transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 4:
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Speaker 1:
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Speaker 6:
[04:59] The catastrophic war in Iran continues. The United States has essentially run out of its munitions and its stockpiles. Things are looking very grim, and Donald Trump held a disastrous press conference today saying, you know, the ceasefire will take how, you know, well, extend it till whenever. I'm not really in any rush to do anything right now, whatever. Vietnam took 18 years, so who cares? I took a little break. I'll take a break. It is what it is. And then the feed shut out, and Donald Trump, when the feed shut out, said he had to go to the bathroom, but he didn't use those precise words. I'll show you what went down in a little bit. And this followed Donald Trump making social media posts that were scattershotting all over the place today. He was saying we need to kill the negotiators. And then he says, I'm ordering the Navy to shoot any boat, putting mines in the Strait of Hormuz. We actually have full control over the Strait of Hormuz. Just one thing after another. And while we have this naval blockade in the Persian Gulf that Iran is being able to get around, Donald Trump also fired his Navy secretary, John Phelan. We learned that John Phelan, after being told he was fired from Pete Hegseth, then rushed to the White House and was like, say it isn't so, Donald, say it isn't so. And Donald Trump's like, he didn't build my battleships quick enough. I wanted the battleships. So Donald Trump doesn't believe in aircraft carriers or stealth ships. Donald Trump won ships to look like World War I, like these big bulky like ships that make no sense in warfare today. And he wants them to be called Trump ships. And John Phelan wasn't quick enough to do that. Also, John Phelan was following court orders and not retaliating against Senator Kelly based on what the court order was. And that was pissing off. Pete Hegseth will cover all of that and more. We're learning about another massive scandal. One else is new in the Trump regime where a deputy Homeland Security top counterintelligence official was involved in a Sugar Daddy website. The Sugar Daddy, to her, believed that this was a national security threat, which I believe it was as well. Went public with the allegations about what she was doing, asking for like $40,000 a month. She's like a 29-year-old person with very little experience and apparently on the Sugar Daddy websites. And then someone else at the Department of Homeland Security was leading the Department of Intelligence is that guy, Thomas Fugate III, the 22-year-old former intern who doesn't have any national security experience. This is how deeply un-serious the Donald Trump regime is right now. Also, we had Trump officials on Capitol Hill being cross-examined by the Senate and the House of Representatives. Howard Lutnick refused to answer any questions about Epstein. Howard Lutnick was asked about conflicts of interest and about tariff refunds. And Howard Lutnick basically pretended he didn't know anything at all. RFK. Jr. continued to say the most outlandish and embarrassing and humiliating things when he was cross-examined. We had Energy Secretary Chris Wright. You had Jameson Greer, the Trade Secretary. You had Scott Besant up there. Really just one humiliation ritual after another humiliation ritual. We'll try to cover as much as that is possible. I mentioned Epstein before. The Trump regime continuing to work with the DOJ and Congress to perpetuate the cover-up of all things Epstein. We know that Donald Trump is working on a pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell right now with the House of Representatives. And again, how do we know this? I mean, James Comer, who's the chair of the House Oversight Committee, gave an interview with Politico where he said that there are a lot of members in his party who are working to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Also, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are saying Republicans are now refusing to hold any hearings at all regarding Epstein or Epstein files or anything regarding these child sex trafficking investigations. Instead, they want to hold informal roundtables so that there aren't subpoenas, aren't under oath depositions. And this apparently is at the request of the Trump regime as well that wants all of this covered up. We'll cover this and more on this episode of the Meidas Touch Podcast. Great to see everybody. Once again, Meidas Touch on audio, number one podcast in the world right now, based on the latest metrics, Beating Joe Rogan and All Right Wind Podcast. That's on the audio side, on the video side as well. The YouTube charts, Meidas Touch once again, number one on the video YouTube chart. So word of mouth is the best way that this show gets to be viewed by so many people. So make sure you share this episode and you share this YouTube channel or this audio, however you're listening to it, to as many people as you know, and tell them to listen to this to get the truth. Brett and Jordy, how are you doing? Doing great. It's good to be here, Ben. Good to be here, Jordy. Just another normal day in the United States of America, huh? That was good news to wake up to, I will say, in the midst of all the chaos to see the MeidasTouch Podcast be number one on the charts of all shows. I think that's a testament to this community. So just want to give a quick shout out to the community for making this possible. This show has been built entirely by word of mouth, by you sharing it with friends, you going to the Apple Podcast feeds, the Spotify feeds, adding the show, rating it five stars. So thank you so much. And if you haven't done that yet, do it now or do it again, rate a five, give a five-star rating again. Right now, it all really helps. And I think you're seeing the impact of this. I think we could sum up kind of what's been going on, by going back to Donald Trump's phrase back in the day when he said that he only hires the best, the best people, the best people. As you see all of these people who are now going in front of Congress, and you just see all the people around Donald Trump, and you see these so-called best people deal with this disastrous Iran war. You see why I am being sarcastic when I reference Donald Trump's comments regarding the best people. It feels like everybody in every position is the worst person designed for that position. And even the people who should be competent in these roles and who actually have the experience, once they get into this administration, it's like being bit by a vampire and they get this Trump virus and they become absolutely deranged and subservient to Trump and just throw all morals away. You had even RFK Jr. today. He was talking. They were inventing alternative math. They were trying to justify Donald Trump saying that he's going to cut prices by 600 percent. And RFK was explaining why Donald Trump's math is actually correct on that. Let me explain you some alternative math. The whole thing is so insane and ridiculous. And we got a lot of fast moving developments with this war in Iran. You got to separate fact from fiction. We have Donald Trump, you know, almost at a minute by minute basis, just tweeting like blatant lies about the war. Everything he says is a complete and utter lie. And it is absolutely shameful that we cannot at all trust the information coming from the White House, coming from the president of the United States, and the president of the United States. And it is an issue of the utmost importance. We got a lot to get into. First, I got to trust it over to Jordy. Jordy, what's the latest? What's up, brothers? MidasMighty. For the audio listeners, brothers, you guys left me out of the loop here. I didn't realize we're wearing glasses on today's show. You guys are looking snazzy. When I woke up with like the biggest migraine, I could not make you feel bad about pointing out that you're wearing glasses. Yeah, I mean, that's why. But I do like the glasses, but my eyes needed a break. I was like, I was feeling like awful in the morning, but I'm like, let me do glasses. I'll bounce right back, and here I am with the people with The Meidas Mighty. Let's go. A lot to get into tonight. Benji, where are we starting off today, Big Bro? Well, think where we were last Friday, where Donald Trump said there was a deal. Iran surrendered. They agreed to everything. We controlled the Strait of Hormuz. Iran will stop funding all of its proxy groups. Minesweepers were heading in forth with an incredible situation. American military excavators were meeting up with the Iranian military excavators, and they were going to go through the various nuclear facilities to get all the nuclear dust. And the markets were manipulated. Wow, this is all so great. Everything was false. Just remember, that's where we were last Friday. So as we head into this weekend, where were we on Thursday morning? Well, Donald Trump made posts saying, let's kill the Iranians who don't want to do a deal. He said, I'm ordering the Navy to shoot any boat, putting mines in the Strait of Hormuz. We actually have full control over the Strait of Hormuz. He said, so much control that we're not controlling it. I don't need a deal. He said, why would I even need a deal? We've already won the war in the first place. But it's really more than just those headlines because when you delve into it, every word, every syllable, every sound, every utterance, every mm-ah is laced with a complete and utter lie. And I don't want to use the word superpower and imply a positive correlation, but Donald Trump's power, if you want to call it a power or whatever it is, like literally everything is a lie. It is a fire hose of lie after lie just spewed out. And what he wants you to do is bend into his reality and live in his world of lies. And then you become compromised almost like being bit by a zombie. And then you're part of this world of lies. And he tries to drag more and more people into it. It's why in order to confront it, you have to confront it with relentless truth, right? Every single day over and over and over again. And that's what we do here at the Meidas Touch Network. So Brett, you know, I roll out of bed in the morning and I see these posts and I wonder sometimes in my dreaming, is this really happening? And then I go, okay, yes, it is happening. This is 2026. This sadly is the world that we inhabit, but there will be a better day someday. I'm confident about that. But here are the types of posts that are made early in this morning at like 6 a.m. Posts like this. Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is. They just don't know the infighting is between the hardliners who have been losing badly on the battlefield and the moderates who are not very moderate at all. But gaining respect is crazy. We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz. No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is sealed up tight until such time as Iran is able to make a deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. Again, literally every word here is false. Just from the fact that Iran is able to get a lot of its tankers through about 34 ships, according to the Financial Times, from Iran, have been able to avoid the blockade. But more significantly, we do not control the Strait of Hormuz. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. Donald Trump makes up a fake scenario of this in-fighting that's happening between a certain faction of the Iranians and another faction of Iranians. You had Jesse Waters kind of pushing this just bizarre fake narrative. And he's like, so you see there's a gay Ayatollah who was kidnapped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Let me show the tweet because I think it's even beyond like belief like this tweet, right? It's so insane. And I had a feeling you're gonna get... People go, has Ben lost it? You'll show the... Yeah, because when I saw this the other day, I screen-shotted it and I said to you guys, and I was like, look at the shit they're saying on Fox. Like, how do they get away with this crap? It's like, it's not even like, oh, they're spinning, they're fudging the truth. They're making up a unhinged MAGA fan fiction about the war. Let me show you Jesse Waters' tweet here, which comes from his Fox broadcast. Remember, this is like the most-watched show in primetime on Fox News. And Jesse Waters, with a siren emoji and all caps, writes, breaking. The Iranian Guard just took the Ayatollah hostage. Generals are blocking peace talks, holding their own negotiators hostage while the economy collapses. No one is calling the shots. A coup is in the works. US warships stacking the region. One wrong move and it all ignites. And he played the entire segment from his episode that night. And if you watch the segment, and we're not going to play it right now, but it's even more, it's even crazier than that tweet. Ben said he constantly refers to the Ayatollah as the gay Ayatollah, because they think like that's funny and they think like that hurts the Ayatollah or something. I don't know what they think, but this is all part of their weird psyops games that they're playing. And then they say things like that, there's this coup happening and the guy was taken hostage. They just make it up. It's all fake. And you might think, well, at least there must be a kernel of truth to what he's saying. Like