The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump FINANCIAL RUIN Can Hit Him ANY SECOND Now

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

On this episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast: Trump’s massive judgment in the civil fraud case could come any second from Judge Arthur Engoron; Trump pretends he didn’t just get crushed in the Carroll case; Alina Habba appears to be sidelined from the upcoming appeal; President Biden soars in a new poll; The RNC is in utter financial ruin; Congress passes a bipartisan tax bill, while Republicans stick to their usual games on the border; and more! Ben and Brett break it down. Thanks to our sponsors: Armra: Head to tryarmra.com/meidas or enter promo code MEIDAS to receive 15% off your first order! Miracle Made: Go to trymiracle.com/meidas and use code MEIDAS to claim your free 3-piece towel set and save over 40% off! Fum: Head to tryfum.com/meidas and get 10% off the journey pack today when you use code MEIDAS Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We are still on verdict watch in the New York Attorney General civil fraud case against Donald Trump. Justice N'Goran previously told the parties that he anticipated his verdict would be issued before February, but then the independent monitor appointed over the Trump organization, retired federal judge Barbara statements, including a $48 million non-existent loan. So that's why I think there's a brief delay right there, but I think we'll get a verdict next week. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's strategy is apparently just pretend these verdicts don't exist and just claim that you won.

Show you a very odd clip of Donald Trump continuing to have cognitive issues saying that, what are you talking about? I won these cases. Also, this week was an FEC filing deadline for PACs and fundraising committees. So we got to see that Donald Trump and the RNC are in very, very bad financial shape, like all things Donald Trump has ever been involved in with his life of losing. The RNC is in the worst financial shape adjusted for inflation since 1993. Donald Trump's political action committee spent over $50 million of donor money on legal fees, $368,000 for Melania Trump's stylist, $100,000 for Melania Trump's hairdresser, $1.7 million for Donald Trump's private jets. I guess that's what donors love doing, giving all that money to a billionaire so the billionaire doesn't have to use their own money.

Meanwhile, President Biden has about $117 million cash on hand when you include his money along with the DNC, where Donald Trump has about $37 million. And finally, the exodus of independent voters and mainstream Republicans fleeing MAGA. I think it's starting to finally register in polling data with President Biden taking a commanding lead in the new Quinnipiac poll. Although I don't love talking about polls with the media trying to, I think, scare the crap out of America with other bad polls. I just wanted to mention that one. But also what I do like talking about are results. I do like talking about the economy. I do like talking about President Biden standing up for workers and democracy. President Biden's been doing that today in Michigan, joined by United Auto Worker President

Sean Fain. We'll show you some clips of that. I also love talking about good economic data. America, now the fastest growing economy in the world, spurred by a manufacturing boom. The stock market keeps setting record highs. Consumer confidence is way up and inflation is coming down, hitting the Fed targets. And breaking news, before going live, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump's former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, is talking about taking yet another guilty plea with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, this time for perjury based on A lot to discuss. I'm Ben Micellis, joined by Brett Micellis. Daddy Jordy, Papa Jordy is still on paternity duty right now.

Congratulations to Jordy and Lexi, new parents of a beautiful baby boy. Brett, how are you doing? I am doing great. I'm missing Jordy very much on the show, but the show must go on. Ben, I'm feeling a lot of good momentum this week. I feel like we got a lot of positive things to speak about, which is nice. I'm reflecting back to our podcast just a few months ago. I remember kind of October, November, us saying right here that the entire narrative was going to start to shift on the economy as we entered the new year. That come January, February, March, we were going to see

a big turnaround in the markets. We were going to see a big turnaround in people actually feeling the effects of the data that was starting to come in back then. And now we're seeing that. We're seeing that consumers are that. We're seeing that consumers are happy. We're seeing the markets hit record after record every single day. We're seeing real wage growth up, exceeding inflation. We're seeing inflation back down to the Fed's target. A lot to be proud of, a lot of good stuff, yet a lot of work to do, which is why it's always good seeing President Biden out there also with the union workers. Sean Fain, man. Sean Fain is going to be such an asset during this election. I think he really speaks for the union workers in such an effective way,

and he's going to be a great surrogate for President Biden. I can't wait to show people the clips of Fain and Biden from today. Look, I think Sean Fain speaks for the American people. He's speaking very directly about what the condition is. Donald Trump is a scab. And what does that mean? Donald Trump tried to screw over unions and workers at every point in time when Donald Trump was in office. We don't have to guess what's Donald Trump going to do. He did it. He screwed over workers. He screwed over unions. He appointed people to the National Labor Relations Board who hate unions. He put people in positions of power to destroy unions. We saw what he did, and we saw Donald Trump give tax breaks to billionaires, screw over American workers, and we saw President Biden stand with workers quite literally on picket

