The MeidasTouch Podcast - Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben — 2/5/26

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on breaking news from the day. Quince: Go to https://Quince.com/meidas for FREE shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Masa Chips: Ready to give MASA a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to https://masachips.com/MEIDAS and using the 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 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 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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You get deal ratings, price history, and dealer reviews without the surprises. could shop with confidence. Buy your next car gurus at car gurus.ca. Go to cargueros.ca. To make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's c-ar-g-U-R-U-S dot CA. Carguoros.com.com. Welcome to Ben Myceles on Breaking News. I'm Ben Myceles. And this is Breaking News. We've got a lot to discuss starting with the really bad jobs report this morning. January layoffs surge to a 17-year high as U.S. employers announced 108,435 layoffs in January. That's up 205% from December and the highest January total since 2009 during the Great Recession right after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. There's a lot of comparisons to right now and 2009.

That's not a good thing when all of these comparisons as it relates to people being laid off and people not getting the manufacturing jobs that they were promised and a lot of comparisons to 2009. Economists are saying things like this. Sobering data from Challenger, that's the group that does these reports. And by the way, we have to rely on groups like Challenger because our own government is not doing reports that are up to the level that they once were. Sobering data from Challenger on the U.S. labor market announced job cuts in January more than doubled year over year, hitting their highest level since the 2009 Great recession. Most notably, these layoffs are occurring, while the GDP continues to grow at approximately

4%, accelerating the decoupling of employment from economic growth. And that is another way of saying that the billionaires are getting richer, doing deals with each other over AI, while screwing over everybody else, who not only are not feeling the impact, but are being. significantly adversely harmed by this Trump economy. As Heather Long and economist writes, the US hiring recession shows no sign of ending. Job openings fell to $6.5 million in December. That is the lowest level since September 2020 during COVID.

So these comparisons are COVID, great recession. The hiring rate remains anemic 3.3%. percent. Firms aren't even thinking about hiring right now outside potentially of health care and AI. And we know the Trump regime is out there attacking health care and also having unregulated AI screw over we the people. You know, I just did an interview with assembly member Boris over in New York State Assembly District 73. He's running for Congress in the 12 congressional district there. that open primary Nadler's previous seat. And Boris's main agenda is talking about the threats posed by AI.

And for those who know, his background, he worked in Palantir for like five years. And he resigned, quit from Palantir in 2019, where he started to see the links between Palantir and Ice. in 2019. 2019 is what he resigned there. And so he's made his platform to call out the dangers of AI, but harness its powers, but call out the dangers of unregulated AI. And so a super PAC has devoted tens of millions of dollars to try to defeat him.

And anyone who speaks out against AI, you know, are getting attacked by these right-wing oligarchs right now. It should be noted as well. Remember Donald Trump said that he was the, by the way, we're going to talk in this episode about Trump's Epstein coverup, okay, and what we're learning more as well. We're going to talk about that deranged interview that Donald Trump gave with NBC, where he talks about cognitive exams and we're going to talk about the Senate hearings that have been taking place with Treasury Secretary Besson. I just, I think it's important that we, start episodes like this with areas that are not getting enough attention. Because we've been talking about Epstein when it was not getting enough attention, right? And that's what I pride ourselves in this network about because we were talking about, you know, Epstein files, since this network was founded, we were doing deep dives, Melania's Dark Pass, Trump's Dark Pass videos.

I was doing interviews with the survivors five years ago. we were talking about what was going on then. So I know it's getting a lot of attention. I've done deep dive videos into the Epstein files. I've done the links between Putin and the Epstein files and Epstein's communications with Russia and whether Epstein was involved in a KGB kind of a honey trap network right there. We've done deep dives. I did one this morning showing emails that seem to suggest that Donald Trump

and Epstein were having communications through 2019, through Epstein's death, either directly or indirectly, that there was still at least back channels taking place. Go watch that video I did this morning on it. We did a whole video of Melania's name appearing in the Epstein files and described what happened there. And so we've been focused on and other dark secrets of the Epstein files. So go back and watch those videos where we do deep dives, email by email, text message by text message. But I just think it's important where people aren't focused on the threats posed by AI,

which we're seeing impacting job numbers right now and data centers. And people are terrified about what's happening. And you have that taking place at the same time, ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo, continue to terrorize and torture people across this country. It's interesting. Greg Bovino, who led Border Patrol, who was forced out of his position after Border Patrol thugs, SS, Gestapo, murdered Alex Preti. And, you know, Bovino was out there like partying in Vegas. And he was actually kicked out of the bar that he was at. No, no one wants this guy around.