someone wouldn't just blatantly make up this entire, no, they made up this entire story. It is complete deranged fanfiction from MAGA about this war. And this is what is being injected into the veins of millions and millions and millions of people in this country. And this is the same sort of stuff that Trump is saying as well. You have his reality media saying things like this as well. And it really makes you see, oh, they're just putting out all these sort of psyops. They're trying to invent this alternate reality because the actual reality is not super flattering to what's going on. And, you know, even when Jesse Waters says it, they're making excuses for Donald Trump's failures. And so when Jesse Waters was broadcasting this segment on the show, Jesse Waters was like, something's just not adding up here because Donald Trump said that the Ayatollah wanted to make a deal. But then they were going to send negotiators. JD Vance was going to go. But then Iran refused. So what happened? Because Donald Trump told me that this was all going to go in plan. So they must have hijacked the Ayatollah. They must have kidnapped him and held him up. Or Donald Trump's a liar. Donald Trump's a liar and you're a liar, Jesse Waters. You're a liar. Everybody who is out there doing this sort of stuff on Fox News. And you are trying to cover for somebody who is a complete and utter disaster, a complete and utter failure, someone who has humiliated the United States on the global stage, somebody who has made the United States look like the weakest country in the world. It has brought shame to the United States and shame on you, Fox News and all the people who perpetrate this bullshit for doing so. The lies are so big and so ridiculous that it actually has you second-guessing yourself at times. Is it a gay AYATOL? The lies are so crazy sometimes. It's just like, surely Jesse Waters wouldn't lie about that. He only refers to it as the gay AYATOL also. That's the only way he talks about it. But he also knows he's not going to get sued by the AYATOL, so he could say whatever he wants. And that's where the fan fiction, the Fox fan fiction comes into play in such a big way where it's so poisonous because the lies are so big and so ridiculous that it has you like, some of this has to be true. But no, no, it's complete fan fiction what's happening over there, Ben. Right. Then you get a post. I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boats, small boats, though they may be. Their naval ships are all 159 of them at the bottom of the sea. That is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our minesweepers are clearing the Strait right now. I'm here by ordering that activity to continue. But at a tripled up level. Thank you for your attention to this matter, Donald J. Trump. We have zero minesweepers in the Strait of Hormuz right now. Yet alone a tripled up level of zero. The only time we tried to put a minesweeper in the Strait of Hormuz was during the first round of negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, where a minesweeper tried to get into the Strait of Hormuz. Then Iran's Navy, the Sapa Navy, announced over the public radio, Sapa Navy, Sapa Navy, turn around or we will shoot. Sapa Navy, Sapa Navy, turn around and shoot. Then the US Navy responded, we're turning around, we're turning around. Then the US Navy ship retreated, the minesweeper retreated, and we tried to do that during the last round of negotiations. Iran said, all right, we're going to leave the negotiations and we're going to blow up your ship. The United States proud, strong, powerful Navy back down. And then the US lied about it and said, that's not what happened. We had two minesweepers. They said, they did a complete east to west route through the Strait of Hormuz. It was a successful mission. And we started clearing the mines. Then we saw the video and the video actually confirmed what Iran said happened, not what the United States happened. Then we're supposed to move on to the very next lie. I mean, Donald Trump then also says over here, during the negotiations, how we're going to shoot and kill the small boats. It's like, okay, look, if you want to do that, then go to war. I've said this before. There's a war path. Trump's already committed war crimes. He's a war criminal. He should be tried at the Hague. I don't want to see further escalation. I don't want to see war just so you know where I personally stand. However, if you want to talk about killing, death, destruction, blowing up, if you want to bomb Iran to the stone age and you think you can dominate them in a war, you have a war option. You didn't achieve these results in a war. And now you're in negotiations. In negotiations, at the very least, you have to respect the other side's right to exist. As a threshold matter, also in a negotiation, you need to make some concessions. Iran has been clear that it wants to negotiate within its 10-point framework. You agree to the 10-point framework. I'm sure if you give Iran many of the points of the 10-point framework, even though they're saying there are non-negotiables, I'm sure they'll agree to certain things. I bet you they'll agree to a nuclear deal that's similar to the Obama-JCPOA deal, probably a little weaker than the Obama because they believe they've won this war and they now control the Strait of Hormuz. During the Obama negotiations of the nuclear deal, Iran didn't control the Strait of Hormuz. They now have something they didn't have before. I think you can get a weaker version of the Obama deal. Then you can probably open up the Strait of Hormuz totally. However, Iran probably wants to recoup certain amount of losses that it incurred in the war. It claims those losses are $262 billion. I'm sure there's room for negotiation. They say $262 billion. You say $100 billion. Maybe the first $100 billion in toll fees or money that's made by opening up the Strait of Hormuz goes to Iran, and then it's fully open. In response, the US can say we have a multinational coalition of lots of countries, Europe, Asian countries, Middle East countries. They bring their Navy in as well to ensure permanent safe passage, and then Iran's not able to close down the Strait of Hormuz again. But it stays open. Iran gets a payment. Iran keeps its ballistic missiles and drones, remove most of the sanctions against Iran. What I described is probably the only outcome of how you could reach a negotiated settlement. If you're like, Ben, but then we have to concede all of these. Iran will want permanent security guarantees for Hezbollah, for the Houthis, and for the Shiite militia groups in Iraq. If you can concede those things, that's probably where the negotiations end, and you could declare it a victory in a way. You can open up the Strait of Hormuz, but you'll have to pay Iran. You can get back the Obama deal, which you were mocking for so long, but it was actually a strong multilateral deal. That's probably the best case solution that exists. But you can't go into the negotiation, I'm going to kill you if you don't negotiate. Iran's response, if you're going to kill us, then kill us. Then do it. Then go to war, and we'll see how that works out. We know from reporting from The Wall Street Journal and others that the United States is running very low on munitions. It'll take about six years to replenish the munitions. If there were to be a war that breaks out in Taiwan right now, the United States does not, according to The Wall Street Journal and other sources, have the capabilities to even help Taiwan at this point, because in just a short period of time, 54 days, we basically have gone through all of our stockpiles over there. That's not a good sign right there at all. This is the current status of things. One of the things that Iran also threatened is that, and it said this very matter of factly, they wrote through their FAR's new agency and Mayors and Tasnim. They said, well, one of the things that we should probably take into account as well, is that a lot of the Internet cables that connect global Internet activity and hook up to data centers, one of the big areas of connectivity, connection points goes right through the straight of her moves. It definitely raises lots of national security concerns if you're using the Internet to attack us. That may be on the table. That may be on the table, cutting the Internet and basically shutting it off globally with the Internet cables that go on the seabed. And so Iran has a plan of how it responds next. And if Trump, if you want the smoke and the fire, go for it. That's what Iran's saying. And Donald Trump continues to make posts like this. Let's kill the ones who don't want a deal. If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn't, let's kill the ones who don't want a deal. Trump doesn't need a deal to get what he wants from Iran. And Iran's responded with a unified voice. You have their parliament leader, MB. Golubov, their president, Pesachian, their foreign minister, Aragchi, their judicial leader. So basically all of the kind of, you know, forces, like from the spiritual side to the parliamentary side, to the civilian side, to the military side, all of them reposted each other's statements in the statement that they all posted. Basically, identical reads as follows, In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates. We are all Iranian and revolutionary. And with the iron unity of the nation and government, with complete obedience to the supreme leader of the revolution, we will make the aggressor criminal, we will make the aggressor criminal regret his actions. One God, one leader, one nation, and one path, that path being the path to victory for Iran dearer than life. And they all posted the same message. And then you had Iranian media saying, it's ironic that the US is claiming that we're in chaos and panic and having all of these leadership struggles when the US and Donald Trump at Hexeth had basically fired 20 of its top generals, admirals, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you know, cabinet members. You know, the Trump regime is the one that's in utter chaos right now. And this is what the FAR's news agency writes, the IRGC intelligence organization's reaction to the chaotic political situation in America. The president of the United States speaks of division in Iran while over the course of the 50 days of the war, I think we're at 54 now, his popularity has dropped to 35 percent, six political and security officials and 20 military generals have resigned, including while we have a naval blockade, the secretary of the Navy, while our army is at war, the chief of staff at the army, a four-star general, Randy George, General George and his wife, these are beloved military figures fired by Pete Hegseth. Previously, you had the head of Southcom resigned or was pushed out because he didn't support the war crimes blowing up the fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela. You had the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs get fired by the Trump regime. So that's actually where the chaos is happening right now. Then you had Donald Trump hold a press conference and we'll talk a little bit about him, what went down in this press conference today. The purpose of the press conference, I guess, was supposed to talk about lowering prescription drug prices where Donald Trump makes up numbers, like he reduces prescription drug prices by 600 percent. In essence, if you're buying a product for a buck, that means the pharmaceutical companies are paying you $600 to buy their $1 product. So it's just utterly ridiculous. The feed cut out and then Donald Trump said the following, let's just play the video of what Donald Trump did, let's play. He said, I could use a shit. He said, I could use a shit. He goes around talking in the Oval Office about taking a shit. And I mean, look, we could say, you know, why is that important? I mean, first off, it's just like, why are you publicly articulating that you have to take a shit in the Oval Office? And then it's also the context of where of like, what's going on here as well. Like he was having this disastrous press conference where he's making up that he saved the lives of eight young women in Iran, beautiful young women, little girls, these very young, very young girls, very young women. He saved up again. He makes up this whole story about how he saved that there are these eight young women, very young, very young, very pretty. He wants to make that very clear. They were about to be executed by Iran. And then Donald Trump calls up Iran. He says, even though he claims that he's not talking to them, but in this fan fiction, he called them up and released the women now. And Iran's like, we're not going to do that, Donald. We're at war. And Donald's like, if you don't do it, I'm going to make a very mean social media post. How mean is it going to be, Donald, says Iran. And Donald Trump says, there will be many capital. There may many capital letters. There may even be a curse in it. And then Iran says, we're going to release those beautiful young girls to you. We're going to release them. Thank you. You don't want to mess with this anymore. Right? I mean, that's Donald Trump's fan fiction of what went down. He's not speaking to, he's said in the same press conference that he's not talking, that they're not talking right now and that he is all the time in the world. Yet apparently, he's negotiating with them of eight young, beautiful girls. Here, play this clip.

