The MeidasTouch Podcast - MeidasTouch RESPONDS to BREAKING NEWS before DAY 1 - 1/16/25

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

On this episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast, we break down the latest surprise terrible polling for Donald Trump, which he’s desperately trying to spin away with new stunts. Meanwhile, Trump’s cabinet nominees are getting roasted in their confirmation hearings as Democrats push back against his extreme picks. We also dive into how Trump’s reckless threats are isolating the U.S. on the world stage, uniting allies against America instead of with us. And finally, we reflect on President Biden’s farewell address—his powerful message to the nation and what it means for the future of democracy. Tune in for all this and more! Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Watch Ben’s interview with President Biden: https://youtu.be/TJfOAjUleTc Deals from our sponsors!  HexClad: Shop the biggest sale of the year and find your forever cookware @HEXCLAD at https://hexclad.com/meidas #hexcladpartner Shopify: Sign up for a one-dollar per month trial at https://shopify.com/meidas Prizepicks: Download the PrizePicks app today https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/MEIDAS and use code MEIDAS and get $50 instantly when you play $5! Manukora: Head to https://manukora.com/MEIDAS to receive $25 your Starter Kit! Netsuite: Do you know your own numbers for your business? Download NetSuite’s ultimate KPI checklist right now at https://netsuite.com/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 The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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only 41% of Americans approved. This is supposed to be the honeymoon period. It's turning out to just be more of the same for Donald Trump. Donald Trump, the American people hate you. When you take a look at those confirmation hearings, you get confirmation why. I mean, you got some of the most unqualified people avoiding answering the most basic questions, whether they'd follow the Constitution, whether they have basic competence and qualifications for the job. When they did answer questions, they made it very clear their priorities are to help the billionaire oligarchs and screw over we, the people. We'll break down not just the Hegseth hearing, but we should talk about Trump's Treasury Secretary pick, Scott Besson. We should talk about Pam Bondi, who Trump wants to be Attorney General.

We should talk about Russ Vogt, the Project 2025 architect, who Trump wants to run the Office of Management and Budget. We will talk about all of that. Also, we'll talk about the world uniting against Donald Trump. Who said Donald Trump can't bring people together? Well, here in the United States, he can't. But when it comes to the world, he's finding a way to unite countries against the United States. We're seeing that, for example, in Canada, where a big meeting was held in Ottawa, where mostly all of the premiers at the provincial level and then the federal government, regardless of the political parties, joined together. There was one premier

from Alberta. Her name is Daniel Smith. She took the pilgrimage of shame to Mar-a-Lago where Donald Trump just further shamed her and said that 25% tariffs across the board, no exceptions are happening on day one. But other than her, Canada is fairly united against the United States, ready for retaliatory tariffs, ready to inflict pain on the United States in retaliation for the United States inflicting pain on that. Also, Mexico's ready. Europe's ready. Basically, everyone's ready to inflict pain on the U.S. on day one when Trump goes through with the executive orders he's threatening and promising. There's a MAGA civil war taking place. You have MAGA Mike Johnson basically firing Republican Mike Turner, who heads the Intelligence

Committee or did head the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives. Turner had been a Republican congressman, represents the Dayton area of Ohio since 2003, a fairly respected guy on a bipartisan basis. He supported Ukraine. He supported NATO. So Donald Trump told MAGA Mike, you got to fire the guy. MAGA Mike fired the guy. The Republican conference is pissed. They like Turner. We're seeing it at the state level as well, where a MAGA Republican state senator was

literally beat down by other Republicans because he was banned from showing up to Republican Governor Brian Kemp's State of the State speech. He still tried to show up anyway, and then he was literally shoved to the ground and he got arrested. Republican on Republican violence right there. Now we'll talk about President Biden's farewell address to the American people from the Oval Office, where he warned about the oligarchy. He warned about the tech bro industrial complex. And then he also talked about how he wants to make sure there is a constitutional amendment banning presidential immunity. We'll talk about all of that and more. This is the Midas Touch podcast. I'm Ben Micell. I'm joined by Brett and Jordy. A lot to discuss, brothers, and Midas Mighty. A whole lot going on, folks. It's great to be here with everybody. A quick update here from Los Angeles. It feels like things are stabilizing here, which is good.

Hopefully, things stay that way. Hopefully, these winds don't knock anything back up. Thanks again to everybody for all your support over these past few crazy weeks. Oh my gosh, so much in the news right now. We made a big announcement on our social media as well this week that we will not be airing the inauguration here on Midas Touch. We've decided, our editorial staff staff came together and we have determined that it is in the best interests of our audience, of the country, for us not to be streaming the inauguration live. We will be having some alternative programming. We could get to that maybe a little later or give you some of our ideas. See what you think about it. I think we could still have fun on that horrible day. Hint, hint, lots of puppies. He's not kidding.

It's supposed to be a surprise. Come on. I was trying to do the deep tease over here. But no. Let me tell you exactly what it is. That's not how hints work. Yeah, Ben's not good at the deep tease. It's okay. It's okay.

There's more. We'll get into more of that after. But that's it for me for now. I'm excited to get into the news. Jordy, how's it for me for now. I'm excited to get into the news. Jordy, how's it going by you? Super, super excited to get into the show today. Ben, excited for you to talk about how Donald Trump is this great unifier against Donald Trump

and MAGA. Just so incredible to see what's happening over there in Canada. By the way, new friend on Blue Sky. We're on Blue Sky for everyone who's been asking, at Midas Touched and then at all of our regular handles that you all know. My buddy Jarv came up with the Maple Mighty. He's a fellow Canadian. He's like, Maple Mighty, love y'all out here. I love Maple Mighty. I've also seen people, because we have a lot of people in Canada who listen to and watch the show, which is super cool. We've obviously been entering Canadian

politics a bit and covering Canada, and we will in this episode as well. I also saw the Maple Midas, which I really like as well. I love our Canadian fans. I love all of our fans. Our Canadian fans have been so awesome, so welcoming as we do the coverage. So shout out Canada. Well, it stands in contrast to Maple MAGA. The issue was a lot of the Conservative Party was overtaken by all of these MAGA extremist views, and they were team. What are you doing? I mean, the person you see there on the left, Doug Ford, the conservative premier of Ontario, he would like wear MAGA hats. Now he's wearing hats that say, basically, Canada, you're not touching. I mean, United States, you're not touching Canada. Canada's not for sale. And so, you know, he's done a complete 180. You still have this conservative premier from Alberta, Daniel Smith, who's very problematic. And she tried to divide and conquer, but got humiliated.

