The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump and MAGA Keep Losing in Court and Everywhere

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

On this episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast, Ben and Brett try to make sense of this chaotic week of news. The brothers discuss the 11th Circuit vacating Corrupt Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling appointing a special master, the convictions of Oath Keepers leaders for Seditious Conspiracy and other charges, the turnover of Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, the impending Trump Organization trial verdict, Republican’s insane and doomed-to-fail strategy to dissect their poor midterm performance, the erratic and disgusting behavior of Kanye West, Republicans attacks on the free market, the averting of a major rail strike, the sentencing of Matt Gaetz’s associate Joel Greenberg and much more! New episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast are released every Tuesday and Friday mornings. If you enjoyed today’s show please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! Read the 11th Circuit's ruling against Judge Cannon: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23323310/221201-11th-c-vacate.pdf Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $5. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, English muffin sandwiches, value iced coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door.

A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. We'll be right back. to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor for your charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down the corrupt Judge Eileen Cannon's unlawful order

where she asserted equitable jurisdiction in the Donald Trump stolen document case. Say goodbye, Judge Cannon. You played yourself. Bye-bye. Say goodbye, Judge Cannon. You played yourself. Earlier in the week, the leaders of the Oath Keepers, Stuart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, were found guilty in a Washington, D.C. federal courthouse for seditious conspiracy in their actual plot to overthrow the United States government. This is great news for justice and terrible news for Donald Trump.

And speaking about terrible news for Donald Trump, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee officially has received Donald Trump's tax returns from the IRS. You can run, you can whine, but you can't hide, you despicable traitor. And meanwhile, the MAGA Republican Party has learned all of the wrong lessons from the midterms and have turned to losers to conduct the post-mortem of their losing. Seems like a lot of losers doing loser things. And speaking about loser MAGA Republicans, remember when the Republican House Judiciary Committee used their official Twitter account and put out a statement that read, Kanye, Elon, Trump. Well, it happened two months ago in October, so you may remember it. And this is when Kanye was making his anti-Semitic rants back then.

I mean, that's all he's been doing. After all, this is the type of speech that MAGA Republicans apparently love. Well, Kanye and his sidekick, Nick Fuentes, who just left their dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago as part of their tour of hate, went on the Alex Jones show and literally praised Hitler and praised Nazis repeatedly. Because look, this is who the modern Republican MAGA party praises. And we have some good economic news, good news alert. America's GDP grew more than expected last quarter. Georgia's early voter turnout continues to set records. And as of this recording, Obama is currently stumping for Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia. He's had some

incredible zingers that we will bring you at the top of the show, some hilarious stuff and inspiring stuff there. Democrats unanimously selected the new House leadership and they've got their A-team in place. And a federal judge overseeing the criminal grand juries in Washington, DC, investigating Trump's crimes related to the insurrection and election interference, ruled that his top former White House lawyers, Pat Cipollone and Patrick Filmon, cannot assert executive privilege and now must testify about their direct communications with Donald Trump. That is big. A lot going on, folks. Let's make sense of it all. This is the Midas Touch podcast. Jordy is on his honeymoon at an undisclosed bunker location.

Oh, fancy. Oh, we're going to miss Jordy. And I know everybody's going to miss Jordy, but holy crap. What a day of news, Ben. I don't know how we're going to make sense of all the chaos, but we're going to figure it out. We're going to go through these stories one by one. News is breaking even right now as we speak, as you said, in Georgia. And just, man, I don't even think we have time to waste. I just think we got to kind of just dive deep right into it. What do you think? Georgia turnout is setting records and Obama is currently holding an event for Senator Raphael Warnock. Georgia has eclipsed its daily record for early voting twice this week in the state's nationally watched Senate runoff.

But even if the state keeps up the pace, it will be on pace to just break all sorts of records. Barack Obama is currently stumping for Warnock while Republican leaders like Trump and DeSantis have stayed away from Herschel Walker. Can we play this clip right now of President Barack Obama, who is mocking the issues that Herschel Walker is focused on in Georgia? This is too good. Play the clip. I love this. Now, if you had forgotten what I said the last time, it's okay because you just have to wait a minute. He reminds you every time he opens his mouth. I mean, every day. Every day he comes up with something. Every day. Since the last time I was here, Mr. Walker has been talking about issues that are of great importance to the people of Georgia. Like whether it's better to be a vampire or a werewolf. This is a debate that I must confess I once had myself.

When I was seven. Then I grew up. In case you're wondering, by the way, Mr. Walker decided he wanted to be a werewolf, which is great. As far as I'm concerned, he can be anything he wants to be, except for a United States Senator. He's just so good. He's so, so, so good at what he does. He just lays out the issues so clearly. And as we said, when it comes to the right and their craziness, sometimes the best way to handle it is by just ruthlessly mocking them. And Obama is the king of these zingers that really also cut through the noise

and prove a point. Obama is absolutely on fire today. And you love to see it in this lead up to the runoff elections. Yeah, you can't back away from the MAGA extremism craziness. You have to just confront it directly head on the same way that President Obama did there. And as I explained, the media wants to both sides the issues. Okay, here we've got Democrats and they're liberal and progressive. And here you've got Republicans, they're conservative. No, they're not. They're not conservative. Their point of view is that people should become werewolves or a werewolf versus vampire race is kind of like what we should be focused on. And you can go through every one of their issues and that's just like

a ridiculous one. But like they are pro-insurrection. They're pro-global pandemics. They're pro-Kim Jong-un in the weirdest ways. Oh, we love Kim Jong-un. We want to have a romantic affair with Kim Jong-un. That is what they consider to be conservative. Yeah, we want former presidents to steal top secret records. That's a conservative. There's nothing conservative about that view. That's why I'm like, my views line up to be more progressive and liberal, but I don't use that terminology, Brett, progressive or liberal, because I'm far more conservative than these right-wing radical magas I believe in conserving government, Brett. Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't believe, I mean, maybe you probably would because

you speak to the same people on Twitter and such as I do when you're communicating. But I would say simple things this week online. I would post, can't everybody just... It should be easy to condemn Nazis, right? It should be easy to condemn Nazis and say Hitler was bad and that Nazis are bad, right? Can we all at least agree on that? And I got the comments, you leftist, you left-leaning, you progressive this, you pedo, you commie. I'm like, we can't even agree on that at this point. That shows just how far gone the Republican Party is. And that's why I think it's important that we do highlight the craziness of the Republican Party. I know oftentimes people will be like,

why are you elevating this person? Why are you talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene? Why are you talking about Herschel Walker? Because it's important that the average American voter sees exactly what is going on, because we cannot close our eyes and blind ourselves to it. And that's what Obama's doing here so brilliantly. He is commenting on it, he is condemning it, and he is doing it with mockery. And I think that is absolutely brilliant and essential because that might be cool with the 20% of nutjobs out there, but the average American voter is not cool with what's happening right now in the Republican Party. They are absolutely not cool with it. Republicans made it their priority this week to force Apple to run ads on Twitter. How dare the private corporation Apple not run its ad on Elon Musk's

newly filled hate speech platform? It's just so bizarre how they hop from person to person, from thing to thing, right? And they wait until somebody becomes incredibly problematic. And then they're like, that's my guy. I'm going to go all in for this person. It's like they hated Kanye when Kanye was on the right side of issues, when Kanye was talking about systemic oppression, when Kanye was actually using his oppression, when Kanye was actually using his platform for good. But once Kanye started dabbling in Nazism and such, that's when the Republicans were like, oh, what a free thinker. Oh, they're just afraid of him because of free speech. Oh, those liberals, they don't want their free speech. And then the second that they picked

their winners in their battle. So they picked Kanye. That went over great. And this tweet that we were talking about. The wrong side, Fred, of every issue though, right? Like that's why it's like global pandemic. They like root for the pandemic. Like whatever the most crazy view of it is, that is where they will ultimately side with the issue.