lines, but in all policy with a bottom-up, middle-out economics. That is working. Our economic growth is being spurred by this bottom-up, middle-out, manufacturing boom, believing in the American worker and giving the American worker a fair shot. That's all American workers ever said. Just don't make it unfair because the Republican plan is let's make it unfair for the billionaires. Let's give them tax cuts for their yachts and their private jets. Let's give them unfair tax cuts. And workers were like, hey, hello here. Could we just like have a level playing field here? It's already pretty unfair, but just give us a shot. And that's all President Biden's ever said is, yeah, we're going to make this a fair

game, a fair contest. And that's what capitalism is all about, as opposed to this kind of MAGA Republican socialism for billionaires is what it really is. So let's talk about that in a moment. But Brett, I want to show for a second what Marjorie Taylor Greene said. Play this clip because this kind of sums up MAGA madness right now. Play this clip. This historical evidence is overwhelming that the founding fathers intended impeachment to be used to deal with the commission of indictable crimes and the abuse of power, corruption and injury to the nation caused by public officials, among others. Indictable. Can you please use it in a sentence? Indictable. Donald Trump has a small. What? What? What? Donald Trump has been indicted multiple times. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in quite a predicament is what we're seeing here.

But when we watch that clip, I first off, when I saw it, I had to rewind multiple times. It's pretty clear that she just almost handed things to read at these hearings. And with the good economic news, with Americans feeling positively about the country, what's the Republicans' MO always? They need to just try to destroy. They need to find the next issue. And what's happened over these past couple months is that the Republicans have lost all of their main issues. And so now they have one, they have one thing left that they're going to, that they're going to continue to hammer home day in and day out. And what is that one thing? It's the border. So you may ask, are they going to try to fix the border? Or is the house of

representatives going to try to come together and pass a border to show that they could do this? No, absolutely not. They are refusing to do anything at the border whatsoever while simultaneously holding impeachment hearings for Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. They are both inhibiting his ability to do the job, and then they're punishing him for not doing the job. And then you have Marjorie Taylor Greene leading this entire circus and talking about Indicable or whatever she said. And this is the clown show of the Republican Party. Donald Trump ordered. He put it in writing. We can see what he said. And he talks about it in all of his speeches. He ordered MAGA Republicans to kill a bipartisan border deal between Democrats and rational, reasonable Republicans in the Senate. That would be the toughest board. It's almost a

little too tough. I looked at that. I'm like, you sure about that? It was strong. I'm like, you sure about that, President Biden? You sure about that? But I think, look, President Biden's calling their bluff. This is everything you claim that you want. I'm going to give it to you because we also desperately need aid to Ukraine. So you could have pretty much everything you want at the border. We'll do this really tough border bill, but we'll try to reach a compromise because we also desperately need these funds for Ukraine because, heck, the entire international order kind of depends on that. And by the way, Republicans, you've been saying that you would do a deal on Ukraine if we agreed to pretty much all of your terms on the border.

Okay, bet. We did it. You have everything that you want. What do MAGA Republicans say? This is a democratic bill. We don't need bills. We don't need legislation. I'm starting to think that these Republicans aren't really on the up and up. We don't need bills. We don't need legislation. this theory. All right. The Republicans, they're trying to make the border worse because they want

to help Donald Trump. They want to help Donald Trump. Right. And so they're trying to make the borders. They want people to suffer. They want to be bad. Why? Why? Why would they want to help Donald Trump? The guy from The Apprentice? Yes. They want to help Donald Trump become president. The guy, the adjudicated rapist. Yes. That guy, we want that guy back in a, the guy who has 91 felony accounts. Yes. Yes. You'd be like, are you out of your mind? But then they're openly saying these things like that. You have these reporters. Now they catch like these Republicans at this crosswalk near the Capitol. And so one Congressman in particular, Republican Troy Nels, he always is saying the most outrageous, but I guess honest things to the press.

Like in the past, Republicans wouldn't admit to these things. But listen to Troy Nels' explanation as to why the House Republicans refused to act on the border. Representative, what have you done to fix our broken immigration system? OK, let's get this straight now. If this is going to be on Rolling Stone, let's put it out there. Congress doesn't have to do anything to secure our southern border and fix it. Joe Biden's getting whispered. They're calling Joe Biden and saying, hey, boss, guess what?