But let's start here domestically in the United States where Donald Trump's favorability rating is like the lowest ever going into an inauguration. Usually- I got to say, this shocked me. I'm not going to lie, Ben. This really surprised me because like you said, usually you're in this period and you think you're having this honeymoon period where your ratings are going to be high. And some of the initial approval polls of Trump were in the positive territory. I mean, some of the best polls that he's received. And by the way, while being in the positive territory, still lower historically than most presidents, if not all presidents when they actually enter office, but positive nonetheless.

So it's been interesting to see over the past few weeks that these numbers have shifted so strongly. And I think it's because folks are finally, or already rather, seeing what a Trump administration means and are seeing that a Trump administration is quite literally an administration for the billionaires, for the oligarchs. So I'll pull up this poll, Ben, while you speak about it. Yeah, look, you've got Biden's approval rating heading in was about 65%, 70%. Donald Trump's approval rating is like 41%. I mean, just think about how underwater that is right there. And I think Americans are realizing that Donald Trump is a WMD, a weapon of mass distraction.

I don't know, like all of the crazy stuff that he's posting doesn't hit the way it did. I know corporate media wants us to chase it. The good news is that our platform is just as big, if not bigger than corporate media now. So when Donald Trump wants to try to distract us, we'll cover how serious some of these bizarre and dangerous and threatening statements that he make are. But we're going to always bring it back to egg prices are at record highs, mortgage rates at record highs, the price of goods, record highs. We showed previously on the last episode that Trump's envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is saying that he'll need at least 100 days before even a framework is developed for

trying to discuss a peace deal there, where Trump said it would be 24 hours after the election, or just even assume he meant 24 hours after inauguration, which is not what he actually said, that's not going to happen. So it's lie after lie after lie. And Americans who have now been Googling what are tariffs, he probably should have done that before the election. And also Americans and corporations that rely on labor from foreign sources, including undocumented labor and construction and hospitality and agriculture and other areas in red states like Texas and Nebraska and elsewhere, they're saying, well, wait a minute, like, so you're actually going to deport like all of our workers and do workplace raids? Well, why are you going to do that? We need those workers. Can we do some sort of comprehensive immigration plan? I don't know, like the one President Biden

introduced that Donald Trump killed, which would have had the strongest border, as well as a comprehensive plan to make sure that the bad guys were prosecuted, which, by the way, they are, and those contributing have at least a pathway towards citizenship where they don't have to hide in the shadows and we can actually fix a broken immigration system. Oh yeah, but Donald Trump intentionally killed that bill because he said it was a winning issue for him to create chaos at the border and to create chaos in our immigration system. So look, when Donald Trump makes a post like this, remember, he's just trying to do a bait and switch. Oh, Donald Trump goes, it's my honor to announce John Voight, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone. They'll become

special ambassadors to Hollywood, California. Okay, really? I mean, you're making up an ambassadorship to Hollywood, California? Okay, Donald, cool, bro, but what about lower prices? Cool, bro, but what about the prices of eggs and groceries? Cool, bro, how are you gonna make housing more affordable when the 10-year yield on the bond market is pricing in the chaos you're about to cause. And now mortgage rates are up past 7%. Oh, and by the way, those billionaire oligarch bros of yours,

the guys like Scott Besant who run hedge funds and private equity companies, yeah, they're the people who are scooping up the supply of housing and making it so expensive because the supply is diminished because they are commoditizing housing and buying it up so regular folk can't buy homes. Oh, those are your buddies. What are you doing there? Donald Trump says, I am hereby creating the external revenue service. The external revenue service will be like the internal revenue service, except they're going to collect the tariffs. Dude, what are you even talking about? This is a real post from him. External revenue service. Okay. Tariffs are a tax on American companies, the importing company in America to try to dissuade them from getting

goods from abroad. That's what it is. Do you notice, by the way, that everything that he says, the whole thing in the beginning was Doge, right? We're going to create this department of government efficiency, which is like a fake pseudo department. And then the first hint that this wasn't going to be super efficient was him assigning two people to run Doge, two people run the departments. So we had two people run it, not very efficient. Now it seems like every announcement, he's just making government bigger. Like, I don't know if people who consider themselves conservative realize the irony of this,

like, we already have departments that collect tariffs. That's already a thing that we have. Like the custom service, the custom and border patrol, they handle tariffs. So now Donald Trump wants to put a duplicative department in the government, thereby making the US government even larger. It just doesn't sound super efficient. But what I've noticed about a lot of the things that Trump says is that, and I don't mean to sound demeaning to people, but a lot of the things probably sound really good to really dumb people.

And I've noticed the people who get excited about this are always the same kind of suspects. And I see them on the other apps too. I see them on TikTok. I see them on the various things. They're like, yeah, bro, external revenue, sir. Yeah, oh, fuck yeah. This is good. Oh, Gulf of America, bro. Gulf of America. Exactly. Gulf of America, bro. We got Gulf. I'm like, this is the dumbest shit on the planet. What are we doing here, people? And you know what? That's the weapon of mass distraction, right?

Because like the dog in the movie Up, Donald Trump is able to go, Gulf of America, Gulf of America, wave the keys. It's a squirrel, squirrel over there. And then his followers, like the ones I'm speaking about, they go, squirrel, and they look over there. And then meanwhile, all the stuff is damaging their lives, raising prices, raising mortgage rates, really screwing them over while they're pumping their chests and pumping their fists over the fact that he wants to rename something Gulf of America or has created another department that is useless and has no point. I mean, it's the same thing every time. I think

this every time the guy posts. And the oligarchs just sit back, laugh as they count their money. It is so pathetic. Well, you know, it's that first scene or or the one of the first episodes of the new squid games i'm not going to try to ruin it on netflix and by the way i really couldn't get through it because i really can't watch anything on netflix in general like i can't i i i there's nothing i can expand yeah i'm zero zero attention span but there but you know to watch that type of stuff like there's so much real world stuff that I just can't get into fake worlds personally. I don't know.

