The MeidasTouch Podcast - MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 12/19/25

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

On this episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast, Ben, Brett, and Jordy break down a stunning series of developments as Washington braces for the expected release of the Epstein files: Republicans abruptly call a vacation, a leaked memo exposes their coordinated plan to deflect from the fallout, and new reporting reveals counterintelligence specialists were pulled off their work to focus on redactions. The team also covers Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson’s decision to shut down the House, enraging moderates as a discharge petition to extend ACA health care subsidies reaches the required signatures—yet Johnson still refuses to bring it to the floor, even as premiums are set to spike for tens of millions of Americans. Plus, the show exposes fake data in Trump’s inflation report, unpacks FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s bizarre and revealing Capitol Hill hearing, analyzes Trump’s deranged primetime speech, and more in an episode packed full of news and analysis. Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Get Meidas Merch: https://store.meidastouch.com Deals from our sponsors!  Cash App: Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/2ukx7bii #CashAppPod.* The Perfect Jean: F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code meidas15 at https://theperfectjean.nyc/meidas15 OliPop: Buy any 2 cans of Olipop in store, and they'll pay you back for one. Just go to https://drinkolipop.com/MEIDAS today! Laundry Sauce: Get Up to 40% Off Your entire order at https://laundrysauce.com/MEIDAS20  Don’t miss their Biggest Sale of the Year! #laundrysaucepod Graza: Take your food to the next level with Graza Olive Oil. Visit https://graza.co and stock up during our sitewide sale! *As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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in the House Oversight Committee. We'll talk about that. Donald Trump is trying his usual distraction tactics right before the release of the Epstein files. He's announced something called the Patriot Games, which is his own version of the Hunger Games, if you will. He's got a male athlete and a female athlete

from each state in high school. They go to Washington, D.C., and they compete against each other. Also, Donald Trump renaming unlawfully the John F. Kennedy Center, the JFK Center, the Kennedy Center, to the Trump Kennedy Center. We will talk about what went down there. Also, Trump announced what he's referring to as a warrior dividend, which is a bunch of BS. He's just taking money away from a housing allowance for the military and saying that this is a special warrior dividend that he's giving to our troops. You have Maga Mike shutting down the House

of Representatives as a discharged petition got the necessary votes that would otherwise. force a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire in basically a week, week and a half from now. Maga Mike said, nope, we can't let that get to a vote. Shut down the House of Representatives. Said everybody go home and now a vote can't be taken until January after the new year. That's how vicious Maga Mike and Donald Trump are. That's how much they hate the American people. You've got Donald Trump and his regime putting out essentially fake data today regarding inflation, where they claim that rental and leasing and housing inflation was basically 0%. And then they utilized Black Friday discounts to show that there were price

reductions. We'll get into more of that. You had Brendan Carr, Trump's chairman of the FCC, on Capitol Hill this past week, where he said that the FCC is not an independent agency. You've got, of course, Donald Trump's speech that he gave on Wednesday night. I don't know what the hell that even was. He took over the airwaves, took over Survivor's finale. And I think we were all turned into non-consensual participants of Trump's version of Survivor, if you will, because it was beyond deranged to even sit through that. We've got a lot to discuss, folks.

That and more. Let's bring in Brett and Jordy. Good to see your brothers. Good to be here, Ben. Good to be here, Jordy, good to be here, Midas, Mighty. As we said yesterday on the Midas Touch Twitter account about that speech, that was some weird shit, folks, that we witnessed. And I think everybody thought the same thing.

I even saw people who were like MAGA-friendly people, like Republicans, you know, MAGA types, saying, what the hell was the point of that? That made him look absolutely horrible to interrupt people's, I think Survivor was on, like a lot of these other shows that people were excited to watch. And then Donald Trump comes on and just live. to people about the economy and says that everything's great, don't believe your eyes, don't believe

your ears. Just a very bizarre thing. But I think a through line of this episode is going to be two C's, corruptions and cover-ups. And that is exactly what we are seeing with the Trump administration in full effect. I mean, we've been seeing that over the past, you know, year or so. But that has gotten even heightened and especially today, I think a lot of the news can be wrapped up with those two terms. I am excited to dive right into it. So I'm going to pass it over to Jordan. Jordy, what's the latest? I'm excited to get into today's show. I think there's another C-word people used to describe this administration that we won't get into here.

Benji, where do you want to start off today? Cricket is, I think, the word that you were looking at it. Exactly. It was definitely crooked. Yeah, that was the first word that came to my mind. So just imagine that you're watching Survivor, the finale is supposed to be on right in the middle of the night. You've been looking forward to it or you're watching another sporting event or whatever your favorite TV show. After a long day's work, you've got, you know, things are less affordable right now.

You've got the Trump regime ripping away your health care. There's a lot of stress being placed on you at work. So all you want to do, just try to go home, watch some TV with your family, right? I mean, that's pretty much what's going on. So you turn on the TV, this is a presidential address. And you're thinking to yourself, okay, well, what's going on here? We go into war, presidential addresses to the nation, are done for something like deeply serious.

Like is there some national emergency that we should be aware about? We go into war with Venezuela unlawfully. What is happening here? There's some crisis we're unaware of. So you turn it on and you go, okay, it must be pretty serious. And Donald Trump says,

my favorite word is tariffs. It's tariffs. Here, play this clip. Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs. my favorite word tariffs, which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us, but not anymore. Like, what did I just, what? What did I just watch? Then he keeps going and he's like, and I've slashed prices, your prescription drug prices are now 400, 500,

600% cheaper, right? It's that, that's that much better. Here, play this clip. A lot of difference a year makes. In addition, I'm doing what no politician of either. party has ever done, standing up to the special interest to dramatically reduce the price of prescription drugs. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taken advantage of our country for many decades to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600 percent. For real, what are we even watching there? And by the way, why is he so angry and he, like, lunges at the microphone. It's totally.

I think there's a reason. So after that speech, if you looked at, like, Twitter or any of these apps, like Adderall was trending, you know, a lot more demands for Donald Trump's MRI results, a lot more demands to really understand what kind of drugs Donald Trump is taking because the way that he was speaking there was just completely off the wall. And then he goes, and I've got a, like, as though this is like some like game show competition, right? I mean, because that's how he treats everything.

Like, as though, as I said at the outset in my intro, like non-consensual participants in his dystopian reality show, whether that's actually survivor or the apprentice or whatever. And it's just like, just what are you even doing? Then he's like, I'm proud to announce that 1,450,000 military service members. When he says, 1,450,000, he's like happy that he landed the number. Like I said, I'm going to repeat it again. And then he goes, we'll each be getting $1,776, and I'm calling it a warrior dividend, a warrior dividend. Like as though, again, this is like the host of Survivor saying, and the winner of this competition, we'll be getting whatever. You know, just play, play this clip of it.