Your approval rating's at 33%. It's in the toilet. And if you don't do something about security, the American people are paying attention to the southern border. If you don't get some type of border security bill done here, you're done. You're done. Now, why would I help Joe Biden improve his dismal 33 percent? Why do they all look like bad guys walking around with the cigar, a cigar, like a cigar in his mouth? See, like the penguin from Batman right there?

So I said, I said, look, we're going to, we're going to harm his approval. Here's the plot here. Joe Biden's poll numbers. We're going to make him tank. Is that going to make the American people suffer? Yes. But Joe Biden. You know that guy who gives the speeches and says, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

You know, the guy who gets up there and just makes noises at this point because he's so cognitively in trouble, he can't even put together sentences. You know, you know, that guy who brags about cognitive, which, which guy, the rapist? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The rapist, that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're trying, we're trying to help out the rapist win in this election. And we think that we're going to endear ourselves, you say, to these independent voters and rational Republicans. If we harm the border and we're going to tell you we're going to screw the border. I mean, that's the MAGA Republican position at this point, that they want to cause damage to the border to help Donald Trump. And Donald Trump says, I want you to do that for me.

That's why anytime there's any coverage of this border issue, if you are not upfront acknowledging that this is now a crisis being caused by the Republican Party, then you are being disingenuous. If you have one side saying, let's do it. We got a plan. It's bipartisan. Let's come together. Let's make it happen. And then you got the other side going, nah, I don't think so. I don't want to help the

president's poll numbers. Potentially that problem is now on the people refusing to help. Maga Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house goes, if there's even one crossing at all, one, I won't do a deal. They act, they create this fan. Never happened in history. During Donald Trump, there was no illegal crossings there. There was more illegal crossings in 2019 than any year when Obama was in office. They act like, they act like Trump was like so perfect on this issue, which he was not.

But by the way, here's MAGA Mike Johnson saying that he's not taking orders from Donald Trump and quickly admits that he is taking orders from Donald Trump or he is talking to Trump about it. Play this clip. The former president has made it clear that he doesn't want you guys to move forward on this. And judging by his comments, he clearly wants to campaign on this issue. Have you spoken to him about the Senate proposal?

And are you simply trying to kill this to help him on the campaign? No, Manu, that's absurd. 12 seconds later. I have talked to former President Trump about this issue at length. We know you are because Trump is saying that he's doing it with you. Trump is literally posting, spoke to MAGA Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson says that he's going to kill the border bill for me. At least Dan Crenshaw, a Republican who I disagree with on pretty much just about everything, at least he's fed up at what these MAGA Republicans are doing. But

Dan Crenshaw is, of course, also hated by MAGA Republicans in their very complicated world of who it is that they hate. But here's what Dan Crenshaw has to say. Again, this is a Republican who I thought was MAGA, but now MAGA hates this guy, but played Dan Crenshaw. I'm extremely disappointed in the very strange maneuvering by many on the right to torpedo a potential border reform bill. If we have a bill that on net significantly decreases illegal immigration and we sabotage that, that is inconsistent with what we told our voters we would do. People will make up whatever reasons they want to. There's a number of them, I'm sure. But it would be a pretty unacceptable

dereliction of your duty. So just think about it. You're an independent. You're watching this. You go, okay, all of the media, all of Republicans have led me to believe the border is the number one issue right now. Invasion. Invasion, invasion, invasion. Even though all this video footage that they show about invasion is usually the southern border of Mexico. When you actually look at where a lot of these videos are, because I've seen the videos from Eagle Pass, not the one that Fox plays on loop, but people who live there who've been posting videos around the area. And I'm not saying that there isn't a problem there. There absolutely is. It's certainly not the video that Fox plays on loop with the caravans. That's not what's happening in Eagle