That's my own thing. But the guy who won, the actor who won in the fictional character, who won Squid Games 1, comes back to Squid Games 2 and then tries to warn all of the people how the games work. Look, here's what's going to happen. They're going to shoot you. If you do this, hold the line and stop. Do not be distracted by what they're about to say. I'm telling you what's going to happen. And so in the scene, as he's warning the people about what's going to happen, for most of it, he's able to do it. He goes, you see, that's the hustle. I'm proving it. Look right there. This is what they did in the first season. This is what they did when I won it. And then as he's

trying to tell people, the people still couldn't resist it. And they're like, I don't know about it. I'm going to go and try to run anyway. And then they would get shot basically. I mean, we've played the squid games before with Donald Trump or the Hunger Games. We've been through it once before. This time it's going to be worse, but we actually know the playbook. So what we always want to warn you about is do not get distracted by the shiny objects. Focus on what we need to focus about. It's why let's talk about what I think are some of the most important clips from some of these confirmation hearings that are actually not getting the attention they deserve. Look,

we've covered the Hexeth hearing. Hexeth's completely unqualified. The guy's got a horrific past. His moral character is garbage. I would just describe it as just consistent perpetual moral turpitude is what this guy's engaged in. He's unqualified. He's never led anything before. The fact that Republicans want to make this guy the Secretary of Defense just shows you there's no depths to their depths of depravity and frankly, in my opinion, hatred of the United States of America. If you're willing to make that guy the Secretary of Defense, you hate this country because why else would you pick somebody who would do such damage to the country? So stipulated, we get it. That's who the Republicans are. I can go on for hours about how dangerous this guy is. We've done other videos on it. I want

to show you clips that you're not seeing though. So Trump's pick for treasury secretary, Scott Besant, his confirmation hearing, he was asked by Bernie Sanders. So we've been told a lot about, you're going to help the workers, right? That was some of the campaign promises. You're going to raise the minimum wage, huh? You're $7.25. We should raise that federal minimum wage, right? Because you want to help the billionaires. How about bringing the minimum wage up from $7.25 to something a little more? Watch the exchange. Right now in America, we have over 22 million workers who are making less than $15 an hour and nearly raised since 2009 and remains an unbelievable $7.25 an hour. Will you work with those of us who want to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage to take millions of Americans out of poverty?

Senator, I believe that the minimum wage is more of a statewide and regional issue. So you don't think we should change the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour? No, sir. Okay. Mr. Besson, just think about that answer right there and then juxtapose that to this clip where Besson says his top priority, the biggest priority, how he thinks he's going to be judged is by ensuring that the billionaires get their tax cuts. Here, watch this. Senator Crapo, thank you for this. And thank you for the meetings over the past few weeks. I've enjoyed working with your staff. And this is the single most important economic issue of the day. This is pass fail that if we do not fix these tax cuts, if we do not renew and extend, then we will be facing an economic calamity. And then I want you to see this clip right here of him as

well, where he's asked, do you think that there are any policies that Trump has proposed that will increase prices for families? Hint, hint, tariffs, hint, hint, bloody mass deportations, hint, hint. And then Besant, by the way, let me give you Scott Besant's background. You know how all the MAGA Republicans are like, this is a George Soros plant, which it's never true. And it's always like some attempt at being like anti-Semitic to link people to like a Jewish banker. And like, that's the whole concept that this is a George Soros. This guy was literally George Soros's money manager. This guy ran George Soros's money and then launched his own hedge fund after rising the ranks for Soros. And then he became basically the tool of the oligarchs to implement their agenda. That's who this guy is here. So watch this next question, though. And then just listen carefully at the end where the senator says, so let me get this straight, though, because if the prices go

up then, because we all know the prices will go up under Trump, they're already going up in anticipation. You'll agree that it was a failure, though, because you're saying that because prices went up under Biden, Biden was a failure. And then he goes, I just don't think I can say that. I don't think I'll be able to say that at all. Here, watch this. Any specific policies proposed by the president-elect that you expect will increase prices for families? There's nothing I can immediately think of. So that's a no.

If the president-elect were to propose a policy that you believe will increase prices, would you advise against it? I would speak to President Trump about it. It is his decision. that if we look back that it is a complete composite return in terms of aggregate inflation numbers and I think it's very difficult. Well if you believe I have limited time so if you believe that a policy that is proposed by President Trump would increase prices would you advise him against doing it? Yes or no? I can't answer that question because it's a hypothetical. All right let's move on to when we met prior to the hearing you told me that President Biden was

responsible for increased prices over the past four years. Something we can litigate but I don't want to right here. By the same token I assume you would agree that if prices increase in the next four years, President-elect Trump would be responsible. I think there could be a variety of reasons. I can't answer that. I think it's a complete composite on the returns of the aggregate inflation. The first 15 seconds wasn't even a sentence.

President Trump. I cannot respond to the hypothetical. All that you're giving me, it's a complete aggregate mosaic. It's a mosaic. I need to do the mosaic. He's clearly coached to say as little as possible in these hearings. By the way, I feel like all these people are kind of coached to say as little as possible. And, you know, you kind of have to assume that most, if not all of these nominees are going to get through now that they've made it to this stage, just the makeup of the Republicans, the makeup of the, of the Senate, of the Congress. And, and, you know, then they're going to vote along party lines. You know, some. Some of them will be much wider margins than others, depending on if they're more serious candidates or if they're people like a Hexeth.

But Besant's going to get in there easy. But it's still good to get these folks on the record with these questions. I think why that line of questioning was so important, even if he didn't give a straight answer there. But he did give a straight answer in that Bernie Sanders clip. And I thought that was very telling to hear him say adamantly, no, I'm not interested in a federal minimum wage. That's a state issue. The federal minimum wage, it's a federal minimum wage. It's absolutely not a state issue. It's been 725 for decades now. It's quite frankly, an embarrassing minimum wage that our country is at. But I think that folks who want to oppose this administration and this party need to continuously emphasize is, his farewell address. But one of the things that I've been pulling my hair out, and I know I've said it on the show, maybe every episode since the election, is like, isn't it so obvious? Look at the people who are

running this party. You have Vivek Ramaswamy, who in my opinion, by all accounts, basically scammed his way into becoming a billionaire with the way that he basically did this pump and dump scheme to get rich. You have Elon Musk, you have Donald Trump, you have people like Scott Bess. You literally, you have all the oligarchs coming together right now. You have all the kind of big tech people coming together. You have the Zuckerbergs, you have the Bezos. It couldn't be more clear and the contrast couldn't be more clear. So it's like you have something to run against here and you have policies that are very popular amongst the people. I mean, there's a reason, love him or hate him, there's a reason that Senator Bernie Sanders has something

like a 69% approval rating. I saw this earlier today, 69% approval rating in his state, highest in the entire United States Senate. His disapproval is just that 27%. Those are unbelievable numbers, unbelievable approval numbers to have in the Senate. And why? It's because he is speaking to these issues. Now, more people should be speaking to these issues that actually resonate with working people. Ironically, many of the people who voted for Trump for whatever reason, but these are the people whose policies, the policies of Trump are going to ultimately end up hurting.