Because of tariffs, along with the just passed one big beautiful bill, tonight I am also proud to announce. that more than 1,450,000, think of this, 1,450,000 military service members will receive a special, we call Warrior Dividend before Christmas, a warrior dividend. In honor of our nation's founding in 1776, we are sending every soldier $1,776. Think of that. And the checks are already on the way. Nobody understood that one until about 30 minutes ago. We made a... Why is that even a brag? No one understood what I was going to say. Maybe they should have understood it because it's a lot of money, right?

And where's that money coming from? Oh, we found out where it's coming from. Shout out to Defense One, Thomas Noveli and others over there, who reported on actually where that money's coming from. coming from. And basically, Trump is taking money that was congressionally allocated for housing for service members. And he's taking the money that's allocated for housing, for affordable housing, and just taking it and giving it as a check to the

service members. Trump's $1,776 checks for 1.45 million troops announced Wednesday night come from congressionally-allegated reconciliation funds intended to subsidize housing allowances for service members. This was then confirmed by the Trump regime officials. They admit this did not come from tariff money. It came from money that was allocated for housing. And it's a very important. Not the tariff shelf. Not the tariff. No. That $2.9 billion was meant to subsidize basic allowance for housing, which is a monthly payment to cover troops, troops off base expenses such as rent,

mortgage and utilities. And Congress didn't just like wing it. They weren't just like 30 minutes ago. I just did this. Congress did studies. Congress did research. And Congress said, what's a big problem facing our troops? They need affordable housing. And if you just gave sometimes young troops a check for 1776, they may not use it for something that's needed. And that may actually harm military preparedness and readiness and actually harm the military. So there's a national security. He kind of reminds me of actually his whole idea behind this fake health care scam that he's trying to pull also, where we're not going to give money to subsidize these health

insurance policies to make sure that people are able to afford health insurance. But instead, let's give a thousand dollars or so to people and let them buy their own health care. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't add up. And it actually ends up screwing people in the long run. He's really, he's stealing from members of the military. and then giving them their money in another form.

You know, you know what it kind of reminds me of, you know, as a kid when we're like very young and I wanted to get like gifts for like our parents, I would find like a bracelet or something in our parent in like mom's room. And then I would give her the bracelet as like a Hanukkah gift or a birthday gift. And she'd bracelet. I would just take it. It's a normal shared experience that you can do though. Yeah, but I'd say, and then she's like, oh, that's mine.

You know, I think this is Donald Trump's version of that. Like, he's taking it from them, which you should not do. I want to be clear. And he is giving it back to the person and telling them to be grateful for it. And obviously, he picks the 1776 number because everything is some sort of branding scam as well behind it. But when you see the way that Fox is presenting this, it's just, you know, it's just one of these other propaganda schemes that he's doing, which is just such a total disgrace and you see like their network look at this patriotic move by Donald Trump wow this should be lauded I can't believe he got this from the tariff shelf well you can't

believe it because he did not get this from a tariff shelf he's saying that every possible way that he spends money right now comes from tariffs and it's all BS it's just a lie every single time he says it the 18 trillion 20 trillion 22 trillion although every number that he names is a massive massive lie designed to scam the American people. So you had Kevin Hassett, Donald Trump's national economic advisor, go on MSNBC this morning. Everything that Donald Trump said read in the speech, $18 trillion, is that. We've never been richer, like all lies.

And so, look, this was a good question to Hassett, which is like, why does he constantly exaggerate every single number? Like, why can't you just say, hey, here's what inflation is and we're doing our best? Like, like, why does it all have to be like? If you brought in, let's say, $5 trillion of infrastructure investment or $5 trillion in farm, why not just go with that and then explain what the hurdles are going to be in the future? Like, because the impact's not being felt so the American people know this isn't happening. Like, you may have been able to fool us for like a few months, but like now we're a year in.

So you can keep showing us the fake data, but you can't convince us when our shared experiences say that's not actually like we now know that's all not happening we should have known before we knew before you know before watching others that maybe didn't but anyway watch what has said has it's like but did you see the slides this is a trump regime official did you i'm a little disappointed that the network didn't show his slides here play this clip i struck we talked earlier in the show steve ratter was here helped us with it with a fact check you know the president does have some good news to talk about the economy gas prices for instance but why why they need to constantly sort of exaggerate gas prices are three dollars not 250 you know the idea of

suggesting that that that i think a lot of the impact of inflation yes some progress made but not as much as he says why not just tell this present american people and say hey look this is these are the facts i can understand how you feel why they need to exaggerate you know i'd have to go back and look at the specific language but i'll you know and i hate coming back with with questions for you guys but but the president in order to make sure that everybody understood the fact and the facts were documented, spent a lot of time with us, with our team, preparing slides that showed the data for what he was talking about in the speech. And in some networks, while he was speaking, they showed the slides.

And in some networks, they didn't. And I just thought that was kind of unusual. I was expecting when I was flipping around to just see the slides everywhere. The slides, Brad, it's all about the slides, man. Well, you know why they didn't show the slides? I actually read about this. It's because the White House created a bunch of fake data, put it on slides without any sort of substantial.

any sort of substantiation, without any sort of sourcing for their numbers, and they gave it to the networks, and they said, we want you to present this data, this made-up data. And all the kind of more legitimate networks, I will call them, said, no, we don't put unverified information, unverified, quote-unquote, facts on the air. That's not something that we do here. I think the one network that actually did show some of those slides, unsurprisingly, was Fox. I don't think anyone's going to be a surprise by that. It's just a regime propaganda channel. And then if you watch the event on the White House's official stream, they put up those slides. But, you know, they just throw a bunch of numbers out there. It's all made up. Everything basically comes from Donald Trump just

making up numbers, you know, even in his speech, you know, when he says, we're going to, you know, we're bringing down drug prices by 500, 600, 700, 700 percent. It's just, it's all made up stuff that even under the slightest bit of scrutiny doesn't make any sense. And I think we saw these networks not want any part of it. Then you have Hacet go up there and he's like, I can't believe that they wouldn't run the slides. Yeah, because you're cooking the books. You're making up the numbers. That's not a way to run a government. It's not a way to run an economy. And it doesn't help the American people. And no matter how much you try to cook the books here and make things seem like they are rosy and great, it doesn't matter the American people when somebody goes to the store and they know that they're

spending far more money right now than they were spending a year ago. It doesn't matter. You could lie to people's faces all you want, but they know their own lived experiences. Exactly. And it's what folks keep saying about this Trump regime. If their lips are moving, they are lying. And you see Kevin Hassett up there. And I said this previously whenever we show him. I mean, he's just got this shit eating grin on his face. And he absolutely, he loves it. He loves going on TV and lying to the American people. And he is beside himself when he's looking at the networks who refuse to air the propaganda slides that the Trump regime had given out. And he's like, huh, I found

that to be an interesting thing with his shit-eating grin. And it's, it's infuriating when you look at him up there because at the end of it, again, I don't want to be gaslit. I just want the truth. And Kevin Hassett is a total puppet, man. It's awful. Then you had Andrew Ross Sorkin question Jameson Greer, who's Trump's top trade representative, just so you know all the officials, just so you don't get confused at home, right? You have Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, Treasury Secretary. Secretary Howard Ludnik, National Economic Advisor, who you just saw over there, Kevin Hassett, and then Trade Representative Jameson Greer. That's like the core economic team, if you will, and they're all losers.