Speaker 7:
[29:56] The military operation, whatever you want to call it. And they're coming to us. The problem they have is they are very disorganized right now. Well, now, yesterday, and I was very pleased with this. Eight young women were going to be executed yesterday afternoon at six o'clock. And I asked them, call it a favor or call it just a moral request that they not be executed. And they came back with an answer that they won't be executed. They're going to release. It was protesting. Eight beautiful young women, very young women. And they were, the pictures in the paper. And it's been a story for a little while. And I saw that and I said, let's see if we can save them. And they were, it was very nice what happened. So, they're not going to be, what they're doing is, as you know, they're releasing four of them very shortly and they're gonna keep four of them in jail for a period of one month and release them. So they won't be executed yet.

Speaker 6:
[30:53] That's an entirely made up story. That didn't happen. Again, that's just part of Donald Trump's perverted weird fan fiction of saving young pretty girls or whatever the hell goes on in his mind. But if you also remember what he said back in January, he said that he stopped the executions back in January from happening and he made a key, called them up and got a favor and stopped the executions in January. Remember he said he saved 700 executions from taking place and he's the reason why those executions stopped. There's the, it's like, the guy lies about everything. I mean, quite literally, everything he says is a lie. And he, I think part of his, if I could point out any maybe strategy, and I put that in big quotes for this of his lies, is he kind of forces people to then deny it and waste a bunch of time saying, I didn't do that. I didn't say that. I never talked to you. And so today, you know, as part, one of the reasons that Iran released that, that those unified statements amongst their top leadership was what Donald Trump was pushing and Israeli media was pushing today, was that, that MB. Golubov, who is the Speaker of Parliament in Iran, they were saying he was ousted. He's no longer involved in this at all. He has no say in anything that's going on. He's been pushed out. And there were other reports quickly came in that, that was like another lie. That was just total bullshit from other reporting in the United States like actual reporters. I think the Atlantic reported, for example, that that was just totally made up. But meanwhile, Trump was running with it, that Israeli channel was running with it. And so the Iranian officials ended up releasing that statement. Donald Trump the other day, I'm reminded of when he when the ceasefire, the so-called ceasefire first happened. What did Donald Trump say? Oh, immediately the countries of NATO started calling me and they were saying, sir, sir, could you please let me through the straight now, sir? We really need to get through the straight now that you solve the problem. Can you please let me through? And I was like, I don't think so, NATO. I don't think so. You weren't there for us. And he told the story in front of people like whatever rally he did and stuff. Like, obviously, I don't know what conversations happened, but I could say with pretty good confidence that that never happened, that no countries immediately called him and started begging him for help after the fact. It's all part of this just facade that he puts on, this show that he puts on, where he makes people then come out and say, no, I didn't. I didn't do that. I didn't do that. And all the right-wing media is in on this. I think it's interesting when people try to say like, is MeidasTouch, that's just a left-wing version of the Fox or the Democrat version of the Fox? I mean, first off, I don't think what we're doing at all is the left-wing or right-wing. Like if you're going to tell me that you're cutting drug prices by 600% and me fact-checking that is a liberal thing, that's just an objective fact.

Speaker 8:
[33:52] Okay.

Speaker 6:
[33:52] That's just math.

Speaker 8:
[33:53] Okay.

Speaker 6:
[33:54] This isn't a partisan thing, but we've become so political as a country and Donald Trump has politicized everything that people begin putting you in those boxes. Fox is literally pumping out lies all day.