Pass with people who live on the border who actually share what's happening on the border. So what are Republicans actually, what are they doing? In addition to killing the border bill, as you said, Brett, they're trying to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas. That got past the Homeland Security Committee. You saw Marjorie Taylor Greene talking about indictments or whatever. Indictable. Indictable, whatever she's talking about there. But they can't even accomplish their PR stunt. They can't, they're so incompetent that they can't even get that done. Here, Republican Ken Buck from Colorado, who's retiring, says that he's not going to support the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, which based on the slim majority, Brett, that pretty much means that it's going to be very hard to

impeach Mayorkas at this point. Right here, play this clip of Ken Buck. We don't have a clip of Ken Buck, but we do have the news that Ken Buck is a no vote on this bill. He came out quite forcefully against it, but we do have Hakeem Jeffries. Yeah, that would be better. Let's play Hakeem Jeffries. Let's play Hakeem Jeffries because Hakeem Jeffries is calling the Republicans out for just all these ridiculous stunts rather than actually working to help the American people. We continue to see performative politics and political stunts from our Republican colleagues. There are a whole host of issues that we could be working on together. The economy, affordable housing, public safety, national security, the challenges at the border. Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to spend the week focused on Secretary Mayorkas and Taylor Swift.

That's their agenda. It's performative politics. So true. They spent the whole week, MAGA Republicans, on Mayorkas and Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift isn't saying anything. She just shows up at the game. She's literally existing. And when people put them, when, when people actually did the math on Taylor Swift, like,

okay, all these right wingers are, or they're freaking out. They're saying she's ruining the game. She's all over the TV. People did the math and we're like, okay, how long was Taylor Swift actually on TV at that game? And each game it's like 18 seconds, 22 seconds, 26 seconds. Like it's, it's an insignificant amount of time. And a half hour broadcast she's on for 20 seconds. And you know, but what I like about the Taylor Swift things, not to digress here, but you know, it shows just how bizarre and weird this Republican Party is. These aren't normal people that we are dealing with. They like to think of themselves as this sort of counterculture

movement, but they're really not a counterculture movement. They're just an out-of-touch, like they're a bunch of out-of-touch incel weirdos Like it's just a very strange group of people and they attack really what's like the best of America, the best of American pop culture, the best of American products, the best American brands. They target whatever they think is popular. They're, they're just contrarians, which doesn't make them counterculture. And they really just have no sense of ordinary people out there. And so the fact that they decided to go after Taylor Swift, I think that really magnifies just how weird they are to people who, for all intents and purposes, may not have never heard the name Charlie Kirk, right? Or may have never heard what's going on. It's so true. It's so true.

You know, they've been talking, Brett, about these MAGA Republicans, about fighting against the green M&Ms and Dr. Seuss and how upset they were at Target for having like a shirt that was LGBTQ plus friendly and gas stoves. But like, they could have kind of kept that slightly hidden, you know,

but then they go after Taylor Swift. Like they, they get so encouraged by their behavior there because they live in their echo chamber where they're like, Oh yeah, that was cool. All right. Now for the next one, let's go after the biggest pop star and let's just say easiest conspiracies. Let's do that at her. And let's just see what happens. And I think a lot of people are like, what? Wait, wait, what? And then you start looking into them and you're like, oh, these are the people who get mad at the green M&M because they think the green M&M is too sexy. And they're upset at Dr. Seuss. Not sexy enough. Mr. Not sexy enough. The Green M&M was not sexy enough. That was a great- Tucker was upset. The Green M&M's not wearing stilettos? What?

How am I supposed to get off now? And I think that was Tucker's- But look, you have on the one hand, Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries and Democrats saying, look, hello, can we do a deal on anything? Please, let's come together. Let's figure something out. And then you've got MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Indictable, indictable, indictable. We're going to impeach you.

We're going to impeach you. Taylor Swift. She's just got Hunter Biden on her mind again, Ben, don't know. Speaking of Hunter, that's a great point because here's MAGA Republican James Comer. All he's done for two years now. And obviously it predates that. But as the chair of the over, wait, wait, wait. Can I guess?

Can I guess? Fight for health care for the American people. Close. Take another guess. Close. James Comer massive infrastructure bill to help get people broadband and roads and bridges

I'll give you one I'll give you one more and it starts with P P price controls for drugs to make drugs affordable for the no no i'm getting i'm hearing in my monitor lowering prescription drug prices the p i was thinking of was penis oh oh okay showing the

photographs of hunter biden's genitals oh without hunter biden's permission and focusing on hunter biden's nudes that's what mag look, they're at least consistently crazy, these MAGA Republicans. In everything they do, these are the people who are in committee. This is the state of the Republican Party. It's humiliating for the whole country that they're during committee hearings.

