Trump Panics as Meidas Leads Boycott of State of the Union!!

0:00Ben Meiselas:It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers. But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. I'm R.J. Decker, a private investigator uncovering the Sunshine State's darkest secrets. Tuesdays, it's the premiere of ABC's hottest new crime show.

0:40R.J. freaking Decker as I live and breathe. He's a private eye. It's not a standard murder. It's someone bigger. And a public mess. Trying to get sent back to prison today? You go to prison one time and suddenly it's all the jokes. R.J. Decker, series premiere, Tuesdays on ABC and stream on Hulu. Tax Act is here anytime you want to easily file your taxes. Tax Act is here for the early birds who like to knock them out as soon as the season opens. And for the procrastinators who like to wait until the very last minute. Tax Act is also here for the middlers who file right in the middle of tax season.

1:20No one ever talks about the middlers, but Tax Act sees you and Tax Act respects you. Tax Act. Let's get them over with. Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great.

2:00Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments? When the killer's identity is about to be revealed. During that perfect meditation flow. On Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad-free podcast episodes, so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad-free, included with Prime.

2:55Ben Meiselas:And we already have about 19 senators and members of the House of Representatives who will be boycotting the State of the Union and will be joining us at the Midas Touch Network. This is unprecedented in history. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans hate what we are doing. Right wing media has been attacking the Midas Touch Network, as has MAGA, for the fact that we've been putting on this event. But frankly, I don't care. And I expect that the number of senators and Congress members to grow and perhaps even be around double what it is right now. 19 will be joining the Midas Touch Network's boycott.

3:37Ben Meiselas:I expect that number to look more like 30 to 40 in the coming days. But we will see and keep you posted. Here's our official flyer right here. The People's State of the Union. February 24th, 8.30 Eastern time, although we'll probably end up starting earlier than that. You can watch it here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel, but it's not just the lawmakers who are going to be here on the Midas Touch network. They're also going to be alongside heart and soul of this country, federal workers, immigrants, and other Americans impacted by Donald Trump's policies will also be at our event. They'll be speaking.

4:18Ben Meiselas:And again, this has never really existed. There's no historical precedent for it, but we have to lead by example. And that's what we always do here at the Midas Touch Network. And Trump and his regime, as I said, absolutely hate this. A few housekeeping matters. As you can see, we're very close to 6 million subscribers. Hit subscribe right now. Help us hit 6 million subscribers before the State of the Union. Let's make a statement there also go to midasplus.com that's our sub stack join that right now so here's how it's being reported in the press democrats plan counter programming during trump's state of the union that's from the hill or usa today people state of the union what democrats plan for trump's speech and all these members of congress have been announcing they are going to be joining the midas touch event and skipping the state of the union boycotting the state of the union.

5:12Ben Meiselas:Here's how New York times reported it. Democrats plan to counter Trump's speech to Congress with rally. And it says the event, which is being coordinated by the left-wing advocacy group move on and Midas touch a progressive media company will feature democratic lawmakers speaking with people who have been negatively affected by Mr. Trump's economic and healthcare policies, as well as federal workers who lost their jobs and immigrants who have been targeted by the Trump administration. It will be hosted by the liberal political commentators, Joy Reid and Katie Fang. It's always funny to me when corporate news uses these labels.

5:51Ben Meiselas:The liberal hosts and the progressive, I mean, look, at the end of the day, we don't like fascism, and it's a pretty easy decision for us not to stream live the State of the Union and to support the boycott and to use our massive platform here at the Midas Touch Network to lead that effort in terms of bringing the distribution of it to the American people. Why would I want to watch a fascist who's covering up a child sex trafficking ring with a bunch of other pedo protectors that are there mocking the American people, lie after lie after lie? No, I'd rather host and use this incredible platform that we've all built together with you, host people talking about policies and hearing from Americans and immigrants and people who can share their experiences.