Speaker 9:
[34:06] They lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

Speaker 6:
[34:08] They're flooding the zone with lies. And what we try to do here is flood the zone with what's actually going on. And so to equate the two as being two sides of the same coin to me is just like the total wrong way to look at it. Although I am happy when people realize that we are crushing Fox when it comes to the YouTube rankings and getting far more views than them. So I will take that. But the reason why I think it's important that we are doing that is because that's what we are up against. OK, I said that we weren't going to play this Jesse Waters clip. Let me play this Jesse Waters clip because you just need to hear how how insane this is. And then I'll toss it back to Ben.

Speaker 8:
[34:46] No one knows who's calling the shots. Vance, Wyckoff and Kushner were supposed to leave for Islamabad, but they never took off because the Iranian delegation never took off, which is suspicious because this morning Trump said the gay Ayatollah authorized the deal.

Speaker 6:
[35:03] Come on. Come on. Was it as advertised? And then it gets worse than that, but I won't I won't bother you with it. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, please hit subscribe here. Help us get to seven million subscribers. Also, make sure you subscribe to the audio podcast. We're number one in audio, beating Rogan there as well. Let's keep it that way. Subscribe to the MeidasTouch audio right now and hit subscribe on our YouTube channel. We've got a lot more show. Let's take our first quick break. Ask any small business owner and they'll tell you that finances can get messy quick. A bank account here, quick books there, tax and invoicing apps stacked on top. Before long, you're buried in expensive tools behind on books and unsure where your business really stands. That's why there's Found. Found eliminates the clutter by giving you one platform that handles it all. Banking, bookkeeping, invoices and taxes. 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That's M-E-I-D-A-S-1-5 for 15% off. The Perfect Jean.nyc, or Google the perfect jean and use code Meidas15 for 15% off. Let's go. Shout to our sponsors. Links in the description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you that Jesse Waters clip. I mean, just come on. It's like, on a more serious note, there's nobody steering the ship here from a leadership level in the United States. What we have here with Donald Trump is a walking contradiction. The straits open, the straits closed. I'm talking with the Iranians. I'm not talking with them. We're negotiating. We're not negotiating. No one knows what to do in this moment because Donald Trump doesn't know what to do. He's not a good negotiator, as we've spoken about on this network many times. He's not a good businessman. And now he's put in a situation where he actually has to lead. The issue with him is he's filled his cabinet with a bunch of yes people that are either too scared to give their opinions on how to get us out of this situation or too dumb to actually come up with a real solution in this moment. All you have is Donald Trump running around the Oval Office screaming, I need to take a shit. So what are we doing here as a society when we look at Donald Trump and we're like, that's the guy that's supposed to lead us out of this? This is going to turn into a forever war. Like this war, I'm not in the prediction game here and I don't like doing things like that, especially when it comes to something as serious as this. But I don't see this ending anytime soon, Ben. Well, because I think if you look at the dynamic that we all discussed in the first segment about what a negotiation would have to look like and what escalation looks like, Donald Trump is in this middle ground area where he's just going to delay, delay, delay and do what he does with his healthcare plans. He needs two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. I'll get this in two weeks. I'll do that in two weeks. I'll do that. It's all a lie. I mean, we saw Howard Lutnick testify today about the gold cards. Remember the Trump gold cards and they said they were going to sell hundreds of thousands of these gold cards. Remember, they talked about that. Yeah, it's going to fix all of our problems. It's going to fix the debt. You got to say they're going to fix it. Do we have the clip of Howard Lutnick, Brett, on the podcast that he won on those right-wing podcast bro stuff, where he talked about $5 billion or $5 trillion was going to be made because they were good. Trump says we're going to be able to do a million. Do we have that clip? Yeah, I was with the Silicon Valley dudes. They're all in podcasts and he said $5 trillion. Here, I'll play right now. I was like, just listen to this blatant lie. And I think it's very telling what they say when they're on a podcast or if they're on Fox and what they say when they're under oath. But watch this.

Speaker 9:
[41:21] By the way, yesterday, I sold 1000.

Speaker 3:
[41:24] Oh, you did? I got a polymarket I created on how many of you guys are going to sell this year.

Speaker 9:
[41:28] And how many people do you think there are that could qualify in the world? There are 37 million people in the world who are capable of buying the card. In case you were wondering.

Speaker 3:
[41:36] 37 million.

Speaker 10:
[41:37] That's a lot more than Chad GPT told me.

Speaker 9:
[41:39] Who are capable of buying it.

Speaker 3:
[41:40] Who are capable of buying it.

Speaker 9:
[41:42] Now, I'm not saying they will, but they're capable of buying it.

Speaker 3:
[41:45] How many do you think you'll sell?

Speaker 9:
[41:46] The president thinks we can sell a million. So $5 trillion.

Speaker 6:
[41:50] By the way, that's his Jeffrey Epstein voice. Do you remember when he was with the New York Post person? It's that same voice. Like when he lies, it's also this like, I never met him. I never met him again. And I would never meet, that's $5 trillion, $5 trillion. So then he testifies today. And he's asked by, I believe it's Congresswoman Meng. Can you, how many of these have you sold? Because you said, by now, you'd be selling close to a million of these. And so far, I mean, just curious how much were sold. And I'm not sure if we have the clip right or not. But then he basically says, we have one. We have one. Do we have that clip?

Speaker 11:
[42:29] The Gold Card Visa Program. President Trump directed you in coordination with the Secretary of State and Homeland to establish a Gold Card Visa Program. As you know, people who are able to pay at least $1 million into the Commerce's gift account are eligible for permanent legal residence and potentially citizenship. I wanted to ask, how many of these applications have been approved and how many gifts have been received by Commerce?

Speaker 9:
[43:04] The process was recently resolved with DHS, who runs the program. They do a $15,000, the most serious vetting and analysis of any potential applicant in the history of government. Usually, it was $600. These pay $15,000 for an extraordinary vet. They have approved recently one person, and there are hundreds in the queue that they are going through the process. This is a new program, and they've just set it up, and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly, and so we've worked through that. But it's a DHS program done with a rigorous, rigorous vetting.

Speaker 6:
[43:45] It was your program that you and Trump rolled out, where you said you were going to sell a million of them. You've sold one of them, which by the way, I don't even believe they sold one of them. I'm curious to see who that one is right there. Jordy, what were you saying? I just want to add this. I think this got overlooked in that whole thing. He was trying to brag about how rigorous this program is, DHS program. It usually cost $600. Now we're doing $15,000 reviews because it's such a rigorous process. We have all of these applicants and the only one's gotten through. Sounds a lot like government waste to me. Sounds a lot like no one's really doing their job if they're reviewing all of these applications over here. We're spending $15,000 of pop over here to figure this out. I don't know. Maybe there should be some sort of committee that goes through government waste and plucks that stuff out. If only. I wonder if anyone would act on that. You notice how different Lutnick is too when he's under oath and he's forced to admit something like that compared to being on the podcast. Ben, to your point, on the podcast, he was doing that Jeffrey Epstein voice that he did on The New York Post. Every time he lies or embellishes, he uses that. He was disgusting and I didn't like him. He was gross. And then, the people listening, I don't know if you pick up on it as much, but when you watch him, he's crawling in his skin when he's asked about this, because he knows that he needs to now admit that this has been a complete failure. He knows that he has to admit that they've only allegedly sold one of these things. When in the past, he said 1,000 and said they would sell at least 200,000 or a million, and they were going to make $5 trillion, all these numbers that he threw out. As you watch him, you could hear it in his voice, you could see it in his body language, the way he just wants to crawl inside his skin. The guy is a liar. He's a pathological liar. All these people are liars. All the things about the tariff shelf and the $18 trillion coming in. Everything they've said has been a lie. It's all a con. It's all a fraud. Well, and the way they talk about the betting odds, and it's my opinion, I'm willing to bet that, and I actually know at least one of the people on that All In Podcast are investors in Polymarket or partners with Polymarket. So they got Lutnick to come on the show. He's talking about how many of these things he has theoretically sold. They are then encouraging people to bet on how many of these things have been sold. Lutnick coming on that show spikes the odds of that bet right there. So they're manipulating this other market that these other people are investing in. The owners of this podcast, the host of this podcast. I mean, everywhere you look, there's like a scheme going on. Once again, my opinion, but I believe there are so many schemes going on like this every day. I hate liars and I don't respect anybody who lies. But I also don't respect to like the nth degree, bad liars. What did Lutnick think he was going to do? He was going to go in on that all in podcast, just lie and think no one five, six, seven months down the line was going to be like, hey, remember that five trillion that you promised to put into the US economy? Where is that?

