The MeidasTouch Podcast - Furious World Leaders Set Fatal Trap and Trump Steps Right In!!

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on world leaders easily outmaneuvering Trump as his quest for power and domination is blowing up in his face and Meiselas interviews former Obama Chief of Staff and Former Chicago Mayor and former Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel about his perspective on Trump’s geopolitical disasters. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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down and down. They are deploying more troops right now to Greenland. Take a look right here. You see an aircraft carrying German soldiers just landing at the Nuke Airport in Greenland. Soldiers from France, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Sweden are participating in joint military exercises. in Greenland against the United States, preparing for a possible invasion by Donald Trump. On Thursday, they met with the commander of Joint Arctic Command. They received briefings on Greenland and Arctic Command, and then they've been practicing and anticipating what it would be like if the United

States invades. Europe is ready and prepared. We've been showing you speeches of people like French President Emmanuel Macron, who pre-executive. Obviously, back in 2025, maybe trying to appease Donald Trump or perhaps by time. In 26, their language has changed significantly. Macron is like, we need to inflict fear. We need to inflict pain.

We need to make them fear us because that's what you want. Let's go. And I think that's how you have to treat Donald Trump because he's pathetic. He's someone who is weak. And he's someone who you have to stand up to. If you give him an inch, he takes your life. So let me just share this with you first. First, I want to show you Prime Minister Carney of Canada.

Here he makes it clear, while in Beijing, making a $1 trillion trade pact with China, I might add, to bring in EVs from China. China will start buying canola from Canada. This could be a devastating fatal blow to the American car industry over time. Carney has phased it brilliantly, so it's not going to be a total damage. to the Canadian car industry, but he phased it in a way that gives maximum leverage against the United States. But here's what Carney says about protecting Greenland.

Play this clip right here. Greenland, the future of Greenland is a decision for Greenland and for the kingdom of Denmark. We are NATO partners with Denmark. And so our full partnership stands are obligations on Article 5, Article 2 of NATO stand. And we stand full or square behind those. Here is French President Emmanuel Macron talking about making Trump fear him. Here, play this clip. In order to stay free, it is necessary to be feared.

To be feared, one must be powerful. And to be powerful in this brutal world, one must act faster and stronger. This requires the nation to make efforts equal to our harsh times. That is why I wanted on July the 3rd. To bring forward to the year 2027, the objective originally scheduled for 2030 of reaching an annual budget of 64 billion euros for our defense. Thus, in the span of two presidential terms, the budget for the armed forces will have been effectively doubled. And we won't have been outmaneuvered by the decision of this or that person for convenience to please this or that ally. We will have taken the lead through our own decision, the analysis we made of the evolution, the analysis we made of the evolution,

threat, and by doing so, as I said very early on, our will to never submit. As ORA Jolson, who lives in Nuke Greenland, writes, strong criticism of the United States is now coming from the Speaker of the Danish Parliament and former Minister of Defense, Skorin Gade, in a post on Facebook, he writes that he has changed his view on the United States in recent times due to the tone adopted by the current regime. I never thought that I'd be speaking critically. about the United States.

But if I am to be able to look Danish veterans in the eye, in the future, I can no longer remain silent. He describes Trump and the United States as indecent. Therefore, I feel compelled to say that the tone of the American administration is indecent, and I find it very difficult to recognize the United States that I have always been a loyal supporter of, he writes to his supporters. Now I'll share with you as well what you had Donald Trump's chief propagandist, Caroline Levitt saying, here's what she had to say about invading Greenland.

Let's play this clip right here. And in that meeting, the two sides agreed to really establish a working group of individuals who will continue to have technical talks on the acquisition of Greenland. Those talks will take place, I'm told, every two to three weeks. So this is a conversation. The administration intends to keep. having with the Danes and with the respected delegation from Greenland. But the president has made his priority quite clear. He wants the United States to acquire Greenland. He thinks it's in our best

national security to do that. Here's what Donald Trump said that he would start to tariff countries that didn't support him invading Greenland play this clip. And I just went one after another. I called Germany. No, no, no. We will not do that. They said, no, we're going to put a 25 percent tariff, which is, by the way, about seven times more than they would have to pay by raising their drug. Like seven times. This wasn't like a little bit more, seven times more. And I may do that for Greenland, too.