And it's just such incredible gaslighting too. It's like, if you like the comments that I've seen from these people who were wrong, just wrong, there's no both sides to it. They were wrong about the pandemic. 100%. The amount of people that are like on the right that are like, so when do I get my apology about those vaccines? Huh? When do I get my apology? You're so, you see all the people, a million people died. What are you talking about? Apology? You my apology? You see all the people, a million people died. What are you talking about? Apology? You apologize. You apologize for all the people dead. And by the way, these are mostly your family members and your friends and people who live around you because Republicans are dying at far greater rates, but you're putting everybody in

danger with your reckless rhetoric. And that all really came to this moment a few months ago, about 55 or so days ago, October 6th, 2022, when the House Judiciary GOP, the official account of the House Judiciary GOP, tweeted Kanye, Elon, Musk, which now in retrospect kind of looks more like, I don't know, a curse than anything. They left that tweet up for a long while, but it took them until today when Kanye West literally was spending all of his time on Alex Jones' show with Nick Fuentes, talking about how much he loves Hitler. At that point, they decided, you know what, let's pull this tweet down. But they kept it up through all this time. And they own that behavior. Now they're picking the same exact fight by going behind Elon Musk, because Elon Musk is elevating

people like Kanye West and is elevating people like Kanye West and is elevating people like Nick Fuentes. And so once again, you have the Republicans going, oh, this is our guy. This is our guy. Defend him at all costs. And what that means is let's use the power of the government to go after this person. That's exactly what we're going to do. Everything that we try to accuse the left of, so to speak, as they call it, we're going to actually do. We're going to use the power of the government to crush opposition. And that's what they're trying to do right now between Elon Musk and Twitter and Apple. And it's just a ridiculous miscalculation, once again, showing that all their beliefs

are complete bullshit. And it's exactly the kind of stuff that Putin does in Russia, by elevating his friends into positions and using the kind of stuff that Putin does in Russia by elevating his friends into positions and using the power of the government to make them rich and punish their enemies. It's the same Putin playbook. I mean, how bizarre is it that it is a Republican position? It is the position of a political party to be anti-vaccine. I mean, just think about that. One of their major things is to spread conspiracies that vaccines put computer chips in your head. And meanwhile, Elon Musk is like, you know what I'm going to doink. And what it is, is exactly what Ben said. He literally is designing a computer chip that is to be implanted in people's brains to give them extra abilities or help them with health.

And the same people that have spent the last two years making up that the COVID vaccine had a chip in it that was going to track you or whatever. Those same people, all of a sudden Elon Musk goes, oh, I have a chip that I'm literally going to implant in your brains. They go, give it to me, Elon. I want chip in brain. I want chip in brain now. You can't make this shit up.

Meanwhile, you look at some of the research behind the actual chip that he's doing, and he's testing it in animals, and the results have been absolutely horrific. Something like 98% of the tests, I believe they're monkeys that they're using for the tests, have died or faced serious heart failure or debilitating problems. This is also something that has been devastating to the health of all the test subjects. And he's over there like, yeah, I'm going to start bringing this to humans soon. Don't worry, but I'm just going to implant the chip in all your brains.

Okay. Okay. You guys are cool with that, right? Yes. Elon feed me, put me on board chips and brain. Me need chip and brain. It's, it's wild. It's absolutely wild.

And their need for just a wacko authoritarian to tell them what to do. Like no matter what they're like, at Elon, did you see the Midas touch tweet? At Elon, did you see what Brett wrote? At Elon, did you see? I'm like, you're ratting me out to Elon Musk. What are you talking about? And we need to talk about it on this podcast, on our network, because the regular media is not talking about it. As I said, going back to a theme of this episode, the regular media is just like, oh, well, you got Democrats and you got Republicans and you just got two political parties and liberals and progressive. That paradigm does not

exist. The moral- It's appeasement, frankly, Ben. It's appeasement. And a lot of the large media networks, let's face it, they would prefer oligarchy over capitalism at the end of the day when they're just like, you't care about really capitalism, and they'll just pick the winners and losers. So I could be like a loser. You know who thrives in Putin's Russia? You know who are the richest people? People like Matt Gaetz, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, people like Boebert, people like Ron DeSantis, like actually incompetent people thrive, which is ultimately why that type of oligarchy doesn't leave people behind, is something that does work. And that's why, though, you can have a capitalist system, but also as President Biden is fighting for sick leave. And when President Biden had Macron here, he was speaking to the EU audiences and basically saying, it would surprise you in Europe that in the United States, we don't have paid sick leave. And the media wants to ask the question to Biden as we don't have paid sick leave. And the media wants to

ask the question to Biden as though Biden's against paid sick leave. Biden's like, there's something called the other team and they're called the Republicans. And so other than Manchin, the Democrats are all unified in basically saying paid sick leave. And if there wasn't the ridiculous filibuster, that would be passed. It gets passed in the House. When Democrats control the House, it gets passed in the Senate. When Democrats control the Senate. But Republicans filibuster it. And that's one of the things they actually filibuster today, to break the strike of the freight workers. One of the things that Congress did was pass legislation that provided significant benefits to the workers

before they went on their strike. But what the workers wanted and what the workers deserve to get is paid sick leave, at least seven days paid sick leave. And Republicans, it's because of Republicans, let's face it, they filibustered that and stopped it from happening. And so when you think about all of these issues and the Republicans are appointing Kanye as their leader and people like Elon Musk as their leader, like what are Democrats talking about, Brett? Like Hakeem Jeffries, who will now be the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, like what is he talking about, right? He's talking about how can we do things for Americans? How do we do things

for workers? How do we reduce the price of prescription drugs? How do we reduce the price of healthcare generally and make healthcare accessible to all? How do we increase people's wages? Not just the minimum wage, not just the living wage, but a wage with dignity. How do we bring more jobs here to the United States? How do we fight for people's freedoms, but a wage with dignity. How do we bring more jobs here to the United States? How do we fight for people's freedoms, like a woman's freedom over her body? Those are issues. And do the Democrats implement policy perfectly all of the time? No. Do I agree with Democrats all of the time? No. But we got adults focusing on those issues. And we've got these MAGA Republicans who are just talking about just weird, weird, deranged and dangerous, not even policies, Brett.