So here's Jameson Greer, and trade is really supposed to be the one that deals with, you know, the tariffs, and normally it would be kind of free trade is what it would focus on. So Jameson Greer is asked by Andrew Ross Sorkin. By the way, I did an interview with Ross Sorkin. check out the interview that I did with him, which is on our feed. We went into a lot of areas that I think had... Great, great, great interview. I got to say, this was a really good deep dive into the economy,

into Donald Trump's claims about the economy. And I recommend that everybody either watch it on YouTube or listen to it. It's on the Midas Touch podcast, like the audio feed. Check it out, Apple Podcasts, anywhere you get your audio podcast. A great deep dive, Ben, incredible stuff. Hold on. I'm going to hype it up one more time. I think it was the best interview when we squeaked it in right before the new year.

It might be my personal favorite interview of the year. Oh, shit. Yep, it's getting the majority stamp of that. This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, though. These are the issues that I was speaking to him about, actually. And I was glad to see that he asked these questions of Jamison Greer. Let's play it. I think that I wanted to ask you about was the president spoke, obviously,

to the American public last night and talked about the $18 trillion, I think, was the number he used, of investment pledges made into the U.S. as part of some of these tariff transactions or tariff deals with various countries. And I think the American public wants to understand the math behind that because $18 trillion is an extraordinary amount of money. You look at some of the countries that have made these pledges. It's close to their entire GDP.

Over what period of time should we anticipate these deals actually coming to fruition? And I should also just mention that Bloomberg had done an analysis of this and suggested that, in fact, that we're closer to only really seven trillion dollars which by the way is still an extraordinary number but in terms of measurable deals that that we should be thinking about well remember the deals they really have a couple parts of them you know one are one is the investment headline numbers that that you're talking

about which are really important it's helping to re-industrialize America and I'll talk a little bit about that and the other part are what I'd call the pure trade issues where they're opening our markets to us they're taking their tariffs down they're removing their non-tariff barriers And on that part, a lot of that is already in progress or going through legislatures in foreign countries. On the investment piece, you know, this past week, we saw a new zinc smelter be announced by a Korean company. We have the Koreans talking about more shipbuilding, and the tunes of, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars. We have the Japanese companies like Hitachi and others, you know, building.

So, you know, we see a lot of progress on that front. And we're going to be looking at it over the life of President Trump's term on the investment figure. Right. Okay. just to be clear he just lied do you hear what he just said like just break it down what he just said he goes when we talk about 18 trillion write this down or or just remember it that's the investment headline number the hell does that even mean that yeah the issue that you're being asked is that you're making up fake headlines you go it's the investment headline number so that's what

we look at the investment headline okay so you made up the number that's basically what you're saying and then the other thing we look at is the pure trade is the pure trade is issues. What does that even mean? You're the trade represent. You think there wasn't trading before. So are you just counting trading that takes place between countries as a gross number of investment into the United? So what does that mean? Pure trade issues, investment headline number. And then he says there's a zinc smelter plant from a Korean company that we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps billions, but you need to measure it throughout. about the lifetime of the presidency.

Okay, that's what he said right there. Like, y'all realize he just literally just, it's just vomited out a bunch of words that make literally no sense at all. Can I give some other facts also just to like level set these numbers that the Trump administration continues to say? Global, when you're talking about global trade and I'm talking like all of global,

all of global trade, every single aspect of global trade, $35 trillion for 2025. So Trump is claiming he's brought in, 18 trillion, 20 trillion, 22 trillion dollars of investment. The entire global trade, all of it is 35 trillion for 2025. And anytime he says the numbers about these various countries, it's oftentimes as much as the country's GDP, most of the country's GDP, more than the country's entire GDP. It just none of it makes sense. None of it adds up. It's also why the Ponzi scheme that the Trump regime is running right now, lying about the trillions and trillions of dollars that they brought in just

absolutely makes no sense to me because at that same tokens, they'll talk about, oh, we brought in this much money, you know, trillions of dollars here. The economy, it's an a plus, plus, plus, plus, plus economy. And then in the same breath, they'll go, Biden left me a disaster. This economy's horrible, but you should be feeling great about it because it's actually great. It's like the mixed messaging here makes absolutely no sense because they're lying. They are lying to you. And why it's schrodinger's economy right jordi it's both the best economy the golden age a plus plus plus plus but also it's horrible and it's all joe biden's fault exactly and meanwhile dr oz was holding a press conference today and here's what he was talking about let's play

it vaginoplasti a vaginoplasti a procedure a child does not need cost 60 000 dollars. Shockingly, a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs on average in America, according to this data, high quality, $150,000. Now, look, we don't need to get into much more of what he was saying. I mean, he's trying to attack transgender people and he's trying to attack gender affirming care. And that's the main thing, though, that his focus is like, just to be clear, you know, again, while Americans are having their health care ripped away from them, As Maga Mike Johnson refused to allow a vote on the Affordable Care Act, subsidies to be extended to even take place despite there being a discharge petition,

they go to their toolkit, right? They go there. Don't forget the massive measles outbreak. Exactly, exactly. So we have a lot more to discuss when we come back from our first quick break of the show. I want to give a shout out to the minus plus substack. It's our, we get shouting on our own substack. Check it out.

I think you like Ron Filipkowski does a great job there with his, daily summaries, go check it out at Midasplus.com. Become a member of our YouTube page if you can. It helps grow this independent media platform. Subscribe across all Midas Dutch platforms. YouTube viewers go to audio, check out the audio podcast, audio podcast. Listeners, go check out the YouTube page. Let's keep trying to grow this thing as much as we can. And we appreciate all your support. Let's take our first quick break of the show. Honestly, this time of the year feels like scam season. I've had fake shipping

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Links and description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links. Use the codes. It's if there's an exit survey, let them know he sent you. And as we were at break, Ben and Brett, I was thinking of a fourth C word about this Trump regime. And I'm going to say it. I'm going to say they're childish. Thank you.

Looking at those clips, that's what you're in. So, child. What was it? Childish. Because we need adults in the room. If we actually, if we actually as a country want to start solving the issues that are in front of us, inflation, this economy, making everyone and our citizens actually feel better moving. moving forward, like, we just need to be serious and we need to have serious people as leaders.

