Trump's Big America 250 Gamble Backfires

0:00Ben Meiselas:Well, this is arguably one of the weirdest things I've ever reported on at the Midas Touch Network about Donald Trump, and that's saying a lot. Donald Trump's final event for the so-called America 250 took place this week, and it was an utter disaster. Yeah, it's still going on, America 250. Could you believe it? It's been disaster after disaster. The final event is what Donald Trump called the Patriot Games, which he said would feature the greatest athletes within the United States of America involving high school students ages 14 to 17 years old. And he said these would be the best athletes in the United States of America, and they would be competing at these games that would be like the Olympics.

0:44Ben Meiselas:Well, it was anything but. So the event took place in a small city called Geneva, Ohio. The population there was under 6 ,000 people. Look, I don't want to mock these kids because I'm sure they're well-intentioned. I don't know. My goal isn't to mock the kids themselves, but they were not the best athletes. They weren't really good athletes at all. And as we and others dug into the criteria for being a participant in these so-called Patriot Games, the Trump regime mostly recruited from Christian schools, from Catholic schools, from evangelical schools, and they would ask the students to submit a video essay and also a regular essay, and they would be selected on that basis.

1:36Ben Meiselas:it was mostly all white kids. There was one or two. I saw a few people who weren't white, but it was mostly white kids. People really weren't in great shape. And they were doing kind of games you would see at the state fair or like in gym class in fifth grade. They were doing like dodgeball and they were doing tug of war and they were doing like weird obstacle courses that I mean, I hate to say this, but you know, when you see those dog competitions and the dogs go through the obstacle courses, that's like what a lot of these obstacle courses looked like. It was like American Ninja Warrior, but like a bootleg version of a bootleg version of a bootleg version.

2:24Ben Meiselas:I think about when I was a kid growing up, I remember I attended, I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And these people showed up pretending to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but they were wearing cardboard boxes. I remember I was, you know, five years old and I cried because they were wearing, it was so horrible looking. And so this is the cardboard box Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of Ninja Warrior. It was so bad. And, you know, it's just getting ripped online right now. I mean, I saw, I think the recount posted a video of one of the kids who was in the involved in the competition who was going through the obstacle courses and it was just so bad and it was not good I don't want to get I'm I really don't want to mock the the kid and so I'm not going to show the video I was debating should I show you the video of him doing the obstacle it's it's really really bad and he was very serious and earnest about going through the obstacle course and and throwing the tennis ball at the velcro thing and and and doing the tug of war it was really, it was really tough.

3:28Ben Meiselas:It was tough to watch. I'm not going to make you endure it. Okay. And so here were some of the comments. Looks like, looks, looks like they did a, looks like they did a dog, looks like they did a dog agility course. The keep it together, Ben. The fact that they picked mid white athletes at best speaks volumes. How much of our taxpayer dollars went into this farce? The competition was silly. And the first video footage looked like boot camp, which maybe is what they were looking for. This wasn't a competition at all. It was like being at some state fair games. Watching this kid go through those agility sticks was an experience.

4:10Ben Meiselas:So MAGA fifth grade flag day games, only missing the egg on a spoon and a potato sack race. Dog DEI Olympics is a hilarious way to put this LMAO. It's mostly all like 98 % white kids. DEI Olympics. So we are all supposed to pick 95 % white kids to participate in this. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that our best athletes were not present at the event. And then there was a part where the guy said triumph and he pronounced it triumph. Anyway, I thought I was watching a dog agility competition, mediocre games with T-MU medals. I think you get the point right there. And so, you know, you had the Trump regime promoting this.

4:54Ben Meiselas:The girls took on the presidential qualifier this afternoon and left nothing behind. Round one of the 2026 Patriot Games is officially in the books. And then Donald Trump went to the finals on Tuesday. And by the way, it aired on Thursday on ABC, primetime ABC. And as of this recording, they have not released the Nielsen ratings because you know it was just so bad they're like covering up the ratings of the patriot games it was prime time and you know if it was good you know you get the day after ratings right you know that right so like normally you have an event and then the next day you get your initial readout and then more data comes in and they're covering up what the ratings are because it's so bad also was abc paying for this did abc give the air time for free was this part of the settlement agreement that they entered into with Donald Trump before.