Yeah, we need to be pushing forward and everything should be ultimately about helping people. And I feel like President Biden throughout this whole rail strike thing, I feel like he's gotten, first off, he was handed a really tough hand. And I think the criticism of him has been very unwarranted. I think Biden has made it clear that he wants to be helping the workers. Also, I think a lot of people from our own side have even been quick to kind of be like, oh, why is Biden doing it? I don't understand. You have to understand the decision that ultimately had to be made was, can we get something passed

or are we going to shut down the entire US economy basically in one of the most important months of the year? It's horrible any time of the year, but are we going to shut off right before the holidays? Are we going to shut down the entire economy? Because that was the alternative. Governing is hard. It's easy to just say and speak and say, I want this and I want that. It's great. We all want that. But at the end of the day, Biden was pretty boxed in by what was going on. And you had a Republican side who refused to give an inch here. And that is really what it came down to. Biden today said, of course, of course, we need to get these workers

paid sick leave. Do you know how sick it is? No pun intended that these workers don't get paid sick leave and not only those workers, but all workers in the United States of America. I mean, think about what we have to fight for right now here. They're fighting for seven days when they are sick to be able to not go to work and get paid. And no, this isn't the government paying. This would be the rail companies paying it. And so, you know, at first, as I was kind of approaching the subject, you know, I went through the research first, like what is the deal with it? Why is the federal government involved in the first place? I saw a lot of people asking all those questions. So I want to explain that part too. So Congress is involved because of the Railway Labor Act,

which permits Congress to step in either to delay or amend a version of one of the contracts to step in in the middle of these labor disputes for the rail industry because it's such an important industry. And this was enacted in 1926. It's to avoid the interruption of interstate commerce, which is something that is very closely guarded by the federal government. And it's to protect the rights of the employees to organize and bargain collectively so that they are not getting completely taken advantage of. And so we had an opportunity here to put a bill on the floor. And I'll tell you, if Biden went ahead and he tried to pass a bill, if he said, I'm going to just stand my ground here, I'm not going to let any bill through, that does not include the seven days of paid sick leave. You know what happens there? The strike happens and the economy shuts down. And that's what

ultimately would have happened. So they had to figure out another strategy, which is let's separate these bills. And do I like that? No, I don't like that. I hate it. Honestly, I hate it. I want the workers to get 100% of what they deserve. And they deserve so much more than what they're getting.

But you have to understand what's going on behind the scenes. And in a separate bill, it passed the House by a 221 to 207 vote to approve the resolution for paid sick leave. 221 to 207. Nearly every, and that's all Democrats, every single one, and nearly every single Republican voted against it. 99% of Republicans voted against it in the House. So then it goes to the Senate, right? And that's what we saw today. And the Senate today passed the bill to avert the strike 80 to 15. Overwhelming majority there.

No issues there. But what did they do? The next bill came, which was that bill that I was just discussing earlier to provide railway workers with seven days of paid sick leave. And the Senate voted that down by 52 to 43, because the way that our current government is structured is even if you have a majority like 52 to 43, guess what? That's no good if Republicans go filibuster, filibuster. And that's exactly what the Republicans did. They shut that down by invoking the filibuster. And when you have to blame somebody here, you have to blame the Republican Party for shutting it down. And if that was in the original bill, the same thing would have happened with the original bill, and we would have been sent into a very deep recession, and things would have been really, really, really, really bad ahead of holiday season. And that's why it had to be done that way. Am I happy about it? No, I'm not happy about it. So don't come at me with like, oh, you support. No, I'm not happy about it. But it was just the necessary way to do

it when there's a difference between campaigning and saying flowery statements and actually having to get down to the nitty gritty of it all. And that's what happened. I thought it was interesting. We had a few crossover votes in the Senate for that paid sick leave. I'm not going to give them too much credit, but we saw a few Republicans like Rubio and Cruz and Graham and Kennedy and Josh Hawley and Mike Braun actually come over and vote for the seven days of paid sick leave. And you had Manchin from the Democrats actually vote against the paid sick leave. And then Bernie Sanders, I'm not sure if you saw, he had a funny little jab at Ted Cruz after the vote. He goes, I always knew you were a socialist, Ted, after Ted voted for the seven days, which is brilliant. But this battle, that's the thing,

this battle is not over. The economy is running, the rail system is running, that's great, but we need to keep fighting for workers' rights, and we need to keep fighting for the rail workers' rights. And I saw all these union heads speaking today, and they admitted flat out, they said, listen, this deal would be nowhere near where it is today without President Biden. It would be nowhere where it is today. And they reasserted that he is the most pro-union president in modern history. There was no doubt about that. And they were committed to continue to fight. And so we need to be on their side and we need to keep pushing forward because like we said, that is such an alien concept to every other country in the world to not even

be able to get seven paid sick days. It's just absolutely insane and disgusting. It goes back to though talking about issues versus this MAGA echo chamber of just weirdness and dangerousness. Like it is a fairly binary choice here, right? I mean, Democrats, by and large, almost every single one other than Manchin, which is a whole other conversation, but support paid sick leave, everyone. And the Republicans, by and large, other than a handful who do here, look, on the paid sick leave question, you said they shouldn't

get lots of credit, but they do. They made the right vote here. But by and large, the rest of the Republicans, all of them don't support paid sick leave. What other issue could be more fundamental to you as a human being other than your health, your education, your family's health and education, your healthcare, your jobs, your wages. That's what politics should be about. Politics should not be about going to these weirdo carnival fascist rallies that Trump holds and that you like everyone's grifting off of everybody and selling each other weird stuff. Like that's not what politics should really be about. Like we should be always focused on the issues that matter to American people. And I don't hear any, any of Republican leadership talking about any issue at all. All they want to talk about is Hunter Biden, this, and how Apple needs to advertise on

Twitter and how amazing Trump is. And we need a win. I said last week, Ben, I said last week, I said, listen, Elon Musk, listen, everybody, listen to Republicans, Tesla, SpaceX, whatever other companies, Neuralink, I don't know, whatever other companies he owns these days. You have to advertise on our show, you communists. I made a challenge. You have to advertise on the Midas Touch podcast because if you don't, you're communist, right? I mean, that's what it is. You know why that sounds so stupid? Because it is stupid. And that's exactly the argument that Republicans right now are going on Fox News every day to make. And meanwhile, a lot of this was also based on just something that Elon Musk completely made up. He invented that Apple had threatened that they were going to take the app

off the app store. They just lie about everything. Yeah, lie. And I think he got just the... And it's possible. It's still possible. I actually think it's quite possible because Apple doesn't mess around with their content moderation and they take things like COVID disinformation seriously and Nazi stuff pretty seriously on their app store, but he basically made it up. I don't know if he got just like a form letter from Apple or what that is sent to every developer on the planet, but he admitted a day later, oh yeah, I must've misunderstood it. I met with Tim Cook. He cleared it up. I was wrong. Meanwhile, Fox had run like two news cycles, Newsmax running all their news cycles dedicated to attacking Apple and Tim Cook over this.

It's just – it's really wild when you see the machinery at play. It just becomes ruthless, and they just want blood. And it's the complete opposite of free market capitalism. It's the complete opposite of democracy and all the beliefs that they pretend to espouse. They're total liars and gaslighters, 100% of the time. Yeah, you have DeSantis who literally says, we need to have investigations into why they don't want to advertise on a platform that is ridiculous. You have Jim Jordan call for the government to investigate and target and retaliate.

As you said, Brett, their whole belief system is they pretend to be something that they're not. But really at this point, they usually say the quiet part out loud and it's just flat out weird. And we just need to keep building this pro-democracy, pro-normal coalition. And look, the wheels of justice, meanwhile, are turning in the right direction. We've been all over in our reporting of Judge Eileen Cannon's real corrupt practices there. The moment she said that she was going to assert equitable jurisdiction, for those listening on audio, we're just putting up a picture of the corrupt Judge Eileen Cannon. She was appointed by Donald Trump. And on September 5th, she asserted equitable jurisdiction, appointed a special master, and really stalled the Department of Justice's investigation, their criminal investigation, into Trump stealing these top secret records and other government records.