You know, this guy's terrorizing people. You don't get to enter polite society and hang out in Vegas. okay, when you terrorize and torture people. People hate Bovino right now from all political parties at this point. Talk more about that. But crypto, have you seen what's going on in the crypto market right now? Tanking. Crypto has lost $2 trillion in value since October's 2025 peak as a sell-off deepens right there. And as the Kobayasi letter explains, it's absolutely insane. On October 6th, crypto markets hit a record high market cap of 4.3 trillion. Today, the crypto market is worth just 2.3 trillion, and I think less now, losing $2 trillion worth of market cap in four months.

In other words, 46% of crypto's entire value has been wiped out. Also, Donald Trump's company, World Liberty Financial, you know, the one that UAE funneled hundreds of millions of dollars, into in what appeared to be a quid pro quo where UAE then got our most highly classified semiconductor chips. Do you remember? You remember that? Well, World Liberty Financial just sold $5 million worth of Bitcoin. One of the things that they were doing when Bitcoin was at its highest price, they were hoarding Bitcoin when Bitcoin was like at $135,000 a billion. Bitcoin or at its peak. So they bought high,

panic sold low right now. And the crashing crypto markets, by the way, this is everything Trump touches dies. Trump steps into this space. They focus on no regulation at all, where you can't even have an accounting of of where this crypto is being mined and who's holding on to it. and creating a very inefficient market that lacks transparency or any regulation at all.

Same issues we're seeing with AI and it's all related here. And now we're seeing a massive crash. Like one of the worst market crashes imaginable, like 48, like a 50% drop. That's great depression stuff right there. Dipped into the 60s, 60,000 today. We'll talk about that. I want to also talk about Virginia on this episode. Because in Virginia, the Democrats in both of their chambers finally got, and they've been working great in Virginia.

You've got the Senate pro temporee, state Senator Lucas, and you've got their Speaker, Speaker, Scott. and they said they were going to do a 10 to one map in the Commonwealth of Virginia to add Democratic congressional seats. And they did their 10 to one map. And so Donald Trump's gerrymandering scheme absolutely backfired, absolutely backfired in his face. And that's the thing with Donald Trump is that there's evil, malicious, but then also stupid. And it also shows you why when you stand up to this guy, you can win. And he's a loser. He's been a lifelong loser who has just conned people his entire life.

So you got to give a hat tip to California Governor Gavin Newsom for immediately kicking into high gear doing prop 50, right, saying, okay, Texas, you're going to try to rig the midterms with five Republican seats. okay, well, in California, we'll do it the right way. We're not just going to have the legislature pass something. We're going to do a referendum. Prop 50, the people can vote on it. And we're doing it in response to Texas. Prop 50 overwhelmingly was approved by California voters who said, yes, this is what we need to do

to fight back. And it set the tone for the rest of the nation. We're now with Virginia and other states. Democrats look like they're going to pick up seats. And not only that, in order. for Republicans to try to create Republican seats in Texas, they had to dilute safe Republican seats or what they claimed were safe Republican seats or thought were safe Republican seats in order to bring voters over to the Democratic seats to try to wipe out Democratic seats.

So let's just say a district that may be plus 17, let's say in Texas, where there is a plus two Democratic district. and a plus 17 Republican district. What they may try to do is dilute that 17 to say a plus 10 and then add those seven to the plus two Democrats. So now it's a plus five red district. So they believe it's a Republican pickup. Right.

So the 17 goes down to 10. The plus two blue or Democrat now goes up to a plus five red Republican in their minds. because they're viewing it based on 2024 voter trends. See that math game right there? And now anything that's plus 15, plus 17, Democrats are winning in Texas and across the rest of this country right now. So now what actually could have happened is the Republicans in Texas creating multiple more Democratic seats possibly by diluting what they thought were safe Republican seats.

But the thing is, this is how Donald Trump is treating America in international policy as well. It's why China is out maneuvering the U.S., the EU, Canada, India. All these countries are out maneuvering the U.S. And U.S. is not from a position of strength negotiating. It's from an utter position of weakness. That's what we're seeing over and over again from Trump. Why don't I share with, why don't we start off with some good news? And so let me show you Virginia State Senator and President pro temporee, the Senate

pro temporee, Senator Luis Lucas, here's what she and Speaker Scott said moments ago. Let's play it. Give me more seats. Then that's not enough. So he calls North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio. I need more. I need more. Today we are leveling the playing field.

There are not, these are not ordinary times. and Virginia will not sit on the sidelines while it happens. We made a promise to level the playing field, and today we'll keep in our promise. Our mats are ready. Virginia is ready. We said 10-1, and we're in it. And we are proud to deliver a map that stands up for democracy, to stand up Virginians, to stand up and give us a horse. He started this mess, and Virginia's going to finish it.

