The MeidasTouch Podcast - MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 7/11/25

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

On this episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast, we break down the real cost of putting unqualified people in power—starting with shocking new revelations about the Trump administration’s disastrous response to the deadly Texas floods, which experts say led to unnecessary loss of life. We also expose yet another Trump lie, this time about Iran, as yet another report proves his claim of “obliterating” their enriched uranium stockpile was completely false. Plus, new ICE raids in California, and Trump’s Epstein ties continue to haunt him and even his own supporters are now demanding answers. All that and more on today’s must-listen episode from Ben, Brett, and Jordy. Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Get Meidas Merch: https://store.meidastouch.com Deals from our sponsors!  Wild Alaskan: Go to https://WildAlaskan.com/meidas for $35 OFF your first box of premium, wild-caught seafood. Hexclad: Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at https://hexclad.com/MEIDAS! #hexcladpartner Oracle: Right now, with zero commitment, try OCI for free. Head to https://Oracle.com/meidas Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/MEIDAS and use the code MEIDAS to claim your FREE 3 piece towel set and save over 40% OFF! Simpler Hair Color: For 10% off your order, head to https://SimplerHairColor.com/MEIDAS and use code MEIDAS. 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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Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. This podcast is supported by Talkspace. When my husband came home from his military deployment, readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found Talkspace. Talkspace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online. Military members, veterans, and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones.

I just answered a few questions online and Talkspace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me, and I can message her anytime. It was so easy to set up and they accept TRICARE. Therapy was going so well my husband and I started seeing a couples therapist through Talkspace too. Talkspace works with most major insurers including TRICARE. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com slash military. Go to Talkspace.com slash military to get started today. That's talkspace.com slash military We are seeing a transformative moment right now in the United States as Trump supporters are saying we feel utterly

Betrayed. I mean there was that Trumpy podcast it was called flagrant run by Andrew Scholes, who when people talk about the podcast bros and helping Donald Trump, there was very few as vocal as this Andrew Scholes guy being a Trump supporter. Well, now he's saying he absolutely regrets the vote and those podcast bros. I don't know where they see in the Midas Touch network now being number one across the podcast categories here. Watch what happened on flagrant. Let's play it.

DM me back. You see what your boy doing? You voted for this. I'm like, I voted for none of this. He's doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for. I want him to stop the wars. He's funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the budget.

He's increasing it. It's like everything that he said he's gonna do except sending immigrants back Everything and now he's even flip-flopped on that which I kind of like but he's like, oh well We kind of need the people working in restaurants and we need our farmers It's like everything that he said that he was gonna do that he can camp on he said to us which was important And I thought it was good. He pressed him on it. Well, you got to start with the criminals in terms of deporting I yeah, I don't think he's I don't even know if the criminals are getting sent back

I know there's a lot of people with green cards getting sent back. There's people who aren't criminals getting sent back. I don't know if you're sending back the criminals first. You're definitely not sending them back first. I don't know if you're sending them back at all. So nothing has happened. And you were more optimistic than I was because I judge him by his first floor and it was Mr. Dream the Shwamp swamp mr. Build the wall mr Like he didn't do a lot of the stuff he promised to the first floor. So why would anything? I didn't I already expect politicians to not do most of the shit they say. Mm-hmm

It's a little different with Donald Trump a I mean, he's someone who's literally a convicted felon, right? He's someone whose entire life he's been a fraud and a con artist. Like that's his thing. The thing he's good at, perhaps better than almost anyone in human history, is being a criminal. Like that's his shit.

He's being a con artist, right? He's a sexual abuser. I mean, he's not- Is that your like Ben, if you were at like the debate and they were like, say one thing that Donald Trump is good. You know how they always have that question? You gotta like, you gotta think one thing is he's good at, right? You think that would be your answer?

Yeah, I think it would be being a fraud. Being a criminal. So why would we be like, oh, but I believed him. You believe that guy, the guy who literally lies the moment he opens up his mouth, yeah, gas is $1.98. No, no, inflation is down. I've fixed inflation. No, it's actually up. Everything is more affordable right now. Not when I go to the store right now. What in the world?

We've taken in $15 trillion already. 15 trillion, huh? Our entire GDP is like 23 or 24 trillion. Who would you get this 15 trillion from? The richest countries in the world. Which ones would that be? Qatar. Oh, you mean the one whose GDP is $150 billion?

They gave us the 23 trillion or the 15 trillion. That doesn't really matter, but also the UAE. Oh, the one whose entire GDP for the year is 400 billion. Oh no, but also Saudi Arabia. Yeah, their one whose entire GDP for the year is 400 billion. Oh, no, but also Saudi Arabia. Yeah, their entire GDP is two trillion dollars. So they all gave us five X their GDP when you went to the Middle East. Or maybe you just went and got yourself a personal airplane

that probably isn't even going to work all that well based on all of the other crap that we know that you do. By the way, I should show this also on that flagrant podcast. This was what they had to say about Donald Trump covering up the Epstein files, which is a massive betrayal to the MAGA base. Play this clip. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? We have Texas. We have this. We have all of the things.

And people are talking about this guy, this creep. So we're stupid. Yeah, we. We're the fucking idiots, guys. That is, I think, what is enraging people right now, is it's insulting our intelligence. Like, obviously, the intelligence community is trying to cover it up. Obviously, the Trump administration is trying to cover up.

Something changed, because they ran on this idea of exposing it all. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All these guys had great ideas. Kaka, Cash, Dan Bongino. Son, he had clips, dog. He had bars. He was ready to tear it all down. He was ready to tear down the entire FBI office.

Shut down the Hoover building day one. Day one. Then, bitch, still staying. And then he goes on Joe Rogan and he's like, listen, do you think if I had it, I wouldn't share it with you? I do. Yeah.

I do. I do believe that 100%. Especially when you're staring at me like this, telling me that. Once you protect pedophiles, you're the most cock-eyed person So one of two things in my mind is a possible one You're covering it up or two nothing really happened and you exploited the r**p of thousands of children to get your man elected So which one do you want? So are the podcast bros now sounding like

the bros now sounding like the bros? Let's bring in, let's bring in Brett and Jordy. That looks like, that looks like a conversation that we would be having about the Epstein files. Well, that's the last, that last point I think is just so astute. And it's exactly what we've been saying here on this show. It's one of those two things and you can't have it both ways. And no matter which road you take, have you ever seen the meme? You take this road, you take that road. No matter which road you take, it leads to betrayal

and it leads to something incredibly screwed up. And that's what we are seeing right now from the Trump administration. I think a lot of people even who, you know, maybe watch and listen to our show don't realize just how big of a deal this truly is, um, in the Trump regime and amongst these MAGA supporters, amongst these Trump supporters. This was the big thing. This was the big thing. This was the big thing. And I never understood it. And I've said from the beginning that why would you go all in on this topic when your guy was literally, Donald was literally Jeffrey Epstein's best friend for more than a decade,

for like 15 years, best friends tied at the hip, according to Michael Wolff. Like everybody, the closest people to Jeffrey Epstein say that Donald Trump was his best friend. Donald Trump's own words, Donald Trump's own statements. He said how much he loved Jeffrey Epstein. He only changed his tune after Jeffrey Epstein was charged and after all this started to become public. Then he tried to shift his story.