Speaker 4:
[46:56] Or you just know?

Speaker 6:
[46:59] They lie about the dumbest things and they're so arrogant. Because I think for all their lives, they got away with lying because of who they are, because of who their families were, how much money they had. But now when people are holding their feet to the fire, like, hey, that five trillion, like that could help us. Where is that? Great idea. Where is that, man? And then just crickets. And then that's why you see when he's in that hearing, he's shrinking because he knows the jig is up. It's up. Everyone knows you're a fraud. They've known before, but now this shtick, this lie that, I guess you just never knew that anyone would figure out, hey, where's the money? There is no money. You haven't sold these damn things. Like, what are you doing, Lutnick? Here's the thing. They don't care. They want a headline. They want the corporate media to repeat it. They want their MAGA influencers to repeat it and to amplify it uncritically. And then they move on to the next thing. Well, that's what you heard in that interview too. When that interview, going back to the All In interview, they were just repeating what Lutnick was saying. They were going, oh, 37 million people could apply for it. Oh, a million dollars a pop. Oh, because to our point, if I turn the dollars to the economy, we've been talking about people cannot even fathom, the average person cannot even fathom that someone would lie to your face like that. Just lie to your face without any shame. But they do it every day, every hour. The biggest lies, imaginable, big numbers, global geopolitical situations. This is what they do. This is part of their whole shtick. The reason I brought up Lutnick in the context of the war though also is the same way we're now caught in this Hormuz death trap with lie after lie, gimmick after gimmick, made up thing after made up thing. Oh look, I saved the eight women. Look, we have a naval blockade. Look, we did this, we did that. How great is it? That just goes on and on and on and really drags on like kind of in perpetuity. If you think about what Lutnick is doing though, remember Donald Trump added over 30 percent of our national debt during his first term and we all recognize that national debt is a major problem right now and for future generations. It basically steals and robs the future of future generations. ZenCurrent, we need to pay off the debt. So every year, basically, we're contributing to pay trillions of dollars in interest off of our existing debt. So the Trump scam, it's the oldest trick in the book. You say, how are we going to fix the national debt? You find what the total number is, right? Then you create all of these items that get you to that number. And so, you know, we brought in $21 trillion from foreign countries, all made up, all fake. Okay, so $21 trillion, you put that in a bin. $5 trillion we've now made from selling Trump gold cards. So you had $21, you've got $5, you've got $26. Doge has now saved us so much money that we're giving rebate checks. Okay, so we add that to the bucket right there. And then you go to the tariff shelf, and then the tariff shelf adds to it. So you have all of the national debt eliminated based on this plan. The problem is, it's all fraud. It makes Enron's accounting look sophisticated, right? Like this is done at a national level. This is Enron on nuclear steroids, writ large globally, where they've- and by the way, it's literally the same thing. The issue with Enron, you hear the expression, they're cooking the books, they're cooking the books, right? You've heard that expression? Trump cooks the books. He was literally found civilly liable for doing it. Separately, he was found criminally liable for fraud. His whole life has been bankruptcies. He cooks the books, that's what he does. So now he's cooked the whole books of our nation. So he tells people, we fixed your national debt, we hear all of the things, and then people start to wonder right now, well, why don't I feel it? Why don't I have it? And then he gives you a BS response. Actually, because we're doing such a rigorous national security review, da da da da da da da da da da da da da, and it's just like lie after lie after lie after lie after lie. So here's the thing though, right? Because the question is, do the people get it right now? Do the people understand what's happening? So Donald Trump right now has a lower approval amongst independents than Richard Nixon at the time Nixon resigned, and as low of an approval generally as Nixon. Trump has the same approval as George W. Bush, leading into the Great Recession and at the worst point of the Iraq War when George W. Bush was there. So Trump is either equal or worse than the worst approval, the highest disapproval that's ever existed. And it's not just one poll. You have the AP-NORC poll, you have the Fox poll, you have other polls as well. And they all have Donald Trump in like the 33% range, the 35% range, you know, it is, and it's only getting worse and worse. And on issues like economy and inflation, I mean, it's like record setting low. So you remember all the pressure on Biden when Biden's approval was low? Well, Biden's approval at its lowest was still like 10 points higher than where Trump is now. Which is fascinating to me because what really should be taking place internationally, nationally rather, what should be taking place, it is happening internationally, but nationally, is the conversation should be about, this guy needs to resign. Like in normal functioning countries that are an authoritarian, where someone has such a low approval and such a high disapproval, the number one story that should be front page on every paper and leading all of the news, frankly, is a countdown for resignation. The pressure should be so overwhelming amongst people with power and influence, not just from the people itself as well, but from people close to Trump. That's what happened with Nixon, it was Republicans, there was people who could whatever, they said, we're going to do it. But now you have this sycophantic, mago-republican, distorted, perverted GOP, that's just very, very like weird and bizarre. And they go on, oh, Trump's the greatest negotiator. It's five-dimensional, Chow, this is brilliant.

Speaker 9:
[53:35] You have to escalate to deescalate. This is how you do it.