Virginia to the rescue. Senator Lucas said it best. We've been working really hard to make sure that we got this delivered. This is about leveling the playing field across the country. Republicans are gerrymandering maps to override the will of the voters. We just saw it in Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri. At Donald Trump's direction, they're manipulating election maps because they know they can't win on their agenda in 2026.

So instead of changing their ideas, they're trying to rig the system. A 10-1 map levels to playing field and we're ready to move forward. They will make it good on our promise by releasing the maps publicly. We're going to get them released either by the end of the day or early tomorrow. get those maps released and putting them out in the open and allowing them to be debated the way they should be in a democracy. We're going to leave it up to Virginia voters. The maps are ready. Virginia's ready. And that's the bus center that said many times. 10-1. 10-1. Thank y'all. Thank you. For 5 o'clock? I don't know. I'm all for 10-1. Let's go look at what was going down as well today.

You had before showing Trump at that national prayer breakfast, I want to show Trump yesterday where now all of a sudden he's saying that Bill Clinton is his buddy, right? Now that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee and said, we want it to happen publicly. To be clear, there's misinformation. There's a lot of disinformation about whether Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were agreeing to show up and testify. From the outset, they were always willing to speak with the MAGA Republicans in the House, even though they knew it was very contrived and weaponized to try to embarrass them and distract from Trump being in the Epstein files by making it about Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

But former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave proposals about how to offer testimony to transparently discuss things. And then based on the information they gave to then determine, does it go to a deposition, you know, or does it go anywhere else, basically? And that was consistently rejected. So finally, when James Comer, the MAGA Republican who leads the House Oversight Committee, is like, we're going to hold the Clintons in contempt. The Clintons did something in my view that was absolutely brilliant and I appreciate it.

I don't care what political party you are. You should appreciate this move too, right? Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton said, you want to do a hearing on Jeffrey Epstein? Okay, let's do it in public. Hillary Clinton will go first. Remember how that went for you with Benghazi? Hillary Clinton will go first.

And Hillary Clinton's like, let me do it. I want to go public. And we'll do a whole hearing on Epstein. We want to do an Epstein hearing? Mother Clint's like, what do you ask me about? Okay, we will do that. And here's what she posted. You'll pull up that post right there.

Hillary Clinton goes, for six months, we engaged Republicans on the Oversight Committee in good faith. We told them what we know and said we would tell them what we know under oath. They ignored all of it. They moved the goalposts and turned accountability into an exercise and distraction. So let's stop the games. If you want this fight, James Comer, let's have it in public. You love to talk about transparency. There's nothing more transparent than a public hearing.

Cameras on. We will be there. Meaning former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. We will be there. Of course, we'll be there at the Midas Touch Network covering it as well. So Hillary Clinton says that. And then here's what Donald Trump says about Bill Clinton. Now we all know, just to be clear, before I play this clip, that Donald Trump has been trashing of Bill Clinton every day, right? It was Bill Clinton. He was the one who's, I'm not on the list. I'm not on the files when Donald Trump appears 38,000 times in the Epstein files,

38,000. I saw these memes. I wanted a fact check it to see if it's true and it's true. That means Donald Trump's name appears more in the Epstein files than Jesus' name in the Bible and more than Harry Potter's name, including Harry, without Potter, Harry, in all seven Harry Potter books. I saw the meme. I had to confirm it, which means Donald Trump is the main character in the Epstein files. And what's so fascinating as I show you what's going on in other countries, like what's happening in the UK right now, where rightfully so, the taint of Epstein

and connections is viewed as shameful. And that people who are associated with it are profusely apologizing, resigning from their position, being shamed, having their titles removed, being criminally investigated. That's what's supposed to happen. That's what's supposed to happen. But in the United States, it's very, very, very different.

But now, and we all know that Trump has been saying, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton. Okay, well, what do you feel about Bill Clinton now, Donald? Let's play this clip. NBC News broke the story today. I don't know if you saw it that the Democrats are already saying if you bring President Bill Clinton and he has to testify, we're bringing President Trump. What do you say to that?

I think they might say that, you know, but they've already brought me. See, I've been brought. They had me indicted many, many times, many, many times. And the president had some surprising thoughts. about former president Bill Clinton. It bothers me that somebody's going after Bill Clinton. See, I like Bill Clinton. I still like Bill Clinton.

What do you like about him? I liked, well, I liked his behavior toward me. I thought he got me, he understood me. You know, he was the one that said very famously that you don't want to run against Trump when there were 18 people. It was 18 people, including me, total. And he kept telling them, you don't want to run against Trump.