Then it was, oh, I never actually liked that guy. Oh, well, all your comments in the past are to the contrary of that. So I'm not buying that one. Then he spread the lie. You know, the recruitment like center of Epstein scheme with Ghislaine Maxwell, let's remind everybody was in Mar-a-Lago, which was just about a mile away from Jeffrey Epstein's mansion in Palm beach. Coincidence? I'm going to say probably not. Okay. And so when all of this finally came out, what's the lie that Donald Trump pushed on this topic? Oh, I was actually, I actually didn't like the guy. And I was actually, I'm just trying to help the authorities

here. Okay. So you were now, you're now some super spy who was actually trying to get rid of Epstein. That's why you flew on the plane seven times. That's why you had him on your plane. That's why you were seen with him and young girls. That's why Michael Wolf said that you shared a girlfriend for a year. This goes deep, people. And it was only a matter of time before this all blew up in Donald Trump's face. And we are seeing that right now. And then the ultimate betrayal, beyond the fact that you have this whole, know, this whole, uh, we're not releasing the Epstein files. They don't exist. Poof, they're gone. And we said it was on Pam Bondi's desk, but actually they're not really a thing. You put that aside. Donald

Trump saying to the press, when the press asks about this, Donald Trump saying, Oh, you guys really care about that creepo. You guys shouldn't be talking about that. Next question. Don't even ask me about this. That major red flag alarm bell sounding, and what an F you. What an F you to the American people. What an F you to all of Donald Trump supporters who this has been their main cause honestly

for years and years and years. And they weaponize this and Donald Trump weaponized this like the host on flagrant said in order to target their political enemies. years and years and years and they weaponize this and Donald Trump weaponized this like the host on flagrant said in order to target their political enemies. And at the end of the day, they have nothing to show for it except all of Donald Trump's connections to the guy and to all of these schemes. And now this is going to be something that's going to weigh down Trump's presidency like every single day.

He's not going to be able to escape this. I think if you even look right now, every single post Pam Bondi makes, Cash Patel makes, Dan Bongino makes, people are just looking at these in a whole different light now. Like the MAGA people are looking at this in a whole different light. And you see them rushing now

to try to come up with these new schemes. And so the Epstein stuff blows up in their face. And what do they do? Oh, we gotta go after Comey. Criminal investigation into James Comey. Check this out everybody. Squirrel, squirrel, look over here. Comey, Comey.

But this time was different because normally that stuff works. But this time I looked at the comments and I looked at the reaction that they were getting from the MAGA faithful and they were none too pleased by it. Even they were like, we ain't this stupid. And so it's been an interesting shift. You've seen a tremendous vibe shift happening right now. This is kind of the main thing pushing it, but it's exposing Trump as a fraud on every single issue. Because once you're kind of in on the fraud scheme,

you start to realize his distraction schemes and you start to realize how this entire regime is built on a house of cards. Jordy, good to see you, man. How you doing? Great to see you. You put that perfectly. There's a tremendous vibe shift happening right now. Don't forget, he wished Jalane Maxwell well.

I hope she's well. When confronted about it, that was his statement about her. I wish her well. If there's no smoking gun there of, I know this person has all this dirt on me and I don't want her coming out speaking out against me. So let me just kneel the football here and try and just put that away. There were so many opportunities for the MAGA base to just have their eyes open, whether it was the countless videos and photographs of Trump with Epstein, the countless flight logs that came out

and showed Trump on Epstein's plane. Time and time again, the fact that Mar-a-Lago was literally used as a place to recruit women. It's unbelievable. Ben, sorry, what were you saying? Girls, 17 year old, underage girls they'd hire, like Virginia Jouffre, then Ghislaine Maxwell

would show up at Mar-a-Lago, take the underage girl, bring her to Epstein, then Epstein would sex traffic them. That the case. And I can say that sentence and be like, I'm not worried about a defamation case, because that literally happened with Virginia Jouffre. Sorry, Jordan. No, thank you. And by the way, this, the whole Comey distraction too,

a perfect example of something that could have worked in 2016. But I think what we're seeing is this media ecosystem. Let's face it, it could have worked two weeks ago. Okay? Fine. It could have worked two to 48 hours ago. Like, you know, the game has changed. Exactly.

I think that's the larger point. I think a media landscape that actually helped Trump get back into office is also going to be the same landscape now that gets the hold him accountable. That the fact that this isn't the new, that this isn't the old media landscape that folks were used to in 2016, that people are getting their news at the drop of a dime, that they're not

going to be suckered by this distraction artist that is the Trump regime, that folks are dug in and were frankly fed up and just want the truth. And when you tell us you're going to expose the truth and show the truth and then you do the opposite of that, you know, as Schultz said, man, are they, well, we're the stupid ones. We're the stupid ones. Well, I think a lot of folks are having their eyes open now to the nonsense that that's happening right in front of them. eyes open now to the nonsense that's happening right in front of them. Donald Trump used to always give them though some excuse to latch onto and say, but it's being concealed by this.

He literally said, why do you even care? Like you're stupid if you care about this issue. And that's why this piece was different than before, because there was nothing they could hold on to. You know, the hardest part to get out of a cult, right, is that you've alienated and isolated a lot of people in your life by telling them, he's going to do this, he's going to do this, he's going to do this. And cult leaders will walk you down the rabbit hole. And so you can then go deeper and deeper and deeper in this fictional story, because you also don't want to feel that, whoa, you were just had, but he just basically said, No, no, no, I made this up. You you have nowhere to go. So now they look at people like us,

and we go see told you and they're like, ah, we got screwed. And so it's a different dynamic than any of these other things we've seen before. If you view it actually through kind of cult research, the way we focus on your breath. And you saw them trying to do exactly that Ben. You saw them trying to go for the first few days, they tried to hang their hat on. It's the people around Trump. It's the, it's the one thing they always go to, right? It's Bondi. It's Patel. It's Bongino. Screw them. They have to be fired. They are the ones controlling the situation. First off, like, okay, so you're big, powerful, dear leader. He's being told what to do by Cash, Patel,

and Pam Bondi, and Don Bongino. If you like podcasts, give me a fricking break. But that illusion, that excuse shattered in an instant once Donald Trump took over that press conference the way he did when the question was asked and said, you really care about this stuff? Really stop asking about it. Are you stupid? Once those words came out of his mouth,

that there's no, like the only people who could possibly defend that are the true, true, true, true, true, true, true, true cultists. And the thing is now it's just going to be every day a drip, drip, drip, and the drips turning into a flood. Like the more we hear about this, the worse it's going to get because these connections are there. These connections are real. And I've actually said this before, I don't care who, you know, if it's Democrats, Republicans, and defendants, or celebrities, I don't care who is on this supposed list and who exposed them all. That's always been my thing. Like, you know, we always had these Trump people

for a long time say, oh, they're afraid because they're a Democrat. No, I don't give a shit. I really don't. I want to, I want the truth to come out. I want there to be some, I want people to have to take responsibility for these heinous acts actually. And now we're learning more things like this, like the Daily Beast reporting today and Jordi, you were speaking about that moment, right? When Donald Trump was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, could have said anything about this back during his last administration, could have said anything about this convicted sex trafficker we're talking about. And Donald Trump said, I wish her well. Donald Trump's words, exact words. I wish her well. Well, now we're learning on this new bit galley beast story that Trump weighed pardoning

Ghislaine Maxwell over fears that she would spill secrets about his more than a decade long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. This comes from Michael Wolf, who is one of the Trump biographers. We've had Michael Wolf on the show to speak about this topic. He has hours and hours and hours and hours of tapes speaking with Jeffrey Epstein. He was in contact with Jeffrey Epstein basically up until the day Jeffrey Epstein died, Michael Wolf and Michael Wolf. Now saying that Trump literally assembled his team in the previous administration and tried to see, should I, how could I pardon, could I pardon

Ghislaine? Maybe I should pardon Ghislaine. And the people around Trump were like, absolutely not. Do not do that. It's going to blow up in your face if you do that. And they were apparently just in private, just praying that they wouldn't, you know, that he wouldn't go around them and do this and pardon her. But he thought about it. He ultimately did not do it. But the reason Michael Wolff cites for this decision, for this concept that Donald Trump had of,

should I pardon her, is he was afraid of what Ghislaine Maxwell might say about Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I think that on its face should tell you quite a lot. And now you have, you know, some of these usual suspects, you know, they're going on, they're saying, you know, well, if there was a list that would have been released, and why is the list really, I'll tell you, every list that has been released so far, like basically all of them have had Donald Trump's name on them. And for some reason,

you're choosing to ignore them. Do you want to go through the flight logs where Donald Trump is mentioned seven times? And that's just the flight logs that we have not like all the flight logs. You have people, Marjorie Taylor Green did a post the other day. So when are we going to see Epstein's little black book? It's already been released a long time ago in a court case. We have it. Donald Trump's names on it, along with 14 phone numbers. It's a lot of, it to have. Way too many phone numbers. They had like his security, his nanny, Melania. They had like a whole host of phone numbers for Donald Trump in this little black book. You go through the court, the depositions in the court cases. That's where we find out that a lot of what happened in terms of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's trafficking scheme, the epicenter was Mar-a-Lago.