Speaker 6:
[53:38] You don't understand the art of the deal. He did this, and now China's begging us. We're making China beg. Oh, we're making China beg by the US, removing its Staten Patriot systems from Asia and us getting rid of all of our munitions, so that if China really wanted to do it this time, they could easily take Taiwan. That's how we show China's economy is growing. China is sitting back and they've never been more powerful. I don't need to show the clip, but you had Besant being cross-examined on Russia. They were like, so will you admit that when you remove sanctions on Russia, you gave them more money by removing the oil sanctions? I absolutely disagree with that. I absolutely disagree with that. Would you agree that by removing sanctions on Iran, their oil, that you ended up allowing them to sell their oil, hence making them more money? I don't, what's your thesis? What's your theory of the case? I don't agree with it. What's your theory of, what are you talking about? You gave them more money already by removing the sanctions. And now Russia, Russia, Russia, as Donald Trump, if you've been watching his social media posts, which we've been covering here, he keeps, now he's terrified of impeachment. Right after Virginia voted yes on the referendum, which would create a Virginia congressional delegation, 10 Democrats, 1 Republican. Trump's like, that was like, he's terrified of being impeached. He knows as soon as Democrats take power, he's going to get impeached. People may be asking, hey, MeidasTouch, what's going on with that Virginia court case though? Didn't a lower court block the referendum, which passed and didn't count the referendum? Yes, but this was a partisan judge who was specifically picked by the Republicans when they forum shopped to pick this judge. He's ruled against this before. It was known that this was a judge who was going to rule against it. The issue is, what's the Virginia Supreme Court going to do? They've had cases involving this exact 10 to 1 map and this exact referendum, and they allowed it to proceed to the voters already. So it's unlikely if they allowed the vote to take place, now that it took place and in democracy it function and the people voted, that the Virginia Supreme Court is going to block the map that they've already basically approved through prior litigation. So we just have to wait till the Virginia Supreme Court makes a ruling. So I wouldn't be all stressed and worried about it. It is true, the map has been blocked temporarily, but we think you never know what's going to happen. Let me be clear. But most people who follow courts believe that's what the Virginia Supreme Court is going to do. But Donald Trump is terrified of being impeached right now. Brett, what were you going to say about it? I'm sorry. I'm just going to give a quick update on to that note for those wondering. The Virginia Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments on this case April 27th at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. So mark your calendars. We should have more information on all of this then. But shout out to the voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia for showing up and doing this. You see the momentum and when we speak about Donald Trump's approval rating being lower than Biden post-debate, Donald Trump's approval rating being lower than Bush during Iraq, Nixon, all the comparisons that you made, I think you have to ask yourself why. And ultimately I think a lot of these people who are in Congress are scared of their voters in a way, but they're also in many cases like the worst people possible who could be elected to public office. And one of the reasons for that, well, I'll give a couple of reasons just off the top of my head thinking about this right now. But one, I'd say the Citizens United decision, which is, in my opinion, like one of the single worst decisions ever from the Supreme Court, which allowed unlimited money to go into our politics, which really gave an outsized voice to the wealthy in our system. I think that was incredibly damaging. And I think Republican gerrymandering over the years has been incredibly, incredibly damaging because instead of the voters picking their representatives, the representatives are picking their voters. It ultimately makes these safe districts for people where they don't actually have to worry about the polls because they know that they're safe in their seat. In fact, here's the incentive that I'll point out. The incentive is not what's best for the country. The incentive becomes, how do I best appease my base? When it comes to the Republicans, it's, how do I appease the most extremists of the people? Those diehard MAGA people who I want to come to the polls and vote for me in these off years. I need to go along with whatever Donald Trump says because those are the people who are going to decide. If I don't do, and I'm not making excuses for them, I'm just showing you the incentives. If I don't do that, somebody is going to come in, and this is why you see all those ultra crazy candidates who enter these races to try to primary the people once they start acting semi-normal. That is what they're afraid of, and so I hate that the Democrats have to do this in Virginia and in California and these states in order to fight back, but you can't unilaterally disarm during this process. You have to fight back, and the Republicans started this with Texas. They didn't think the Democrats were going to fight back and fight fire with fire. Governor Gavin Newsom led the way. He showed the rest of the country how this is done. Now, Virginia is doing this, and I would say this is not just a win for the Democratic Party, but I think a win for the United States in restoring fairness to the system. What my hope is, is that this has become such a tense situation between Republicans and Democrats in this gerrymandering war, and it is so backfired for the Republicans in this process. The Democrats are now projected to gain more seats out of this gerrymandering war than the Republicans, and the Republicans started this thinking that that was impossible. One of my hopes is, and I am certainly not about to make that bet on this, but one of my hopes is, what I would hope is that at a certain point in 2030, when these temporary maps are done and we go back to the census and redistricting process, that there is some piece of legislation that passes, that bans partisan gerrymandering, establishes independent commissions, and we actually make fair maps across the country, not where the politicians decide their voters, but where the voters get to decide their politicians. And I will just do one more reminder, I know I'm rambling a little bit, that just a few years ago, I think about five years ago, the Democrats tried to put forward a bill that did just that. I believe it was called the For the People Act. And, you know, as in this bill also, a lot of the things that Republicans pretend to care about. Voter ID, yes, but actual voter ID, like you could use your license or you could use your college ID, you could use actual IDs. The Republicans, anytime they do these voter ID bills, they try to make it very restrictive. Oh, you actually need your passport. A lot of people don't have passports. You have to show your birth certificate. Your driver's license isn't enough. Your this ID isn't enough. Oh, but you can use an NRA card. They try to twist the system in order to make it. And they try to pretend like Democrats just hate voter ID, which is just disproven by looking at the legislation. And so Democrats put that legislation forward, which banned partisan gerrymandering, which allowed voter ID. It was a very good compromise bill, to be honest, for this sort of situation. Every Republican voted against it. And so hopefully they will see their mistakes, and I once again, not betting on it, but they will see that their attempts to gerrymander and try to game the system have backfired and screwed them over. And maybe they will actually come to the table and say, okay, let's do something. How we were talking about Virginia also, is this Donald Trump is terrified about impeachment, and he viewed if he loses in Virginia, he's gonna get impeached. And he talks about the 20 in his social media post. He talks about, I got impeached unfairly for Russia, Russia, Russia. And he keeps asking all of these Magna Republicans to like undo the impeachment. Like that's a lot of his social, late at night, early in the morning. Revoke my impeachment, revoke my impeachment. You know, but it's fascinating because well, you can't do that, number one. Number two, he deserved to be impeached. Number three, what we're learning right before we went live, Washington Post reports that Donald Trump intends to invite Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Miami, officials say. The Russian leader is not yet committed to attend the annual gathering of world leaders, which is scheduled for December at the president's Doral Golf Resort. But Donald Trump has indeed invited Putin to show up, which would likely mean all the other G20 countries are probably going to boycott it and not show up. And then it will just be a meeting, I guess, of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Miami. I want to talk about that when we come back. I also want to talk about some of these other stories as the Department of Homeland Security is basically in full collapse right now. The FBI is in full collapse right now. The DOJ is in full, we have a non-functioning government, just like Trump's bankrupt casinos, everybody. We will be right back after our last quick break of the show. Just a reminder, I see a lot of people using those taco emojis. Become a member right now of our YouTube channel, access the taco emoji, access all of the emojis. If you're able to, you can gift emojis to other people as well. Gift as many emojis as you want. It helps grow this platform, and it gives you access to the members' features on our YouTube as well. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, subscribe on our audio by searching MeidasTouch Podcast. We'll be right back. We've got more show when we return. I want to talk about something right now that is super important, and that's privacy. DeleteMe makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. It's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Your address, your phone number, even your family member's names can be just sitting out there, and that could have real-world consequences. We're also seeing more and more bad actors digging up that information and using it to target people, whether it's political figures, journalists, or just everyday folks speaking their minds online. As someone with an act of online presence, privacy is really important to me. I've seen how quickly things could escalate when your personal info is out there. 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Speaker 4:
[66:10] Shout out to our sponsors.

Speaker 6:
[66:11] Links in description of the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Really quick, Ben, Brett, you know what came to mind when you were talking about just like GOP doing things and it backfiring in their faces. Remember what we used to call the Republican Party? This is a couple of years ago. I know. I'll let it sit here for the audience in the chat. Professional rake steppers. This is a total professional rake stepping moment for the GOP in this redistricting battle. I hope, I know you're not predicting, Brett, not in the predictions market over here, but I think you're on to something that will see all of this comeback and really bite them in the butts in a professional rake stepping moment for the GOP once again.

Speaker 4:
[66:50] So only time will tell.

Speaker 6:
[66:52] No one wants this crap. I had an expression though. I got to put bite them in the butt. Bite them in the butt, Ben. Never heard that one. I guess, yeah. Bite them in the butts. Yeah. Like singular, like one butt. I got it.

Speaker 5:
[67:05] Sorry.

Speaker 6:
[67:05] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[67:08] Brett?

Speaker 6:
[67:09] I think it's bite them in the ass, but Jordy is doing a PG. I censored myself.