Run against anyone. don't run against Trump and Hillary sort of left at him. I mean, how pathetic is that? Like, objectively again, I don't care what political party you're from. I don't care. I mean, how pathetic is that? I'm upset that they're going after Bill Clinton. I mean, you, you are.

You are the person. It is you because you're the one in the files more than everybody. I want to share this with you as well. I did a whole video on it this morning. I think it's important that we see this in the United States of America. What is happening in the UK right now, right, where Peter Mandelson used to be the UK ambassador to the United States, whose connections to Epstein, in my view, are less than Trump's, in my opinion, grotesque and disgusting, horrific. stuff. But in my opinion, I'm giving you my First Amendment opinion, right? I have the right to give First Amendment speech. You can form your own opinions. I'll be very clear with the disclaimer.

That's my opinion. He's been forced out of the Labor Party. I guess he's allowed to hold his title because, but he's not, he's forced out of the House of Lords, even though I guess he still calls himself, Lord. He shouldn't. And the government right now, which has a significant majority in the parliament, though, based on the prior election, they're facing a massive scandal right now because Keir Starmer, people could feel differently about Keir Starmor. I think he's very strong on Ukraine. I think he's been weak when it comes to Trump. My own view, if you were interested, but my opinion here, you could form your own opinions. I certainly think that I identify closer with, say, the Labor Party than the Tories,

if I had to give an opinion. And I want to be clear that the Tories, the conservative party in the UK, it's not like they should be acting like they're free of scandals or bad, like a bad thing. So I want to give you that proviso as I show you clips of the Tories of the conservative party members in parliament calling out Epstein's connections with Mandelson. But one of the things that Keir Starrmer did is, and this is reflecting on Keir Starrmer's judgment, that Keir Starrmer allowed Mandelson to be the ambassador to the U.S. and gave a high-level position. And there were people knew that Mandelson had a connection with Epstein, not to the degree that's in the files. But the criticism is you brought on a guy

Mandelson who knew Epstein, and that should be disqualifying for you, Starmor, that should be disqualifying. That's the argument. And Starmer isn't really fighting it. I mean, his view is, it was bad judgment. I was lied to. And Mandelson, we did a vetting and Mandelson said that it wasn't what it is. But we know Trump's connections.

So I just want you to think about how the connection in the UK between Starmor, and Mandelson reflects on Starmer and anybody else who brought in Mandelson. When in the U.S., Trump's like one of the people at the heart of the cabal, in my opinion, based on being the lead character in the Epstein Piles, in my opinion. So watch this exchange right here as some of the Tories, the opposition people in the UK. This is how they're talking about the situation. Let's watch this first clip. Absolutely. It absolutely beggars belief. And if we want to clean up politics, then this sort of thing should not be being allowed to happen.

Politics is a difficult place, we know that, but this was down to judgment. It was down to the judgment of one person, or was it the judgment of others around that person? So I urge the honourable and right honourable members on the Labour benches opposite, do the right thing this thing. evening, stand up for democracy, stand up for Parliament and stand up for decency. Yeah. Yeah. Lizzie Cairns. Yeah.

Liberation Day. That is how Mandelson described the day of Epstein's release for prison, for procuring children to be trafficked and raped. Mandelson's next message was, how is freedom feeling? Epstein replied, she feels free. fresh, firm and creamy. Mandelson's next reply, naughty boy. Now we hadn't seen this email, I'll admit,

when the ambassador was appointed. But let's look at what we did know when he was appointed ambassador. We knew at that point that he had consoled this paedophile, consoled him on his being found guilty and convicted for just

one of the many, many crimes he had committed. We also knew that while he was deputy prime minister of this country and business and trade secretary, carrying the flag of our great nation on an official visit to New York, he stayed in a convicted paedophiles flat. How dare he do that while representing this country? But the idea that no one in the cabinet office, no one of the Department of Business and Trade, no civil servant, no political appointee knew that he'd said, no, I don't need a hotel, thank you ever so much. I'm going to stay at my friend Epstein's house. Oh, by the way, he happens to currently be in prison, incarcerated,

but I'm going to stay at his house anyway. That to me raises serious questions about why he was not pursued for misconduct in public office back at that point. And no one can say that the Labour government did not know, because having been a civil servant, I knew where my ministers were staying, when they're abroad, not sure, they always wanted me to know, but I knew. and none of them would have ever done that. This is the heart of the issue with the judgment of the Prime Minister. Now on Monday, one of its ministers, the government's minister, said, nobody objected when Mandelson was appointed.