Granted, the 100 or so top secret records were pretty quickly returned to the government after they filed an emergency motion for partial stay with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which was like, you don't have jurisdiction to do this, Judge Eileen Cannon. And I was like, look, it's the same reasoning regarding those 100 records, regarding all the 11,000 other records. So I pretty much knew what the ruling was going to be. But it's astounding that she asserted equitable jurisdiction and blocked the federal government, the executive branch, from engaging in a criminal investigation because she said Donald Trump's reputation could be hurt. That's what she said. the federal government, the executive branch, from engaging in a criminal investigation because she said Donald Trump's reputation could be hurt. That's what she said. The threshold inquiry is whether or not there was a callous disregard for the rights of the individual who is being investigated in the criminal investigation. There was no callous disregard. There was no

unlawful conduct. The Department of Justice got a valid and lawful search warrant signed by Magistrate Judge Reinhart, who found probable cause. Then the Department of Justice executed the search warrant and they found the stuff that was stolen. They found the records. And even knowing that, Judge Eileen Cannon's like, well, I'm going to intervene and block the Department of Justice from their investigation. Even like two days before Trump admitted it, he's like, and like all the former presidents, yeah, I took the documents. It's like, they didn't. You did.

And you just admitted it again. You just incriminated yourself again. And so she asserts this equitable jurisdiction. And lots of people were like, well, how would she do it? Or like, what's the basis? I'm like, I don't know. She's making it up. I'm like, it doesn't exist. And she's going to be overturned. Even the 11th Circuit, this panel that just made this ruling that struck down her order asserting equitable jurisdiction,

that order came down right before the recording of this podcast. It's two Trump appointees, one George W. Bush appointee. And during oral arguments a few weeks back, they basically asked the Trump lawyer, like, can you name me any case at all where this has ever happened? And then the Trump lawyer, Jim Trustee, was like, I can't. There is none. And then the next day he tried to like write them a letter and saying the Rudy Giuliani search warrant case is an example. But that's not an example. There was no equitable jurisdiction asserted there. He lied. But by the way, you saw on Thanksgiving Day, Jack Smith slapped back right away and wrote a letter to the 11th Circuit saying Jim Trustee

was a liar and was lying to them. And here, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said, look, there's no precedent for this. There was no callous disregard of Trump's rights. There's no, any of the factors of asserting equitable jurisdiction don't apply here. And I thought, most importantly at all, they basically said no one is above the law. Even a former president is not above the law. And that's what it said. In considering these arguments, we are faced with the choice to apply our usual test, drastically expand the availability of equitable jurisdiction for every subject of a search warrant, or

carve out an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents. We choose the first option. The case must be dismissed. Look, it's humiliating for Judge Eileen Cannon. It's always the thing, like everything Trump touches dies or goes to you know where. But it's like she's now sacrificed her entire reputation. She's viewed in the legal community as an utter clown. How could you trust her to touch any case? And unfortunately, she won't be impeached. Federal judges, once they're appointed, have lifetime appointments. I mean, could she technically be impeached? She technically could if the House and Senate both voted to do that, but it's not going to happen. So I don views her as a clown. And it was a very strongly awarded order for the 11th Circuit. So this means the special master process comes to an end.

Judge Raymond Deary did a great job. In fact, even though he was recommended by Trump and every one of his orders- I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss Deary. He did a good job, but he knew it was coming. That's why there was supposed to be a hearing today in his court. And he was like, you know what, just brief this issue for me and then come back to me. I forgot about that. That's such a good point. He had the thing scheduled and he saw it coming and he was like, you know what, let's cancel that hearing and we'll see what happens. And look, the wheels of justice turned in the right direction there. They moved slower than I think we would have liked. But look, it didn't really interfere

with the Department of Justice's investigation because the DOJ was very surgical, right? Early on, they got back the documents they cared about the most, the top secret classified records. So they were able to bring before their grand jury investigating Donald Trump's theft of these government records, people like Kash Patel. So they've been able to pursue their investigation. Meanwhile, it's cost Trump hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in legal fees. And ultimately, he lost and he'll continue to lose. Will Trump try to appeal this to the United States Supreme Court and file some emergency application to vacate what the 11th Circuit did. I'm sure he will do that, but he's a loser and he is going to keep on losing. They're not going to rule in

his favor. And I know this because they ruled against him with regards to the other 100 classified records. It's the same exact analysis there. So that was a really strong ruling. Brett, from a non-lawyer's perspective, what did you make of that whole weird ordeal with Judge Cannon? Well, I read the filing when it came out. I always try to look for the original filings. I really don't like looking at other people's takes on the filings except to ask you for your take because I've learned that most people don't know what the heck they're talking about. So I like reading the original source material and I like speaking to you.

And when I read it, and I encourage everybody to read it, and we tweeted it out on the breaking news today and we could put it in the description of the podcast. But all I thought was, holy crap. It might be hidden a little bit in legalese, but that was a brutal smackdown of Judge Cannon and everything that she has said over the past few months, every order she has made, they just really can never trust, just a absolute laughingstock. And I'll tell you, I will not miss corrupt judge Eileen Cannon handling this case. And I look forward to it continuing. Everybody, you should check out our Patreon site. Go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch. It would be really helpful to support this independent media channel.

We have exclusive content that you can only get at patreon.com slash Midas Touch, spelled P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Midas Touch. We have exclusive podcasts, exclusive content, exclusive behind the scenes footage, exclusive merch drops. There's even a tier where you could become an honorary producer of the Midas Touch podcast and your name appears at the end of the show and so much more. But you see, we're not funded here by any outside investors yet. We compete with the major media channels. In fact, we get more views and engagement than them. And we're not funded by any outside investors. So none of the millionaire and billionaire investors who fund those networks,

none of that with the Midas Touch Network. So we're 100% independent, 100% crowdfunded, 100% accountable to you wherever you are in the world. If you're able to help grow this independent media platform, check us out at patreon.com slash MidasTouch and consider becoming a member at one of those tiers. Yes. Also in some more legal news, Brett, a federal judge who- A lot of it. A lot of legal news. A federal judge overseeing the criminal grand juries in Washington, D.C., and here, the criminal grand

jury that's focused on Donald Trump's potential unlawful, actual unlawful conduct during the January 6th insurrection, has ordered that Trump's top lawyers, former top lawyers in the White House, Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, can't assert the executive privilege. We're putting the photos up of Cipollone and Philbin, that they can't assert executive privilege. So they previously testified before the grand jury in September. They answered a lot of the questions, but on the questions that said, what did Trump say to you? The same way they didn't answer it with the January 6th committee, they said they have to assert the executive privilege because Donald Trump is asserting it. They don't believe the executive privilege applies, but they felt legally obligated to assert it.

They're probably happy with this ruling too. It's not a ruling against them. They want to speak. No, they wanted to speak. They just said, look, Trump will probably sue us unless we get a court order. So just get a court order that says that we can talk about it and then we'll talk about it. Now, the Department of Justice previously prevailed on these same issues when executive privilege was asserted by former Vice President Pence, top officials, Mark Short, who was his former chief of staff, and Greg Jacobs, who was Pence's

former general counsel. And they're the same thing. They asserted executive privilege at Trump's request. The Department of Justice prevailed, and they got the testimony there. And now they're going to get the testimony of Cipollone and Philbin, which is huge, because even the January 6th committee didn't get those communications. And those are probably the most important ones. That's the treasure trove that you're looking for there. And as I've always said to people who have been Merrick Garland doubters, I said, just imagine that Merrick Garland indicted Trump a year ago, like many people wanted to happen, but didn't get orders like this.