I may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that. I'll give you a little. I'll talk about, I'll take you out of that. In fact, that'll end up paying the story. But actually, this is a much bigger story because we're reducing health care by numbers that you haven't seen.

And we're seeing new alliances form as well in other areas. In the Middle East, for example, Qatar's former prime minister, Hamid bin Jassim bin Jabbar Alfani talks about a Saudi-Pakistani strategic defense pact possibly joined by Turkey and ideally Egypt and other Gulf states to strengthen their regional security and to also have this alliance be durable, broad-based, military, economic, political, and non-hostile toward Iran. In other words, helpful towards Iran

as a check against the U.S. The U.S. is finding itself in a much weaker position more broadly. And again, here you have right here, Carney meeting with Xi Jinping in this historic trip where the first time the Canadian Prime Minister has been to Canada,

Canadian Prime Minister has been to China in about a decade. Here to talk more about this, I want to bring in, Ram Emanuel. Former ambassador to Japan, former chief of staff, to former President Obama, former mayor of Chicago. Ram, always great to have you on. Let's just talk about Trump's Asia policy, if you want to call it a policy even. We've been highlighting there at the beginning, Canada and the big meeting they just had with China moving our biggest ally

in Canada to partner with China. We're seeing Japan. increasingly feeling threatened and I think not defended like they thought they were South Korea. What do you see happening in Asia right now? Well, there's a constant here. The worst fear for China in the region is being isolated. And as I always called it when I was ambassador, we're going to isolate the isolator. And Japan and Korea aligned with the United States that was a historic agreement signed in Camp David. it under President Biden, made China very, very nervous, both on economic terms, strategic terms,

political terms, and the Korean president had a visit to Japan. That was rock solid for both countries. The absent party is the United States. What used to be the most reliable allies become the most unreliable allies. Second, China has become extremely aggressive against the Philippines, the treaty ally country for the United States in the same. South China Sea. 40% of all trade, naval trade goes through there, sea trade goes through there, as well as 14% of the world's fishing catch. So the United States, rather than being a force and a stabilizer and organizing our allies around a common strategic vision, is AWOL. And then, right on our back door or front door, China and Canada just had a major economic agreement

and basically showing that the President of the United States and his policy is the emperor without close. So to me, now, we did make a move against them vis-à-vis Venezuela. They're nervous about that from all the investments they've made over the years in Latin America, but that is not countered by everything else that's happening in the sense of the win-loss scorecard for the United States under President Trump.

Now, in a move like Venezuela, where you now have Delci Rodriguez still, you know, propped up who was, you know, still part of the Chevisas, the Maduro regime, Diadado Cabello, Maduro's enforcer. You know, the way I described, and I want to hear, you know, your perspective on it. You know, it'd be like removing Trump, but putting in Stephen Miller, and sure,

Stephen Miller is saying that, you know, I'm going to do things now that are helpful to you. But, I mean, she was, came through the ranks of KGB intelligence, Venezuela, her family, was deeply entrenched and all the authoritarian stuff happening there. And now opening up a Qatari bank. So the deal I understand is that the first oil transaction was to a Trump donor, sold oil there, and then the proceeds are going to a Qatari bank account and not the treasury.

Talk about that. But like, if y'all ever did any of that with Obama, you wore a tan suit once and it would. So I take a step back. One is the President of the United States called a person that won with 70% of the vote illegitimate, and this is coming from a guy who took 49.7% of the vote. Robin always pointed out, in a rigged election, she still took 70% of the vote. He took in a free election, 49.7, and he calls her illegitimate. Number two, in this area, that the United States just moved on Venezuela and moved on the oil,

and with no kind of any sense of democracy, any other kind of interest, is in my view, as you just turned out, is the financial transaction tells you that literally, it's not just mercantilum, there's a corruption here about how American foreign policy is being conducted and for whose gain and what gain economically. And that's also true about our domestic politics. And I think that when you look at it,

That same week, we took a military action to say we want the oil. The European Union signed the largest trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the big economies of Latin America, Mercer countries. China surpass the United States as the largest economic commercial entity with all the Latin American countries, north of $500 billion. Now, when you look at all three of those to actions, trade deal, commercial, transaction, seizing oil. Which one do you think is going to really last the stand of time, the test of time, and it'll be a strategic vision in the future? We're third. We got the bronze.