I would say, look at Hansard, I remember objecting very, very clearly and repeatedly. Because it was very clear at that point that Mandelson had repeatedly said that Pepstein did not deserve to be in prison, that this was an awful time for him, how he was caring and thinking for his good friend. Why was there no investigation and why was the vetting not done right? Because there is no question

that the vetting cannot have been conducted properly. I have been through vetting myself, and I accept it was not as the minister, but as a civil servant, I've been sat in a room with a rather elderly... Right? Again, I don't care, you know, whether you're Labor, Green, Tory,

do labor, whatever. Like what she's saying, you know, again, and I'm not, again, trying to say that the Tories don't have any, their own issues. Let's be clear, they do. But I'm saying what she said was with moral clarity. Watch what happens when Prime Minister Kier Starrmer was questioned. Here, let's play this clip.

Can the Prime Minister tell us, did the official security vetting he received mentioned Mandelson's ongoing relationship with the paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. Prime Minister? Yes, it did. As a result, various questions

were put to him. I intend to disclose to this House all of the national security prejudice to international relations on one side. I want to make sure this House sees the full documentation so it will see for itself the extent

to which, the extent to which, the extent to which time and time again, Mandelson completely misrepresented the extent of his relationship with Epstein and lied throughout the process, including in response to the due diligence. You hear the audible gasp, and I wanted to show that to our audience, because you don't see that a lot, right,

in American media showing you what's going on in the UK Parliament. but I spend a lot of time on it because also Prime Minister Kier Starrmer told the truth, right? In America, we'd be used to, when confronted with, you know, did you, were you aware that there was this connection in the past? And, you know, what would Trump say? I never knew anything. I never was aware. Keir Starmor answered the question, honestly. And he said, yes.

And we were lied to. And we're going to show you all the documentation. but he admitted to doing something bad. I mean, Starmer wasn't Mandelson, but he did recognize the error of judgment and said that he was lied to. Now, however that nets out, that's for the British people to decide.

It's not for me to decide. But I sure like that system a lot better than whatever the hell we're doing here, right? That was civilized. That was decent. That was getting to the, that was how you discuss things. That's how grownups behave, right? And I contrast that to James Combr.

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. You know, it's like crazy people over here. It's like great, right? I mean, it's, you know, it's crazy stuff here compared to that. And by the way, when I cover the Canadian parliament, because they're based off of the rules, same, you know, it's the same thing as well. I want to remind everybody, big audience here.

First off, I think you like this format. right been on breaking news we like this format a reminder the way ben on breaking news is different format than i do with the brothers so the show i do at five pacific eight eastern make sure you tune into that you get different perspectives different stuff there make sure you always check that out right i'm going to go live tonight with the brothers selfishly that's my favorite show no offense to me on this show because i get to hang out with my brothers You know, and I love hanging out with my brothers. And I've been doing that show longer than this one.

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Good to see everybody. Support our pro-democracy sponsors. Let's contrast what you saw there in the UK Parliament with Donald Trump. Let's find this clip where, yeah, where Donald Trump talks about the cognitive mind tests. Let's play that clip. The cognitive mind tests. Let's play it. I feel great.

I mean, physically and mentally, I feel like. I did 50 years ago. It's crazy. Now, there'll be a time when I won't be able to give you that answer, but that time has income, you know? I do. I think it's very important. I've done more physicals.

I take physicals just to give the report out. I take cognitive physicals, so I do a cognitive mind test, okay? And a lot of people wouldn't be able to do very well. Not easy. You know, you get to those last questions. I've aced. I've done three of them. No other president has agreed to do them.

I do them because I have no problem with it because I'm 100%. Now, it's like a crazy person. I mean, again, this is not a political thing. Like, I think that we can all view Prime Minister Starmor's response and be very unsatisfied with it. He looked like he was a deer in headlights. I don't think that if you're the prime minister to say you were mislissive. you know, especially with all we know now, that does reflect on your judgment. But I think we're, I think we were at least observing the way we, the way we hope things are

supposed to work out, you know, and whether Starmer's forced to resign, right? Because now he's got to worry about, you know, he's got to worry about the majority that he has with his Labor Party there. And granted, the next elections, I don't think, are supposed to happen until 2029 and it's not like a coalition government. So, you know, he should have that position until 2029. But, you know, he's getting a lot of pressure within the labor party. But what we saw there is normal, in my view.

Like what we see here with Trump, I think is not normal. I mean, here he is bragging about, you know, about aspirin and taking aspirin. so he has thin blood. Here, let's play this clip. There will be the aspirin, still taking the aspirin. I do. I take aspirin and I don't want to change, you know. I don't want to.