That was their recruitment center. So you put all these pieces together, you could either continue to cover your eyes and close your ears, or you could wake up and say, I've been had. And it's okay to say that. Like I actually, I respect those guys for saying that on the podcast. I respect the people who are coming out now and going, do you know what? Maybe this isn't all that I've been, you know, told about. And it's, it's, I think it's an important inflection point right now in this bizarre

era of politics that we find ourselves in. But it's important that the truth does get out there because underlying all of this are serious heinous crimes and powerful people who are being protected by powerful entities. To show you this, would you all agree that if someone's former lawyer came out and said that the files were being hidden, that that could be persuasive? What if that former lawyer is still someone in your orbit who you constantly cite as a source of credible information, right? So Alan Dershowitz, Donald Trump's former lawyer, who Donald Trump posts about all of the time,

Dershowitz says that he's aware of the files and that they're being covered up. This is Trump's own lawyer. Here's what he says, play it. So let me tell you, I know for a fact documents are being suppressed and they're being suppressed to protect individuals. I know the names of the individuals.

I know why they're being suppressed. I know who's of the individuals. I know why they're being suppressed. I know who's suppressing them, but I'm bound by confidentiality from a judge and cases and I can't disclose what I know. But I hand to God, I know, I know the names of people whose files are being suppressed in order to protect them. And that's wrong. That's Trump's former lawyer right there, okay? And that's Donald Trump's close friend saying that. We should also mention the following though about Dershowitz and his connection to Epstein.

Let's play this other one. I never saw a young underage woman. Yet Epstein's former butler swore under oath that Dershowitz was at Epstein's residences at the same time underage girls were there. Were there young women in another part of the house giving massages when I wasn't around? I have no idea of that.

Dershowitz did say he once received a massage at Epstein's mansion, but from an adult woman. I kept my underwear on during the massage. I don't like massages particularly. Okay. You'll, I, I, you know, nothing much more needs to be said there than other than you saw that. Okay. Let me show you, let me show you next. Bill O'Reilly, one of Donald Trump's close friends. Bill O'Reilly settled a $32 million sexual harassment claim before signing a new deal with Fox harassment claim before signing a new deal with Fox Back in like the 2017 period but bill O'Reilly

32 million sexual harassment settlement right Trump's close friend He said he spoke to Trump fairly recently about the Epstein files and here's what O'Reilly says that his best friend or close friend Trump said to him here play this clip talk to Talk to President Trump, man to man, eye to eye on St. Patrick's Day about this and the Kennedy files and the King files. It was all one conversation. And he said, and I agree, there are a lot of names associated with Epstein. It had nothing to do with Epstein's conduct. They maybe had lunch with him or maybe had some correspondence for one thing or another.

If that name gets out, those people are destroyed. Because it's not going to be any context. Media doesn't care about context. So you can't do that. See, I also want you to know about O'Reilly's sexual harassment settlement and, you know, that... do you get a pattern of who Donald Trump's like close friends are and who the people are or who the people are, or who the people are around him? Anyway, and I just think though, and I just want to pivot

to another topic because I think we've talked a lot about Epstein, but I hope this raises people's eyes and ears and thinking skills to all of the things that Donald Trump's doing. Today, one of the things that I learned is that, and it hasn't been getting enough attention on cable news, is there was a big meeting in Malaysia. And the meeting was between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov. So our Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of Russia

had this big meeting in Malaysia. Malaysia's not in the news, you know, all that often, but that was the grounds for these discussions about war and peace, about Donald Trump's claim that he's going to be able to secure peace in Ukraine, which Trump lied about. He said he'll be able to do it in 24 hours, and Trump said that's a joke. So again, open your eyes now. Once I think some of the light gets in, Bret and Jordan might as mighty, you know, he now says when he promised there would be peace in Ukraine in 24 hours,

that that was him being funny and that he was joking and being sarcastic and that it's actually a very hard thing to do. And so now they're meeting in Russia. This comes as we've learned that according to some reports, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, former Fox Weekend host, see all the connections, O'Reilly, all these people. Pete Hegseth, by the way, settled a sexual harassment and sexual assault case against him, which he then claimed

was consensual sex while he was married and then seemed to like just completely go after the victim during his confirmation hearing. Again, do you see all of these connections? So Hegseth, who was not qualified to be the secretary of state, who was involved in that sexual assault civil lawsuit that he settled, the claim was that he on his own stopped sending patriot missiles and key weaponry that Ukraine was expecting that we didn't tell any of our allies at all. We didn't tell Ukraine. We just shut off the weapons. That was right around when Donald Trump talked to Putin, right around the July 4th period, right around that time period. And then the attacks on Kiev went escalated significantly right around that time period.

And the innocent deaths started escalating very quickly right after Putin announced that he had a great phone call with Donald Trump and said that they talked about cultural, bridging cultural gaps between the United States and Russia, making movies and making musicals together. That's what Putin said they were talking about. Anyway, with all of that as context, and then I'll show you in a little bit

what Donald Trump said when he was asked Hey, what's happening with the weapons that are being sent to Ukraine's good. I don't know. I know I don't know anyway There's this meeting in Malaysia, right big freaking meeting Our Secretary of State their foreign minister and then I saw another thing that happened in Malaysia as well That the United States picked who's gonna be their ambassador to Malaysia as well, that the United States picked who's going to be their ambassador to Malaysia. Now, especially given the context I just gave you, right, that Malaysia is going to is the host of these discussions between the United States and Russia, we would think, oh, maybe that position has some significant import, right?

Like we should probably have someone who's the ambassador to Malaysia who knows what they're doing. Well, may I present to you the ambassador to Malaysia who Donald Trump just named in the past 24 hours. His name is Nick Adams. He's a self professed alpha male. This is an official nomination announcement that Donald Trump made for Malaysia while these meetings are taking place.

Let me show you this video of Nick Adams just to remind you who he is. This is a solemn day in alpha male history. I am here in Dallas outside the Anhoyser Bush facility. And I cannot believe the betrayal that we are currently witnessing. This is Judas level betrayal of the alpha male community and just a week before Easter. That was when there was a transgender woman drinking a Bud Light, he would make videos like that. I'll show you, this was the video that he posted today announcing his official nomination while the meeting was taking place in Malaysia between our secretary of state Marco Rubio, although it pains me to say that and Sergey

Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, as Russia's engaged in a genocide of Ukraine play. It is nothing short of a lifetime's honour to take the President's goodwill and spread it to the great people of Malaysia. It is, Mr. President, my honour to represent you and serve our nation before King Ibrahim Iskander and his people. To his majesty, I look forward to working with your government to strengthen ties between our friendly peoples. So like to the people of the flagrant podcast or to other right wing podcast bros who are now beginning to sound more like me and my bros all of a sudden, this is not about, and I've always said it shouldn't be like a Democrat, Republican, independent thing. It should be about a basic competence thing. That's who's

representing the United States. It's not a joke. This isn't funny stuff. This is who's representing the United States as our ambassador. And then we're going to talk more about FEMA, what's happening there. The leader of FEMA is a guy named David Richardson, who during his first meeting, by the way, Richardson has no experience in emergency management. And during his first meeting back on June 1st or around then, he said that he didn't know that there was such a thing as hurricane season. And then he said that he was joking, that that was a joke, that of course he knows hurricane season, but that was just the way to break the ice

on his first day, even though he doesn't come from an emergency management background. Again, do you see it? Donald Trump was joking that there would be peace in Ukraine in 24 hours. The new head of FEMA with no emergency experience was joking that he was unaware what hurricane season is. And where is he right now?