And the Trump regime are not serious. They are childish, Ben. Well, you look at what they even said this morning, right? They said, consumer price index. They said, wow, a big drop in inflation all of a sudden. Out of nowhere, big drop in inflation. Like kind of like a pretty drastic drop. And it's like, well, where is this coming from? Well, it's coming from housing and rent. Wait a minute. Housing and rent is all the sudden going down like dramatically over the past what month and a half and then it's like wait a minute did you all use the number zero and just make a assumption that there was zero increase without actually gathering the data and is that one of the core inputs that dragged down in a good way that

brought them although it's fabricated information that brought down inflation and yeah they did and you can say well they did this because the algorithm just input zero That was one of the excuses there. Just the algorithm did it. Okay, what does it even? The algorithm put zero. Why don't you just, they've had a lot of time to gather the right data. Like, why don't you put what it actually is before making a report that's false?

And if the algorithm truly inputs zero improperly when it's not zero, then maybe you say, hey, it input zero. So you can't trust this data, this because we're going to figure it out. Like people saw it and said, wait a minute. How'd this happen? Wait, you put zero. Then they're like, wait a minute. If the cost of all these products and goods and consumer stuff, that went down dramatically as well.

How'd that happen? Like all of a sudden, oh, wait a minute, you didn't collect any data other than basically the Black Friday sales across the board. So you're literally using the Black Friday discounts to claim that inflation is going down. And then when you see this, it's just like you can't, there's nothing you trust with these people, right? It's like what I said before. Oh, that's the headline investment number. Do we tell you about the zinc plant?

And it's just, Jordy, to your point, like when children lie, when children lie or give fake gifts to their parents and re-gift him for their birthdays, you know? Who would do something like that? That's like, it was such a weird thing to do. I don't know who would do that and then admit it on a podcast to millions of people. That would just be a freaking weird thing there. You know when you're like a kid and it's your mom's birthday coming up and you give her her own necklace as a gift and people like, I'm not sure about that one, Brett.

I'm not sure that's a shared experience. I definitely did that to you guys, too, by the way. You definitely got re-gifted gifts of it. And maybe, you know, like, you were just winning. You're like, you're like, unique experience to you, Brett. Okay, but, but the way they lie is the way like a child gets caught in a lie to. And it's like, okay, did you just come up with like the stupidest lie?

Like, you know something can't decrease by 600%. Oh, uh, what, what he really means? It's like, okay, is there, this is the, this is the, American economy, though. This isn't Brett re-gifting on Mother's Day when Brett's eight years old. This is the American, this is the American economy right here. So we've got that taking place. Then I want to talk about, though, what's going on in the House of Representatives because the American people right now are very alarmed. They're very worried that they're going to be losing their health care, especially if they were on Medicaid, the disastrous budget bill gutted a lot of people's Medicaid, then lots of people get their health care from the Affordable Care Act exchanges and plans. It wasn't some Democratic talking point. Oh, your premiums are going to triple or quadruple. If these subsidies are not extended, it's just, it's called a fact. It's just the reality of it. Okay. And sure enough, people are seeing that their Affordable Care Act plans that they bought on the exchanges last year, that the premiums have

gone up to air to amounts that they can't afford. You're seeing in all of these states. People are not buying the health insurance off the exchange because they can't afford it. And so something had to be done about it. And Maga Mike and Republican leadership at Donald Trump's demand as well, refused to and one of the things is too because Donald Trump hates Obama. So anything Obama, affordable care, any Obama's achievements or Biden achievements, even if they're good for the country, Trump has to destroy. So that he thinks in that kind of simplistic terms of, I think he likes to see people suffering.

So Maga Mike refuses to allow a vote to take. Let's just let Congress vote on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. What Maga Mike does allow for is a vote on just like a hodgepodge of like old plans that Republicans had come up with. And like a lot of them like involve not allowing Affordable Care Act plans to like give women reproductive rights. Right. In blue states also, not just the red states that like basically have abortion. bans. So just to be clear, not only was Maga Mike refusing to allow a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, what he put on the floor and what Republicans did vote for was limiting

Affordable Care Act plan's ability to provide for like maternity and reproductive right care and other types of things that are vital. But you had four Republicans joined forces with Democrats on Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffrey's discharge petition that would have a three. And shout out to Hakeem Jeffries because he held his ground. And he said, no, you could join my discharge petition or nothing. Like this is what the American people need right now. It's not just like what Democrats want. It's like actually what the American people like actually need to live right now and to have

the certainty. And Jeffries was like, look, we can negotiate. You want to talk about other plans, come up with something real. But in the meantime, extend the subsidy so people aren't losing their health care and dying. So you had four Republicans join forces with the Democrats or sign the Democrats' discharge petition to go around Maga Mike. Discharge petitions are ways to get around the speaker who controls what bills are able to be voted on because Maga Mike wasn't even allowing the extension to get a vote because he knew if it got

a vote, it would be voted on because it's actually something that American people want. So what did Maga Mike do? After this discharge petition was signed, Maga Mike shuts down the House of Representatives. Remember when he did this during the government shutdown, where he could still have showed up and like actually done work, but they didn't want to swear in Adelaidea to Grie Hall because she would be the signature on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.

We'll talk more about that on the show. But remember when they did that, so he literally shut down Congress? That's like his playbook. Jordy, to your point, childish? He shut down. He shut it down. And he said everybody go home. Think about the two recent times that and the only times that really Mike Johnson has forced the rest of Congress to employ these discharge petitions, which are rarely used, rarely successful, but they've been used twice now in the past few weeks.

And the first time was because Mike Johnson refused to put the bill to release the Epstein files on the floor. And now we have this, a simple, clean extension of health care subsidies to save millions, millions of lives. And I'll give you one build on that, Ben, about how child. that is. So you guys remember when you're kids and the older brothers beating you in a video game or something and you turn it off really quickly because you don't want them to win. That's how Maga Mike is looking at government right now. He's shutting down the government because he's scared he's going to lose because that's how they see this too. They see this as a game instead of just getting to get that example journey. American people. That one's hyper specific to me. I never let the brothers beat me in video games. That system would get shut off real quick. Oh, come on. That was a Ben. That was such a Benmoved. Come on. I'd be so close to beating Ben and like Madden football and he'd turn off the game. I mean, that's the classic move. Classic Maga Mike move.

I was defending mom's honor and shutting it off for all of your regroup. That's a good voice. Classic Maga Mike style deflection. I could not allow someone who re-gifted necklaces on Mother's Day to defeat me in a game. So that's why, that's why I did that. That's why I did it. So Maga Mike was then, Jordy, to your point, childish. He ran around the halls of Congress saying,

I didn't lose control. I don't know you're in control. That's how you know you're in control. And that's where I would perhaps say, or Jordi would perhaps say, I didn't lose the game. I didn't lose. I'm actually still the winner. While the winning brother would play, we are the champions and make the other brother cry.

You'll play this clip. Hypothetical, we're talking about it. Having lost control, I have not lost control. Because this is the third time. We have the smallest majority in U.S. history. These are not normal times. There are processes and procedures in the house that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities. And when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you don't have to deal with it.