Everybody else got the gold and silver. That's how you got to look at this. And that's how China's looking at it. That's how Russia's looking at it. I mean, look, I mean, that's on the commercial side. I don't mean to interrupt. I mean, you should, look, Russia's paying a price for being silent with an ally that lost. So I think, you know, the Venezuelan action showed how, not inept, but how basically the Ukrainian war has sapped Russia of any world power status. China's nervous because there's close to about $15 billion owed to them that they're not sure from the Venezuela action.

So it's not 100% win, 100% loss. These come with different things. But my view is this is, you know, what we just did, there's economic relations, political alignment relations. There's a lot of different categories or verticals you want to say. There's a strategic, there's a political, there's an economic, there's a commercial. And we act like everything comes down to one thing, military action for oil, when China and Europe, at least, show a more, not only nuanced, more strategically long-term vision of where relationships go rather than what you do today at a short-term basis. Using a deeply transactional term when there's a loss is the term right.

off? Like, do you think that Russia can write off Venezuela in exchange for Trump saying he wants to invade Greenland and now ripping apart NATO? So the write-off is, yeah, we did that. But now you're saying you want to invade Greenland and NATO's falling apart. First of all, this is Greenland thing. I don't know. Why would you pay for something that you can get for free? Denmark's tell you whatever you want. Military? Great. Commercial? Great. Minerals, great. Why would you pay full price when you can get it for free. I don't get this. Just on a pure, given that the only way to talk to this president is commercial, you're making American taxpayers pay full price for something they can get for free. It makes zero strategic, let alone economic. Second, what constantly gets me

is how much the President of the United States misses how vulnerable his pal, Putin is. This week, Russia and World War II got quicker to Berlin than they have to Kiev on the fourth. On the year anniversary of this war. That war was supposed to be four weeks. It's now entering four years. And the United States has hobbled Ukraine. They've been permitted not to lose a war rather than a win. Russia in World War II got to Berlin much quicker, purely on days. Second, Russia looks weak not only Venezuela. They look weak in Syria. They looked weak in Iran. They looked weak in Armenian-Azerbaijani. Their intelligence got Syria, Wagner, and other elements of Ukraine wrong. You now have NATO expanding to Finland and Sweden on their border, and their military looks

totally feckless. And in fact, in Russia, they say the price we're paying for Ukraine and the cost we're having around the globe is not worth it. Putin is an emperor without clothes. And the only person that thinks he has status is Donald Trump has been fooled by him. That's what is happening. You know, but there are parallels in the malignant narcissism and the emperor without close, you know, analogy. So do you think that Trump's vision for Greenland is like Venezuela in the sense of, well, now I've got my Qatari bank account.

If this is, if Greenland runs in a, in a democratic way, the same way of Venezuela runs in a democratic way with Machado, I can't do the Qatari stuff. You know, I can't have my own private bank accounts and places. I mean, do you think it's an extension of that? If it makes zero sense, I mean, look, Trump is a guy who's bankrupted casinos and this and that and the other thing. But, you know, it's about that he wants just to seize it. I mean, what's your view of it there?

Look, I think, again, I get back to a core point. I mean, literally he wants to pay, you're not invading it militarily, not happening. the idea that they're going to pay full price for something they can get absolutely for free doesn't stand up to the daylight and it will be exposed as a rotten deal you get all the military all the strategic positioning he's not wrong and every other president has said this going back all the way to harry s trueman of the strategic value geographically resource wise of greenland it's just stupid to pay full price and it's also stupid to try to talk about evading something, that's not going to happen.

