Again, very game show-like. And he wants you to forget that his regime let the Enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits expire. And so that everybody right now, because of Donald Trump's direct actions before we even get to the increases of premiums generally due to the insurance industry and everything else happening in our economy. The average enrollee right now in insurance is paying an extra$1 ,016 a year with the same plan they had last year because of what Donald Trump did or rather what Donald Trump refused to do. And that's, of course, on top of Americans already spending right now 670 to 770 extra dollars per household this year, just on gasoline and diesel.

1:07:18Jordy Meiselas:And these stats are like a month or two old. So it's even more than that right now. Like the Moody's guy, Mark Zandy at Moody's analytics, he estimated in June that the war had already cost the average American household roughly$1 ,000 each due to higher fuel, food, and other expenses. And so that's even more now. So Donald Trump here, I just was, what I want to point out is that he's doing what authoritarians have done throughout history. Ironically, what communist dictators have done throughout history, a point that Donald Trump has pointed out himself and told you the plan directly over the past few months saying, I'd be the best communist.

1:07:55Jordy Meiselas:All I'd have to do is offer all these free things and never deliver. It's what he's doing. He had already done it before then. It's what he's doing now. But it's even worse because he's following this authoritarian playbook and he's imposed pain on people. He's making people suffer. And then he wants them to praise him for offering them scraps, which they will never even receive. That's the tactic. That's the plan.

1:08:20Brett Meiselas:Exactly. Real quick, I just want to emphasize again just how utterly bizarre that clip that we just played, like the visuals of that really are. So you have Trump and the weird inflections in his voice. You got the crazy people behind him who are just like locked in like zombies. You have Trump's face itself. It looks like it's, it looks like it's melting off. He's hugging the podium. I'm just describing what I'm seeing. He's hugging the podium so he doesn't keel over. And then the camera cuts to who? Scott Besson. And what does Besson do? He tries to smile. And we all know Mr. Besson has quite a bit of what I presume is just tons of frigging Botox in his face.

1:08:55Brett Meiselas:So he just opens his teeth. Like he opens his mouth and does this like weird little clap. If you could even call it a clap, musters. The whole damn thing, man, it is a clown show, Ben.

1:09:08Ben Meiselas:Yeah. And he makes you suffer. He essentially steals your bread and then dangles breadcrumbs in front of you that he's never even going to give you the breadcrumbs from your own bread that he stole. and then he tries to make you think that you're indebted to him for the bread that he literally took and stole from you. He runs this scheme all the time. And look, here's the thing. The American people are suffering right now. And$5 ,000 is a lot of money, is so much money. I mean, most Americans can think about that$5 ,000 and this is what makes it so extra cruel that that, You know,$500 for Americans,$250 for most Americans could be the game changer right now about are they going to be able to eat the requisite amount of meals to get the right type of nutrition?

1:10:06Ben Meiselas:Will they be able to feed their kids who are going to school because Trump's cut their lunch programs? So you talk about$5 ,000 compared to what Americans are making right now. And he's saying, I promise you, and it's coming from the president of the United States, but it's all a lie. It makes the thing so extra cruel, even beyond, even beyond, you know, just the, just the fraud of it all. And then he goes on Laura Ingraham, state regime media, Fox. And she goes, well, so why not just give it right now? American people are suffering. So if you can give five thousand, it's actually a decent question.

1:10:46Ben Meiselas:If you can give five thousand after the election, just do it right now. Right. Why can't you? And watch what he says here. Play this clip.

1:10:54Brett Meiselas:Why not just give the money now? If you have the money, why not? They can't.

1:10:57Jordy Meiselas:I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it because with them, it's negative growth. With with us, it's so positive. So we're taking in$21 trillion. Nobody, no country's ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next one. All because of that beautiful word that you and I love more than most others, tariffs.