And it's like they're laughing in their face when they have Elon Musk up there, kind of mocking them and mocking government workers. And you have the Bezos and all these people. It couldn't be clearer. You have such an opportunity for clear, concise messaging government workers and you have the Bezos and all these people, it couldn't be clearer. You have such an opportunity for clear, concise messaging on this topic. Don't let that slip away. Hey, Brett, ask me a question. Let's pretend that I'm one of Trump's

cabinet officials or picks who he's picking. Ask me a question about how I would handle matters in the administration. So how would you handle, sir, sir, sir, sir, how would you handle matters relating to tariff policy, what Donald Trump's going to do by imposing blanket tariffs on every country, basically across the world? Will that raise prices? Is it going to create hardship for everyday Americans? Well, I haven't spoken at this stage to the president-elect. I cannot answer a hypothetical of that nature. I will say that I have full faith that the president will engage thoughtfully. He will build a composite structure with the right team. There will be synergies in place. I am confident that ultimately a solution will be reached that will be complementary to the overall operation. It's a long bit. You're in, but that's what they do though, right?

It's a long bit. You're right. We got to go to our first hand. That's my issue with the hearings at least this day. Given the makeup of the Senate, I didn't force out the nominees up until this point. They're confirmed. I hate to say, there's nothing that any of these folks could say up when they're being questioned, aside from I hate Donald Trump, that would get them

removed from the cabinet position that they're going for. And so I do want to say this, I like it for the Bernie Sanders moment. And I think Dems in general need to get more pointed with their questions instead of these open-ended, more ambiguous questions. Because if this is just a, hey, let's get this person on record so we all could hear it and see it, then let's get real frigging pointed with how we're asking these questions because everyone here is going to get confirmed. Oh, and it was a long bit. We got to go to our first ad break. I want to remind everybody to check out patreon.com slash Midas Touch. In the next week or so, we'll hold another meeting. If you ever wanted to meet Brett, Jordy, and myself in a private meeting, sign up for

patreon.com slash Midas Touch. We don't have outside investors, so it's one of the ways we grow. Let's take a quick break. When it comes to cookware, I've always struggled with choosing between the performance and durability of stainless steel pans and the easy cleanup of nonstick. But then I discovered Hexclad, and let me tell you, it's completely revamped my entire kitchen, and it's made all my friends pretty jealous. With Hexclad, you don't have to choose. Their pans combine the performance of stainless steel with the convenience of nonstick in one incredible design. So whether I'm searing a steak, making a delicate omelet, or whipping up a quick stir fry, Hexclad handles it all beautifully. In cleanup, it's a breeze. These pans are dishwasher safe

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anything. So with Shopify, your first sale is closer than you think. Established in 2025, it has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash Midas. Go to shopify.com slash Midas, lowercase M-E-I-D-A-S, to start selling with Shopify today. One more time, that's shopify.com slash Midas. Shout out to Hexclad. Shout out to Shopify. Links in the description of both audio and YouTube. Use the links, use the codes. If there's any exit surveys, let them know we sent you. Very helpful. Ben, I'm sorry. I saw you at break. I didn't mean to make fun of you because the bit was going long.

You looked a little upset with me. I apologize. It was a good bit. I mean, Ben knew how long the senators actually have to ask questions. He was going to fill that whole time. They have seven minutes. And so you, but I was showing how it's, this is not like complicated stuff, but the funny thing is, is, and I think they've done this intentionally. It's not all that funny. Kash Patel, who Trump picked to be the FBI director, I think the Republicans like that he's not going right away. They're having him watch all of these. And they're saying, this is how you do it. They're going to get asked these questions. When you get asked these questions, just don't give real answers. Okay? That's all you have to do. Just don't answer the questions. Just say other crap. Or just say you don't know and you never heard about it, or you can't recall,

or you don't remember, which by the way is pathetic. That shouldn't be the case, right? I think when our founders created our constitution, and I think over time, unfortunately, so much has been based on good faith and norms, the ability that co-equal branches of government will protect their turf, that even if you're a Republican senator, you will respect that you're a senator and not just do anything that the Article 2 president tells you to do. And that's unfortunately, though, what this Republican Party has become. They gave Trump an inch, and he took their life. Here's Pam Bondi, Trump's pick for attorney general. She was asked a very basic question about,

have you heard that audio recording where Donald Trump said, find me the 11,780 votes? And as Trump's attorney general pick, what do you think about that he was threatening and intimidating a Republican secretary of state in Georgia to commit fraud? And her response is, I've never heard that. I've heard of it, but I need to see the transcript. I don't know. Here, play this clip. Have you heard the recording of President Trump on January 2nd, 2021, when he urged the Secretary of State of Georgia to quote, fine 11,780 votes and declare him the winner of that state? No, I've heard about it through clips, but no, no, Senator,

I've not heard it. What was your reaction to President Trump making that call? I have, I would have to listen to the tape, Senator. Well, the quote that I give you is exact. He said to the Georgia Secretary of State, find 11,780 votes. Do you have the entire context of that call? I feel like it was long, much longer than that and may have been taken out of context.? I feel like it was long, much longer than that. It is. It was an hour long. Right. You can certainly listen to it. I hope you will. Every American should. As a former prosecutors, are you not concerned that the president of the United States called a state election official and asked him to find enough votes to change the results of the election? Senator, I have not listened to the hour-long conversation, but it's my understanding that is not what he asked him to do.