And then you called Cipollone and Philbin and Mark Short and Greg Jacobs to the stand. But when you asked them, so what did Donald Trump tell you? They said, I'm asserting the executive privilege at Trump's request. And then what do you say as the prosecutor? You're in front of the jury. You go, no, you can't. You can't do that. That's frivolous. The judge is going to ask you, well, what did you do with the grand jury? What did you do before this to secure their testimony and to challenge the executive privilege? And if the prosecutor's answer was, well, look, I got a lot of pressure on Twitter, a lot of people on social media,

a lot of people on social media, like we had to file this case. I mean, look, the fact is that for the past 12 to 18 months, the Department of Justice has been doing a lot regarding the Trump criminal investigation. And so you have to impanel a grand jury. That takes time. A grand jury doesn't meet every day. It meets certain times during the month. Then you got to subpoena the witness. Then you got to find a time for the witness to show up. Then the witness shows up and they testify. And then they say, well, I can't answer these questions. Then you got to file a motion. Then Trump gets the opportunity to oppose the motion. Then you have the opportunity to file a reply. Then it takes a few weeks for the court

to make a ruling. Then the court makes a ruling. Then you have to call the witnesses to show back up. And you have to do that for every witness. You have to do that for every witness. So when people say, if this involved any other person other than Trump, they would be indicted already. And I say to that always, of course, but every other citizen is not the former president of the United States. And I know it's horrible to say that, but if you want to mutate the constitution and further defile the constitution as a past former criminal president, you can avail yourself of arguments that the average Joe or Jane or whatever citizen or whoever citizen can't make those same arguments. And it just is slow to do it. It's not the DOJ's

fault, but where the DOJ would be engaged in prosecutorial malpractice is if they didn't go through these steps and be diligent. Could you imagine, Brett? Everyone would be like, oh, Merrick Garland doesn't know what he's doing. Had you not filed the executive privilege motion? Well, he did. It just took a long time. And at the same time, Merrick Garland is doing that, he's prosecuting all the other insurrectionists, like hundreds and hundreds of convictions all at the same time. And so look, I would like it to go quicker, but I hope one of the things we've done here at the Midas Touch Network is just explain in objective terms the practical realities that exist here.

Well, I feel like everyone wants their quick hit, right? Like we live in a world of instant gratification where you're constantly swiping up on your Twitter feed or Instagram feed. You're constantly being set push alerts and you're getting new information nonstop. But the fact is the real world does not run at the same pace as the digital world in which we're getting all this information. We're so overwhelmed on a daily basis. But those other systems are still running at the same speeds that they've always run on.

And I'll give you two words for how to really screw this whole thing up. Okay. John Durham, how about that? You have John Durham who did the opposite of Merrick Garland. He is the special prosecutor that Trump put in at the end that he's lost like all of his cases and why, because there were BS cases to begin with. And also he was basically doing everything just to try to give people on Fox news that hit just to give them that hit of adrenaline. Ooh, he's coming after Hunter Biden. Ooh, he's coming after Hillary Clinton. Ooh. And guess what? All of that failed because he didn't take the time to even make a case. Well, there was no case, but the fact is, is if you want that instant gratification, if you want a flashy headline on Fox news, like, like Durham did, you're going to lose all your cases. If you want that instant gratification, if you want a flashy headline on Fox News like Durham did, you're going to lose all your cases.

If you want to actually follow the rule of law and do it, I think Garland is doing it exactly right. I have a lot of confidence in Jack Smith. And you could see it in Trump World, man. They are freaking out over Jack Smith, and it is quite a joy to watch day in and day out to just see them melt down. I also had Karen Friedman Agnifilo, who is a host of the Legal AF Midweek Edition. She was the number two deputy of all of the Manhattan DA's office. And she just gave an incredible perspective from a prosecutor, from a top prosecutor that she was, about though Trump's threats on the family members of Jack Smith and how beyond the pal that is.

And she talked about how she received threats and how her husband, who was a former federal prosecutor, received threats. But the fact that Trump's attacking Jack Smith's wife and late mother-in-law and sister-in-law is just so pathetic and likely gives rise to additional criminal counts that could be filed against Donald Trump. And one of the things I should mention too, Brett, about the timing of these cases that was like a real eye-opener for me though, was when New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the $250 million or at least $250 million fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump. There's an independent

monitor who was appointed, but a few weeks back, they set a trial date and Judge Arthur Engeron, who's been very harsh on Trump and rightfully so, set the trial date for October 3rd, 2023. And so I didn't even address it in my video because for me as a litigator, I was like, holy shit, that's such a quick date. I go, he set the trial in basically less than a year. I'm like, I've never heard of that before. So I didn't even think to address it in the video because I'm like, that's a home run right there. But then I saw the comments and there were so many comments like, that's an injustice. Why isn't it in May? Why isn't it in February? Now he gets to get off for another year. And I was like, wait, there really is a service

that Legal AF and Midas Touch provides. Because sometimes I forget that as someone who litigates cases every day, that perspective though is a bit unique. And by the way, Ben, that's why it's so great. I think that we have all these followers who tell us, you know, who address those, who send those complaints to us and things like that, because that sort of feedback also helps us explain, you know, what is actually going on and helps inform our content. And so it's super useful. And that's why I really value this as a community more than just a one-way street where we're just talking at people. People also come back to us and then we address everything. And what I've realized over the past, since we kind of got into this world, which we came from

the outside, weren't doing this kind of work before. I mean, you were a lawyer, obviously, but I did nothing in politics before. You didn't do anything in politics before. Jordi didn't do anything in politics before. But one of the things I've come to realize is that just having the information, I think is so important for everybody because it's when you don't have the information, it's when you just, it's when you jump to the conclusions and start getting enraged, then you start rage tweeting, and then somebody ignites a fire who also doesn't know that they're talking about. And then they get a whole new batch of people mad, even though they have no idea what they're talking about. But if you step back and analyze the actual data and what's going on, I'm not saying a hundred percent of the time,

but for the most part, you'll be able to go, okay, I see what's happening here. I see how it's progressing. I understand the timeline. And I understand that it doesn't necessarily work at the timeline that all these people who are shouting at me and are trying to get me to doom retweet them all the time or whatever it is, I know that's not it. I know that I could sit back and ensure that the wheels of justice are turning here. I've never seen a trial date set so quickly in New York before on October 3rd. It's the right amount of time where Judge Arthur N. Garan doesn't feel any fear that he's going to be overturned on appeal. Because if you set the trial in three months, Trump's going to

argue his due process rights were violated. And they aren't, but he will prevail on that in appeal. So any outcome that you want is going to be reversed. And so you would be setting yourself up for failure. That's the date that New York Attorney General Letitia James pretty much wanted. And again, I've never seen a date move that quickly, but that's also why here, do I share my opinions with you? Am I loud and proud about my pro-democracy opinions? And Brett, the same, and Jordy, the same, and others on our network, the same, yes. But where we do a painstaking job, and it's a lot of work to do it, but it's the right endeavor to do, is to focus as much as we can on the objective data that exists. And so that we're not spreading hope where there

shouldn't be hope. We're not spreading fear where there shouldn't be fear. I'm trying to give you my best opinions. And so, for example, when I've talked about the student debt cancellation and the Republican states that have blocked it or have filed lawsuits to block it and have gone in front of these Federalist Society judges, Republicans who have stopped Biden from implementing his student debt cancellation program, I can say to you, I think that the standing argument that was made by all of these Federalist Society proxy groups are completely specious. They're completely invalid and meritless. The argument of standing, their injury to get into court, why they are aggrieved and seeking redress. But on the overall issue of the merits as to whether the HEROES Act,

the enabling statute, which talks about what the Department of Education can do in emergency situations like cancel student loan debt based on the composition of the current Supreme Court. If you get past standing and you get to the merits issue, there is something in the law called, or that has been evolving in the law, especially amongst right-wing judges, called the major questions doctrine, and where Congress doesn't specifically address a major question like student cancellation, but that it's based on a prior congressional action that they took, like the HEROES Act is a 2003 kind of post 9-11 statute where the Supreme Court said is on major questions, Congress needs to pass a law or we're not going to allow executive branch action on