So you go against your doctor's orders. You do what you kind of feel. You know, I've been taking aspirin for 30 years and I don't want to change it. So, you know, they take the smaller one. I say, well, I want that blood to be nice and thin running through my heart. I mean, the way the reporter talks to Donald Trump, like he's talking. to somebody, you know, in, you know, like a psychiatric ward. I'm not, not, not, not, not, not, not, I'm not, not, I'm not trying to disparage

serious mental health issues and draw or, or even give Trump and out by comparing the things. But the, but the way the question is even, are you listening to your doctors there, Donald? I mean, how have we, how have we gone to that as the, as the baseline, right? The reporter asks Donald about, you know, you're out there tweeting about Italian satellites being run by the CIA rigging the 2020 election with Venezuela's help from the Chavez regime. Like, you know, this is a little bit, you're reposting things that are out there, Donald. Do you believe that stuff? Watch what Trump says. You tweeted out some theories about Italians and satellites.

I mean, do you believe that stuff? No. No, I didn't cheat. I sometimes will retweuth. I'll retreat. But let me. Red truth it. I read truth.

It wasn't a tweet. I retruth that stuff. Yeah. Madurojou asking Maga Mike Johnson. So in the UK too, and this is like in, in the parliamentary system. In Canada also. The speaker,

not political at all. The speaker of the House of Commons, not a political person, which I just think is an interesting facet as well, that it is someone who's supposed to have impeccable credentials that's not a partisan, who oversees the rigorous debate on the floor where they're,

head of state, their prime minister, rather, has to show up in debate with the opposition. And the opposition has a shadow cabinet. And you go there and you battle out the ideas in public, transparently all of the time versus here's Maga Mike Johnson, the speaker in the United States, Maga Republican. Let's watch this. Shouldn't have to answer some questions too? He's been named more than a thousand times in these documents. The president submits to press inquiries every day. Not under oath, not under oath, but he's asked the questions all the time and he answers them. We'll see where it goes. He gets asked the questions. He answers the questions by saying that he's been totally vindicated

and there are no references to him in the files when there's 38,000 references to him in the files. and that there are all these references to Putin. Have you seen this new document as well that talks about Epstein telling people to short Russia's currency right around the invasion or the annexation of Crimea? It's a new email. He's saying you got to short it. Short the ruble. Right or right before the, like days before. That's what he says. Epstein short of the ruble five days before the annexation of Crimea, signaling he may have had foreknowledge of the event.

And the links also between the Epstein files and the current situation where these oligarchs seem to be manipulating everything while screwing over everybody else, that's part of it that always needs to be discussed when we talk about the Epstein files. that yes, it is a child sex trafficking ring. The most horrible thing there is. But in addition, child sex trafficking was the currency used by these rich men to blackmail each other and to engage in these massive corrupt moves. that was breaking down the world order and then just screwing over billions of other people who lived in the world who just wanted to go about their lives. And they were using their sex trafficking as the currency with each other to then screw over

the people and all these other aspects of life. So like today when we're seeing Bitcoin crash the way it did, but then it was $5 trillion dollars last October but now it's two trillion dollars now and people may have invested their life savings in this thing you know who may not be the rich oligarchs because they thought this was going in the right direction and now they're now they're getting screwed you know from this and it's like who are all these insiders that have all this knowledge and you know oh well i know one observation i wanted to make and i connected here is that epstein and lord mandelson used the term Liberation Day. Did you catch that? Liberation Day to refer to Epstein being free. They called

it Liberation Day. That's what Trump called that Liberation Day when he screwed over the entire economy and put tariffs on the rest of the world. The markets crashed. People lost their life savings. And then Trump started giving exemptions to his right-wing oligarch buds. While small and medium-sized businesses suffer, his right-wing oligarch buds would get exemptions. and they'd be okay, but the rest of the businesses get screwed and people get screwed who have to pay more money for everything. And then now what Donald Trump's spending his time on, he keeps filing lawsuits against his own government to extract settlements from himself paid for by us, paid for by the taxpayer.

So here's what I want to show you. First, I'm going to show you what Trump said about suing the government. He just filed the lawsuit for $10 billion. And he says in the clip, he already won the lawsuit. Yeah, because he sued himself. And now he's going to pay himself $10 billion of our money. Then I'm going to show you what Treasury Secretary Scott Besson testified today when he was asked about this settlement.

So first, let me show you Trump. Let's play it. Essentially, the lawsuit's been won. I guess I want a lot of money. How about this work? Scott Besson's the head of the IRS. I know. What I will do.

