The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Digs Economic Hole Deeper...

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas and MeidasTouch Chief Economist Justin Wolfers, founder of Platypus Economics, break down how Donald Trump and Scott Bessent’s economic strategy is backfiring, deepening America’s economic problems, and isolating the United States from the rest of the world. Pre-order the new book from MeidasTouch, WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy, today: https://bit.ly/wtfamericayoutube Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! 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 Sidebar with Katie Phang: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sidebar-with-katie-phang/id1886801652 The Parnas Perspective: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-parnas-perspective/id1869165949 The Intersection with Michael Popok: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intersection-with-michael-popok/id1818863274 MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show 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 Five Minute News: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/five-minute-news/id1471715443 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. About a month ago, Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Besson declared Operation Economic Outcast against Iran, that we are going to so isolate the Iranian regime that they will be crippled. Just you wait. In two weeks, there will no longer be an Iranian regime. They will beg us for a deal.

They will say, you have tortured our civilians so much by not letting them use commercial flights and not getting food and medicine that the people are saying, we need Donald Trump and Bessent, the people who are torturous. Same thing in Cuba. You torture the people enough. And then the people will love you. That's the thesis from Donald Trump and Besson with economic outcasts. But it seems that the Trump regime makes themselves more and more economic outcast by the day.

And take a look at what's happening in Canada, for example, where Prime Minister Carney held a press conference in Alberta with their premier Daniel Smith about building a pipeline to get crewed out through the West Coast, take it directly to Asia, and not send it to the refineries in the United States. Great work there, Trump regime. and the Trump regime says South Korea, they gave us $54 billion for an LNG deal in Alaska. One problem, President Lee of South Korea said, we never did that. I mean, there are, I guess, preliminary discussions, but we're not doing a deal there. And this is Donald Trump this week, the pipe, or a fraud, frankly, it's him every week. And he's picking locations where MAGA Republicans are trailing behind in the election.

So this week he held the press conference about Iowa. And Donald Trump has these friends in India who have an operational base in Minnesota, state that Donald Trump attacks. And he has them say, we're going to do a $20 billion facility in Iowa. One problem. Iowa doesn't know about it. I mean, the Iowa legislature never approved such a thing. They never did environmental studies or actually look at the permitting process.

or any of it at all. And I saw a bunch of local Iowa TV doing deep dives. And like, nope, this isn't happening. We don't know when this is going to be happening. And, you know, he just wants to put numbers on the board. Billion, billion, billion, billion. Then Donald Trump takes his schick to Europe to shake them down. We're going to do an economic diesel ban in the United States,

unless Europe, you do what I say. In essence, threatening a global deal. depression because if the United States did a real diesel ban, a diesel export ban, rather, you know, Europe relies on a lot of that diesel. It would also increase the prices here in the United States because it would be taking out a massive supply of diesel from the global market. But Donald Trump then was saying, here's what we're going to do, Europe. And then Treasury Secretary Besson posted this. And the audacity, look like what he writes. Under President Trump's leadership the United States is delivering on its commitment to help stabilize global energy

markets. I mean, it's like the most lunatic statement in the world that you can say right now if you're the Trump regime. Like, well, you're the ones who disrupted the global market. What are you talking about? Our European partners should accelerate delivery on their existing commitments and make additional supplies immediately available to address ongoing disrupting. Disruptions caused by you all.

And now they're our partners need to. We're going to wag our finger at you, Europe. This is actually your fault. I mean, do you see how despicable this behavior is? American farmers, truckers, and businesses should not be left carrying the burden of a global diesel shortage. They're turning Europe into Dr. Fauci. You're the one who did this.

Donald Trump was going to save our farmers in Europe. farmers in Europe, how dare you? America is doing its part. He says, it's part to what? It's part to destroy the global oil market and the global diesel market. We look to our allies to match their commitments with action. And look, to be fair, Europe said, you know, because of this global dynamic that they're in, the post-World War II architecture by the United States, Europe's like, all right, well, We'll do 100 million barrels under the IEA, the International Energy Agency, 50 million barrels of crude, 50 million barrels of diesel. We'll front load it. In exchange, the U.S. has to guarantee no diesel export ban.

So that was basically, you know, what was, you know, what was agreed upon, basically. And at the end of the day, you know, take a look at what's happening in our treasury bond markets. Take a look how the world is perceiving the United States as a partner in the long term. And you'll see it's stuff like this, these gimmicks, these shakedowns. It's actually a death by a thousand cuts, frankly, to the United States long term in my view. This is not projecting strength. And when you see statements like that as well, let me bring in Justin Wolfers over here from Platypus Economics. You know, I was a deal maker in my prior life.