So to me, and the other point is, while you're focused on Greenland, it means you've lost focus on what could be an opportunity in Cuba, could be an opportunity in Iran, could be an opportunity in Russia, Ukraine. You know, White House sometimes can become one-ball jugglers. All this energy on Greenland comes at a cost to somewhere else where you're not focused. Japan and Korea got together and the United States was the missing party. China, if you look at the testimony by the head of Indopacom, is very aggressive about the Philippines, a treaty ally country,

and the United States isn't at full value. Our military was not in the Mediterranean and not in the region because they're all in the Caribbean. So, you know, you have to allocate resources based on strategic opportunity. We are not going to invade Grenier. Grenada, Greenland, and you were not and never should pay a full price for something the country with Denmark and the rest of you will give you basically for free. They want a closer relation with the United States. So to me, this is again an example, glaring example, of why Donald Trump's companies

all went bankrupt because he's a rotten businessman. Then he doubles down and triples down on the bad. I failed strategies. And then just goes further. Let's talk domestic, though, because while all of that's happening, too, I mean, you know, you have these, you know, ice and border patrol armies wearing their military gear. Yeah. They go into, and we've been, we've been covering the footage diligently. And this all starts peaceful protesters. Just because they had to protest. Stop going to our special ed schools. Stop going to our hospitals. Stop going to our courts. And you'll see, you know, as the mayor of Chicago, this stat resonated with me that the Chicago PD never used the gas agents and any of these things. Like in 30, 40 years, they never used gas on people, you know, and things like that.

But these ice agents go, they throw gas on people. They rough people up. They throw people on the ground. They killed people. And they're provoking these communities. As the former mayor of Chicago, what do you see here with these invasions? Is this, you think, a plan to really try to derail the midterms? Is this a broader plan of going after Blue State?

Yeah, I think, look, you hit upon it and let me try to draw a sharper point. This was not designed for immigration enforcement. It was designed to force a political reaction, which is what's happening. Now, I happen to things since we're talking about politics, the country does not like chaos. They didn't like chaos on the border under President Biden, and they're not going to like chaos on the streets of America instigated by President Trump, which is why his own political staff are telling him this is going way too far,

because it's coming at a political cost. He's lost middle of America. You want to enforce the border for illegal crossings? Thumbs up. You want to take criminals with backgrounds who are illegal immigrants out of the country? Thumbs up. You're not enforcing at Home Depot, schools, places of worship, and the steps of our courthouses. and that the president and ICE directed was never designed for an immigration enforcement was designed for

a political reaction and the president and ice and his republicans are on the losing side of that bet that's a b be on the not being on the streets that individual officer shouldn't have been on the streets six months ago having grabbed a car he ended up with 33 stitches he's dealing with emotional psychological and other kinds of issues there's no leadership over seeing who's on the street, what the training is. Everything he did is against training. And a guy that just six months ago ended up with 30 plus stitches should be nowhere on the streets of any city of America at best behind a desk.

There is no leadership here at every level. No police chief across America would ever let an officer back on the streets, having just received 30 plus stitches from an action on the street. whatever the details of that action was. And there's no management or oversight, let alone, I don't believe they should be on the street. Again, there was a consensus in this country, enforcement at the border for illegal crossings,

and dealing with undocumented people with a criminal, serious criminal record here in the United States. That was the broad consensus. The President of the United States and the rest of his administration, Homeland Security, purposely went over what the American people would support, and now you're getting a political reaction back.

And they were designed to create this kind of domestic challenge. And the pictures say the United States government under Donald Trump is the instigator of chaos on American streets. And that's why they've lost the broad support of the American people. And I think a lot of people are now asking the simple question, too, like, well, what's the point of government? I mean, it's an important question because sometimes we take a lot of these things for granted. I mean, is it to help and promote and encourage and lift up? Or is it to inflict things on us in pain and take away?