1:11:17Ben Meiselas:Do you like, do you? Again, completely deranged. He didn't even say a sentence. He just said a bunch of different words because the Democrats won't let it. What does it even mean? You control all branches of government right now. What do the Democrats have to do anything? because the Democrats won't let it. But after the election, the Democrats will let it, in your view. If the Democrats lose, then they're going to let it. And then that's -

1:11:40Brett Meiselas:The opportunity is now, to your point, you control all three branches of government. The Democrats have nothing to do if you wanted to launch this now and give this to people. They couldn't stop it. So do it, Donald. What's holding you back here? Oh, you're trying to make this a game show and lie to people. And the brawler really is - Stop Besson laughing. It is Ingram, for the people that asked Ben in the comments. We haven't played that interview in a very long time here. we've confirmed it with her brother in a very interesting interview that we've done in the past

1:12:04Jordy Meiselas:it is a little bit of a digression yet but yes the brother did confirm that i saw someone leave

1:12:08Brett Meiselas:like a really nasty comment to ben and i'm like i need to defend my brother's honor and he's correct

1:12:13Jordy Meiselas:shoo shoo comments uh what am i gonna say um yeah you know and scott besant there um you know making those faces you know smiling and acting like all is well you know the the irony of it is donald trump wants everything every every way right he wants you to think that he could just give you all this money. That would be like trillions of dollars, right? If he actually handed out, you know, the$5 ,000, which would ironically cause massive amounts of inflation, massive amounts of inflation if Donald Trump did anything like that and would cause interest rates to go even higher and higher and higher.

1:12:46Jordy Meiselas:But what Trump thinks that he could do is just keep stress testing the market and keep stress testing the market. And he thinks that all the other kind of market fundamentals will continue to ignore them. At a certain point, the markets reach a breaking point. And we're already seeing that with these. That's why the treasury yields are so high right now. And when you see what Scott Besant is doing with these treasury buybacks to try to calm the bond market, what you're seeing is that the bond market is realizing he's not calming it, but he is conning the bond market. And they understand that panic and they understand what is going on.

1:13:22Jordy Meiselas:You can only stress test the market so much, the fundamentals will always come back to burn you. And so Trump right now, you see him also, he's constantly pushing for what? Lower interest rates. If Donald Trump wanted lower interest rates, he wouldn't be doing all these other things that he'd be doing. Because all Donald Trump needed to get lower interest rates would be to not do anything. If Trump came into office and let the Biden economy continue on its trajectory, interest rates, remember, back then were projected. there to be multiple cuts, multiple cuts to interest rates. Inflation was projected to keep going down below the Fed target of 2%.

1:13:59Jordy Meiselas:Everything was heading on the right trajectory. All Donald Trump had to do was do nothing. But Trump did everything possible to cause incredible damage to the foundations of not only the United States economy, but to the global economy. And then he thinks that he can impose his will like he does, tries to do with everybody on these markets that don't give a damn about his will. They just care about the market fundamentals. And that's why I think this thing is heading for a crack. That's why this is heading in a dangerous direction. It's why we're not going to see lower interest rates. On the contrary, we're more likely to see interest rate hikes right now, no matter what Donald Trump wants to say.

1:14:41Jordy Meiselas:And this isn't some external market force that's causing it. It's Donald Trump's own actions having a direct impact on these markets.

1:14:49Ben Meiselas:You think about what the bond market is though, right? What's actually happening, right? The Treasury Department is doing bond auctions. And so who's buying bonds at bond auctions? Countries, large companies, large institutional holders. and they're looking to see, is this a stable bond market? And so the tension is between a seller of the bonds, the Treasury Department, and who's basically saying, look at all the demand that I have for my bonds, right? And the bond buyers, whether it's countries or institutions, and so the institutions and the countries are saying, you know what? I'm seeing Norway unload billions of dollars of bonds.

1:15:41Ben Meiselas:I'm seeing lots of countries sell their bonds right now. I'm seeing you do these bond buybacks, which is actually telling me that you're very nervous about your ability to sell bonds at these auctions. So we are not going to buy your bonds at the interest rates or at the treasury yields, the return, the yields that we're going to get. You have to entice us more if you want us to buy your bonds. And Besant is trying to say, well, I'm going to control this because I'll do a$6 billion buyback of some of the 30-year treasuries that are, don't mess with me. And the market, which I just want to let you know what that means.