that. So I try to temper my analysis by saying on the student debt cancellation one, while I think the Department of Education did, I believe, my opinion is they did the right thing. My opinion is student debt should be canceled. I think the law favors that. Do I think the United States Supreme Court is going to make a favorable ruling to Biden? If they get past standing, they will not make a favorable opinion on Biden there. And the student debt cancellation program will not be implemented unless Congress legislates. But that's just an example of taking objective data and just looking at, here's the composition of this court. Here's how they've ruled before. It's like almost being a meteorologist, right? Like you can't always predict 100% the rain or a hurricane, but you can see the

patterns and say, here's the trajectory I think it's going to take, and here's what we can do. But unlike the weather person, unlike the meteorologist, we're not just idle passive observers of the weather when it comes to policy. We actually have the ability to stop the hurricane, to stop the storm before it comes, no pun intended there, to stop all of the, right? We have the ability to do that. And that's also how we have to use the platform by taking this objective data. Hi, I'm Harry Litman, host of Talking Feds, a round table that brings together prominent figures from government law and journalism

for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day. Each Monday, I'm joined by a slate of feds' favorites and new voices to break down the headlines and give the insiders view of what's going on in Washington and beyond. Plus sidebars explaining important legal concepts read by your favorite celebrities. Find Talking Feds wherever you get your podcasts.

Brilliant. Exactly. And while we're on the topic of student loans, I'm not sure if you actually gave an update as to what's going on, but let's give everybody an update. You know, the Fifth Circuit had declined to reinstate Biden's student debt relief program on Wednesday. And what happened today, Ben? I saw the administration- The Fifth Circuit did give an expedited appeal. So oral argument will happen pretty soon, which is actually not half bad there. And the Supreme Court's granted an expedited appeal of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals gave a nationwide injunction blocking the student debt cancellation program, where

the Eastern District of Missouri had ruled that these Republican states that filed the lawsuit had no standing. The Eighth Circuit was like, yeah, there may be standing. And this is like a big issue. And so we're not going to actually address the probability of success on the merits, which is what we're supposed to do in ruling on an injunction. We're just going to be like, injunction. That was literally the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals specious ruling. They didn't address the HEROES Act at all. Like the analysis I gave you about whether or not the enabling statute from 2003 can be used right now in an emergency can be declared based on the global pandemic to cancel student debt. They didn't even do that analysis. They're like, whatever, it's a big

question. But we'll keep you posted on what happens there. In February, there will be oral argument before the United States Supreme Court on the issue, and I'll be able to give you better insight as we get closer to that date. Meanwhile, Biden has extended the pause on the collection of student debt from the federal government to June. Also, Oath Keepers, Oath Keeper leader Stuart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, and others, everyone was found guilty of obstruction. An obstruction of justice is a 20-year sentence. So all of the people, Rhodes, Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Thomas Caldwell, Jessica Watkins, all found guilty of obstruction. And that count alone carries within a 20-year sentence. So a very, very, very serious jail sentence for them there.

Now on the seditious conspiracy count, Rhodes and Kelly Meggs were guilty. Harrelson, Thomas Caldwell, and Watkins were found not guilty on that seditious conspiracy. On conspiracy to obstruct, Megs and Watkins were guilty and the others were not guilty. And what this just tells me is this is why you got to prepare your cases for a jury because the jury reaches very nuanced decisions. And sometimes they can be mercurial in the decisions that they reach. But the big headline though, is the top Oath Keepers are guilty of seditious conspiracy and obstruction. And everyone was guilty of obstruction. This is a Civil War era statute that really hasn't been invoked for almost two decades. It's very rarely used. Very rarely can the DOJ prevail on it. And also,

these individuals were not in the Capitol building. You have to think about that as well. And even though the Insurrection Act was never actually invoked by Trump like they believed was going to happen, even though their conspiracy didn't succeed, even though the government wasn't toppled, they were still guilty of this sedition, which is as big of a crime as you get. So the momentum that this gives you as Merrick Garland passes the baton to Jack Smith couldn't be stronger. And what Merrick Garland did was brick by brick build this case while also empaneling the grand juries to investigate Trump's crime and issue all of these subpoenas. So all of this has been going on at once. First you go after the shaman and all these other people who trespassed, but who didn't

do anything violent. That's step one. Then you move on to the violent offenders who get serious sentences, either plea agreements or you try those cases. The DOJ has been trying cases every single day. Then you move up to the terrorist organizations for seditious conspiracy. Here are the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys. Think about Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys. He's like, okay, Rhodes was just convicted of a seditious

conspiracy and is going to jail for the rest of his life. Enrique Tarrio was in the White House after the November election, right around Christmas, bragging and taking selfies that he got a special invite before the January 6th insurrection. So if I'm Enrique Tarrio, well, I don't want to even imagine that I am, but if you are Enrique Tarrio right now, you absolutely are probably having your lawyer say, we got to cut a deal. And the Proud Boys are set to go to trial mid-December, but it likely starts mid-January. The testimony probably really starts mid-January. And now the DOJ learns what worked, what didn't work. So they're even going to be better prepared of how to do this trial with the Proud Boys. Yeah. I mean, you can't

overstate how serious it is to be first charged with seditious conspiracy and then to be convicted of seditious conspiracy. You basically don't convicted of seditious conspiracy, it's basically, you basically don't get any higher than that. Like treason doesn't quite apply to these kinds of cases. That's why they're not bringing this. Seditious conspiracy is like as high as it gets. And Ben, you remember like early kind of 2021 after the insurrection, like a few weeks later, where you had all those kind of talking heads and you had the, especially the people on Fox news and whatnot, their whole talking point was like, it can't be sedition. They've never been charged with sedition. No one's been convicted of sedition. And now it's like, okay, a year, two years later, they're wrong about everything. Wrong. They lie. They lie and they gaslight and they're wrong about everything. That's why I want

everybody here to, I think there are too many people too, on like the pro-democracy side of things that sometimes because it's said so much at them, they start to believe bits and pieces of what they're telling you. They lie about the dumbest of things, like the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest of things. And by the way, you know, seditious conspiracy, they're conspiring with somebody or a group of people. They're conspiring with each other. They're conspiring with other people. These are not just foot soldiers on the ground. These are people who are intimately involved. And there are people who should be especially afraid right now as well, people who aren't necessarily inside the Oath Keepers, but people who are directly tied to the Oath Keepers. And let's pull up this photo right here of Roger Stone, who walked around.