6:47Ben Meiselas:I don't know. That's what I would like to see. And frankly, when we hear from the American people, that's what they want to see as well. I don't know if you saw this, but now that they're in a partial government shutdown yet again, because the Trump regime refuses to negotiate with Democrats over the Department of Homeland Security demands, the DHS demands that it's ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo, it's Nazis, it's SS, it's paramilitary, that they always be able to wear masks when they terrorize communities. No body cams at all, masks, and no judicial warrants, and they want to make sure they're there at the polling places come the midterms.

7:33Ben Meiselas:Look, You want to know my view? My view is we need to abolish ICE and Border Patrol, and we need to prosecute each and every one of those people who have been involved in torturing and terrorizing the American people and others in this country. The Democrat demand is a little more moderate than what I just suggested, but okay, okay, what do I know? They just say, here, body cams, judicial warrants. Don't be at the polling locations at the midterms and no masks. But for the MAGAs, they go, the MAGAs are like, that's a non-starter for us. We can't ever agree to that. Those are non-starters. Those are non-starters for you.

8:17Ben Meiselas:Let's hear from what the American people are saying. Here's a Missouri voter, probably who will be watching the Midas Touch People's State of the Union, the real state of the union that people are going to be watching. Here's a Missouri voter yesterday calling in to C-SPAN. Here's what he has to say. Trump needs to be removed. Let's play it. He needs to be removed. Trump needs to be removed. And everybody that has kowtowed to him, Patel, Bondi, and all those people need to be removed and prosecuted for their crimes against the public. And the fact that he's taken all our medical money to finance ICE is totally ridiculous.

9:04It's sick. OK, what about a Tennessee voter who called in to C-SPAN talking about the importance of affordability? Play this clip. I think there's probably very little doubt that affordability and health care is the major thing going around here in Tennessee. It's basically a small town like I live in. The loss of people's substances is forcing, I know a lot of people now, because they just don't have no health care. They can't afford it. And the price of everything is going up around here. Heck, that gone car battery is costing$300 now. Just a few years ago, three years ago, was about a$100,$105 battery.

9:45People just affordability because we're a low-wage state or county. And our biggest thing right there, of course, the Epstein files, I don't know what they'll ever come up, you know, because if we just turn all these wealthy people loose, that's just turning them, you know, freedom, bring them back to their children what they want to if you've got money. Of course, that's the way that that works. But definitely affordability of groceries, groceries. You know, you see states bringing$25 a piece here, you know, out of the grocery store. Well, this little county can't afford that kind of stuff. And like I said, health care, a lot of people lose their lives over that because they're making a decision now whether they buy groceries or medicine.

10:28What about this independent voter who talks about the ICE facilities that are being built in Baltimore right now and how they're taking people off the streets, kidnapping him in the masks and throwing them into these warehouses where they terrorize and torture people? Here, play this clip. They're building an ICE facility out in Harrisburg, not Harrisburg, well, out west, and they're taking people out in Baltimore. more. And I think the biggest issue, not to be glib, is, you know, stuff like, you know, the Epstein files and the corruption of the federal government, where our resources are being put towards, you know, things that don't reflect our values at the state and federal level, like people being disappeared off the streets, you know, would be bad enough if They were just not citizens, but including citizens being disappeared off the streets by men in masks to who knows where without a record available to the public, while at the same time, people in the highest positions of power, including the president of the United States, is covering up the distribution of release of files about trafficking.

11:47I mean, did you see some of this incredible reporting by ProPublica? Hat tip to our friends over there at ProPublica. They're doing such a great job. They've documented how Trump's Nazis, his ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo, rounded up the little children that are in these detention centers, these concentration camps, and stole their writings and their drawings and their letters because ProPublica published them before. And so now the Trump Gestapo stole the ability of these children to write letters. Did you hear the story about the two-month-old with bronchitis who almost got killed? Was at that Dilley Detention Center facility and there was no doctor on site despite it being run by a private company that taxpayers fund to the tune of billions of dollars.