1:16:29Ben Meiselas:These are countries. These are institutional. They're saying, you think that your scheme is going to get us nervous? We now see weakness. We see that you don't know what you're doing. And in general, we know that you can be paying us a lot more money if you want us to buy your bond. So when they do a round of auctions, these countries and institutional investors are saying, uh-uh, you have to entice us more. And that ultimately means the US is paying more interest on the debt, the notes, the bonds that are being purchased by these outside entities. I just want to explain to you what that means because the parallel here is very similar to what the world is seeing about the United States' soft and hard power.

1:17:16Ben Meiselas:No more soft power destroyed. The Secretary, the State Department's destroyed. Right. The multipolar world that we now live in no longer has the U.S. It's done. The U.S. is not a global superpower. That's done. The U.S. is still a powerful entity in theory in a multipolar world. But what you have increasingly now seen is it is much weaker. And you have to look at all these other poles that have developed. a Canada-EU polarity, a China-Russia-North Korea-BRIX polarity, and then the U.S. with its kind of exploitation and attack on its allies, as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today, and this is the former Secretary of State, I think we have this clip, right?

1:18:09Ben Meiselas:Go check for it. She goes, we're not a serious nation anymore. We're a dangerous nation. We go out and no one takes us seriously. And that impacts our bond markets. That impacts our equities market. It impacts our ability to project strength, soft and hard power abroad. It impacts everything. Just take a look. This is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. You play if you got it.

1:18:36Jordy Meiselas:Look, right now, we're not a serious country. We're a dangerous country. We're causing all kinds of problems in the world. We're making ridiculous, you know, stands. We're picking fights with our best friends. We're threatening our best friends. We're giving passes to those who wish us ill. I mean, we are not a serious country and we don't have serious leadership. If we do again, I think we can actually make progress. I remember.

1:19:01Ben Meiselas:Yeah, that's an important point. And it's one I've been emphasizing. And it's not a political point. It is we are not a serious country. We're not behaving like serious people, like grownups, like adults. And when you watch the behavior of what's taking place at that convention, this is not serious adult grownup behavior. This is the type of behavior we would expect to see in the most weirdest and deranged of cults, which, by the way, sometimes can have a lot of followers. But it's not that of serious governance, regardless of whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent. This is not serious grown up behavior.

1:19:40Ben Meiselas:I'll show you serious grown up behavior. Prime Minister Carney in Ukraine with Zelensky talking about a true vision of strength for the world and Canada's role in it. Let's just see what Prime Minister Carney had to say. Let's play. I don't want to front run things, but we will be looking to use the coming months to explore a deepening of that partnership across a broad range of areas. And we'll have more to say to that in Strasbourg. Thank you. Thank you. OK, please just, yeah. That was the non-answer to the EU membership. Now contrast him to MAGA Mike. Here was what MAGA Mike had to say about, let's play any MAGA Mike clip there.

1:20:29Brett Meiselas:Say I am on the ballot because in a real sense he is. If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y 'all impeachment is not even

1:20:38Ben Meiselas:the big concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body and they will go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors and friends. Yeah, it should be. And that's what the Congress is supposed to do oversight. If you're stealing money from people, if you're covering up child sex trafficking rings, if you're looting and pillaging our treasury, there should be investigate. Literally, you are supposed to be a co-equal branch of government, not supposed to be turned into, you know, normally I would do this, Brett and Jordi, I'll bring it back in. Normally, I would say like the Russian Duma or the North Korean parliament or whatever it is.

1:21:16Ben Meiselas:I honestly believe that they behave far more seriously than this group of clowns. And it pains me to say that. But the way Trump and this MAGA movement and these Republicans behave. It's just they are the enemy from within. They are working against the United States. They are a poison pill within our country. And the behavior is just straight up absolutely deranged. Two more data points I'll just make. I pretty much have talked about a lot, but the United States Supreme Court issuing a ruling that basically sides with the Missouri State Supreme Court, which blocked the efforts by the MAGA Republicans in Missouri to implement a new map that would be seven to one in favor of Republicans in congressional districts when it was previously six to two.