He's the head of the Justice Department. They're going to defend the IRS against you. I know. Well, there's never been anything like it in all fair. So are you going to tell them to pay you? Don't forget, I sued as a private citizen because I sued between terms. I won three times. I won three times, but I didn't assume, unfortunately for this country.

I didn't assume office the second of that. But here's the story. I sued because they broke into Maralaga. That was before I became president. Now it goes along and it turned out that the suit. is a very strong suit. You're going to tell them to pay you, though? Because you're the boss.

Well, what I would do, tell them to pay me, but I'll give 100% of the money to charity. I don't want any of the money. You take it out of the system. A couple more questions here. No, no, I'm putting it back into the system. If I give money to American Cancer Society, I will give 100% of the money away to charity. I don't want any of it. $30 trillion debt, and we're going to take $10 billion out of the system?

Well, I mean, you give it away anyway. They give away a lot of money. Your endorsement is the money. about that, Minnesota and these other states, we have massive investigations going into fraud. Do you know, if we captured 50% of the fraud of this country right now, we would have better than a balanced budget. And you got to mention that. Minnesota, $19 billion in fraud that we know. I just want you to assume that he does donate the money, which we don't think he's going to do. You realize what he's going to do, though. He's going to take the full amount as a

deduction. So he's going to steal your taxpayer money, and he's going to say that that's, you know, $10 billion of income. Then he's going to declare it on his taxes because he is, he controls the IRS as a personal physical injury, right, so that it's tax exempt in the settlement. He's going to claim it as a personal physical tax exempt so it doesn't get taxed as income. What, is the IRS going to go after him and audit him? No. And just even assume he gives the money to charity, which I don't think he will do, he's going to take it as a complete deduction so that all of the shady deal.

where he's earning income, he doesn't have to pay taxes on. Do you realize that that's, and he's stealing our taxpayer dollars to do that? So, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was cross-examined by Senator Gallego about that today. Democrat from Arizona, cross-examining Besson, Besson, Secretary of Treasury, that oversees the IRS. So let's play the first clip of what went down. But the president prevails in this. lawsuit, he's going to be able to pocket that money. My question is, is the president, if anyone in the president's office, talk to you about this lawsuit in any regard? They have not. And the president has said he will donate the proceeds to charity.

You may have missed that. So no one at all has discussed this to you whatsoever. No, sir, and the president said he will. Have you received, I didn't ask any more questions. Have you received any advice from Treasury's legal division about how to handle this potential conflict? This is a Justice Department matter. they represent treasury in it. Have someone from the Department of Justice actually come and talk to you saying that this is their purview and you need to stay out of it? Or who has discussed to you?

What is your role in this? Our general counsel who's sitting behind me has told me that it is a Justice Department matter. The Justice Department depends treasuries and treasury and matters like this. Okay. So you have, it has been discussed with you. Do you have any final say at all in the process of this? Or is the DOJ just going to instruct you to cut a check and or settle and you have no independence to actually make a decision whether or not the president deserves $10 billion.

Again, that is a DOJ matter. And so the DOJ will entirely make that decision if whether or not the president should receive $10 billion. You have no say at all. Correct. So you will just have to write the check if you were told to write the check. Correct. And you would write the check willingly if you were told by a DOJ to the president.

I will follow the law, Senator. Okay. I mean, I think for many of us, this is very simple. and I think if this had been happening in any other countries through the book, an absolute like a total shakedown of the American taxpayer. Are you also? Yeah. And then I'll show you one more part of that cross-exam.

Gallego is great. He's always great. He was great right here where he said, let's say that Trump wins that lawsuit, wins the lawsuit against the government, against us, the taxpayers. Where does the $10 billion come from? Let's watch it.

You know, we kind of touched on this earlier, in addition to being, Treasury Secretary, you are serving as acting director of the IRS. So following up on Senator Kim's questioning, so you are fully aware that the president is suing your agency for $10 billion. We would agree, would you agree that $10 billion is a good sum of money? Yes, sir. Where would that be cut from? Let's say for some reason he actually wins that lawsuit. Where would that $10 billion come from?

again, it would come from... Processed, I'm not asking your opinion whether it's right or wrong. It would come from Treasury. It comes from the general fund? The Treasury General Account. So taxpayers? Yes. Thank you.

Part of the 440,000 taxpayers whose returns were leaked. Now, if the president, they're not suing, but of the president... Okay, did you hear what he said there also? So part of the either 44,000 or he may have said 404,000 taxpayers whose taxes were released. So there was a hack or a data breach. A guy named Little John got his hands on 400,000. When I was a litigator, I handled data breach cases. Remember some of the big credit score companies were data breached?