12:40This little kid almost died. They brought him to the two months old. That's all this kid knows. And then they brought him to the hospital, almost died there, barely survived. And then the Trump regime, Juan, Juan Nicholas, then they immediately deported him to Mexico right away, trying to kill this two-month-old. ProPublica also reported on some of the messages coming out from these kids. And they're tortured. They're suffering. They're being starved to death. The water's making them sick. You know, the atrocities. I mean, there are tons of people who are dying at these concentration camps. So no, I'm not going to play live the authoritarian fascist state of the union because the state of our union has been destroyed by this authoritarian regime.

13:32We'll rebuild it. We'll rebuild it, but I ain't playing that. I ain't playing. They could attack us. The right wing could go after us all they want. I ain't playing it. We're going to be hosting our own event. That's what we do here at the Midas Touch Network. By the way, Lane Brown in Oklahoma, he posted this. This is incredible. People were being arrested for speaking out against AI data centers. This is in Claremore, Oklahoma. Claremore, Oklahoma. This is a very Trumpy area, a former Trumpy MAGA area. and Trump and Trumpers keep trying to throw these data centers into these communities. People don't want these data centers there.

14:21There are so many issues right now, and I keep saying this, that aren't Democrat, Republican issues. People are wising up that these framings that media wants to, ah, liberal, conservative, this, that, are ways to divide us. Right now, a lot of these issues are good versus evil, harmful versus helpful, right? Things that make people sick and destroy versus things that help people prosper, right? We need to recognize these things. I mean, it's not a political thing that the Trump regime is covering up a child sex trafficking ring. It is an evil, despicable thing. That's what it is. And what you see here in Claremore, Oklahoma is what we're seeing across the country in quote unquote liberal cities, conservative cities, independent.

15:12People don't want these data centers, which are eating up the energy, causing energy bills to spike, making people sick in the area, and also fueling AI that's taking away people's jobs, among other things and other health concerns. Take a look at what happened in Claremore. Play this clip. You're arresting him! What? Oh! Channel 8, Channel 8, note how they let the person positive go over his time. You're shameful, you're shameful. Shameful! Everybody take a picture of this. Disgusting! We need to get through the meeting so that everyone can talk. Now, why don't y 'all quit arresting people?

16:06You know, and then with all this taking place, what's Donald Trump doing? He's posting photos of the ballroom that he wants to build. The frickin' Golden Ballroom, right? Where he, remember the reporting I did on the Golden Ballroom as well? where Trump's now arguing it is a national security matter because if we don't build the ballroom, it's going to make him sick because he destroyed the East Wing and there could be asbestos there now and the rubble and the Secret Service can't get by. So Trump argues, I kid you not, that his life is at risk if the East Wing ballroom is not built right now.

16:48He also said that there's major national security implications if the golden ballroom isn't built. And he submitted two declarations that were classified, classified declarations. And as I said before, one of the things he wants to do there is build that bunker underneath the way Hitler built a bunker underneath or wanted to build a bunker underneath his ballroom. You know, Trump's posting things like this as well. He goes more on the will be the greatest ballroom ever, but you got MAGA posting things like this. This is what the Republican, the GOP accounts. This is what they wrote yesterday. Wages are climbing.

17:26Costs are falling. Our economy is thriving. This is the Trump effect. It's my Howard Lutnick impression of saying it. Wages are down. Costs are up. And the overall state of the economy is not resilient and it's not doing well right now. Stop gaslighting the people right now. Stop it. 14 million households now owe past due utility bills. There's no energy boom. It's an affordability crisis, as Aaron Black explains. This isn't leadership, it's neglect. Americans are far more dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy than ever before. Just think about it. The amount of delinquencies in credit card bills, in utility bills, the amount of delinquencies in commercial leasing arrangements right now, where banks are having to foreclose on commercial leases at numbers not seen since great recessions.