I mean, just look at this. This is a person for the listeners who are looking at a picture of Roger Stone in his hat with his underbite. I don't even know what has happened. He looks like a Batman villain in this photo. And he is flanked on each end by Oath Keepers. He was using the Oath keepers as basically his personal bodyguards. They are very intertwined here. And Roger Stone is an advisor, was an advisor to none other than Donald Trump. They are directly linked. Other people who have very intimate relationships with the oath keepers, Alex Jones, Michael Flynn, all these names, all these people, all them are inextricably tied to the Oath Keepers. And it's why these rulings are also so important because it really shows you how they're working their way up, who they're working their way up to, and why those people right now, you better believe are absolutely terrified. And Roger Stone's going to come up a few times in this episode as we get into the Matt Gaetz Greenberg stuff. He pops up there too. You just find him in any sort of just

disgusting place. You find Roger Stone somehow. Well, first let's talk about though that the IRS has confirmed that it's turned over Trump's tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, the House of Representatives. The House of Representative Ways and Means Committee, the House of Representatives. The House of Representative Ways and Means Committee has been trying to get these tax returns, six years of tax returns that roughly span the time of when Trump was president right before and then right after. And they've been steadfast in trying to get these records. By law, they should get the records. It's literally in the IRS code that the House Ways and Means Committee can get the records because the IRS is supposed to have a mandatory audit function of presidential tax records. And Donald Trump had been whining, I'd love to turn

over my tax returns. I'm just under an audit. So as part of that, that serves as the legitimate legislative reason why the House Ways and Means Committee can get these records. But for Donald Trump's claim that he wanted to turn over these records, and I know that was gaslighting. I know he didn't really want to turn him over. He's been fighting this since forever, but specifically since the Democrats took over the House of Representatives after the 2018 midterms. And again, he lost at every level. He lost in his lawsuit before a Trump-appointed judge in the D.C. District Court, then the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He then sought to get unbank review, meaning all of the D.C. Circuit justices, and they rejected that. He then appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

You had Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency obligations, granted a tiny delay, about a week and a half to two weeks. And everybody was like, John Roberts is corrupt. He's blocking Donald Trump's tax returns from being turned over. And I was like, look, John Roberts is corrupt, but not for this reason. This is just what they do. And that's why, again, the objective data is important. I'm like, no, he's going to allow a briefing schedule. This is what Justice Elena Kagan did, an Obama appointee,

right? When issues came up before her relating to the January 6th insurrection. It's a temporary pause. The parties briefed it. And then in a unanimous decision with no notable dissents, of course, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the record should go over to the House Ways and Means Committee, and it has been confirmed that they got those records. Brett, maybe you want to briefly turn to what happened in Florida federal court today with one of Matt Gaetz's close associates, someone who Matt Gaetz partied with and took photos with and hung out with. And I do want to say at the outset that, look, everyone is presumed to be innocent. So Matt Gaetz is under criminal investigation for sex trafficking. But what is completely not in dispute

is that at the exact time that this individual, his friend, was involved, his close friend, was involved in running a sex trafficking ring, which he pled guilty to, Matt Gaetz was hanging out around him and taking private jets and going all around with him. Brett, what else can you tell us about this? Yeah, that's a common theme that we keep seeing. Yesterday, there was a report in the Daily Beast about somebody who was a big QAnon person, not to digress for, let me digress for one second, a big Q something yesterday. It's all projection with all of these people. It's just, it's unbelievable to watch. And like you said, Ben, you have Joel Greenberg, convicted fraudster, stole a ton of money from Floridians. He was a Seminole County tax preparer, a tax collector.

He's been cooperating now for a while with Matt Gates. I know a lot of people are very antsy about this case, me included, but he was finally sentenced today. One of the earlier things we woke up to today, sentenced to 11 years in prison by a federal judge in Orlando, California. He had previously pleaded guilty to underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, and three other felony charges. And as part of his plea deal, Greenberg provided information to investigators about Gates related to the sex trafficking probe, said a source familiar with the probe. And Greenberg wasn't just like a random person in Florida. He was a very prominent figure in the Florida Republican Party ecosystem.

And there are photos of him and I'll pull them up right here. Like I said, Roger Stone was going to pop back up shortly. Well, there he is. You have Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz right alongside Joel Greenberg here. I don't know. There's something about this photo. They're like very sweaty and Roger Stone has a shirt like unbuttoned and Gaetz is there in the back with his creepies. There's something very disturbing to me about this photo. I can't quite pinpoint exactly what it is. And then on the other side,

we have a photo of Joel Greenberg with Matt Gates again, and also with Florida governor Ron DeSantis here. That was during the time when DeSantis was running for Congress, I believe was when this picture was taken. Now that 11 years, Ben, I want to talk to you about that because it both sounds like a lot of years and it also sounds like maybe not enough years. It led to less of a sentencing here. What was the... I know the DOJ, this was basically the max of the range that the DOJ had suggested for him, and is that because of the cooperation? Absolutely. 100% it was because of the cooperation.

He was otherwise facing somewhere between 27 to 30 years. Because of his cooperation, there was a downward departure in the sentencing guidelines based on the ultimate charges that he pled guilty to where the range was nine to 11 years in The judge, who actually was a Clinton appointee in the sentencing though, said some really kind of bizarre things about the victim. The victim was 17 years old and posted an ad. And that's apparently how they met with this minor through an ad that was posted and they claim not to know that the victim was 18, was like their claim. And the federal judge seemed to give credence to the argument and said, I don't think that that makes you, Joel Greenberg, a pedophile. It's just a weird thing to say in the sentencing by the federal judge. But the reason that I bring it up for people who are saying the DOJ needs to indict Matt Gaetz or should indict Matt Gaetz, I agree. I think they should. The thing that I think they're grappling with though,

you do have a judge who that's before who made a comment like that. And so I think they're worried that if they pursue the prosecution in front of a judge who says things like that, and if they lose, it would be very embarrassing on the DOJ. That's just what they're... We could disagree with that analysis of their conclusion, but that's the analysis they're making. Yeah. They want a sure thing, basically. If they're going to bring something of that magnitude, they want to make sure that they win the case. But what we do know is that Greenberg has cooperated for at least 18 months. He's identified at least 27 individuals involved in all of this, and that includes Gates. And a recent court filing that was released this week

says that the investigation is ongoing. And so that's good to hear. I know there have been a lot of reports, a lot of things leaked to the press to the contrary, but it's clear that they are still pursuing this investigation. And I mean, that's why this is important to just follow all the steps to see what happens. And one of the things I found interesting was earlier today on Deadline NBC, Greenberg's lawyer actually came on to spoke. And a comment that he made is he said there are, quote, a lot more witnesses to the sex trafficking of minor for Gates than with Greenberg. It just seems like Greenberg's attorney at this point is just, seems a little fed up

that his client is just being absolutely destroyed through all this and Gates is seemingly walking away. And he's just like, listen, they were there together. If you're getting this guy, you got to get Gates. And he just seems to be pushing that forward. But all these figures are just so intertwined, so intertwined. And there really was some sort of trafficking ring going on there in Florida, so it seems. No doubt about it. And we'll keep you posted with more on the Department of Justice's investigation into Matt Gaetz. We know there's still an ongoing investigation, and we know that Gaetz was hanging out, partying with the person at that time. Brett, I want to go to some economic news and some good economic news that the GDP grew more

than expected last quarter. The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter with the GDP growing by an annualized rate of 2.9%. And experts say there is no sign of a recession. Meanwhile, gas prices have plummeted. The most common price at gas stations nationwide is $2.99, which is below pre-Ukraine invasion levels. And corporate US reshoring announcements jumped 20% in the third quarter versus the second quarter, now tracking at 150% versus 2019. And jobs are coming back to America. And one of the things I just want to point out there, Brett, there too, is that this is why we need to continue this community. What we're doing together in spreading the truth is the most important part are all of you watching and listening and sharing this data because you

remember what was happening right before the midterm elections. Like literally our foreign adversaries, people who literally chill and play golf with Trump and gave Trump's son-in-law billions of dollars are manipulating the markets to try to screw the Democrats. There's no other way to look at what Saudi Arabia, they wanted. You know what I don't like? I'm sorry to interrupt, but you know what I find here also is I find that there is a real gaslighting as well in a lot of the media. Like if you turn on even CNBC, they often lead or they'll couch any sort of good economic news. They'll say, while recession fears linger, even though when you actually get into the data and actually start speaking to the experts, they're like, no, there's no signs that point to a recession. The economy is growing. Prices are