5:51Ben Meiselas:So this was ABC ESPN. You had Pat McAfee, that ESPN host, like the Patriot Games. Yeah, it's not happening. We know that this is some ridiculous thing right here. This guy, Ben Koo, he posted, I showed you the photo of Donald Trump looking very creepy at these little girls. Ben Koo goes, I'm watching the Patriot games as it was not shown locally due to Bengals preseason football last night. The last event before the freedom finale contestants are set is Papa shot Papa shot. Do you remember, you know, the games when you go to like a Chuck E. Cheese, you go to a Chuck E. Cheese, bring my daughter to the Chuck E.

6:35Ben Meiselas:Cheese and you shoot in a little hoop. That was one of the it's really stupid. This is. Oh, my God. It's really sad, but isn't this a microcosm of all things MAGA, right? They would mock the woke athletes and this and that. These are the people who were like, yo, we don't want men and women sports, whatever the stupid stuff they're saying. All you care about is participation trophies. Dude, this whole event is a participation trophy. I don't know what we're even watching right here. And then, you know, you had, again, it was Geneva, Ohio, small area. You look at it, you had the, you know, it was pretty empty also.

7:16Ben Meiselas:It was like in this like weird warehouse building. It was not well attended. I don't know, maybe there was 700 people who showed up, including Donald Trump. as our Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Scott McFarlane writes, quite a paragraph in the Washington Post report about the Trump-touted youth Patriot Games in Ohio. The event billed itself as bringing together America's best youth athletes with all participants between the ages of 14 and 17. But the White House-backed Freedom 250 nonprofits scarcely promoted the competition outside of its own channels. There appeared to be only a handful of non-white participants.

7:56Ben Meiselas:The Atlantic described it as such. What if your high school gym teacher walked headfirst into a pole and was then asked to throw an Olympics with a budget of exactly$6 and three weeks notice? Welcome to the Patriot Games. And here's how I give a hat tip to the CNN segment. Here's how they described what went down here. Play this clip. So after the break on this morning, we're going to talk about one more thing, Trump's Patriot Games. Have you heard of this? Basically, we want to know whether this is a representation of America, this youth sports event, or maybe a kind of MAGA Olympics. The last time I left my doctor's office, they basically just told me that I was fine.

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10:56Ben Meiselas:attended Great American State Fair and a world record-breaking July 4th fireworks show held alongside a dangerous lightning storm. Next weekend will bring a high-speed car race through the museum line streets of Washington, but all of these festivities, the Patriot Games, might be the oddest. Organizers convened 120 teenagers from across the country, and they are telling the next generation of leaders, competitors, and champions, but also whoever happened to respond to an online request for personal essays and video entries at a high school in Geneva, Ohio, population 5 ,924, roughly 45 miles northeast of downtown Cleveland.

11:36Ben Meiselas:For three days, they competed in gym class staples such as ball toss, long jumps, tug of war, dodgeball, and an arcade-style basketball game called Victory Hoops. Victory Hoops. They called it Victory Hoops. They called it Victory Hoops. The field was narrow to eight contestants who competed before the president on Tuesday night, clambering through a Ninja Warrior style obstacle course while wearing red. We're so freaking cooked. We're so cooked. Oh, boy. One boy and one girl were crowned champions and each was given a 125 ,000 scholarship. ESPN has streamed more than 26 hours of this contest.

12:21Ben Meiselas:And this guy goes, the reporter goes, I could barely follow how the various events were scored. It was like watching a nationally televised field day. And then it said Trump came the last day. He was front and center watching the grand finale unfold and eyeing the golden trophies that he could present. But who were these contestants? How were they chosen? Why these random events? What does this say about our country? The biographies of these kids suggested that the organizers might have struggled with recruitment in some deep blue jurisdictions. The boy representing Puerto Rico has a southern accent and resides in Texas.

13:06Ben Meiselas:Elsie Buchart was the contestant for Vermont, but her hometown was listed as Ohio. Her cousin Rebecca Roberts competed for Maine, but her hometown was Cornish, New Hampshire. Bobby Vickers was representing Massachusetts, but she's from California. I get a bunch of questions like, why are you representing Massachusetts and not your home state? But I think it's really cool because a lot of my family is from there. And my favorite basketball team is actually the Boston Celtics. I'll show you some B-roll right here as Donald Trump creepily dances with these high school white kids at the event right here.

13:43Ben Meiselas:I'll show you the, this is the male and female 14 and 17 year old athletes arriving at the Patriot games. I'll show you this right here.