18:31And with all of this taking place, we're now preparing to go to war with Iran, a massive war, weeks long, U.S.-Israel, that's it. None of our other allies. They don't exist any. It's the U.S. and Israel. Trump says he's 90 % in the next few weeks going to launch this strike. And that it can take weeks.

18:54Ben Meiselas:Israel is preparing for war within days. We have two aircraft carrier groups there. What the hell is going on? Who wants this war? No one wants this war right now. We just want to help people get housing here in the United States. I just want people to be able to have health care in the United States, and people to be able to have jobs with dignity, not just a living wage because they ain't even getting a living wage, a wage with dignity that they deserve. That's what people want. Ro Khanna, Democratic congressman, writes, Trump is positioning two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships and hundreds of fighter jets to prepare for possible war with Iran?

19:42I first got into politics to end the Iraq war. I won't let Trump launch a disastrous war without Congress voting to stop it. They're saying there's a 90 % chance of strikes. So Thomas Massey and Kana, they did a war powers resolution. And they're saying, look, we're going to try to block Trump from doing this. A war with Iran could be catastrophic. It's a complex society with 90 million people, significant air defenses, military capabilities. We have 30 ,000 to 40 ,000 US troops in the region. What are we doing here? What are we doing here? And all the while, you've got the Trump kids hosting a crypto conference yesterday, whining about being canceled.

20:30Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny. A bunch of freaking whiners. Here's what they said. We've been dealing with the conflict of interest stuff for years. I mean, they tried all this nonsense the first time around. Frankly, it's gotten old. They were the ones that put us into this position by creating legislation to try to put us out of business. We just fought back. We weren't willing to sit in a corner, curl up in a ball and die like they would love us to do. That's not how we function. That's not how we operate. And you can see that whether it's my father or us, that's never going to happen.

20:58We're going to do what we need to do. to fight back. It's a crazy law of unintended consequences. If you look at what they tried to do when they threw my father off of Twitter, and they did the same to Don and myself and pretty much everybody else in our family, they took us off of Twitter, they took us off of Facebook, they took us off of Instagram, they took us off of YouTube, they took us off of Google, they skewed all the searches. They did everything they could to suppress. So guess what we did? We went out and we formed Truth Social. Then not too long after that, all the banks, they started canceling us.

21:23Left and right, every single one of them. Every single one of the big banks. They started canceling us. Guess what we did? We went out and we got into DeFi because we realized it was future finance and you know the great irony is half of the very executives that called us back in those days to cancel us are actually in this room right now it's kind of it is a law of unintended consequences and i think you know for a long time they fought it and i think at this point they realized they can't fight it uh the train has left the station this is happening worldwide the whole world is adopting crypto in a very very big fast manner uh and they would much rather be on the side of something that's clearly the future uh than be trying to fight it in perpetuity.

21:59By the way, here's the list of 19 senators and Congress members who are going to be joining our event at the State of the Union, the People's State of the Union. I expect there to be many more, but here's the list right now. Senator Ed Markey, Senator Jeff Merkley, Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Tina Smith, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Congresswoman Anzari, Congresswoman Ballant, Kassar, Escobar, Himes, Jacobs, Jayapal, Larson, Kamliger, Dove, Pine Gree, Randell, Scanlon, Ramirez, Watson. I expect there to be many more. I expect there to be many more. We'll keep you posted every step of the way. Hit subscribe.

22:44Help us get to 6 million. Thanks so much for watching. new Midas merch head to store.midastouch.com today and get yourself the best pro-democracy

22:53Ben Meiselas:gear and show your support that's store.midastouch.com feel your best and amplify your everyday look with Thrive Cosmetics go to thrivecosmetics.com slash shine26 for an exclusive offer of 20 % off your first order that's Thrive Cosmetics c-a-u-s-e-m-e-t-i-c-s.com slash shine26