coming down. There's no signs pointing to a recession right now. And you have even all these commercials on TV. You have all these news reporters who will say things like, how many times have you heard like, in these trying economic times, it's important that... They never said that during Trump. They never said that, even when the economy was absolutely tanked, even when he brought the economy to the floor. And now all these same people who criticize the economy today, which are their problems. Sure, there's always problems in the economy. I think income inequality is probably one of the most important things that we have to fix. But you have those same people who point to when the economy

was crashed, like in the middle of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. And they go, you see how low gas prices were back then? It's like, everyone was locked inside their homes. We couldn't buy toilet paper. No one was driving. No one was on the roads. That's why. If you want the economy to tank like that again, is that the trade-off that you want here? It's just this endless gas line. And it comes from a lot of people in the corporate media and the mainstream media who hinge everything on that in these trying economic times. It's important that no, report that there's good news out there, report what is actually going on. It's important because a lot of the sentiment about the economy is also just that, it's sentiment. It's what people think. And if people are being fed negative

messages day in and day out, they're going to think that things are bad. It was like that study that came out the other day that, I don't have the clipping and it's a little off topic, but the New York Times ran a report the other day that basically said, the media's coverage of crime during the midterms probably swayed the key districts needed for Democrats to win the elections. Because of the very scary headlines about crime in New York and California, those races were decided based on sentiment due to that. And then everyone was like, hey, New York Times, you were the people running those headlines. People were putting the side-by-side headlines up of them speaking about crime day in and day out, even when the numbers,

when the data didn't reflect it. And when you have that kind of gaslighting, it does affect people's sentiments. And that's why we need to stay above it. We all need to stay above it. And that's why you're also so important, obviously, because it's up to you to also be spreading what's actually going on out there. Look, if Biden COVID response was like Trump's COVID response, I am 100% sure I would not be supportive of Biden. If Biden responded, I would be like, what the heck is going on? The difference is because the Republicans are a cult, when Trump engages in that conduct, they have to be like, yeah, yeah, look, this is perfect. Nothing bad's going on. Let's inject ourself with bleach. Let's go. Bleach

worked. And rather than admit that they were wrong, they are so deranged and such a cult that even now in 2022 or heading into 2023. They have to pretend. They have to act. They have to gaslight us like COVID wasn't real. It's like a million people died. Under what metric do you feel that there is an emergency? A million deaths? A million deaths. Does it rise to the level of something that you think was a serious thing that should be taken seriously?

I mean, like literally you have DeSantis running around basically talking about like how great his policy was. It was like, dude, hundreds of thousands of people died because of you, like objectively. And you're high-fiving that? Like how bizarre, how gaslighting, how cultish, but ultimately that is why we have the Midas Touch Network. That's why we created this. And when I say we, not just Ben, Brett and Jordy, but we, all of us, the Midas Mighty, whenever I'm asked, what is the secret ingredient to how you did this? There's so many other media companies out there that fail. There's so many other media companies that get no views. What is it that makes this work? And I say, it's Jordy, number one. I haven't given Jordy a chance. Jordy has a big part of it, but it really is the Midas Mighty community because you are all the messengers of the truth now. You are the messengers of the pro-democracy, pro-normal coalition. By sharing the podcast, by sharing the videos, by sharing the accurate data.

The same way Merrick Garland brick by brick by brick, that approach, brick by brick by brick, we need to reflect that, you know what? The Republicans aren't conservative anymore, that this MAGA Republican authoritarian party is anti-American, that we need to call it out, that we need to return to normalcy, that we need to fight for our institutions and our democracy, and that we need to restore all of these qualities that truly have always made America the special place that it was and is here and in the international community. And a special shout out too to our supporters, the members of the Midas Mighty community, not just here in the United States, but also international supporters. It's so great seeing what I see on the comments,

people saying all the different countries that they're from because sharing this pro-democracy message transcends just the country too. The importance of this as an international movement are so, so, so important. And to help build this community too, and I said it at the middle of the show, but I'll say it again here. One way that you can help wherever you are in the world is that if you are not already a member of our Patreon, if you're not already a patron, go check it out and consider becoming a member because we're not funded by any outside investors at all. Think about that. With all these other groups taking millions and billions of dollars, we're competing with them and we're crowdfunded. That's how we operate this. So if you check out patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash Midas Touch, what you'll love about it

is that there's lots of exclusive content that you can only get on Patreon. But most importantly, I think the community of supporters there who help grow and fuel the research that we do and the staff that we have and help build this independent media platform is so invaluable. We're so grateful for it. So wherever you are in the world, if you can do it, check it out. It's patreon.com slash Midas Touch. And right after this show, check it out. And if you can, become a memberas Touch gear. We've got the make attorneys get attorneys hat. We've got the convict 45 or convict 45 in person, woman, man, camera, prison shirt. We've got the I read banned books sweatshirt, hooded sweatshirt. We've got the Rovember, Roro, your vote collection, and so much more at store.midastouch.com. It's all 100% made in the US and 100% union made. And while they say imitation is the best form of flattery, when our competitors make our merch

outside of the United States and not by unions, even though I appreciate the message, I do not support their copycat of us for that reason. And while you're at it, why don't you check out our new true crime podcast? It's called American Psy Op. It is climbing the true crime podcast charts and frankly, all of the podcast charts. I think it was in the top 20 of all podcasts in the United States, and it reached like eight or seven on the true crime. We're up to episode four. It tells the story of General Wes Clark's son, Wes Clark Jr.

Now, General Clark ran for the presidency. He was the top general of NATO. And what this true crime thriller explores is how Wes Clark, Jr. was targeted with all of these psychological influencing operations. And he was targeted by all of these cults and mercenary groups who kind of wanted to use him to influence American policy because they thought based on his proximity to power, it's a thriller. Trying to sort fact from fiction in it is also part of the mystery and thrill. But Brett, I love that podcast. And so just search American Psyop, P-S-Y-O-P, American Psyop. After I'm done listening to American PSYOP, I'm always just like,

whew, all right, all right. We always have to connect and have a debrief on everything that we heard. And I found myself now going back and listening to all the episodes second and third times in their final forms. And it is just incredible. And I've heard a little rumor that there are some figures who have been in the news lately that before all this even happened, you know, we produced the series, might make their way into some future episodes. And yeah, I might be talking about people like Kanye or Elon or people like that. So you got to understand with these psyops, the people who are targeted are people of

influence. And it's real scary stuff that's going on to be able to hear somebody like Wes Clark, who was a ripe target as the son of a NATO general, as a son of a presidential candidate, as somebody who was in the military, be the target of all these foreign mercenary groups and religious cults and the like, and to see how they were able to manipulate him in order to try to influence US policy, you got to be damn sure that there are a lot of other useful idiots in this country who bad actors have used as psyops in order to influence our policy

and influence people. And from Mike Flynn to Trump and everybody. I mean, as you hear everything that's going on, you just realize how weird and scary of a world that it truly is. But I think it's also important that we know that it's going on so that if any of that's also coming at us, we could combat it. And that's why I think it's so great

that Wes has been able to get through all of that and has lived through it to be able to now tell his story. And so check out American Psy Op right now. Go at it. It's free wherever you find podcasts, American Psy Op. Check it out. I just want to say how incredible it is spending all this time with you guys every week.

We got this exciting Georgia runoff race to the finish right here. We ain't done till we get 51. So let's keep pushing. And I'm just so grateful for the Midas Mighty community. And I don't think I could say that enough. I'm just so appreciative of all your support. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. At Midas Touch, we are unapologetically pro-democracy and we demand justice and accountability. That's why we're spreading our message to convict 45. That's right. Gear up right now with to convict 45 that's right gear up right