Nowhere to be found, literally. He hasn't made statements, he hasn't been in the public. I've seen Kristi Noem go out there and lie, but I haven't, it should, the head of FEMA, I shouldn't be seeing the freaking mayor of Kerrville, some judge who showed up from one day who's like the Kerr County mayor and the local sheriffs. You'd always see the head of FEMA saying,

here's what we're doing, here's what we're doing. And I show you the Nick Adams, not to just like mock it and have a laugh at it, but this is serious stuff right here that we're dealing with. And it almost seems like Trump is putting the United States through a humiliation ritual for Vladimir Putin by putting this Nick Adams guy

the day there's a discussion in Malaysia. I don't know how else to look at that, but this is disgusting stuff. I want to talk about that and more. We got to take our first break of the show, but I want to remind everybody about our YouTube memberships. The YouTube memberships are soaring and we don't have outside investors. It's been a major way to grow our independent media network. So if you subscribe right now and hit the YouTube membership, subscribe to our channel, but then there's YouTube memberships.

And if you're already a member, you can gift as many memberships as you want to others and YouTube distributes the memberships. So become a member on our YouTube channel, get bonus content as well, including a special new show I do with Ron Filipkowski for our members. So there's bonus features as well. And you access the emojis and you can give gift memberships to people who can't afford memberships. And that's always kind of a great way to also help grow this

platform. All right, let's take our first break of the show. I should also mention store.mitustouch.com. Check out our gear and our substack mitustouch.com. Check it all out. Let's take our first quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about just the inexperience that's in the Trump regime, the cover-up, the scandal, and why we can't get distracted. Let's take our first break.

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me just show you before we left, I was showing how Donald Trump appointed Nick Adams as the ambassador to Malaysia on the day that there's a critical meeting in Malaysia. And that's where Jordan, you know, the way you paired those ads, I think you have to pair these topics together because I don't believe they're entirely unrelated. Malaysia, Malaysia being in the news like that, as Marco Rubio is having these conversations with Sergey Lavrov in Malaysia, we're naming Nick Adams to be the ambassador to Malaysia. Now the thing with Nick Adams,

I thought Nick Adams was doing like a generational Borat. Like I really thought that his shtick was almost such a parody that it was made up and one day he was going to say, look, by the way, I'm still not convinced he's not. What if he's just too deep in it now? He's trolled himself into an ambassador position. Under this administration, under this regime, would anything take you by surprise? Look at these business guys. How could this be legit? Ben, you want to read these? Yeah, I go to Hooters, I eat rare steaks,

I lift extremely heavy weights, I read the Bible every night, I am pursued by copious amounts of women, I'm wildly successful, I have the physique of a Greek god, I have an IQ over 180, I'm extremely charismatic, they hate this. When a woman is cooking dinner for me, this is how- I just wanna clarify. These are real tweets from Nick Adams.

These are real things that this individual posted who Donald Trump just nominated to this position. Yeah, this isn't me saying this about myself, just everybody so you know. Gotta clarify for those audio listeners. We gotta clarify for the audience. I haven't just gone rogue. Nick Adams then goes, when a woman is cooking dinner for me, imagine if they just started

off without saying the copy. When a woman is cooking dinner for me, this is how I lose all of our supporters. All right, keep going. Keep reading Nick Adams' tweets, Ben. Not your words. Nick Adams. This is definitely not Ben's words. Ben, not my words.

Ben, keep reading these in the first person. When a woman is cooking dinner for me, this is how we split the responsibility. She cooks, I eat, she cleans, I head to Hooters, that's it. Next, alpha male challenge. Go to your local grocery store and purchase the largest bag of M&Ms you can find. Destroy the bag of M&Ms you purchase

and do not let one pass your lips. Take a photo of your crushed woke M&Ms and put it on social. Make sure you tag Mars. Being a straight white alpha male is the toughest job in America. I could go on, there's ones where he attacks Taylor Swift and uses very- And I get it, it's tough for you, I get it.

It's tough for you, but you're gonna be okay, I promise. All right, but then you go to who is our main counter-terrorism operative that Donald Trump appointed right? It's this 22 year old Donald Trump super fan He's put in charge of counterterrorism here in the United States. His name is Thomas few gate and He was a gardener and a grocery store clerk for the you know, while he was in college He was a big Trump supporter. And that was why he got picked because he was like a social media Trump supporter. And so what the Daily Beast was exclusively reporting and they got his text messages is

that when he was 18 years old, he was in a relationship with a 16 year old girl. And then he got into a fight with a 16 year old boy over his relationship with the 16 year old girl. He's now 22 years old, but there was a love triangle over a 16-year-old girl when he was 18. And then they have, he used to call- I think that's one of the big things. This isn't like this was like,

oh, this was kids being kids 30 years ago. He's two years older now. This was after we started Midas Touch. He was doing this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's not just like, that's Snapchat. That's like an app that people would like to use. It's not like it's something that happened, you're right, like 30 years ago.

It's very new. I mean, that's why you don't put 22-year-olds with zero experience in such important positions of life or death. And that's why I'm thinking a lot, your, your comment before about like, is this like some sort of humiliation ritual to put the United States through like for Vladimir Putin? And it's kind of the only thing that makes sense. Like as, as you see all these appointments, as you see everything, this stuff's just absolutely crazy. You know, then you've got, you know, from Ghostbusters 2 Vigo, remember the bad guy

in Ghostbusters 2, I'll let you try to find a picture of that to give you reference. But you know, Trump hires people who just like look like bad guys. And so the new head of FEMA, who replaced the old head of FEMA, the old head of FEMA was an ultra-maga guy who testified that FEMA should not be eliminated. And then Kristi Noem fired the old head of FEMA immediately. You're laughing because you looked up Vigo and it's spot on, right Brett? That's why you're laughing. And then Christina fired the old head of FEMA immediately. You're laughing because you looked at Vigo and it's spot on, right Brett? That's why you're laughing.

Yeah, I have weird obscure references to certain things. And so Christina fired the old head of FEMA and then brought in this guy with zero experience at all. And his name is David Richardson or as I call Vigo, the bad guy from Ghostbusters 2. And this guy, yeah, keep showing. Exactly. This guy. Oh my God. I mean, it's identical. It's like literally Vigo.

It's actually him. Yeah. And I don't even know what made me think of it. I don't prepare a script like I'm going to say Vigo. Is Ghostbusters 2 like universally known? I think you're also like, it's a pretty hyper-specific reference, no? I have very few references to Ghostbusters 2. I know you were a big Ghostbusters fan, but like I don't know people like Ghostbusters 2.

That's definitely a big like, you know, born in the 80s. You know, reference, like for sure. Ben had all the Ghostbusters toys and he's been like. He's on the cusp of millennial, that's why. So he shows up. That's an elder millennial kind of. I had to ask. So the show's in show. I've never seen Ghostb millennial, that's why. So he shows up. That's an elder millennial kind of thing. I had to ask. I've never seen Ghostbusters 2, that's why.