Okay, sure. They come in there. we have a mandate. We have a huge mandate. We're going to bulldoze through and do everything. Oh, I'm sorry. We actually have a very slim majority. And we'd love to get this health care. We'd love to do all that. We just can't. We just can. And sometimes things like this happen. Okay. Okay, Maga Mike. This guy is such a disgrace. Okay. Well, Maga Mike. Well, what about the fact that 22 to 24 million Americans are on these Affordable Care Act plans, perhaps even more? and they could be losing their health care now because of what you're doing.

And you've never put forward a plan to actually reduce costs. And no, Donald Trump being out there and saying he's reducing the cost by 600 percent, that's actually not a solution. So what's your plan, Maga, Mike, here, play this clip. But here's the false narrative. The Democrats are pretending as though this affects everybody in the country. It affects 7% of Americans, this extended subsidy. And of those, even if it was extended, without any.

reforms at all, it would only reduce that small group of Americans' premiums by 5.7%. The Democrats have tried to pretend as though this is all about... No, I understand that this is not for everybody, but it's 22 to 24 million Americans, and there are some Republicans whose districts are going to face some real trouble and some real issues with this. We've talked to some of them. I understand that Michael Aller from New York was particularly upset yesterday, that he was kind of... of furious about it said it's idiotic it's political malpractice but here's the thing too it's not just about mike lawler or fitzpatrick like it's about the people like the man these are these are these

are talking about people's lives here we're talking about our viewers our listeners mag and mike in louisiana your constituents mike lawler's constituents i don't give a as you know i don't give a crap about Michael Lawler's job, you know, or, you know, you represent human beings who can die because you have not come up with a plan and you're failing to allow the plan as imperfect as it may be that provides people, though, with a solution that gives them comfort and that they like. You're also taking the option away from somebody. without replacing it with something that could help them so that's that's just cruel and unusual i think about that term cruel and unusual punishment what a cruel and unusual way right to treat

to treat the american people it's just very strange breton very strange behavior and it is it shows a i think a a hatred frankly uh you know for for the american people i mean you can see it there Mike Johnson is treating like 25 million Americans like it's some sort of rounding error or something. These are real people's lives. That's a lot of people. And honestly, like you talk about Ben and, you know, I know we've had Senator Bernie Sanders on the show speak about this. That idea of psychological torture. This right here is an example of that psychological torture that we speak about and that so many people in these rallies across America,

whether they're Republican, Democrat, independent doesn't matter what the political affiliation is. This is what they speak about. This is what they mean when they're talking about it. when you are faced with this spike in premiums, that could be thousands of thousands of dollars. Some cases, like 10 plus thousands of dollars a year. Like, how do people afford that? Like, I don't understand how this is feasible,

how this is sustainable, and there is a way that we have made it feasible and sustainable for people. And in any other normal time, this would not even be a question. This would be probably a unanimous vote if this was like 10 years ago, right? Of course you would extend these subsidies because there are so many lives on the line,

You're going to push a lot of people into bankruptcy. You're going to make them have to decide between their health insurance or other necessities in their life. But instead, you have Mike Johnson writing them off so flippantly. And by the way, if Donald Trump came out tomorrow and said, yes, I want to extend these subsidies and name them the Trump subsidies, he'd flip in a second because he has no values. He has no principle. He has zero foundation to stand on. These people do not believe anything except doing Donald Trump's bidding.

That's all they care about. And because Donald Trump says he does not want these subsidies. subsidies to pass. Mike Johnson just acts like he is a vessel of Donald Trump and he repeats that. And then he makes every single excuse as to why he is about to be the reason that millions and millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans are going to be forced to pay astronomical health care premiums, health insurance premiums that could send them into bankruptcy and really destroy their lives, not to mention the psychological trauma that comes from that as they receive these bills and as they have to now monitor what the hell is Congress doing. Are they going to pass this?

a discharge thing. It's now not going to take the floor until January because Mike Johnson refuses to put it on the floor. Is it going to pass the house? It should pass the house. Will it pass the Senate if it passes the house? Why should the average American have to worry about these things? They should just be able to pay for their health care, their health insurance, and get the health care that they need. They shouldn't have to worry about the intricacies of politics and the horse race and who's up for election and who may flip on this because they're more moderate and in this district or that district. It shouldn't even be on any Americans' mind. They should be able to go about their lives. And when I think about this notion of freedom, the idea of freedom that

Republicans pretend to be these representatives of freedom, there is nothing more the opposite of freedom. There's nothing more kind of shackling than having to be worried about these sorts of issues in your life. How could you go about your day to day, enjoy your life, when you have to worry about the very fundamentals of keeping yourself and your family alive? It is so hateful. there's no excuse for this one thousand percent and going back now to how we started the show with that trump speech how whatever you want to the rally speech that he addressed the nation with that he made us all watch the bizarre part of me really thinks why he did that i'm not trying to get into his mind that's a scary place but we all know the holidays are here they're coming up christmas is right

around the corner families are going to be getting together what that sounded like to me was he was giving his his base the talking points to kind of back pocket as they roll in. Oh, no, oh no, because look, politics inevitably comes up at these things. Oh, no, it's the Democrats' fault and here's why. And it's at the end of the day again, people just don't want to be gaslit, man. Like the tone when you hear Mike Johnson there, it's just so I'm going to use another C word. I'm going to say it this time, don't believe me, condescending. It's so evil and condescending and just so arrogant that they just continue to lie to us, to our faces. And I'm proud of this community here, the pro-democracy community who pushes back, who says, hey, man, this is not

the data is reflective of you continue to lie to us you continue to gaslight us here's x y and z reason why now just can you tell us the damn truth why our premium skyrocketing why is our healthcare skyrocketing maga mike what's going on i'm feeling this in my pocket i'm a human being don't talk to me like i'm some sort of constituent that you need my i just want to live man so what's going on dude what why can't we just be there as a society like how how has this maga republican party so lost its way that they just hate the american people so much that they're willing to let them die so long as they continue to gaslight bombers well you know they thrive as this opposition this anti everything and tear it down and burn it down and so the contradiction is this

whiny, pathetic, orange, Adderall-fueled loser in the White House, like whining and yelling, right? But you're in the White House. So you're in charge. And we're a year in. And you're whining about Biden and you're whining that the unaffordable care act. Dude, you're in charge. Like, I'm watching an address that in the past we had leaders. presidents stress the American people on the most serious of matters, whether it was announcing war, whether it was announcing peace, whether it was announcing killing of Osama bin Laden, whether it is announcing a national tragedy or or being there as a consular in chief, you're there with the trappings of the White House and this whiney, childish, immature, dangerous,

racist, but a lot of Americans don't see, you know, we cover it and a lot of people follow the Midas Dutch Network where the most watched digital news network that there is. You know, a lot of people, though, just wanted to watch Survivor. They just wanted to watch Survivor. They wanted to watch their favorite show, and they turn that on, and they don't really following politics. like, wait, what? What, what are you saying? Huh? Now, when we come back, I want to talk about a few things. I want to talk about what Trump is doing to cover up the release of the Epstein

files. What I expect is going to happen when they're released on Friday. What's going to be released? What's not going to be released? And let's talk about what Trump's priorities are. Like, what's he actually focused on doing right now? Renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, putting his social media posts and attaching it to the White House? Like he's doing Trude Social posts on the White House. He's focused on his own Trump media acquired or merged with an energy fusion company. And then all of a sudden, Trump media stock soared. A fusion company that requires the Department of Energy approval merges with Trump media. Because, you know, Trump media, as we've always talked about, was doing hard. You know, my opinion was doing really

bad. I mean, well, it's tens of millions of dollars each quarter. So now it announces a merger with a fusion company, this technology that hasn't even been implemented yet while Trump is getting rid of solar and wind, which we know work and reduce energy prices, while energy prices are up 13 percent to 15 percent year over year. I mean, these are the deranging. He's announcing the Patriot games, Patriot games, one male high school student, one female, battle it out in D.C. at the Capitol, It's a federal capital. May the odds be ever in your favor. The odds be in your favor.