You need to listen to it. That is my understanding. That is not what he, I mean, it literally is what he asked him to. It's on the audio recording. And, you know, look, I know that people aren't, people are more focused on the Hegseth one, but I did think it was important to show you Scott Besant and Bondi. And then also you had the head of the OMB, Russ Vogt, literally the guy who authored Project 2025, who's put in the

position to implement Project 2025 in terms of all of the budget priorities for the deca billionaires. I did a whole video on that. It's on our YouTube feed. You should go take a look at that as well. But I want to talk about this MAGA civil war taking place right now at the state and federal level. At the state level, it's literally Republican on Republican violence. You had the state of the state speech, kind. At the state level, it's literally Republican on Republican violence. You had the state of the state speech, kind of like the state of the union, but within the state of Georgia. Republican Governor Brian Kemp was delivering the speech and he banned the pro-Trump state Senator Colton Moore. Colton Moore was always out there saying the most like cultist stuff about

Donald Trump, which is really weird. He's like a Marjorie Taylor Greene type guy. That same level of derangement. But Brian Kemp banned him from showing up. So what did Colton Moore do? He shows up and then he got pushed. But like, look at it. Like, it looks like he took a dive. Watch for yourself as Republican on Republican violence. And then I'm not even going to show you after because then afterwards he gets arrested. And then like he takes a video of himself in the hospital and he acts like he like broke his arm. And it's like, all right, relax, dude. Like, it looks like you literally just took a spill on the floor yourself. Like, watch this. I represent 200,000 people in Northwest Georgia who duly elected me to be here today.

Can you play it again? One more time. Just a fall when he looks like a fish. Thanks. Now people are ready for it. So he just takes a big spill right off the bat, just nose dives backwards. It has gone too far. I have an obligation to be in that room. I represent 200,000 people in Northwest Georgia who duly elected me to be here today.

It's so MAGA. That whole moment is just so MAGA because the fight ensues or the flop ensues. He falls. It looks ridiculous. And he gets up and they both go, it's gone too far. It's gone too far. And then they try to have some sort of civil conversation. It's like, y'all can't just throw down on the house floor like lunatics and then try and have a conversation. No, you're going to get arrested, buddy. Yeah, to remind everyone, he gets arrested after that. You cannot come in. He gets arrested after that and then ends up in the hospital and takes a picture in the hospital. You can judge for yourself if you look up the picture whether this injury is legitimate or not. That was the most ridiculous thing.

It's got vibes of Nancy Mace wearing a sling after she took a handshake, a rough handshake. Then they go around. I mean, the whole thing too is like, oh, the alpha bros, like this is alpha. I'm like, okay. That framing is so weird, but this is like the least alpha-ish stuff I've ever seen. I mean, he's like a big guy too. I just want to talk about it one more time because he seems like a big guy and then he just falls in the most hilariously awkward way. And then this photo at the hospital, just anyway. You have a guy named Mike Turner, Republican Congress member from Dayton, Ohio, was the chair of the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives, had been a member of Congress since 2003,

a respected guy on a bipartisan basis. He said a bunch of stuff that I disagree with, but overall, he was viewed as a very kind of competent guy, a competent actor. You'd be happy that if any of these Republicans were the head of the Intelligence Committee, that at least it was this guy. But he was very pro-Ukraine. He was very pro-NATO. He was very anti-Tolsi Gabbard. So he had to go. Donald Trump gave the order to Maga Mike Johnson to get rid of this guy from the intelligence committee because Maga Mike is the Speaker of the House. He gets to pick who leads the committees and Maga Mike takes his orders from Donald Trump. So he fired Turner and then replaced Turner with a guy by the name of Congress member Rick Crawford. Let me do it in reverse order. Let

me show you Rick Crawford first. He's an Arkansas GOP Congress member. This is what he said on July 31st, 2021, about COVID. Here, play this clip. Look, we need to understand. I believe that the COVID virus is real. However, I don't know that it's any worse than the common cold. And we somehow managed to get through the common cold as we develop over time vaccinations and herd immunity and things of this nature. I'm not downplaying the

severity of the pandemic, but we have to learn to live with it. While I have you here, I do want to move on to infrastructure because- I mean, the fact that that's a political issue is the most ridiculous thing. The fact that that guy is now chairing the intelligence community, that was the least intelligent thing I've ever heard. He's also opposed aid to Ukraine, and he's now leading the intelligence committee. Let me contrast him with Mike Turner. And here, Rep. Turner says that it's absolutely true. Congress member Turner says it's absolutely true that Russian propaganda has infected the GOP. This is from April 7th of 2024. Let's play it. Let's turn to Ukraine, an issue that's important to you and your fellow Republican chairman, Michael McCaul, who runs the Foreign Affairs

Committee. Congressman McCaul made a comment this week about what he says sounds like Russian propaganda from some conservative media and why it's so difficult to explain to Republican voters why supporting Ukraine is important. He told Julia Yaffe, quote, I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base. He singled out primetime shows on conservative channels. Do you agree with him? And how big is this problem? Oh, it is absolutely true. We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor. I mean, there are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not. Vladimirin having made it

very clear both publicly and to his own population that his his view is that this is a conflict of a much broader claim of russia to eastern europe and including claiming all of ukraine territory as russia's now to the extent that this propaganda takes hold it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is. President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified it as such. We need to stand up for democracy. We need to make certain that that we know that authoritarian regimes never stop when

they when they start in aggression. Ukraine needs our help and assistance now. And this is a very critical time for the U.S. Congress to step up and provide that. So Republicans got rid of that guy because Donald Trump ordered that they get rid of that guy. He's still a member of Congress, but all his seniority, his entire career, right, working up through the ranks to chair the Intelligence Committee, Trump just said, not you. I want the guy who thinks that COVID is the same as the cold. And that's the problem. I mean, one of the biggest problems to

me is just the basic facts, right? Just the basic character, basic qualifications. And the fact that any of this stuff is political, especially out here in Los Angeles, the way they've politicized the fires. But that's not just unique to us. Not just politicized, but lied about it the moment it started. It was a hurricane of lies, as California Governor Gavin Newsom had said in the recent interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. That's what it was.