1:22:10Ben Meiselas:Now, the MAGA Republicans Secretary of State and Attorney General ignored all of the warnings by the state Supreme Court before and by other election officials saying, you may go through a primary with the wrong map and we'll have to overturn that. And you can come back and whine and say, oh, we already used the illegal map, so that must be in place. And the state Supreme Court, once they got this case before them and it worked its way through court, said, we warned you about this. We're not saying you can't do a new map. We're saying you can't unilaterally impose it. If you want to do it, you have to do a referendum, do the referendum.

1:22:47Ben Meiselas:You all MAGA leaders have blocked the referendum. You've made it more difficult to do what we told you you should have done. And if you believe that the state would have voted for it, you could have done what California did. And then we would have agreed with it. We would have been fine with it. But you didn't do that. So on a seven to zero basis, the Missouri state Supreme Court struck down the unlawful map that was used for the primary. And then the Republicans, the MAGA's argued, well, we used it for the primary, so we can't change it now. And the state Supreme Court said, no, you used an unlawful map.

1:23:18Ben Meiselas:Sorry, we're going to use the other map. And so the MAGA's in charge rushed to the Supreme Court last week. The Supreme Court blocked what they were trying to do to restore the unlawful map. And then the MAGA's forum shopped and got a Trump-appointed judge in Missouri in the district court who blocked the Missouri state Supreme Court. just made up fake law about the U.S. Constitution claiming it says if there's a primary, you can't go back. That's, well, who made up that? Why does it say that in the Constitution? Then the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal said we don't have jurisdiction. So then there was an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

1:23:57Ben Meiselas:And today the Supreme Court said we side with the state Supreme Court of Missouri. We're going to block what the district court did and what the Eighth Circuit did. And we're going to agree that it's the six to two map. So you had that development. Which which was it.

1:24:11Jordy Meiselas:But just think about this. I think about all the machinations of corruption to that are coming out of, you know, Missouri and all these kind of, you know, Republican states. When these things happen, there was, you know, another part of the story. And it was very confusing, right, because he had one ruling that said one thing, another ruling that said another. And there's a lot of confusion amongst people like. So what is actually happening? Then you have the Missouri secretary of state, a guy by the name of Denny Hoskins. He was telling the state to use the illegal maps. And so then they went to the Missouri Supreme Court, the people who were trying to get rid of these gerrymandered maps.

1:24:43Jordy Meiselas:And the Missouri Supreme Court today actually found that the Missouri Secretary of State was in contempt of court, in contempt of court because he was disobeying the court order from the Supreme Court and was telling his officials to use this other map. He was able to get that contempt of court purged before it actually took effect, this civil contempt, because he ultimately ended up folding, as he should, and ordered officials to use the correct map, the 2022 congressional map that is six Republican seats to two Democratic seats. But it just shows you how corrupt this entire system is and how these officials just do everything they can to just keep their power at all costs, even if it's just incredibly, incredibly corrupt.

1:25:29Ben Meiselas:Then you had this MAGA Republican Trump loyalist, Joe DiGenova, who had been tapped to oversee the DOJ conspiracy investigation that targets all of Donald Trump's political rivals. He resigned abruptly, and obviously, you know, we're trying to get to the bottom of more of that resignation. but sources described it to Catherine Falgers as growing frustration from Trump and senior DOJ officials regarding his work on the so-called grand conspiracy investigation based out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida. And so the short of it is here is that even the most extreme Trump loyalists are not loyal enough to Donald Trump's view of going after Trump's political opponents as they can't find things to go after him for.

1:26:23Ben Meiselas:And they're trying desperately. And so there's all of this infighting taking place. And, you know, I think it's an appropriate point to just end this episode because, you know, the wheels are coming off in a profound way right now. They are. And the thing that is disconcerting is that last time in 2020, we had an election where we had a new president. This is an election where we're voting for the House and the Senate. They're still not the executive branch. And I think one of the things that Trump is setting up for is what he's frankly best at, and I don't mean this in a positive way, is blaming.