Let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder, hit subscribe. Help us get to 6 million subscribers. Subscribe to us on audio and video. Just search, Midas touch, wherever you get your audio podcast. We'll leave a five-star review there. And if you can, go to Midasplus.com. Check out the substack.

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Use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know he sent you. Benji, where to next? You know, I said, when we come back from a break, I'm going to discuss all the distractions. Then I, like, just discussed them. Like, I ended up saying all the things I was going to say when I came back. So, like, I could kind of be redundant about it.

But yes, Donald Trump. said that he was announcing the Patriot Games, which is like the Hunger Games, except it's a little bit different, obviously, but, you know, it's like literally borrowing the idea, but like it's one female high school athlete, one male high school athlete, and they compete each other from the different districts. Okay, he's renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, which, again, is illegal. The Kennedy Center was named that by Congress. But Donald Trump doesn't care because it's an unlawful regime. They're a gangster regime, and they do what gangster regimes do. They've changed the website of the Kennedy Center. So it now already says the Trump Kennedy Center.

They're going to replace all the signage. But it requires a congressional act. But the MAGA Republicans won't keep him, won't hold them accountable. All the Kennedys, other than RFK Jr., but all the Kennedys are like, this is so horrible. Like, this was part of the legacy of a fallen president. And like you have Maria Shriver saying, some things just leave you speechless and in a rage in a state of disbelief at times such as that it's better to be quiet for how long i can't say you have joe kennedy the third the kennedy center is a living memorial to a fallen president and aim for

president kennedy by federal law it can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the lincoln memorial no matter what anyone says you had caroline levitt over there saying i've just been informed that a unanimous vote was taken and the entire board voted to change the name and they're now calling at the Trump Kennedy Center. First off, Donald Trump appointed like 90% of the board. Like, they're all Trump people. It's like Pam Bondi and Steve Scalise and like Dan's, not Steve Scalise, like Dan Scavino, you know, and like all the Trump. It's just, it's just Trump's people. The people who were not Trump's people, their phone was muted during the vote. So they were not even allowed to voice their objection, even though Trump had packed the board with enough people

to have the board can pass resolutions they can't change the name it's like again it's a crime and frankly those board members when everything said and done they should be criminally prosecuted right like this is a crime you can't it's like it would be like putting graffiti on it like you can't put graffiti on it so again another crime that i think these people should actually be look there's a lot more that these people should be prosecuted for a lot of them are war criminals also but you know not all of them but you know it's just every day they commit crimes crimes crimes crimes crimes crimes, crimes. And, you know, screw you Supreme Court for giving Donald Trump absolute immunity because right here is part of the consequence when you treat something, when you say that someone

has kinglike powers and all they got to do is say, oh, national security or this or that, you know, that's what they claim with everything. By the way, Donald Trump's latest briefing regarding tearing down the east wing. I did a whole video on this. You know what he cited? National Security because they're building a bunker underneath it. They're renovating a bunker. You think the taxpayers are paying for that? Absolutely the taxpayers are. They said, ah, you know, the ballroom won't be done until 2028.

So, Judge, it's moot anyway. Like, you can't tell us to stop building. We've already destroyed it. But national security when it comes to the bunker. So they invoke national security for like quite literally everything. So do we have one of the board members, the Congresswoman who said, who said actually what really went down during the vote. I think we have a video over. Let's play this clip.

I'm Congresswoman Joyce Beatty. I'm sitting here in my congressional office in Washington, D.C., just ending a call with the Kennedy Center, where I serve as an ex-officio member. I am bringing this to you live today because what you may hear is that there was a unanimous vote to rename the Kennedy Center, the Trump Center. Be clear. I was on that call. And as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions,

and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted. Participants were not allowed to voice their concerns who were online. Yet it was said at the end, it was a unanimous vote. Clearly, the Congress has a say in this. They muted the Congress, like who literally required to pass a law. They muted Congress's ability to object, and they said it's unanimous.

I mean, Jordy, that's, I mean, yes, it's childish behavior, but it's like, this is, these people are thugs. I mean, this regime, this gangster regime, I mean, like, just look at their behavior. I don't know how anyone looks at this or go. Oh, yeah, I like this. Oh, I like this. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's Orwellian and it's, it's just fascist behavior. I mean, this is, you know, it's how like fake trials are run into Russia.

You know, it's straight out of 1984. It's unanimous. Oh, why? Because you muted all the people who object and the way that they stack these boards with, you know, all of these Trump's sick offense. I mean, you could go down the list. It's just like atrocious. Like, they made a mockery of all of our institutions.

And the American people hate it. Like, no one's even. going to the Kennedy Center for events anymore. Like, they've just totally desecrated the place. It's just so, so appalling. I mean, you've got people like Susie Wiles, Ushah Vance, you spent said Dan Skavino before, Lee Greenwood, Laura Ingram, the Fox Host, the Maria Bartaromo, Elaine Chow, who was in Donald Trump's administration, Pam Bondi, you know, Sergio Gore, all of these people

are the people who are making these decisions about the Kennedy Center. not like some, you know, independent board. It's Trump sycophants and it's against the law, as Ben said, but that doesn't matter to them. They just press ahead. And I think it's very ominous when we see them doing things like this, when we see things like them, you know, make calling it the Donald Trump Institute of Peace. When you see at the Department of Labor, Donald, a giant poster of Donald Trump's face. I mean, these are the things that we would look at, you know, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or we'd look at North Korea. And we'd go, wow, what an effed up society. that is. You know, I'm thankful to live in a country where that's not how things are here,

but Donald Trump has quickly transformed our society into that, thanks to all the enablers around him. For me, I, you know, I look around sometimes and I'm hopeful that we will get out of this one day. I really am in restored normalcy here and really put our best foot forward as a nation. But I'm talking like 15, 20, 30 years down the line when we all sort of reflect back on these cowards who just bent the knee so willingly to Donald Trump. And for me, I'm just so curious as to genuinely why. Is it money? Is it because you don't want to get called a bad name? Do you not actually like this country? Do you not actually want this country to be better off for its citizens? Like there are so many ways to look at this thing multiple times. And it's frustrating. And only time will tell.