Speaker 11:
[67:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6:
[67:15] All right. I'm not going to censor what's actually... Brett, did I interrupt you? Did you want me to... Go. I'm just going to say no one wants this crap. No one wants to be doing... We don't want to have to go to the polls to vote to make the maps fair because Texas Republicans are being jerks and are forcing it through without even the will of people. Nobody wants to do this crap. OK? There's reasons that the Democrats keep pushing these bills to end this shit, but the Republicans keep locking it. So enough of the games. Like, this is a ridiculous system, and it's bringing out the worst than everybody, and it's ensuring that the worst people out there are the people who go to the US. Congress. When you think, why doesn't Congress work? Part of it is because of this. This is how you get these horrific members of Congress that are locked in these seats for decades and decades and decades, and it needs to end. Now, here, let's just talk about undisputed facts, right? I was a litigator and you would draft a summary judgment motion. You dealt in undisputed facts, right? So it is an undisputed fact that Democrats introduced legislation that would prohibit partisan gerrymandering. Undisputed fact one. I'm not being partisan. It isn't me being pro-Democrat. That's an undisputed fact, right? So then you would have another column disputed or undisputed, right? That would be an undisputed fact. What did the Republicans do? Undisputed. Republicans vote to block that bill. Undisputed. Regardless of the fact that you don't have any ban on partisan gerrymandering, Democrats agree that you basically wait every 10 years, you do a new census, and then you have to play the gerrymandering game because Republicans have voted against the prohibition on partisan gerrymandering. That's an undisputed fact. Donald Trump and Republicans say, we have a plan where we're going to do mid-decade redistricting, we're not going to wait for the census, and we're going to pick up seats in Texas. So they do it. They don't do a constitutional referendum. They basically just push it through their Republican legislature, and then they don't bring it to the people, and then it passes. That's an undisputed fact. Then in response, Democrats say, well, you did that, so we're going to have to respond. So Governor Newsom led Prop 50, which instead of having the legislature make the ultimate decision, the legislature put forward a constitutional amendment, a referendum, if you will, to the people, so that people could vote. California, it passed, Virginia, it passed, and now, that's undisputed, right? And now the Republicans are whining about it and say, oh, that's so unfair in Virginia. That's so unfair in California. It's like, what a bunch of losers you are. What do you mean it's unfair? You did, this was your game. You know, it's like, again, it's just really pathetic stuff. And I'm not saying this supporting Democrats or independents or as a political person. This was the game that you started, Republicans, and Democrats outmaneuvered you. They beat you. And now, oh, this is so unfair. And that's what they've done. And when they talk about, oh, Democrats are rigging this or rigging that. No, it's Republicans who see how Democrats can prevail. And then the Republicans are out there trying to rig the system and come up with schemes so that you basically have not majority rule, where most Americans actually agree on a lot of the same issues. But you have a rule by, you know, these right-wing extremists because they've not been playing by the rules and they've been able to get away with it because people just wanted to live their lives and didn't want us, you know, too busy, too annoying to stop them. You know, they were so relentless with their lives. Fine, just do it, do it, do it. And that's also one of the reasons that we got here in this hellscape. You know, and in this hellscape, I mean, let's think about the headlines this week. I mean, you had a labor secretary who was under investigation for using taxpayer money for strip clubs and boozebashes and lavish vacations and Vegas parties. And her husband was accused of sexual misconduct and like not allowed in the labor department building. While the labor department building had Trump's gigantic photo on it. Like she resigns or she was fired rather, and she whatever said she was fired. So that's one of the headlines that she was involved. You have the secretary of the Navy fired while we have a naval blockade. You have this Daily Mail headline, Former Deputy ICE Director, we're going to get to this next one, not the sugar daddy one yet, Brett. Hard to keep track. Hard to keep track. This one, Former Deputy ICE Director, Madison Sheehan, invited a 19-year-old female junior staffer into her bed after a Trump campaign party in 2020 and engaged in a secret sexual relationship for two years Daily Mail reports. Sheehan is seeking the Republican nomination for Ohio's 9th congressional district that is currently held by a Democrat. The headline is Lesbian Sex Secrets of Kristi Noem's ICE Leader. That's a headline. I guess the allegations are denied by Madison Sheehan, but that's a headline there. Then you have, show the other headline, Brett, now. You have this headline over here. I'm no sugar daddy. D'Vorsey, who spent 40K bankrolling, glam Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official, is unmasked as software CEO and breaks silence on their fling. This 40-year-old guy was on Sugar Daddy websites, and he was the sugar daddy. He started a relationship with a 29-year-old, Julia Vervaro. She's the deputy counterterrorism position in the Department of Homeland Security. She's the number two position. It's like a random person. She's a 29-year-old with very little to no experience in this area. While she's holding this position, she's taking photos with her sugar daddies holding up signs saying she's horny. By the way, as I've said before, and I'll make it clear, whether you're Kristi Noem's husband, who has a fetish for bimboification, where he puts triple E boobs in his shirt and then has women with triple E boobs humiliate him, and he pays thousands of dollars to do that. That apparently is something he likes to do, and it's called bimboification. While he dresses up, he gets humiliated, and he likes that. I'm not going to judge it. I'm not mocking it. If you do things privately and consensually and safely, you know, I'm not the morality police, but I hope you're not breaking up families, and I hope it's done, you know, in a way that's consistent with whatever marriage thing, whatever you have. Like, I don't want to encourage bad behavior. But if you're a private person and you're involved in private, I'm not going to shame you, you know, if there's a community of sugar daddies and it's consensual and people are involved, I'm not going to mock the divorcee or even her, unless she's the Department of Homeland Security number two, and the guy is alleging basically that she's begging him for more money, you know, $40,000 and he's already paid her. And while she's holding up signs and it's very compromising, and this is the person out there spending all this time on sugar daddy websites when you're supposed to be the counterintelligent, you know, counterintelligent person, like counterintelligent person. Like what, what, what in the world is, is, is going on there? You know, and the same thing with with Christine Ohms, you know, person. It's like at the end of the day, shouldn't we be focused on the job? You're public servants. You're supposed to be servants for the public and for the and for the public good. You know, I mean, what do you have? The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Counter Intelligence, a Counter Intelligence unit, is Thomas Fugate III. You know, it's this guy who's a 22-year-old intern, who's never had FBI experience at all, never has Homeland Security experience at all, no law enforcement. He like was like, he's like worked for the Trump campaign, like interned, 22-year-old. This guy is running a big counter-terrorism unit. She's a big counter-terrorism, a top deputy. I mean, what is going on here as you just go through each of these things? And then you go, it actually makes sense because when you think about it, I mean, think about Donald Trump's background. I mean, Trump's background is someone who's publicly said he grabs women by their genital, he sexually assaults women and you get away with it because you're rich. He says he goes into locker rooms and inspects girls in beauty pageants because when you own it, he says they let you do it. When you own it, you get to inspect them naked, which is again, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, in my opinion. He was found civilly liable for sexual assault. He's an adjudicated sexual predator in that he was found civilly liable for sexual assault. We have about audio saying these horrific things. He's Epstein's bud. While all of this is going on as well, they keep covering up the Epstein files. We're not going to be distracted from that here at The Meidas Touch Network. First, let me just show you going back to Lutnik for a second. When he was cross-examined by Congresswoman Madeline Dean about his Epstein connections, he refused to answer because I'm not going to answer. You're at Congress. What do you mean you're not going to answer? Just watch this first clip as she cross-examines him. Then I want to talk about what James Comer has said, that Republicans are doing with Ghislaine Maxwell, and then how they're trying to shut down Epstein investigation as well. But first, here's a lot. Nick, let's play it.

Speaker 10:
[77:12] If President Trump has even a shred of concern about accountability for Jeffrey Epstein's enablers, he would fire you too. Beyond AdFin, what other financial ties do you have to Jeffrey Epstein?

Speaker 9:
[77:30] As I said, I'm going to answer all these questions.

Speaker 10:
[77:32] Beyond Adfin, what other financial ties? You're the Commerce Secretary. We have a right to ask this question and get it answered.

Speaker 9:
[77:40] Again, I'm not going to spend the budget day discussing something I've set aside time to spend on this topic.

Speaker 10:
[77:48] I'm going to switch topics.