1:27:09Ben Meiselas:A lot of the, I promise you$5 ,000, I promise you this and that, is also the setup for the blame. When his policies result in catastrophe, he finds a Dr. Fauci, a Biden, someone to put it all on. And so what he's looking to do now and what the broader plan is, this is how losers behave. Losers behave when they lose. They don't take accountability. They blame. And so what he wants to do, ah, I was so close. We were right about to get rich. Everything was about to be amazing. You were about to get$5 ,000. Things were going to go great. I told you, we did everything I said. I had to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

1:27:50Ben Meiselas:I had to stop him. I had to do it. Even though he said you obliterated and you're the one who got out of the JCPOA, which stopped them under the Obama administration. You're the reason for all of these problems. Then he goes, we were so close. And then the Democrats came in and now they screwed it up. Watch their quick pivot. And then everything from New York City Mayor Mamdani giving a heartfelt speech supporting 9-11 survivors and families of loved ones and releasing health records, all of that becomes Obama tan suit 2.0. right oh Obama Zoran Mamdani handed a pen to somebody to the police commissioner who gave it to this guy and oh my did you see the way he handed the pen how dare he had the pen like that it's like yeah Donald Trump's a literal traitor to our country like he's a treasonous traitor and they're going to devote all Hassan Piker the pen that this did that look at him naked on screen you know all this crazy stuff the Obama playbook they you know they will push the blame and the craziness, a tsunami, a fire hose of disinformation and blame.

1:29:00Ben Meiselas:Oh, they're not being fiscally conservative. Y 'all ran up the debt to over$40 trillion. You screwed up every, you're not fiscally conservative. Then they want to act like, oh, they're the ones who solve it. You were the arsonist. You created the fire. You created the massive catastrophe that we're all dealing with. So what we talk about though in WTF American, why I think it's an important book way beyond the election is it's how do we get out of this hell generationally? Because we can't just go back to the status quo, both from the perspective of we can't go back to a status quo, Democrat, kumbaya, let's just whatever.

1:29:41Ben Meiselas:It's all good. Things are normal. No, no, no. We have to understand what the people are experiencing and what they're going through. But we can't go back to the seesaw of Republicans break it and destroy it. Then you try to fix it. And then they tarnish the people trying to fix it. And then we go back to them to break it again. This cycle is something that has led to Trump being a vessel of this authoritarianism forming. And Trump's an idiot. But the next authoritarian that comes in may be a little bit smarter than this idiot fat. But the wrecking ball that this person is causing, we can't normalize.

1:30:21Ben Meiselas:It's not about political messaging. This isn't a normal election. This is some existential stuff that we have to recognize. If we want our nation to survive truly, we have to get out of this seesaw cycle of returning these degenerates, these Trump regime arsonists, whatever manifestation they take back to power. Otherwise, we're done as a nation. It's not me being hyperbolic. And right now, we're at an existential moment. We really are. We really are. And we all have to now more than ever stick together, fight together, and call this stuff out. So that's what I got. Brett, Jordan, anything else you want to say before we go?

1:31:00Jordy Meiselas:I think you summed it up well. Great episode, brothers. We went through a whole lot today, long episode, but hey, there's a lot of news, and it's all incredibly important. We're going to stay on top of all the coverage. I remember to tune into our YouTube channel for new reports just about every 90 minutes, including a lot, you know, incredible live shows as well throughout the day, every single day. Midas Touch podcast. Make sure you add the show on Apple podcast on Spotify, any sort of podcast app. Just search for the Midas Touch podcast. And thank you to everybody who pre-ordered the book. Remember, there are those couple of deals going on for the book.

1:31:32Jordy Meiselas:And so make sure you get it before that ends. Barnes and Noble and bookshop.org. And it's available anywhere. Audiobook, Jordy. Great job. We all we all we all we're all really proud of the audio, but we all recorded parts, as we said, and we're really excited for you to hear it, for you to read it, all the above. It's it's really meaningful to us. Thank you, everybody. Jordy, why don't you take us away? Shout out to the Midas Mighty. The Midas Mighty is standing strong.

1:32:03Jordy Meiselas:Against the fascists, we sing our song.

1:32:38We'll get it right whenever