I hope we're all around collectively still in this country still standing for us to kind of see the light a day on this and actually have that debrief here and understand why. But it's it's genuinely upsets me as someone who truly loves this country, truly. Yeah. And I mean, you just with all of these in and they're incompetent, you know what, Truddy, because a lot of the people who take these positions, though, who are willing to say these things and behave in this way, would not otherwise on their merit be able to get into these positions, you know, and so they, you know, like a cash Patel being the FBI director, right, Pam Bondi

becoming the, you know, attorney general. I mean, you know, Dan Bongino who's quitting, but becoming the deputy, the deputy FBI director, Pete Heggseth, becoming a secretary of defense. and like what are what you know is trump picks and this is the thing about authoritarian regimes in general like he picks the the the the most unqualified people do we have the clip read of laurie shavez de remer from one of the appearances she gave this morning where she at least was asked by fox about the bad job numbers and if they're coming from you know jobless claims are up 54 percent unemployment's at 4.6 and rising i think it will probably be at about about 5% soon and here's what she and she's like yeah AI isn't a big deal like

AI is not take you're the labor secretary and you're saying AI is not a threat to labor here play this clip back to this weakening of the numbers do you believe that the weakening of the numbers month to month on on jobs and the unemployment rate ticking up is that a function of AI or is that a function of some weakness in the broader economy absolutely not it's not a function of AI. Again, because we want to make sure that we're answering the call, these market demands. You know, post-COVID, there was a lot of companies who, you know, increase their employee growth numbers. And maybe they're laying off for those reasons, and they have to answer that to the American people. But I will tell you, at the Department of Labor, what we're doing

is focusing on the apprenticeship program. We're focusing in, you know, we've registered almost 300,000 new apprentices. We're answering the call for 700,000 jobs in electricians, machinists, plum, Again, did you see that she was basically attacking companies for hiring labor? She was like, they're going to have to answer for hiring all those people or keeping people hired or, you know, it's like, what, you're the labor secretary. And you're saying that AI isn't a threat and it's answering a marketing demand. You could say it's that there is a, that AI, like if you're the labor secretary, you should say what, yes, we need to harness the power of AI, but we need to make sure that we. protect labor. Like, isn't that like literally your old job is? And then it's like, why is energy bills going up 13% right now since Donald Trump took office? Because it's like literally going rampant.

Why is heating costs going up? Like, why are all these costs are going up? I wonder why, Brett. I wonder why. It's all skyrocketing to it. It's like it's not even close. Like electricity prices, I think you said the stat before. They're up 13% since Donald Trump took office. Heating costs are expected to rise 9.2% this winter. So I think about all the other costs we talked about, this episode, right? Healthcare costs and things like that. On top of that, all of these costs, in addition to prices for everything being more expensive. And Trump just makes it worse because he keeps canceling all of these clean energy projects. So while he's giving all of these kind of AI companies, carte blanche to build all these data centers and all these towns, he's canceling these

clean energy projects that would actually help the energy load that are actually clean ways to help with this energy load. So already, Trump has either threatened to cancel or cancel 320 for clean energy projects or companies. He put 165,000 more than 165,000 clean energy jobs on the chopping block. Fifty-three billion dollars in clean energy investment is gone. And these projects, just like so you could wrap your head around it a little bit, they would have generated enough electricity to power 13 million homes, but they're gone because of Donald Trump. And all of this while, like, think about the other orders that Donald Trump wants to sign and what these Republicans right now, what they're fighting for. They're fighting to stop any

regulation on AI, like to not allow any states to regulate AI whatsoever so that they can allow these billionaires to build these data centers, which are destroying communities, straining the energy grid, consuming massive amounts of water. In many cases, they're even making water unsafe to drink in the towns. They're just allowing them to build these carte blanche, but that's just out with no guidelines and no guidelines, obviously, for the, you know, for the end result of AI for its many use cases that could be quite dangerous. AI, if harnessed correctly, could be a good thing. It could be used to improve efficiency.

It could be used to help find cures to diseases. There's a lot of great use cases for AI, but they're without all these, but it's also a very dangerous technology that also needs a lot of regulation. They do not want any regulation on this. And then that brings me to another really important story that I don't think is getting nearly enough attention, but the Trump administration just moved to dismantle the country's leading climate research center, which is the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. It's like world-renowned, one of the top research centers in the entire world.

People all across the planet rely on this facility for life and death information about natural disasters and so much more. But the administration says because they report on climate issues and give actual data on the climate, not cooked books like the Trump administration gives out, but they give actual facts to the people. The Trump administration says that that is alarmist and woke. I wish I was being facetious when I said that they called the work that they do woke, but they literally said that it's woke. It's woke to know about natural disasters. It's woke to have information on the climate. It's woke to save lives, I guess. And it's all because they're just giving truthful information that goes against this regime narrative. It's part of

the danger of having these sycophants, of having a regime that doesn't care about the facts and just wants to push forward its agenda without any regard for anything else. Yeah. I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the Epstein files, though, for a moment. First off, on Thursday, the New York Times dropped an incredible expose. By the way, Brett, that was a great segment. New York Times dropped an expose. The headline, Don's best friend, how Epstein and Trump bonded over the pursuit of women. The article talks about, and it's very well sourced from, like, people who worked with Epstein at the time, Epstein's assistant, like all the people who knew what was going on at the time. The two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other's closest friend, the Times found. The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women, I can say girls, but chasing women was a game of ego and dominance.

Female bodies were currency. There's also photos that the Democrats from the House Oversight Committee released, and it's like Epstein with like people, it looks like very younger. in the photo. Their faces are redacted, but it looks like very young girls in this photo. You go to what the New York Times also reports, and they say, one of the assistants who worked for Epstein, who would work late, recall that sometimes when the office emptied out, Epstein would check to see that she was at her desk and put Trump on speaker. Mr. Trump, she said, seemed to enjoy regaling Epstein with tales of his sexual exploits. And Mr. Epstein seemed to delight

and how uncomfortable it made her to overhear them. She remembered one call in the mid-1990s in which the two men discussed how much pubicare a particular woman had and whether there was enough for Mr. Epstein to floss his teeth with. Epstein frequently mentioned his friendship with Trump, according to several accusers,

telling one he had a bedroom reserved at Mar-a-Lago. So while this is going on, Donald Trump has also assigned a national security team a national security team at the Department of Justice and FBI to work on the redactions, which is, you know, removing things and hiding things or not disclosing the names before the deadline, which is on Friday. If you're listening to this on Friday, it's today. And so like hundreds of national security employees, lawyers, FBI agents, potentially in the thousands.