All right, so he shows up to FEMA about 45, more than 45 days, about 60 days ago or so. And he goes, someone says, well, what are our plans for hurricane season? And he goes, I've never heard of hurricane season before. He wasn't like, I'm joking. He just goes, what's hurricane season? So that leaked to the press. And then he't like, I'm joking. He just goes, what's hurricane season? So that leaked to the press. And then he subsequently said, I was joking. Of course I know what hurricane season,

that was my way of basically being funny. But in that very first meeting too, he like shows up and there was like a video of this where he's like, you better realize 30% of you are not gonna make it here in 48 hours. That's how I run organizations. 30% of you are just not going to be cut out for it. So if what I'm saying gets you gets you angry, leave, leave.

That was his opa. I kid you not. It was basically like word for word that. But this guy's nowhere to be found. Right? Have you seen normally during a catastrophic disaster? And by the way, in addition to what happened in Texas, there have been numerous catastrophic natural disaster events in Kentucky, in Arkansas, in Indiana, in Missouri, in Mississippi, and across the country where there's been separate and aside from this mass casualty event, there's been hundreds of deaths that largely have been ignored other than in local media. And we covered on the Midas Touch. No, he's nowhere to be seen there. He's nowhere to be seen here. And one of the things we've now

learned and we posted about it, CNN got the initial scoop. And then the Department of Homeland Security attacked us for saying it, that Kristi Noem did not authorize FEMA's deployment of urban search and rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN. What would normally happen in a situation like this is that FEMA would be activated and pre-positioned the moment you saw a bad storm heading in that area, which they knew on Thursday, you would start red alerts right away.

Now, you don't wanna escalate, of course, too soon and have emergency evacuations, but the moment you saw the storm, you'd be like, let's get ready. As you started to watch that storm Thursday night into Friday morning, which is July 4th, right around 1 a.m., you should have known, boom, this is a serious emergency. And you as the feds, working with local officials,

would go, what's in the nearby area? And you would go, oh my God, Camp Mystic, do they have alarms? Do they have alerts? Wait, they don't? Are they in the flood zone? Are they in an area where in most other states and cities, you're not even allowed to build because it's literally in the flood path, which is viewed as an area so dangerous that you don't, you're not allowed to build near.

Not only is the Guadalupe River known as being one of the most dangerous rivers that exist, period, based on prior flooding that took place. But then within that area, you're not supposed to be building near the floodway corridor. And here, Camp Mystic was literally built in the floodway corridor. Now, to me, at a local level, why didn't they have alarms? That's a major problem. Why didn't the local people kick into high gear and do the stuff they're supposed to do? I agree. Why was there this overall systemic failure there? But also the feds would be involved at every step of the way, holding the hands of local officials

because local officials don't know how to do this stuff really. They don't have to deal with it all the time. The feds deal with it all the time because there's always catastrophic storms in the United States, but there may be one every five or seven years in certain locations that aren't fully ready for it. So that didn't happen. And then what's supposed to happen as well, before the storm hits, you pre-position all of your rescue equipment. So you have, in this case, the urban search and rescue teams, they are ready to go. But Christy Noem as her gutting of FEMA with now a FEMA leader who's just MIA and no one knows where he is, it required Christy Noem to personally sign off herself on checks more than $100,000.

And obviously activating an urban search and rescue team costs more than $100,000. So the people at FEMA are saying, we were ready with our urban search and rescue. We couldn't find her. She wouldn't sign off. So we weren't able to activate the urban search and rescue team. Now, she responds to our post or the Homeland Security account attacks us and says, this is a lie. This is activist journalism.

They then say, they act, they say, while these journalists slept comfortably in DC, Secretary Gnome deployed in Texas. Just pause there. Like she deployed in Texas, like she's a soldier. You mean she was doing her job? She deployed in Texas. They then say she saved over 900 lives. They then talk about the heroism of the Coast Guard.

No one doubts the heroism of the Coast Guard. When you sign up for the Coast Guard, you sign up to save lives. And they are American patriots and heroes. That's what they sign up to do. And they do their job. But they're being hamstrung also by the Department of Homeland Security. But they were doing their job. But then here's where it gets into it, where at the very bottom they go,

President Trump approved a major disaster declaration hours after Governor Greg Abbott's request. Okay, well, when was that, by the way? And then finally, by Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers providing support and shelter for hundreds of people. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem's leadership, DHS is reforming FEMA to prioritize state-led, locally executed disaster response as Texas has exemplified. So, exemplified. They're saying this was a good response. 120 dead, most of them young girls,

with, what, 100 more people still missing? This going to be one of the biggest mass casualty events in recent histories involving a storm. And they're saying this exemplified what it should actually look like. But then they say by Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers. Get your calendar out folks because Tuesday's July 8th You know when the storm hit Friday July 4th in the early hours by Thursday We knew a storm was heading in that direction that could cause flash floods So it took really the the night of the third until July 8th until 311 staffers Provided support and then the language at the end also gives away the game that they were there just to basically help out the locals and

just help out the locals and by the way if you've seen some of these press conferences by the mayor of Kerrville and by the judge who's like the top county person it's precisely why you need the feds to be involved. I'm only gonna show you one of these clips of the mayor of Kerrville, who spent his entire time during the press conference yelling at the press, he's like, you're in Kerrville now. We're gonna do it my way or the highway.

We're in Kerrville now. Here, play this clip. Able to use that warning. I'm sorry, I do not know. Listen, people are yelling and I didn't really want you. If you offer only three questions, then you're gonna have to. Guess what?

You're in Kerrville and we're gonna do it my way. I understand that. Morgan Chesky, please. Mr. Mayor, record. We're in Kerrville, we're gonna do it my way. And by the way, Greg Abbott is holding an emergency session of the legislature, but do you think holding an emergency session of the legislature. But do you think it's to address what's happened from the storm? Nope, nope. Greg Abbott just

released an agenda for a special session that's going to take place in the next two weeks about redrawing the Texas congressional districts to allow Republicans to win more congressional seats in the midterms. They know it's going to be unconstitutional. But unlike Trump's cases to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court likely won't take up the unconstitutional gerrymandering for the next four or five years. So their plan is let's get the Republicans unconstitutionally a few more seats while everybody's focused on the flooding. I'm not even going to play this clip of Greg Abbott because it makes me so angry and I don't wanna play any more clips of any of these people, frankly,

because it makes more angry. But Greg Abbott was asked, what are you gonna do about it? Like what happened? Why was there such a miscommunication between the feds and the state? Local officials are saying they didn't get the notifications.

What happened? And he goes, in Texas, we like football, football, okay? And in football, you don't blame, you don't do blame. If you were a winner, like we're a winner in Texas, you go for it. And we don't do blame, because we play football in Texas. That's what Greg Abbott said. 120 plus people are dead, mostly young

children at every level of this from where the camp was built. Oh, by the way, in the other report, four minutes is what it would have taken for those girls to get to higher ground, an area that they call God Mountain is the name of the area, a four-minute walk to get on top of what they call God Mountain. Four minutes if they just had an evacuation plan and if they were contacted. That is something. And by the way, and I'll toss it over to you, Brett and Jordy, but this one fires me up. And no, it's not too soon for me to talk about it. Okay. You know what it's too soon to do saying we're not going to address what happened and just thoughts and prayers, prayer, I can

give thoughts and prayers and I will. I can have real empathy for the girls who have died. And my heart goes out to them, their families, and everybody. And I mourn for them. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore what just took place. I'm going to call it out. And if that makes you mad, sorry. I'm not going to cower away.

Those MAGA Republicans, every storm that would hit, they would spread lies and disinformation about Biden. They would spread false facts while Biden was actually doing what you were supposed to be doing to actually cause more deaths. Now that there are real facts and real situations caused by real gross negligence and maliciousness by Trump and Texas, No, you don't do your politicize, not politicizing shit. I'm talking about what freaking happened. Sorry. Yeah, it's a complete failure of governance at every level of the government from the federal government to the

Republicans who run these towns and the Republicans who run the state. And every time I see these clips, you know, you're right, they they weaponize religion, they weaponize, it's too soon, they weaponize all these kind of phrases and thoughts and prayers and you name it in order to try to deflect blame and say, we don't have to talk about that. Every time I've heard these people in Texas speak, these politicians, even the mayor as well had a similar comment as Abbott had been that you were saying before where he was like, listen, we don't look backwards. We look forward. We only look ahead.