But it wasn't unique to California. Any tragedy, any situation over the past four years, they pumped the disinformation. And with Elon's acquisition of Twitter, now X, it just gets pushed out with such force that it's a full-time job of a governor who has to deal with a crisis to deal with the crisis of disinformation. That's the unfortunate reality that we inhabit in the MAGA world that's removed the norms and good faith, and we're all Americans, kumbaya, let's lock arms, let's do things together. That's not where we're at. And I think Democrats are playing by old school rules, while the MAGA Republicans are playing an entirely different

game built on lies and propaganda. I want to share with you when we come back President Biden's farewell address. I want to talk about the state of the economy. Brett will break that down as the handoff is made from Biden to Trump. And we'll talk a little bit about Canada uniting against the U.S. Let's take our last break of the show. It's playoff time and it's now or never. Don't miss out on the last few weeks of football action with PrizePix, the best place to win cash while watching the playoffs. You can now win up to 1,000 times your money on PrizePix. PrizePix is the best way to get action on sports in more than 30 states, including California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. PrizePix now offers MasterCard for quick, easy deposits into your account this sports season.

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Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos sitting together, the richest people in the country. They're sponsoring all of the events. They're going to be right there. You're going to see it. So if you want to know who is screwing you, it's right there. Then the cabinet basically that they bought and then the MAGA Republicans who they bought as well. Michelle Obama is not going to be there. Nancy Pelosi is not going to be there. Others will be there on the Democratic side. We're not going to stream that there. The interesting thing is like when you have Charlie Kirk, who previously didn't like, you know, these individuals posting like, this is great. Look who's going to be there. Even some of like the MAGA supporters are like, these are the billionaires that you told us that we were supposed to hate. Like,

what are you talking about? You know, and I think it's important, again, WMD, weapon of mass distraction. Anytime that Donald Trump tries to bring our attention to, oh, Mel Gibson, I'm appointing to become the ambassador of Hollywood. We go, okay, cool, bro. But what about egg prices? Okay, cool, bro. But what about the costs of groceries? What about making housing more affordable? What about all of your promises about workers and all of these things? Oh, wait a minute. You're not doing that. And look, I think on day one, here's the thing. And Brett, I'll let you do this economic update. President Biden had things in the right direction, just objectively, it's not like, oh, you like Biden, you interviewed him. I mean, just look at the charts and the graphics and where the market was. It was up 50 to 60% from where it was under Trump. You had great job reports every month, never a single month where jobs were lost, 16.6 million jobs created. All Trump actually would have had to do is basically nothing, just coast on it and take

credit for it. But pathologically, Trump can't do that. And now we're already seeing before day one, the market reacting to it. Brett, take it away. Well, first, I just want to pitch, before we get into the economic updates, I just want to pitch our idea for the inauguration. I want to see what the folks think in the comments. So you can let us know in the comments. What if instead of airing the inauguration, because we're not going to air the inauguration, what if we just air videos of puppies throughout the inauguration. Like I'm not even like exaggerating. What if throughout the inauguration, we just, we just do a stream of a loop of a bunch of videos of adorable puppies the entire time. If you like this idea, let us know in the comments, let us know, uh, here in the live chat. Uh, I want to hear your thoughts. I'm not kidding. Like we will go ahead

and you know, it'd be hilarious as well? If our stream of watching puppies gets more views than the streams of the inauguration. Just an idea. Just an idea, folks. We're throwing it out there. If you like it, let us know. Okay. Time for everybody's favorite segment. Let's get right into it. This is the NetSuite by Oracle Know Your Numbers Minute. All right. It's time for the NetSuite by Oracle Know Your Numbers Minute. All right, it's time for the NetSuite by Oracle Know Your Numbers Minute. Let's get into the latest economic updates here. As everybody knows, NetSuite provides easy access to economic data and trends through integrated analytics. So let's break down some of that data, shall we, folks? So we're seeing some news on mortgages and mortgage rates right now. The 30-year mortgage rate is back above 7% for the first time since May. Freddie Mac says the

average rate is now 7.04%. This is quite frankly one of the least affordable times to buy a home in the past 40 years. And it's going to be hard to spur a lot more buying or building with rates this high. And I want to be clear, rates were coming down quite substantially leading up to the November elections. That all changed following the results of the elections. In fact, just a few weeks ago, the CEO of Compass was interviewed on CNBC, and they said that prior to the election, it was Compass's view that the mortgage rates were heading to the fives either next year or the following year. But then we had these fears of new tariffs and other inflationary policies

from Donald Trump, from the incoming administration, that have now changed the court's course of rates. Now we're seeing them come back up to historically high levels in the past few decades. Honestly, I think it's a huge bummer because as Ben was saying before, things were heading in the right direction. Everything was on the up and up. And then we had this huge reversal over these past few months, just the sign of more things to come. And in inflation news, we had a new inflation report come out. Inflation was a mixed bag in December. And the report that came out this week, the Consumer Price Index, the CPI, showed some relief in core inflation, which was definitely some positive news. But the threat of those sticky high prices continue to

loom. Although inflation has been slowing, it still remains above that 2% level by the Federal Reserve. The Consumer Price Index increased the seasonally adjusted 0.4% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.9%. That number was exactly in line with the forecasts of what the experts thought that it was going to come in at. The core CPI annual rate, and for those who don't know the core CPI, it excludes food and energy prices because those are much more volatile. So this is a more stable way to measure the underlying inflation trends. Those slowed to 3.2%, which was a notch down from the month before. So slightly better than the 3.3% outlook that analysts had predicted. That excited investors quite a bit. If you all saw the

various markets, the stock market indices rise in a big way on Wednesday, that was why, because the markets reacted positively to that number. NetSuite offers tailored reporting features that allow businesses to focus on specific stock market indicators relevant to their sector. That way, your business can always be ahead of the curve no matter what happens. Shelter prices, housing, which comprise about one-third of the CPI, waiting rose by 0.3%, but we're up 4.6% from a year ago. That's the smallest one-year gain since January 2022. The stubborn inflation numbers are going to present an interesting situation, I'd say, for the Federal Reserve in the coming year, because as you remember from our reporting, the Fed was getting ready to do a lot of aggressive rate cuts over the next few years.