Remember those cases? I worked on those types of data breach cases. Class actions. You may have been a victim of one of those. And if you know the settlement, you probably got, because I worked on the settlements back in 2017, 2018, Equifax and all of those, right? you got that you got free data protection service and maybe you got 500 bucks and then you got like a few years of like data security protection maybe and that was kind of the way that that that's the way it resolved or something like that because there was so many people who were injured okay you can get

10 billion dollars right that's how usually these data breach cases are resolved and it's horrible that it happens but that's usually the resolution so just assume that he said 44,000 other people and not 404 because I did the math on 44,000. So if the 44,000 people, including Trump, if they all sued for $10 billion, right? Because Trump's saying that he has a case. So why can't the other 44,000 or 404,000 people sue for $10 billion? Why can't you sue? Trump says he was injured, 10 billion. Why can't you? So if 44,000 or just say 40,000 people, each sued the government for $10 billion, that means there would be about $440 plus trillion dollars in damages. $440 trillion in damages now, the entire debt that our country faces right now, which is increasing under the Trump regime.

It's about $38 trillion, and that number is going higher. Trump adds more debt in the trillions than anybody before by far. So now what Donald Trump is creating a precedent for is another $400 trillion in debt if everybody filed the lawsuit. And that's if it's $44,000. So now do the math if that's $4,000. So I don't even know what that number is. I don't know. What's it called after a trillion?

A gazillion? A trillion bequillion. I don't know. I'll chat GPT or something. tell me what the answer is. But it would be whatever the next thing that comes after trillion is and significantly into that. So that's the precedent that Trump, just play it out. Okay, well, I would argue if my taxes were leaked, I deserve $10 billion to DOJ. That would be my argument. So you paid him, I get paid $10 billion. Right? And what's the DOJ going to say, you don't have a claim?

So perhaps that's what we all do. Why don't, if anyone, was involved, why don't we file a class action together? And we each say we were damaged. I want to I would love for how many people are in the chat room right now. I would love for everybody in this chat room to each get. There's 16,000 people watching this live right now. And by the time this episode, you know, is watched over the course of the day, half a million people or so will watch this episode, maybe more, maybe a little less. Right. Why don't we all sue together? And imagine that. Imagine if I delivered not just the truth on the news, but I helped you get $10 billion.

Is it quadrillion? A quadrillion. What if I got you a quadrillion dollars? You'd be like, wow, this is the greatest host. Rachel Maddow, she's good like Midas, but she doesn't give me a quadrillion. You know, that's what I'll offer. Quadrillion. That'll be my pitch.

Watch the Midas Touch podcast. Subscribe to our substations. and I will get you a quadrillion dollars, a quadrillion. We need to be serious people. These are serious times, made more serious by the clown in the Oval, the fascist cloud in the Oval. And we really need to, on a nonpartisan political basis, truly recognize. recognize what's happening here. Abolishing ICE shouldn't be a political talking point.

It should be an existential demand because they are an invading force terrorizing our communities. Bringing transparency and accountability to the Epstein files shouldn't be a political point because it involves underage child sex trafficking. And those who are involved deserve to be punished to the highest extent imaginable under the law. It's not a political issue. We should support health care because we want health to live. Shouldn't it be a political position? We should want someone in the Oval office who's smart, who articulates sentences, who stops talking about cognitive exams all of the

freaking time. We should want to support our allies because they're our allies and they were there for us and we should be there for them and not attack them. That's the reality. So I gave you all the idea now. Go and you want to reach out to the Pope. I was going to say, reach out to Popok's firm, but Popok will get so about Ben, you told people that I would represent them for a quadrillion dollars, but Popo, like Popok will legit get mad at me. So don't, don't call Popok on that lawsuit. You call another lawyer. Do not call Popok on my quadrillion dollar lawsuit idea. I want to maintain my friendship with Michael Popok. If you have other legal issues, you can call Popok for that. His Popok firm does a great job. He's a reach out to Popok firm, but not a microjillion dollar lawsuit.

So I appreciate it. Remember to watch the Brothers. show tonight. Okay. Eight Eastern, five Pacific. Look forward to seeing you all there. That's it. That's it for now. I really enjoyed this format. I love spending time with all of you. Subscribe. We're 80,000 away from six million subscribers. So hit subscribe. Help us get to six million subscribers. 80,000 away. We could do that potentially in a week. We could hit six million. Then I could stop saying six million, six million. but then you know what I'll say? 7 million.

7 million. So I'll leave you with those words. I'll leave you with those words of wisdom right there. I'll see you next time. Shout out Midas, Mighty, and make sure you hit subscribe. Have a good one, everybody. Want to stay plugged in?

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