So stop asking me about what happened. We got to know what happened actually. And one of the kind of tells for me also is how I've seen multiple Texas officials say then what you said, which is this, they say, this is the most, you don't understand. This is the most dangerous area in the country This is the death trap of the country. You don't understand how deadly this area was. So don't blame us Well what you're saying it's the most deadly area in the country and a you built a camp where little girls go to camp And on the deadliest area in the country and then beyond that you didn't think to take extra

country. And then beyond that, you didn't think to take extra precautions or even after the fact, you waited three to four days to even deploy the search and rescue squads to help because Christine Ohm was too busy posting on her Instagram. Should I be this picture or this picture? Should I be this picture for my? Yeah, I'm doing a poll everybody. What should be my official governor's portrait? Well, I'm in a costume on horseback? This was literally what they were doing. And it's sickening. And you're right,

Ben, you know, I vividly remember all these storms, obviously, that we've witnessed over the past few years, we've been covering them here at the Midas Touch Network. And storm after storm after storm, we saw concerted effort by these MAGA Republicans, by the Republican Party at large, by these online influencers to hinder the rescue efforts, to make it so that people were confused, to make it so they think that they couldn't actually get the aid that they needed to get that the administration was offering. And I remember we would get emails from the Biden administration because we would have

the people on, right? We would get the FEMA spokesperson on, Jacqueline Rothenberg at the time, I believe, was the FEMA spokesperson. They would be like, we want to get on because we want to be on as many channels as possible so we could speak directly to the people. I thought that was a cool thing that they reached out to us and said, we need to get the truth out to the people. And then they would come on before the storms, they would come on during the storms, they

would have to do come on to debunk Donald Trump's lies about the storms. And now Trump and these Republicans have the nerve to go out there and say, this was a perfect response. We did a great job, great job, everybody. Let's do it again next time. It's absolutely appalling. It's appalling even if there are no lives lost to see how this is being handled.

The fact that we have all these deaths, the fact that they are young girls makes it that much worse and the callousness of the administration. And once again, like the Epstein stuff, by the way, the people who are covering for these just incredibly overtly evil human beings. It's like, what are you doing? Every time I see the footage of these Texas politicians too, it just makes my blood boil. It skeaves me out. Like it reminds me of like that kind of old boys club that people talk about that you kind of see in the movies when you have these really corrupt politicians, often in these kind of southern

states and the way they speak to each other, the way they speak to the press with such disdain, the way they speak about their own people, which with such disdain, we saw it after Yuvaldi. And that was absolutely despicable. We saw out of people like Greg Abb And that was absolutely despicable. We saw out of people like Greg Abbott and the Lieutenant Governor and the local officials and the police there. And now we're seeing it here in this situation as well. We see these just very slimy figures who just want to evade blame at all costs. And the costs are real. The

costs are people's lives. I know. Yeah. And the costs in this case too are little girls' lives who are at summer camp. I mean, the Trump regime, they absolutely fail these girls. Every time I think of this story, man, you guys saw me talking about it last week. I get visibly upset. I know we all do. It's really brutal. What upsets me so much, outside of obviously the clear loss of life for these, again, children, little girls at summer camp, is just the total lack of accountability from the Trump regime, the blame shifting from the MAGA base, from the MAGA Republican Party. Just all of it has just been so freaking disgusting.

These were kids. And the people that were elected and put in charge, Donald Trump, Kristi Noem Abbott, they failed. They failed these girls. They're gone because of them. What's the Trump regime doing? They're yelling at CNN for actually doing some good reporting and reporting on- They're yelling at Midas Touch. They're yelling at Midas. They're yelling at CNN for reporting that the federal government was delayed in responding to this catastrophic event. Greg Abbott's out there doing some like weirdo speech about football and Texas, as Ben was saying. Leaders, they take accountability. And right now in the government

on the Republican side, they don't have leaders. They have demagogues. And if you don't pledge your fealty, your allegiance to dear leader and acknowledge that there's nothing he could do or there's nothing these people could do that that's wrong, then you're not a quote unquote Republican in 2025. And it's just, it's eyeopening and disgusting

to see this play out at a real cost of human kids, their lives. And instead of wanting to get to the bottom of it, what are they doing? They're shifting blame. They're holding what, Ben? Special investigation into congressional redistricting? What are we doing? How have we gone this so far left as a society, this far gone as a society? It's disgusting. I want to remind everybody about those YouTube memberships. We don't have outside investors,

so we've grown through those YouTube memberships. The new Podscribe data just came out. So not only have we beat Joe Rogan in podcast downloads, we beat him by three times as many, three X Joe Rogans. Everyone's like, oh, he gets all these downloads. In a given month, we beat them by three times as many. Three X Joe Rogan's. Everyone's like, oh, you know, he gets all these downloads. In a given month, we get three times as many downloads as Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan has got unlimited funding. So if you can become a member to our YouTube,

it unlocks emojis, it unlocks some special membership features here on our YouTube. And you can gift as many memberships as you want to others who may not be able to get memberships for themselves. And it helps grow this independent media platform. Right. I just want to say we have a whole lot of people watching right now. And so I also want to keep the momentum going.

So you're watching this right now. Make sure you go ahead and add the Midas Touch podcast on audio platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever audio platform you use. Help us stay on top. It's so important in getting the message out. So go right now, open up your Apple Podcast, your Spotify, whatever you use, go ahead, add the Midas Touch podcast. If you've already done that, go ahead and leave a five-star review.

And if you're currently listening to this on the audio podcast, thank you. Come and check us out on YouTube. So, ice raids taking place earlier today in the farms in California, central California area, just going after the hard workers who pick the crops, who pick our food, who allow, I mean, right now, California is the fourth largest GDP in the entire world. And Donald Trump has declared a war on the state whose funds are basically funding the federal government and subsidizing most of the red states, which are taker states. Let's talk about that and more. Let's take our last quick break of the show. In business, they say you can have better, cheaper, or faster,

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hey, Jay, love the show, know you guys are independent network, but the ads, man, there's so many of them. Well, now we have a new feature on Apple, our membership feature, where you could actually listen to the episode without the ads. So we do two versions of the show. We do one version when you're a member of the Apple podcast audio, you become a member there, you can listen to the whole show without ads, or you can just listen to it standard

and enjoy the cool offerings that we have from our sponsors. Benji, where to next? Let's take a look at international affairs, then let's bring it local in my backyard here on Los Angeles as ICE is currently raiding farms right here in California, sending helicopters down, and you see the workers literally sprinting away as they get hunted by ICE officers.

It is a scene that breaks my heart, and literally a war going on declared by a authoritarian regime against its own people and against the state that it's its wealthy and most prosperous state also. If you were to think about everything this regime is doing to destroy our great country, they are doing each and every one of those things. I want to mention this. This is from the New York Times earlier today from an Israeli intelligence assessment. Some of Iran's enriched uranium survived the attack, Israeli officials say.

Israel has concluded that some of Iran's underground stockpile of near bomb grade enriched uranium survived American and Israeli attacks last month and may be accessible to Iranian nuclear engineers. Let's just be clear what that means. It means the mission was an utter failure. Just say what it is then. Go to the next statement. It failed. And that isn't a criticism of the B-2 bombers. They're heroic. I get it. You know, they ran a mission. I'm sure they would like to finish the missions that they run and have competent people giving the orders

and instructions. I'm sure they would like that as well. But does it shock you that this was another incompetent move and then cover up by the Trump regime? And how has the United States benefited? If anyone, Iran's benefited. They're doing more deals right now with China, who's buying the Iranian oil. And then Iran's able to ship its Shahid drones Over to Russia to be used against Ukraine more than ever right now And then Trump's view was I'm done with Iran now I did what I needed to do just keep telling me I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize and that's all that matter But we have to call out what happened. The mission was a failure.