We saw the beginning of that happen kind of prior to the election and kind of just after. But now as Trump's policies are expected to contribute to higher prices, and this is how you can kind of separate the BS, the bluster, the messaging from what's actually happening. You see how the actual, how the feds are reacting, how the economic experts are reacting. Because these policies are expected to contribute to higher prices, markets aren't expecting the next Federal Reserve rate cut to come now before June, despite the fact that we've had this better than expected economic data. So there's my economic update. That's where things stand. That's where things are heading. Obviously, things could change, but we always think it's important to bring you the latest

updates as we have them. Thank you to NetSuite by Oracle. That was the NetSuite by Oracle Know Your Numbers Minute. Do you know your own numbers for your business? Download NetSuite's ultimate KPI checklist right now at netsuite.com slash Midas. Thanks for that update, B. That was a really, really solid one there. I agree that streaming puppies versus the inauguration is the route to go. People seem to like the puppy idea, I got to say. I feel pretty confident that the puppy stream is going to get more than any inauguration stream. That's really what I want to know. If we look at the Midas Touch puppy inauguration stream,

and then we compare it to MSNBC or- Yeah, name your corporate media. Name your stream. Can we get more viewers on videos of puppies? And Ben could come in and narrate the puppies too and do some voiceovers. Tell you what's going on with the pups, right? They're super adorable, super cute. Could we get more views?

I love it. Just an idea, folks. Just an idea. Stay tuned. All right. WMD, Weapon of Mass Distraction, one of the things that Donald Trump is promoting at his Palm Beach golf course. He's now doing, I guess, his mugshot, which is basically his portrait now.

His portrait is his mugshot photo. That's where we are in the United States, internationally. Well, he basically replicated the photo. I want to be clear, it's not the same exact photo, but he basically replicated the post. It's the same exact pose. It's the same exact pose. That's what I meant. Split in hairs there, B. Right. Okay. Got it. Okay. Here he is though, he's doing his face on burgers.

If you eat the burgers, his face appears on your burgers at all of his properties now, which is, you know, I mean, very weird. It doesn't look like him. It looks like Putin. Don't get distracted by that. Let me show you what's going on in Canada, though. This is Doug Ford. He was Maple MAGA. You see right there, projecting unity, the various different parties, provincial level, federal level. Ford is a conservative leader, the premier of Ontario. You see Justin Trudeau, prime minister. He's resigned. Canada's in the pro-rogue period right now as they pick their new leader, their new prime minister for the Liberal Party. Then we probably will have a vote soon.

I've seen a lot of people call for a unity government there. Parties need to unite against Trump, but they're projecting unity as well. Here's what Doug Ford, again, this guy was maple maga. This guy was a Trumper. He said his support for Trump would never waver. Well, not only has it wavered, he removed his MAGA hat and now wears the Canada is not for sale hat. And here he is describing this meeting where he says, you're never going to see what you see right now here in Canada.

You'll never see Democrats and Republicans meeting in the Oval Office united on stuff. He goes, here we all are. He goes, I don't care if you're the Orange Party, Green Party, NDP, Liberal Party, conservatives, we're united. The one wrinkle to that, though, is that the Premier of Alberta, she's still maple mag. Her name is Danielle Smith. She showed up at Mar-a-Lago with Kevin O'Leary. You see them right there. And then, I mean, Donald Trump just utterly humiliated her. I think she like lied to the press too. And she said she was on a vacation with her husband, but she ended up being in Mar-a-Lago. And Trump said to her, no, we're doing tariffs on day one. You're not exempt. There's no Alberta exemption,

25%. Well, we're going to do it on crude oil as well. Screw you, basically. And she's been really odd. She's been attacking this unity government from Alberta saying, no, you're going to screw us over in Alberta. The issue with Alberta is that they have a lot of big oil companies there. And so she's a shill for the oil companies. That's what's taking place there. But anyway, let me show you Doug Ford from Ontario. Again, this guy used to be a Trumper, but here he is now saying that we're united to cause pain to the United States and have retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. when they come after us. Play this clip. Political parties sitting down, and we have a robust conversation we may agree or disagree but

we're coming out united i can tell you spending a lot of time in the u.s you would never see a group of democrats and republicans sitting here collaboratively i promise you one thing president trump's office a whole bunch of democrats and republicans saying how can we attack canada it's not happening we We have the greatest country. We have the greatest elected officials, the greatest democracy in the world, that we can sit here from one extreme to the other extreme, to in the middle. And I have always said, I don't care about political stripes. I don't care if you're from the orange party, the blue party, or the red party. We're going to be united. We're Canadian.

We're going to get this done. And by this done, he's talking about uniting to inflict retaliatory tariffs on the United States, which by the way, Mexico would do on day one as well. If Trump, when Trump imposes the tariffs, you know, for all these people out there too, you know, who are like, well, we still need to see what he's going to do. He's going to do it. He's going to do it on day one. He said he's going to do it. So when all of a sudden, all of these analysts are shocked, they're like, oh, he did it. And then the markets are impacted by it. Yeah, he did it. He said he was going to do it. We warned you about it. What else is it that you need? Like what other things do you need to be shown? And it's a wild thing.

If you were to tell me, hey, Ben, I got a great investment for you. Over the next four years, we can increase your income by 50 to 60%. I would go, that's a great return on investment, right? That's good. That's what President Biden did with the markets. It was up 50 to 60%. I would go, that's a great return on investment, right? That's good. That's what President Biden did with the markets. It was up 50% to 60%. But he was excoriated and attacked by all of these so-called finance bros or finance people. Oh, we're going to do it better. Are you going to do it better than a 50% to 60% increase? Are you going to do a better than 16.6 million jobs? I'm just so sick of this prevailing narrative that, oh, the Republicans are better on the economy. Look, over the past three, four decades with 50 million jobs created, 48 million of those jobs were

created during democratic administrations. The big recessions that took place, right, were under Trump, were under George W. Bush, Reagan. I mean, it's such a strange thing to me. What they're really saying is that these billionaires want deregulation so that they can basically rip people off and that they can have not just 10 yachts but 20 yachts. And then they get bailed out by the government. Well, we, the people get screwed and we don't get the bailouts. They get the bailouts. And so there's zero risk and they just snatch up all the money and view it as a zero sum game. It's really screwed up, but it's what President Biden warned about in his farewell address. He

gave a few warnings. And I thought it was great. I thought it was substantive. One thing he was very critical of is the Supreme Court, a ban on stock trading in Congress. And also he wants a constitutional amendment to say no to presidential immunity. Here, play this. We need to get dark money. That's that hidden funding behind too many campaigns contributions. We need to get it out of our politics. We need to enact an 18 year time limit, term limit, time and term for the strongest ethics and the strongest ethics reforms for our Supreme Court. We need to ban members of Congress from trading stock while they're in the Congress.