And that kind of brings me to something that you've been talking about, the Mississippi miracle with the incredible increase in literacy rates there when investments were made in education, which I want you to talk about. But it speaks to a broader issue. I think that people are asking, which is like, what's the point of all of this if we can't afford health care, if we can't afford homes, if our kids aren't being educated, if we work a hard day's job and we're not making money to be

able to support our family. Why are we doing this? And it's an existential question, but people like, why are we here? I want you to step back. 50% of our kids cannot do reading and math at grade level. You know more of the president's position on windmills, more of his position on wanting to take over Greenland or his desire for a Nobel Prize. He's never, ever commented. on reading scores. Not one Democratic Republican governor has called for an emergency meeting. George Bush, 43,

he had leave no child behind. President Obama had race to the top. President Clinton had public school choice. It was all started off under Ronald Reagan with the Nation at Risk report. It was a bipartisan consensus to bring accountability, reading, and mass scores up, and over 20 years it happened.

You have half our kids, If they can't read at great level, it doesn't get easier. Life gets harder. Now, I don't think we have a child to waste or a community to overlook in the competition for the 21st century. I went to Mississippi because they proved against all odds, and one side note, they call it the Mississippi, down in Mississippi, they don't call it the Mississippi Maracle. They call it the Mississippi Marathon. Over 20 years, they rose from 49th to 9th in reading scores. And to their credit, they not only found that after third grade, when they hit that mark,

they're starting to succeed, lose some of the momentum. So they set up reading clinics to deal with fourth and fifth grade and keep that momentum forward. Very honest. It's based on the science of literacy or phonics, more teacher training, more teacher support with coaches, more time for kids on task, and more support for kids to steep to fall behind and accountability. If you don't read third grade, you're not going to fourth grade level. That's it. And Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Indian River County in Florida all replicated it and all seeing similar gains.

But you got to stick at this. As I say, this is a former mayor of city of Chicago, walked out with rated the best of the top one of 100 school, largest 100 school districts, walked out number one. This takes everything. But it's worth it. When your graduation rates go from 56 to 84%, your reading scores double and your math scores don't, it's worth it, but it takes everything. And I think that should be the focus now.

The President of the United States decides he wants to pay double the price for Greenland, but he'll leave 50% of American kids behind. And I went there because I wanted to see it firsthand. And I want to raise an issue that I think is core to America's future. We have CEOs, Take the Ford CEO. He has 6,000 jobs paying over $100,000 a year with full pensions and health care and can't find people. You have the merchant Marines with 40,000 to 50,000 job openings, and they pay over $200,000.

Can't find people. We have a shortage of carpenters, electricians, plumbers, I mean operating in. engineers. Can't find people. To me, that's a fixable. That's a high class, first class, uptown problem. High-paying jobs can't be AIA-Ied out of existence, and we're short. We have a lot of people looking to buy a home, jobs that give you the income to do it. If you want to, I'm for Build Baby Build, let's give people the skills to be the electricians of tomorrow, the carpenters of tomorrow, the operating engineers of tomorrow. That's what we should be focused on. No, we're going to double the price for Greenland rather than get it for free.

Rob, before we go, anything else on your mind? I always love picking your brain. No, look, I mean, I think that to me, the most important thing coming up in both 2026 and 28 is we're finally going to have an election about the future or a set of elections. MAGA, build back better, we're really retrospective, not prospective. We have to think about what does it take to move this country forward. We want to build out an electricity system in the country. We don't have the tradesmen to do it.

We should be training right now, 300,000 electricians. We don't have this capacity. Our schools are literally missing what I think are the most important. thing in every challenge we have in America can be cured by what's working in America. I'll be going in a couple weeks from now to Michigan because they have really done a phenomenal job in vocational ed under the Governor Whitmer. In the same way that Mississippi Marathon has proven how to improve reading scores, Michigan has shown kids that college is not the only way. One of the things I did as mayor of the city of Chicago was a plan called Learn Plan Succeed.

get your high school diploma, you had to produce a letter of acceptance from a college, a community college, a branch of the armed forces, or a vocational school. You didn't just walk on graduation day. You told us where you're walking to. And that's the standard that will move America forward. And every American will be part of that movement. Ron, we've covered it all. Greenland, education. And your technology work. Look, think of that. That's my, that's my, everyone just thinks it goes flawless. That's because we've got a great team here. Tom, thank you so much for joining us. I hope the baby's well.

Mazel Tuff on the greatest journey of your life. Thank you so much. And everybody hits subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscribers for our substack at Midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Philopkowski, add free episodes of our podcast,

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