The mission was a failure. The mission was a failure and a bigger failure more systemically in terms of the geopolitical aspect of it because it's made Iran stronger, right? It has made their Ayatollah stronger. It's drawn people more towards the ayatollah not away from it. It wasn't like the people are like yeah I like Netanyahu more right now. You think that maybe Netanyahu could pick our next leader of Iran with

Donald. That's what you think that's what what's happened. The Houthis who are funded by Iran they're out there shooting down more ships in the Red Sea right now. Remember the mission against the Houthis and are funded by Iran, they're out there shooting down more ships in the Red Sea right now. Remember the mission against the Houthis and the signal chats where Hegset said, here's where we're going to attack and when, and then all of a sudden our drones got shot down like seven Reaper drones and two fighter pilots that we lost costing us about $500 million in losses in addition to the underlying cost of the war. By the way, in Israel, we used like 20% of our missile defense system for shooting down

the ballistic missiles that were being shot into Israel. So there's that data point. There's the Houthis who are out there doing what they need to do right now. Putin is out there escalating attacks against Kiev each and every night. Things have gotten worse. And then Trump at the press conference that took place the other day, I think was asked a pretty basic question, a few basic questions.

So let me break it down. The first question, Trump's tariffs against the world, trade war against the world. He sent these fifth grade letters out, he's tariffing Brazil 50%, Brazil, which provides most of our orange juice and coffee and other critical stuff that we utilize on a day-to-day basis, because Trump wants Brazil to stop prosecuting Jair Bolsonaro, who led a coup,

the former president of Brazil, who launched a coup the way Trump did. Trump has an affinity for coup leaders like Jair Bolsonaro and said, that's why I am tariffing Brazil's president Lula 50%. And here's what we're doing against Brazil and other countries like, the Brunei got tariffed 25%. Iraq was like 30%. in other countries like, just the Brunei got tariffed 25%, Iraq was like 30%. You know, he just tariffed all of these countries, this whole list of countries.

So a reporter said, how are you calculating this? What's your calculation? What's your methodology? Here's what Trump says, let's play it. Sir, can you explain how you calculated your latest round of tariffs? Was there a formula that was used? And do you expect any of these countries

to face tariffs as well? The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we've been treated over the years, and based on raw numbers. And we're going to have a couple of more coming out today. Brazil, as an example, has been not good to us, not good at all. We're going to be releasing a Brazil number, I think, later on. Okay. Common Sense, he says, is going to be based on deficits.

We've gone over this a hundred times on this podcast. What do you mean by this? So, now is your expectation that Brunei is going to all of a sudden open up all of these factories in the United States and buy all of these United States? The fact that they view deficits as an example of a tariff against the United States, It shows how absolutely absurd it is. But then when you go to a country like Brazil, Brazil, America has a surplus with Brazil. America has a surplus with Australia. America has a free trade agreement with South Korea. And then when you think about like America going after Japan, for example, Japan employs nearly a million Americans, the largest employer of Americans from a foreign country Japan does.

Japan holds about a trillion dollars plus of American treasuries, the most of any country. The most actual investment in the United States of any foreign country comes from Japan. Canada is close as well. And you just think about it. You're attacking like Japan, you're attacking Canada and all these countries. Like what are you doing? Then you ask him, how are you calculating this? He's like, common sense, common sense. And we got to mention Ben, the justification that he used for Brazil, because like you said, he said in that piece that we just showed you that it was because of trade deficits. But as Ben mentioned, we have a trade surplus with Brazil, but also the whole trade deficit

concept is stupid. That would be like if you went out to dinner and you paid for your dinner, you paid 50 bucks for your dinner, and you got your dinner. If you then complained that you had a trade deficit with the restaurant, you got something for that money. You got your food. That's what it means be on at the other end of that trade deficit. It's not necessarily a bad thing. You got something for that money.

And so what Donald Trump is doing here, uh, he released a statement, um, threatening Brazil with this tariffs, telling them that the tariff is because of their horrible and awful treatment of Bolsonaro, because they are in the middle of prosecuting Bolsonaro, as our country should have done here, for his attempt to overthrow the government there, for his attempted coup. And so their justice system is actually taking care of it right now.

Bolsonaro is obviously a big Trump ally, but like all of these criminals, both internationally and in the United States, Donald Trump has an affinity for the criminals. Donald Trump has an affinity for the criminals. Donald Trump has an affinity for the people who break the law and he happens to rush to their defense, whether it's Netanyahu and his criminal trial, Bolsonaro, whether it's freeing the J-6 criminals, doing all that stuff that he did. And so that is what Donald Trump is using as justification for the Brazil tariffs.

And these letters are just so embarrassing, poorly written, ridiculous. And they just, it adds into this whole appearance to me of just utter weakness. Like you failed at the one thing that you actually, you claim to be good at. You claim to be the deal maker. That's like your whole image that you've created, right? That's, that's the whole thing you say. You couldn't make a deal. You said there'd be 90 and 90 days. You couldn't like make one. You made like three half deals that weren't really deals like, like intense to make a deal and then you just give up and you just send some letters. I ran one of these through chat GPT, one of Trump's letters. I said, just great.

I didn't put any, I didn't put my finger on the scale. I said, grade this letter. If we were to write this letter to a foreign leader, grade it, like a teacher would grade it. It gave it a D plus, which I think it was a little high, to be honest. And it just, you know, it was very, very vicious about Donald Trump's writing style. But even AI knows how horrible and how stupid these things are, what Donald Trump is doing. And you know, at this point, it's like, you know, do you take it seriously?

Do you not take it seriously? He always tacos, it always gets pushed down. You know, at this point, it's like, you know, do you take it seriously? Do you not take it seriously? He always tacos. It always gets pushed down. You know, the economy goes up, the economy goes down. It's obviously this kind of stock manipulation scheme. There always happened to be these weird spikes just before Donald Trump makes his announcement, like when he says, we're going to be putting these tariffs on copper. Oh, just a few minutes before, suddenly a lot of people started stocking up or selling

it. It happens every time. And so something's going on there also that is worthy of an investigation, I will say at minimum. Brett, can you please just quickly replay the clip of Trump explaining how he says he's doing the tariffs? Just real quick. Sir, can you explain how you calculated your latest round of tariffs? Was there a formula that was used? And do you expect any of these countries to face tariffs as well?

The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we've been treated over the years. Do you just say tariffs by vibes? Like, can we just talk and reflect on how dumb this guy? Like, this is an elite level of ridiculousness here from the regime. Also, like, is he trolling himself?

Is someone trolling him? Like, is makeup every day now is, like, more ridiculous? This is, like, the least of our worries. But it's getting, like, silly. Like, it's just blackface at this point. Like, let's be real about it. When you put him next to other human beings, it's really, the contrast is really, you know, stark, bengy. Yeah. Let's be real about it. When you put them next to other human beings,

the contrast is really stark, benchy. Yeah, that's the real border. I'll just say this. The stock market goes up and down. But the stock market is enjoying a Ponzi scheme economy where the rich can get richer at the expense of people who don't have the luxury to kind of day trade or to sit around and think about how are you going to game these scenarios. The economy is suffering. If you look at ships

coming into our port, if you look at the actual job numbers of private payrolls, even looking at the manufacturing numbers in Trump's what I believe to be bogus job numbers of private payrolls, even looking at the manufacturing numbers in Trump's what I believe to be bogus job numbers, because he couldn't hide the data that comes from the third party sources. He inflated his job numbers by claiming there were all of these government jobs that were created. And that's how he got at 147,000 after private payroll dropped 33,000 jobs. But even in the numbers that Trump couldn't hide, there was a loss of 7,000 manufacturing jobs. And his whole claim that he was going to cut the government jobs and make the manufacturing boom, right? And he's not done that. And so, oh, you look at the

dollar, the worst start since 1973, as America increasingly becomes not the world's reserve currency anymore. You look at online shopping, which is down for the first time in a very long time. You look at recessionary indicators of how human beings are living in this economy, not what the Trump regime and cable news is putting out there. And it's obvious what's actually really happening. And in many ways, this is a lot worse of a scenario

because he's gonna keep on covering this up as slowly but surely the bridge that is the American economy starts buckling, you know, just kind of cord by cord by cord by cord. And if you think about what set off the Great Recession in 07, 08, and you think about just a specific sector that then spirals, right?