I didn't do deals like this, I'll be very clear, you know, but I was involved in high-profile litigations where there were deals being made, you know, and also especially to partners and frankly, even to adversaries when there are deals being made. It's this level of trying to then intentionally embarrass and humiliate and these statements over here, they serve no interest other than, I guess, a propaganda for a small audience in the United States and Donald Trump. And, you know, this is long-term damage being caused here.

I want you to break this all down because I just think we're outcasting ourselves, Justin. I love the fact that you put a thousand things on the table and say, now find the golden thread that connects these. And you know, the way I thought about this, because you and I did another video this weekend we're releasing, ever listen to like a slip knot song or like one of those like real heavy metal? You got the guy who comes in and screams, and then you have the guy with the melodic voice who comes in and goes, you're that guy. You're the melodic. Is that me? Oh. I tell you what, Ben, here's, here's, here's something for you. If you scream like thrash metal, I will do a melodic bit right now. What do you

reckon? I reckon that you'll just deliver the economic news. I'll wear my purple shirt. Did you just chicken out? If you want Ben to sing next time, make sure to put it in the comments. and I'll see what I can do for you. I didn't even force him to be melodic. I'm not melodic for crying out loud. Look, here's what I want to pick up on. Everything that's going on there, these so-called international deals, it's actually something's been going on for a long time,

and it reveals something about our political and media environment. So, for instance, Trump says, I've got to deal with South Korea. They're going to help us out. South Korea's like, who are you? Have we even met? I don't know what you're talking about. We've seen that play out over and over, particularly through the second Trump administration. And here's the deal.

Basically, Trump understands the American media better than it does. He will actually get in the room with someone, or maybe you'll have someone send them an email. And they'll get to a point where they say, let's do a press conference. The press conference usually is Trump declaring victory so that he wins the day's news cycle. and the other side basically being able to go home and say, I managed to tame Trump. It could have been so much worse. But what happened, and I want you to think back to the trade war of 2025,

I know it's still going on, is they'd always announce it, and then three days later you go looking for the paperwork. And the thing is three days is longer than an American news cycle. And what would inevitably happen is there was nothing after the press conference. Do you remember we were told we were going to get, 90 trade deals in 90 days. Well, the administration is very pleased and very puffed up about that.

It actually got, by my measure, zero. Now, by their measure, they got a couple. For instance, the United Kingdom went to sign something, but it was an understanding that there was an understanding that maybe in the future they'd come to an understanding. And they got halfway through talking to the Europeans and learned something we all know. That takes a lot of patience. The Europeans don't move quickly.

And before you know what, the Supreme Court had ruled all the tariffs illegal and all the deals that Trump thought he had, None of them were signed. In fact, most of them never really actually existed at all. They were talks to have talks. I mean, it's like dating in middle school, frankly. But the thing is, I was struck time and time again, I would talk to American journalists. And they'd say, well, what about this deal, the one with Europe, and with Canada, the one

with the UK. It would be like, there is no deal. Just go to the White House website, see if you can find the text. Go to the other country, see if you can find the text. This thing that happened with South Korea. has happened time and time and time again. It means that the president's garnered a lot of headlines, presumably that's what he wants, but actually done nothing.

That in turn speaks to this broader issue you're getting at, Ben, which is he's spending American capital, he's spending our goodwill, the trust that others have in us, the faith that they might have. And increasingly foreign leaders are learning, either pretend to give him something and then go away and actually run a real country the right way, or just dark and stay away from the whole darn game.

game altogether because it's going to hurt you politically and it's not going to help you because he's not going to give you anything useful for your economy. And this, I think, comes back to so-called Operation Economic Outcast. It's that same pattern once again. So Scott Bessent swallows a testosterone pill and announces that it's economic D-Day. Wow. I don't know about you, mate, but I don't talk about D-Day when I'm talking about anything other than something really very, very serious that I mean and that involves a tremendous

willingness to sacrifice or a real challenge. But what happened? Well, let me explain what Operation Economic Outcast did. It attempts to cut off the Iranian economy and the Iranian people from the rest of the world. It's based on it interesting, that's a generous term, premise that if you starve a people, that they will revolt against their leaders rather than the folks who starve them. But it's actually even, you know, I think a little bit weird than that. So the law, the parts of it they can enforce is against people like you and me.

If you've got family back in Iran and you would like to send them some cash so that they can eat so they can buy fuel so they can get medical care, that's now illegal. You might be off to jail. That's the attempt to us. That was meant to be that great. But then actually think about the reality of the isolation. Since Operation Economic Outcast was announced, maybe folks haven't been sending money to loved ones in Iran. But the Iranian leadership has met with the leaders of Switzerland and Norway and the Netherlands and Lebanon and China and the Emirates and Russia and Iraq and Egypt and South Africa and Malaysia. And did I say India yet, Qatar, that's not isolation.