Speaker 6:
[77:49] And Trump's DOJ will allow that to happen because Trump's DOJ- The answer was no, he'd say no, right? I mean, if the answer was no, he would just say no. I have no other financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Easy question to answer. But I'll let you draw your own conclusions, sorry. Well, do you remember, we don't have this clip right now, but I shared in a video earlier this week, Donald Trump's pick to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Marsh, he was asked about his, are you going to dive? What relationships did you have with Epstein financially? Can you share it basically? Because he was in the Epstein files and apparently, he was part of a fund. He's got like $100 million in assets and it's unclear really, how you, what the division- It's interesting that all the people that Trump picks to be in his cabinet and for all these key positions just happen to have all these very close Epstein connections or in the Epstein files. I was very, very curious, I will say. And so the future chairman of the Federal Reserve basically gave an answer like Lutnick's answer right there. You know, basically said, ah, you know, I, the, the ethics, Trump's ethics committee cleared me of it. So that's all I'm going to, that's all I'm at liberty to say, that the ethics committee said that it was. I just, I just cannot even fathom it. Right, right, right. So, so, so then that brings us to what else is going on in the House of Representatives, where you have James Comer on the record to Politico. It was what he said to Politico on the record that there are lots of members in the Republican Party who are now working with the White House to get a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. He goes, not me, not me, not me. But I'm aware, he says, of lots of Republican members who are now working with Trump to see if they can secure a pardon for Ghislaine and the way they're framing it is, so that then she can testify. She's a known liar, she's a perjurer, and she's already spoken to Todd Blanch and perjured herself there. You're not going to tell the truth. How could you even conceive Fathom pardoning the most despicable sex trafficker in the world history? It would be like pardoning Jeffrey Dahmer, like one of the most disgusting serial killers who was a cannibal. Literally thinking like, we're going to party Dahmer, we're covering up the cannibal murderer ring, and you're going to pardon Jeffrey Dahmer. What are we even talking? How could that even be a thought? Is that how far through the depths of depravity, that so cavalierly they talk about pardoning Ghislaine, that he goes on the record, and then political rights that, and then Comer has the audacity to say, don't you dare cite me for clickbait. I never said that I supported it. I said that there were others. I don't speak for the committee. You do speak for the committee. You're the chair of the House Oversight Committee. At least until Democrats take control, you literally speak for the committee. That's your job right now. When you say your members want her to be pardoned, that raises eyebrows, and all of the Democrats said, we don't. Who on your committee, which Republicans are encouraging that to happen right now? You've got that. Then one of the things that we learned this week is that Comer, who again supposed to lead the House Oversight Committee, he's been working with the White House to come up with a plan basically to shut down all future hearings on Epstein. What they're saying they want to do now is do Epstein roundtables, where they bring people in not under oath and informally, and then the people pretend they're voluntarily showing up. Why would we need a subpoena you? These people are showing up in general. So people like Paolo Zampoli, who was the guy who introduced Donald Trump to Melania. Remember, Paolo Zampoli's girlfriend, Amanda Ungaro is the one who's been out there saying that she knows a lot of dirt and that she wants to share the information with the public because she alleges that Zampoli helped get her deported by going to ICE to expedite her deportation during a custody dispute that they had with their children. She, Ungaro was brought here by one of Epstein's sex traffickers, Jean-Luc Brunel when she was 17 years old or 15 years old even. That's how she was brought from Brazil to the United States and then she got him to this world. Zampoli is all over the Epstein files because him and Epstein were going to buy modeling agencies together. Whenever Melania is like, it wasn't Epstein that made the introduction to me and Donald. That's defamatory. It was Zampoli. Okay, it was Zampoli, sure. The guy who wanted to buy the modeling agencies with Epstein, yes, the guy who brought you here from Eastern Europe. What Zampoli would do is he would bring young Eastern European girls and women into the United States for his modeling agency. Then he would throw parties at the Kit Kat Club where he would be a matchmaker between the young models, as he would call them, and the wealthy Manhattan businessman, they would meet at these gatherings. That's how Zampoli made a name for himself. He parlayed that into a real estate career. Now he's an ambassador within the United States, and he's out there now trying to ban the Iranian football team or soccer team from participating in the World Cup. He's working with the head of FIFA, the guy who gave Trump the FIFA Peace Prize, to do a trade to allow Italy to join the World Cup, even though Italy didn't qualify in place of Iran, when Iran qualified. And also Donald Trump's been posting death threats against the Iranian football team a few weeks back, but that's the Zampoli. All of these get, why I'm bringing up Zampoli is because Zampoli said that he would testify right away when Melania did that weird press conference, and now we're hearing, oh, there's no more testimony, we're just doing informal roundtables. Anyway, I'm just giving you facts right now, okay? I'm just sharing you with these things. You could find implications or don't find implications with what I said. You could form your own opinions. I share my opinions on this episode all the time, as protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, this whole episode as protected by the First Amendment. It's a lot of opinion speech, but I go into the facts as well, and I form my opinions, but I root them in the facts. So you tell me how you think about it, but that's where we're at right now in this whole mess. I guess the final point I'll make is this before turning over to Brett. This is not normal. We should elect people who are public servants. Public servant, they serve us. I'm not trying to cast a weirdo reality show of kings and queens and princesses and princesses who go around in their hellscape and behave awful and then go, oh, did you know what this person did?

Speaker 5:
[84:42] Oh, could you believe that person?

Speaker 6:
[84:44] No, we're well beyond that. I don't care about the palace entry. I care about the people in this country. And every media company should be focused on that. The people, because the people here are suffering, they can't afford things right now. Can't afford rent, can't afford groceries, can't afford gas, can't afford anything right now.

Speaker 9:
[85:04] People are living paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 6:
[85:06] People are psychologically tortured by what this regime is doing. And they're out there behaving like, a bunch of unhinged, just loony, lunatic, just depraved, sicko behavior, strange stuff. I'll leave it on that note. Brett. I'll give it to you real quick, but I just want to say, Ben, to your point right there, somewhere along the way, and I think it's when all this money came into politics, the public servant became reality star. And I think if you could draw the concentric circles over there, you'd see that overlap, that all of this reality star behavior from our elective representatives, that nobody, quite frankly, wants. You wouldn't hire these people to babysit your kids, to do anything in your own business, let alone lead your territory, your area, your state, your city. And what we see time after time right now is all of these reality stars that just want to make it about me, me, me, nonstop, and not for the people, by the people. And we just have to get back to there as a society. Brett, sorry. And I don't care if you're a Democrat, I don't care if you're a Republican, independent, I don't care what you call yourself. If you want to engage in that reality star behavior, then be a reality star, okay? Like, go, go, go, fine, okay? As long as it's within the confines of the law, let your freak flag fly. I'm not certainly not going to kink shame you, I'm not going to do it. Do whatever you want to do. Okay, party, go crazy. I don't care as long as you are not harming other people and you are abiding by the law. But when you enter the halls, the hallowed halls of Congress, you are representing the United States of America, you are representing the people of this country, you are in the White House, you are in a prestigious position. I'm not saying you can't have fun at all or be a normal person because we certainly want normal social people. But if you want to take it to that next level, then just don't be a politician, okay? Like understand that if you're going to get in this job, you're going to get in there, you're going to take it seriously. Most of your time should be, other than when you're with your family or behaving appropriately, should be, what am I doing today to help the American people? What am I doing today to fix this problem or that problem? That's what I want to see, and I think that's what Americans want to see regardless of how they classify themselves, what they're registered as, what they call themselves, where they are in the political spectrum. And to Jordy's point, let's get back to that. This was a great episode, guys. We covered so much. We always cover so much, and I know the show is over an hour, but still we pack in a whole lot of stuff. I want to thank everybody for joining us here today. I want to thank everybody for welcoming also all of our new incredible hosts and the new channels in the Meidas Touch Network. The Scott McFarland channel continues to explode. Thanks to you. Make sure you check that out at youtube.com/atscottmcfarlandnewssearch Scott McFarland. You know what the best way to do it is actually? Just go to the Meidas Touch YouTube channel, scroll to the bottom. You'll see all of our channels right there. It's Scott, Tennessee Brando, The Great Katie Feng, Legal AF. You'll see them, Adam Mockler. You'll see them all right at the bottom and you could just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, subscribe to all the channels. So check it out. Shout out to Katie Feng. Shout out to Legal AF, winner of three Webby Awards. By the way, Legal AF, shout out to the Alien Super Show, which won a Webby Award in the weird category. I'm not making that up. Epic, epic, epic. That's all thanks to you. We're so grateful for your support. Continue to spread the word. Join us on Substack. We've been doing these midday updates and end of day bulletins on Substack, which I promise are really, really, really good. If you like these and you're in the live chat right now, let people know that you like the Midas Plus Substack. I want to encourage everybody to go to midasplus.com. Make sure you add the MidasTouch Podcast anywhere you find audio podcasts. Let's keep this growing. Let's make this people powered movement. Let's have it continue to grow thanks to the word of mouth, saying thanks to your support. We are so, so, so grateful for you. Jordy, why don't you take us out? Shout out to the MidasMighty. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at midasplus.com.

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