We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The president's power is not limited. It's not absolute. Here's what President Biden said about the threat of the oligarchy that has formed in the United States. Let's play it. This is a dangerous concert. And that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. The dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens our entire democracy,

our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get it. Powerful, powerful stuff. And then Brett, he talked about remembering your oath. I know you wanted to share that. Yeah, I thought this was a powerful clip. And I think President Biden is, he's always very deliberate in his language. And so, you know, these warnings carry a lot of weight to me when he says these things. I think we need to take it to heart. So earlier today, President Biden was speaking. He gave a farewell address as commander in chief to the United States military, and he gave them this message. Let me close with a final request. I say it not as your president or commander in chief,

I say it as a man who spent 50 years of his life serving his country in a different way. Remember your oath. My son, Major Beau Biden, used to call it home base. That's a set of principles of values that give you light in darkness, that guide you. It's true to the military,

it's the best weapons, the best training in the world. We're the most cutting edge ships, planes and subs. We are the smartest, most well-trained force on earth. That's all critical. But that alone is not what makes us strong.

This is not what brought Washington, this band of brothers together all those years ago. Powerful, powerful stuff right there. And Brett, as you said, very deliberate. And, you know And I'll leave everybody with this thought because we see it with California Governor Gavin Newsom right now, who he wasn't ready at first for the deluge of the lies and disinformation, right? And then it hit. And he was about two days late, not because he

was negligent or anything, quite the contrary, right? He was head down focusing on the crisis. He was solving the issues. He couldn't fathom that as he was doing that, though, there would be all of this disinformation and lies that were harming his ability to handle the crisis. Then he's like, oh, we need to create a whole website that debunks the lies. I got to be out every day. I got to do videos and highly produced pieces every single day. The thing is, he's doing such an effective job at it right now. You have even Speaker Mike Johnson, Maga Mike, saying, instead of making highly produced clapback videos with social media influencers, you should get more help in California, which he is. But you see how effective Newsom is, but you have to do it relentlessly. You shouldn't have to do it. Be clear. This was not the country that President

Biden grew up in. This was not part of the job not too long ago. It wasn't you had to be a social media influencer yourself in addition to being a governor or a president, but that's where we are now. You could tell it's effective, quite frankly, exactly because of what Speaker Johnson there, Speaker Johnson responded. That was a response to one of the clips that Brian Tyler Cohen, Brian Tyler Cohen, by the way, did a fantastic interview with Governor Newsom. And I think it's very smart that Governor Newsom is doing these interviews on site and is getting the message out to people in unique ways. It's one of the things that folks need to be doing. It's one of the things that Republicans have excelled at. And so now that Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, these people are seeing that, oh shit,

Democrats are wising up. Look at them going on, getting their message out in ways that they're supposed to be the way we've been doing. They're like, oh no, no, no, that's our thing. You're not allowed to do that. That's what we do. And so now we're going to demean you for doing exactly what you need to be doing in this era because we don't want you to counter our bullshit. We don't want you to counter our lies or disinformation. We want to be able to do this and just run over you with these lies every single day while you're out there trying to do your job. But Newsom realized, he's like, I'm talking to people out there these first few days and they But Newsom realized, he's like, I'm talking to people out there these first few days and they're coming to me and they're saying, oh, this is to form a

democratic cabal pedophile ring and all this. And he was like, where are you getting this stuff from? What are you even talking about right now? And they would be like Twitter, Elon Musk, you know, and that's the problem with this new ecosystem. These lies spread so quickly. And I think, yeah, I've even made the mistake in the past of thinking that this was insulated into this online bubble. The fact is these lies go beyond that bubble. They reach normal people.

And by the way, people who are pretty smart people, I hear echo all out of these lies. It gets to them. They think it's fact. They then spread it. They tell it to their friends, their family. Next thing you know, there's a whole large section of the population that believes these lies are the truth, no matter how outrageous they are, no matter where they started from, because they even lose where they... People don't know this started with Donald Trump or started with the... They just know the information that their friend told them that this is what's happening, even when it's the complete opposite of the truth. I saw this post that was saying that Gavin Newsom was trying to... This is all part of Gavin Newsom's plot to sell off the land to speculators on the cheap so that he could give all the land away in Los Angeles to these speculators. It was actually... When you actually played the clip that they were referencing it was gavin newsom saying the opposite that he wanted to make sure that the people of the city were protected from vultures trying to swoop in and take their property it was the up gavin newsom signed like

an executive order i didn't read to that point but then Maga then attacks him and says, well, now you're screwing over the people because they should be able to sell their homes to the land developers. So now you're screwing the people to which Gavin's like, wait, Ted Cruz said that. So now you're a shill for predatory land developer. They're not consistent things, but it doesn't have to be when it's a lie. It's just everywhere. And then whoever gets it gets it. It's easy to lie about everything if that's what you do. And let's face it, all of this right now is also coming from a place where Republicans are looking ahead in politics. They're looking to 2028. They see that Governor Newsom is clearly going to be one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination. They view this as a moment where they could weaken him politically and weaken Democrats politically in the state of California and nationally. That is part of this whole plan. It's sick. It's devious. It's cynical. It's in the middle of a crisis where people are suffering, and it truly hits home for me and all of us here because we are living in that. Well,

not you, Jordi, but me and Ben and so many people who work with us live in this city, live in this state. And it is just so abhorrent to see this kind of behavior. But all in all, watching this, I actually think that Gavin Newsom has done a remarkable job. I think he has risen to this occasion. I think despite all the shit that they've thrown at him, that Newsom has proven himself to be a very effective leader in a time of crisis. I think he's been very effective at getting the truth out. I think he's been very effective at consoling people in this state, in the city. I think he's been very good at telling people where we go next from here, dealing with the crisis in real time, and being an effective communicator. And that is one of the reasons why MAGA hates him so much. That is one of the reasons

why they try to spread all of this crap about him. And I'll definitely defend him. I think that he's doing a fantastic job during a very difficult time. And shame on the people. And by the way, I'm not saying that anyone is above reproach. I'm not saying that anybody is beyond receiving criticism. But what they are doing to Newsom right now is possibly even more than what they've done to Biden over the past few years in a truncated time period. The lies they are spreading, the disinfo they are throwing at this guy, the way they are doing this in the middle of a crisis, it is absolutely vile, vile stuff, inexcusable stuff. And, you know, but thankfully, I think he's equipped well to handle the situation in the climate. I want to remind everybody, we're going to be doing a meeting at patreon.com

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