Honestly, it sounds like a 21st birthday party. I didn't have that many people come to celebrate my birthday. So the only pain here is not actually against. the folks we do want to hurt. It's regular folks in Iran and regular folks in America. So all of that talk has failed to isolate the Iranian regime in any important way. And no one has followed through to ask those hard questions that you invited us to ask, Ben. And so this is what they're going to do. I mean, and you have Trump saying, you know what, if the Democrats, who he says, the Democrats, if they win, there's going to be,

a Great Depression and the Federal Reserve Board. It's made up of all Democrats, even though I got Kevin Warsh in there and there's lots of Republican, it's going to be their fault also. And it's going to be the fault of, you know, we had to stop the nuclear weapon. You know, if you go back to COVID, his whole claim, which is BS, because things were going bad before that, but that was an accelerant. And you're in office. Your job is to deal with catastrophe. In his story, everything was going good. Then this thing happened. And then Dr. Fauci happened.

And then I got ruined my whole plans. You know, and now he's, you know, the setup is everything was going great. We set up the banquet. And then this happened. I had to stop the nuclear weapons that I claimed I obliterated the prior year. And I'm the one who pulled out of the JCPOA. And now it is, and he's got a bunch of different people. It's Zelensky's fault for striking Russian refineries.

It's the fault of Democrats generally. It's the fault of Jerome Powell. It's the fault of, you know, and so it's just this blame game. And that's where I see he's heading into because he's not, you know, it's hard making hard decisions. But you got to make him sometimes. And this is where we keep on going. And, you know, just like he's, you know, frozen in the straight of Hormuz, fake deal, fake deal, fake deal. That's what he does. Like that's his thing. Two weeks to the healthcare plan, two

weeks to this, two weeks to that. And then the thing just spirals out of control. And then he waits. And then he's like, okay, who's my blame? Who's my blame? You're my blame. And then that's his, that's his schick. And he keeps going through it. I'll give you the final word, but that's what alarms me. I think you're right to say none of this is particularly edifying. And Ben, it's kind of you to offer me the final word. But actually, I want to come back to you on this because I don't know what to do. And I'm totally serious. And I would like your help on this. The point that you just made was every time he happens, his mouth, he lies. So then there's a question, should we spend time on the lies? And I just don't know the answer. If I want to understand

the future of the American economy, I look at what he does, not what he says. But if you and I don't talk about what he says, are people believing in the falsehoods? I just don't know. Well, I think this. There's a trillion-dollar media apparatus quite literally that is invested in just being a stenographer and pumping whatever words he says no matter how outlandish it is. So I think it's incumbent to immediately, even if it's exhausting, even if it's annoying, even if people say, I don't want to hear what he says, I still think we're duty-bound to say, this is it, this is a lie right away. and then provide a way out and provide the truth and say, well, here is the accurate information. But then I think the third point is we can't be involved in the day we can, but we can't get lost in treating all of this like it's a game between the Mets versus the Yankees or the Celtics versus the Lakers or pick your favorite football or soccer team competing against each other,

that we're on Team America and we have to be going in a direction that benefits this country and we exist in a world where we have to be responsible global citizens. And so we have to make all of those connections. And so to me, that's how we have to report on them. The way we did here, the way you and I just did it. And I think that's what's missing. If it takes us 16 minutes and 12 seconds, that's what it takes. Sometimes you can't get it done in two minutes and 30 seconds.

And if you get it done in five minutes, great. If it takes 30 minutes, great. But I think that's what an audience is hungry for right now. Well, Ben, I'm just going to say, I appreciate you. I thought that was the words of a wise man. I was genuine in saying, I don't know the right answer. You've got a view. It's refute the lie first.

As an economist where I'm trying to understand the future of the economy. I don't need to listen to the words because the words are irrelevant. But I think you're right. As a communicator, we need to be clear about what is true and what isn't true. And at one level, I want to thank you, Ben, but I think the real heroes here are our audience. These are folks who are tuning in because they want the truth. And so, mate, you and I have a real responsibility here. Yeah, it is.

And that's what I think makes our platforms imbued with a community first lens, is recognizing that it is, that's why we do this, you know, is because we have these incredible communities who want the truth and want to be a part of this. And we listen. And that's what's most important. So everybody subscribe to Platypus Economics. That's Justin Wolfer's YouTube channel. And if you want Ben to sing next time, put it in the comments. Maybe give him a part that you're wanting to sing. He said, he set the bar pretty low, death metal.

I reckon death metal's not that hard to just yell a little bit, Ben. I try next time, next time. Justin Wolfer's Platypus Economics, subscribe to his YouTube channel. And he's also the chief economist here in Midas. Thanks, Justin. Thanks, my. Everybody hit subscribe. Before you go, our book, WTF America, is available for pre-order now.

It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings, the end of jobs, or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype.

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