14:14Ben Meiselas:and uh this is apparently that we paid million this is what our taxpayer money is going to here i'll show you this

14:58Ben Meiselas:And then I'll give a hat tip to Myron Clifton, who did a recap of it, just so you can see for yourself what this looked like. This is Myron Clifton's recap here. Play this clip. Yes, so I watched these Patriot games on ESPN, so you didn't have to. Here's a quick recap of the whole mess that was at Spire Academy in Geneva, Ohio. Now they had this little game right here where they get a little agility deal, and this guy is named after Ronald Reagan and David Dukes, and there he is doing this little agility. and they did

15:36the cannonball I don't know what this is the girls they were there as well this is she ain't no Chicago Richardson but that's alright you know you're in high school you're learning how to hurdle that's it I found brother man out there he was playing kickball man you should have kicked that ball back to Cleveland they had dodgeball this is like when you have rainy day at school you just do some indoor activities. And after one day, this is the leaderboard. You got Brendan, Rockwell, see his little names. You got Kylie and Bridget. You got a Tegan, you know, all solid names. I found Brother Man again, like, come on, Mr.

16:22Man. I saw something here. did like 360 so everybody know where you are sister they did this thing where you kick these little these little balls and they stick up there right i forget that little game we play when we're kids then they had them throw the ball through here and then these were moving targets and then they did my man rockwell myers is that that's a real name he went tumbling over this little pyramid scheme and then they did the monkey bars but you know what they weren't even skipping bars. I used to be able to skip three bars, but Mr. Rockwell Myers, you know, they had, what is this?

17:01Pool of War, Tug of War. And, you know, okay. And they even did this little Dave and Buster's little basketball. This is too much. And then they had like American Ninja Warrior course. It was the Patriot course. I thought these were cats because I thought that was Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell but those are just I don't know of course or something see that's just a little chorus and they were doing like a marriage in danger warrior but about a hundred times easier they had this little deal right here right and then I was looking you know these are like some of the crowd it wasn't really a big crowd there mostly like a repass and then um yeah he was there because there were kids that's a better shot of the crowd I see something up there.

17:48Ben Meiselas:Mr. Man, I see you up there, sir. They'll either go to college and get in athletics or, you know, they might do something else. I don't know. It reminds me when I was in the Junior Olympics. That's me right there. I got the silver medal in the 50 and my cousin got the gold. She never let me forget about it. It was a lot of fun. So congratulations to all the winners. You know, you basically rose up to my level when I was 12 years old. Good job. Well, there you have it, everybody. Oh, here's Donald Trump saying it was going to be the event with the greatest athletes ever. This is Trump's. I'll give you my grand reveal.

18:20Ben Meiselas:This is what Donald, after you've seen all of that, here's how Donald Trump described what this event was going to be. Let's play it. In the fall, we will host the first ever Patriot Games, an unprecedented four-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes, one young man and one young woman from each state and territory. But I promise there will. And doesn't that just sum it all up, though? I'm sorry. I was like crying. This thing was so bizarre. But here's the, let's get serious though for a moment as well. Donald Trump said this is going to be the greatest event, the best athletes, the biggest and the best, but this is everything.

19:00Ben Meiselas:This is painted blue on the reflecting pool. This is Pete Hegseth running the defense department. This is Operation Epic Fury. They give it the name. This is, you 90 deals in 90 days. This is tariffs make us rich. This is we brought in$19.1 trillion. This is we've never been hotter. This is who he is. This is who he is. And authoritarian, check. Incompetent, check. A bad, evil person, check. Check. A sexual predator. Check. A felon. Check. You know, a bad, bad, bad person. Check. Someone who bankrupted companies. Check. He's bad at doing things. He's bad at doing things. Like, what the hell is that?

20:03Ben Meiselas:You could have done the best athletes and the this and the that. You could have brought in the best musical talent, you know, in the America 250. You could have done it. You could have done the fireworks great and not screwed them all up by doing all the fireworks at once. So all it was was a bunch of smoke. And you could extrapolate this to the broader issues facing our country right now, for real. I just don't get the guy's a loser. The guy's an effing loser. He's a loser. Don't you see? He hangs out with losers. And by By the way, him hanging out with losers, that's a step up from the types of people he loved hanging out with during the 80s and the 90s and the early 2000s, the pedos who were his friends.

20:51Ben Meiselas:So I guess losers is a step up, but some of those losers are pedos too. And they cover up child sex trafficking. All right, enough, enough of me, enough of me. Anyway, thanks. Thanks for watching, everybody. We appreciate you. Before you go, our book, WTF America, is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.