Interesting thing to think about, though, because didn't they do this in March also from the FOIA requests that we know that Bloomberg sent out? We know that redactions were made in March. Remember, there was one week where there was a thousand overtime hours that were spent by the FBI and the various teams there. There was also, I think, national security teams and other teams that dealt with these redaction teams back then. Yeah, a million dollars, I think it was. I think it was a thousand employees that worked on it in March and over a million dollars in overtime pay in one week alone. And that's when Bondi said they were going to release it.

And then, of course, they didn't release it and said they're not releasing anything. So I think given what we know, Trump's not going to produce things that have his, you know, it's either going to be redacted or not produced. They'll probably produce, in my view, duplicates of what the estate turned over. And I think they'll produce some things that have Trump. name on it. But just to be like, oh, you see, his name is on it. But like, you know, but I think they're going to produce a lot of things that implicate people who Trump views as like other people, not him, other people that he would perceive his enemies. Anyone who's friends with him, I'm giving

you my opinion, friends with him, him, I think they're not going to produce it or just produce a little bit enough to be people to like, hey, you see, we turn stuff over. I think they're also going to be sloppy. And I think we're going to find out pretty quickly. You can go back to this tape when it happens, that they will probably violate a lot of actual privacy issues of the real victims and survivors. We saw them do this before in other settings where they like give social security numbers. So like, I think there's going to be a great degree of sloppiness that we're going to find out right away. But I think there's going to be a lot of cover up. And I think a lot of the work's going to begin in terms of exposing what their,

what their cover up is. So we will, we will be on that every step of the way. I just do want to show these two other points, though, just before we go. And there are just two separate hearings, and I just want to make sure I give everybody this info. You may have seen it on hot takes that I've done, but I want to show you some of the Democrat cross-examination of witnesses that took place in the Senate. The first one where you had Democratic Senator Blumenthal cross-examining Trump's pick to be federal judges. So you see, like, who are the future federal judges that Trump is pushing forward and that the MAGA Republicans are pushing forward? And to what we described earlier, I think you said, Jordi, who would want to, like, who would

do this? Who would debase themselves? You know, these people want to be federal judges and they're willing to say anything. And they know that if they say January 6th was an attack on the Capitol, that they will not become judges. So they say, I can't answer the question. And you'll see how people like this bend and break. And these are disgraceful human beings.

They're vile human beings. And I hope that their children and their grandchildren see this and say, you know what? These individuals in my family were utterly disgraceful. Was the United States Capitol attacked on January 6, 2021? And again, Senator, as a sitting judge under a rule two of the Missouri rules of judicial ethics, I believe that there are cases pending in front of courts. And so due to pending or impending litigation, I cannot comment on anything of political controversy. I'm not asking you about a specific individual.

Was the capital attack? And again, I do believe that there are cases currently in front of courts. And so as a sitting judge under Rule 2, I cannot answer. Mr. Lee? Same answer. And I would add that as an employee of the Department of Justice, I would refer to the Department of Justice's positions and briefs. Mr. Olson. Senator, the January 6 events are a matter of public controversy and debate on how to characterize those.

And I think to wait into that. All right. That's, you know, very low character individuals, very shameful individuals, right? But they're going to be federal judges deciding. cases. How do you think they're going to decide cases that involve Donald Trump and MAGA? Right? Such low character, such scumbacks, frankly. Let me know how else to describe these people. Such shameful humans. They can't say that. Look, if they want to not being asked to opine and do you agree with Donald Trump's impeachment, which should be an easy answer. I mean, sorry, Donald Trump,

but pardoned should be impeached. You know, but also, I mean, they weren't asked to opine on what What are your thoughts about Trump's impeachment in his first term? Like they weren't asked about like those questions. And they were literally not even by the way, Ben, they weren't even asked is Donald Trump responsible for the events on January 6th? Was there an attack on the Capitol? It was simply was the Capitol attacked on January 6th. This is common knowledge that we all know happened. And they refused to even say that.

Yeah. Okay. So then you have Brendan Carr, the current chairman of the FCC. FCC is an independent agency. It's always been their website said it was independent until Brendan Carr said what I'm about to show you. Then they deleted their website language and removed independent agency from the website. Okay, but it's supposed to be an independent agency. And Brendan Carr, and it's great questioning by Senator Lujan, watch what Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC.

This is the guy who threatened Kimmel and ABC, and he's been threatening all the comedians. This guy's the guy who threatens all the networks, that if you don't say what Donald Trump wants, say, I'm coming after you as the chairman of the FCC. And so he's asked by Senator Lujan, like so, do you believe that the FCC is an independent agency? Again, not a controversial question. The answer is yes, of course, it's an independent agency. And it's his own agency that he's supposed to defend. His job is literally to defend the independence of his agency. Watch what he says.

Let's point. The FCC, an independent agency. Senator, thanks for that question. Yes or no is all we need, sir. Yes or no, is it independent? Well, there's a test for this in the law, in the key portion of that test. Yes or no, Brendan? The key portion of that test is.

Okay, I'm going to go to Commissioner Trustee. So just so you know, Brendan, on your website, it just simply says, man, the FCC is independent. This isn't a trick question. Okay, the FCC is not, is not, is not an independent. Is your website wrong? Is your website line? Possibly. The FCC is not an independent agency.

Okay. Hey, can I read this to you? The FCC's mission on the homepage of the FCC. It's an independent agency. And you see how Brendan Carr was going to go into his like state regime media BS? Well, la la, la, no. You know, and I like that Senator Lujan's like, hey, Brandon. Hey, Brandon.

Answer the freaking question. Yes or no. But by the way, what they did after that hearing, like within the hour of Brendan Carr saying that, you might think, oh, they corrected him. They showed him, oh, this is actually it says it on the website. No, they changed the website. They changed history. They changed the website.

despite that being the history of the FCC forever that that was the way they handled that situation the only thing is he missed an opportunity at the end of that to just say thank you Brendan would have been just really funny for the the one person that me that that gets that joke i like that would be well i'm not sure where you going then but just went that to me after well um on that note jordy and the hilarious hilarious hilarious The episode, we covered a lot, covered a lot. I just want to thank all the Midas Mighty out there. Thank you all for standing strong.

It's been people-powered resilience. Institutions may have bent and broken. We've seen a lot of leaders, a lot of people bend the knee, a lot of disgraceful behavior. But the people have stuck together, and I've said this before and I'll say it again. The country's far worse off right now, I think there's a lot more hope because of the resilience of people, whereas last year,

I think there was far less hope, but the country was far better off when Biden was still in office. This was around the time when I had interviewed Biden in the Roosevelt room a year ago. You know, it's almost probably exactly a year ago. And when I asked former President Biden what he wanted his legacy to be, he said that I kept my word, that everything I said I was going to do, I did. And I didn't care if you were from a red state or a blue state or a purple state. You were an American and I fought for you. And those words back then seem so distant, yet what we should all be aspiring, I think, in future leaders.

And so I'll leave you all with that. Thank you all for watching. Brett, anything else you want to sing. All journey. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. We will get it right whenever you want to stay plugged in become a subscribers for our substack at midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcasts, and more exclusive content only available at Midasplus.com.