It was just an issue with these housing and these subprime mortgages that were packaged. Well, we have right now a hundred different examples of that type of poison pills, like the way subprime mortgage being bundled together and sold. We have a hundred different ways that that's happening, and any one of these things can set off the cascading domino effect, and then everything's often reported in the news as like a shock.

This is a shock, this is a shock, this is a shock. There should be no shocks. The guy sending these bizarre letters in all caps that looked like a fifth grader wrote it, where he's tariffing Brazil because he wants a coup d'etat leader to be released. There's nothing shocking about what is happening. We see Canada and the EU entering into deals, you know, together for joint defense. We see, by the way, Marco Rubio earlier this

week, no one's really talking about it, wrote an op-ed in USA Today. Buried in the op-ed is he was imploring NATO members to buy defense equipment from the United States. Why would they be hesitant from buying their defense equipment from the United States anymore? You would think that that would be one of the first places. Oh no, wait a minute. They think that Donald Trump's going to extort them and blackmail them, so they're looking elsewhere to buy their military supplies right now. So we're actually seeing a world order completely shifting with the United States being iced out while Donald Trump's out there, you know, just and he's being asked questions like at the press conference. I'll just show you this one other one. He's being asked who ordered

who ordered the weapons to stop going to Ukraine? Who gave that order? Do you know? That's a pretty big deal. You're the commander in chief. Who did it? Did Hegset do it? Who said they stopped? Because everyone's acting like that's a surprise now.

Here's what his response was. Yeah, please. Thank you. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was weighing whether to send another Patriot air defense system to Ukraine. Can you confirm that reporting? They would like it. They've asked for it.

They're very rare indeed, you know, because a lot of systems have been sent to Ukraine. But they would like to, I know they made the request, we're going to have to take a look at it. Very expensive, very expensive system. It's a shame that we have to spend so much money on a war that would have never happened if I were president. That's a terrible, terrible war over there. And it's really a shame. It's very sad.

You know, when you talk about a system like that, highly sophisticated, tremendous amount of money, and they're doing it because they want to prevent death. They're getting hit hard, very hard. So we're looking at it. And Brett, was there one more clip like that? I'm not sure if we had, there was one others where he was asked. You weren't aware who ordered it.

I'm not sure if we have the other one. Let's let's see if it's this one. The response has been incredible. And no, I'm not sure about it. No, no, no worries. He basically says, you know, I don't know. I don't know who made the order. Don't you think that I would know?

And I should know. I don't know. There was just a bunch of words. And then he continues to use the same, you know, line. This would have never happened if I were president. That's the you know, okay. You also said it was going to be over in 24 hours. And by the way, you remember what Trump and MAGA were saying right

before Russia invaded Ukraine? What all of them were saying? President Biden at the time was saying, Russia's about to invade Ukraine. We all need to be prepared. The United States intelligence arm were all saying, we have evidence that Russia is about to try to invade Ukraine. What was Trump and MAGA and all those influencers saying? Fake news.

That's bullshit. These are liars. They're trying to hype us up again. They're trying to lie. They're trying to get our troops into war. They said that the government was lying to them. Guess what? That intelligence assessment was spot on.

President Biden was spot on. You know who was not spot on? Donald Trump and all those MAGA influencers who denied the reality that was standing right before them the way that they have done throughout every single topic, I believe, that we have discussed this entire episode. No doubt. And I want to just talk briefly. It's a developing story. I'm going to do a take on it. As soon as this episode ends, make sure you check the YouTube feed because there'll be a whole take on it. But the Trump regime sending helicopters, sending

basically the military, ICE dressed as the military into our farms here in the kind of the Central California area and trying to terrorize the farm workers. The mayor is basically telling everybody to stay inside, shelter, and hide, because the ICE officials are trying to kidnap the people and beat them. Let me show you what, this is what the mayor said. Here, take a listen to what the mayor said. The city of Paris has received reports of ongoing ICE operations within the area.

We urge all residents to remain calm, stay indoors when possible, and know your rights. Do not go out unless necessary. Stay at home and do not open the door to strangers. This message is for awareness and safety. The city is committed to protecting the dignity and well-being of all our residents. Please stay safe and continue to monitor official city communications. If we have a video, Brett, of what the raids look like, I think we have a video.

Testers who have showed up to vehemently protest what's going on here. And just in the last few minutes, Customs and Border Patrol helicopter has entered the scene here. They are landing in the middle of the farm as we speak. It does appear that they were not planning to be here as long as they have been.

And so this helicopter that you're looking at here, guys, apparently just made a run over to Van Nuys Airport for some cases of water, which is what they're bringing into the scene here. So there are a whole team of ICE agents at the farm. There are other agents down there as well, as well as the National Guard Police, standing guard and protecting Laguna Road as this enforcement action takes place right here. They're not protecting the road. They're not protecting the road.

They are terrorizing the community. There is military operations against Americans taking place right now all across the country. We saw the ICE military move through MacArthur Park. And what they're going to do with that money from the budget bill is they're literally going to run invasions into the United States. For our audio listeners, we're showing B-roll right now of what's taking place as farm workers are running away, as people are running away from a military operation against farms in California. And I think it needs to be said because it isn't.

You know, Brett and Geordie, there hasn't been an official declaration of martial law, right, military rule, because I think the Trump regime knows that that would be very unpopular to say that. We're living in martial law right now. I want everybody to recognize, we live in a military state in the United States under military rule by a dictator. And I know no one said it like that on cable news before. That's what exists right now. It is martial law. It is a military rule. It is the Gestapo. It is a dictator. And every day they are attacking people of this country. That is actually what is happening. And if we saw it in another country country that's exactly what we would say is happening now you wonder why is tourism down wire people i don't know what's gonna happen with the world cup and what's gonna happen with the. Olympics i don't know how far in countries are gonna wanna come here.

If i were them i would come here honestly i would be making plans to have a meal swear i mean, especially given the fact that they're in Los Angeles, the Olympics, and you're going to have all this going on. This is supposed to make people feel safe. I think they've already said that they're going to have ICE agents at these facilities. You're going to have all these people come from foreign countries to the United States for this incredible event. That should be a celebration of the country and a celebration of the city, by the way. Then you're going to have people fearing for their lives that they can end up in an El Salvadoran prison camp or sent to one of these random countries that the Supreme Court is now allowing Donald Trump to send people to war-torn countries,

send them to Sudan, send them to wherever. I mean, this is, you know, I would say this is not America, but it is America. And, you know, and that's the thing that really, you know, tears at my heart. This is, these images just truly, truly crush me. And it's, like you said, Ben, it's in our backyard here. So I know it hits, you know, it hits home even more. But, you know, it's just seeing everything that's going on all across the country is just, it's all very sad, you know, and that's why, you know, it's why we got to stay in this. That's why we got to remain active. It's why we got to continue to, you know, push back, expose the truth, say the things that, you know, corporate media may be too afraid to say, say the things that, you know, folks just aren't highlighting. We need to highlight these stories constantly. We need to continue to get out the truth. That's why I'm so grateful to have this community that's uplifting all this. I want to remind everybody, if you can become a member of our YouTube channel,

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