You have to watch out because Marjorie Taylor Greene is like pulling something. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are those nudes? Please, please chair. Can you tell her not to introduce the nudes? And then James Comer's like, well, I

do see how there could be some relevance here. I think there could be I think there could. That's more of the James. Yeah, you got to get the voice crack. Yeah, there could be some relative show. And everyone's like, what the hell is going on? Well, anyway, here's what MAGA Republican James Comer said to Hannity about the reason that they never got any evidence that President Biden did anything wrong. Play this clip. Hunter also in 2018, apparently

text revealed a deep distrust of Sherwin and his involvement in family affairs and apparently owed Sherwin money. And Hunter, you know, told his assistant that Sherwin whined that he owed him 30 percent of his income for 10 years. Then by 2019, the relationship deteriorated further. Did you get any information out of him regarding this? Now, you know, all of the people that we brought in for depositions, they have a hard time remembering the bad things. All the people have a hard time remembering all of the bad stuff. You mean you're wrong? You mean this is just a stupid witch hunt? And by the way, all of the things that Hannity is talking about, like he sounds like a deranged maniac too.

Like he sounds like a 51. Did you ask about why Sherwin was upset about him? And I'm like, okay, can we just talk about issues that matter to the American people? Let's do a debate on the border. I'm happy. Why don't you talk about that? I don't know. Why don't you talk about the economy?

Why don't you talk about prescription drug prices? Why don't you talk about jobs? Oh, wait, because you're losers on all of those issues now. So it's basically Hunter Biden and impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas. But this was great, too. James Comer sent an email out whining because MAGA Republicans are the party of just whining. They're built in the image of Donald Trump. And here's what it says. We've hit a brick wall. And they sent it to Eric Swalwell. I mean,

it was a mass email, but Eric Swalwell got it. Democratic Congress member Eric Swalwell. Eric, Eric, we have a major problem. Our January fundraising has hit a brick wall. Russia gift. That's what they said. And Eric Swalwell goes, no shit. How pathetic is this guy? His Biden investigation has collapsed and now he's coming to me for money. Sorry, Comer pile.

And then Democratic Congress member Jared Moskowitz says, now, Eric, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this, like Comer is probably just raising money to help pay for Donald Trump's legal fees. Alina Haba looks very expensive. And by the way, we'll talk in a little bit about Donald Trump's legal fees paid for by his political action committees. And by the way, just like following the money from these Trump political action committees, there's like four or five of them. And it's like, this one lent this one $30 million, which then lent that one $28 million, which then lent this one. The one that's actually labeled legal defense fund was only able to raise like $1.8

million. And all the other political action committees, which you would think would be used for, I don't know, call me crazy here, but politics and campaigning and ads and things like that. Political action. That went to cover his legal fees, like the case that he just lost against his rape victim for defamation, where he was hit with an $83.3 million verdict. I think we have this clip where he was asked about whether he would use his political action committee money to pay these verdicts, to pay these penalties. I'm just going to show you Donald Trump's response to this,

and then we're going to talk about it in a moment. But play this clip where Trump's like, what? What? What? What do you mean? What do you mean? I won that case. I won what? I won. I won. What? It was just like that. Here, play this clip. Do you plan to try to use campaign funds or cash money to try to pay some of the penalties in New York defamation and fraud cases? I don't understand what? Are you thinking of potentially trying to use campaign money to pay some of those penalties that you think might occur? What penalties?

In the New York fraud case, the defamation case. I didn't do anything wrong. I mean, that's been proven as far as I'm concerned. And actually, we won in the Court of Appeals. You probably saw that. That case has been we won in the Court of Appeals. You probably saw that. That case has been largely won in the Court of Appeals. That was a political case coordinated with the White House by the attorney general, I assume is what you're talking about. And we won that case largely in the Court of Appeals.

That's a ridiculous case. That case is a ridiculous case. You know, he does the accordion hands. It's the worst tell. If you were playing poker with him and he had a horrible hand and he would just, okay, we know that you're just a liar in every single thing that you do. I want to talk about a lot more topics. I want to talk about what is happening in the New York Attorney General civil fraud case. But Brett, I would like to try to do an experiment here with all the Midas Mighty out there. There's about 14,000, 15,000 people watching this live right now. Normally we do an after show on patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Here's the experiment. What if we held our Zoom meeting

and we put the link out just on our Patreon? So we did our after show as a Zoom meeting and took all of your questions or as many questions as we could possibly answer in an hour. I think that would be fun. So if you all go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, you sign up there. On the feed, there is the secret link. Please do not put the secret link anywhere else. It's a secret link because we're not funded by outside investors. So we try to find fun ways. Don't ruin it for everybody else. Don't ruin it for everybody else. We try to find fun ways to build this independent media platform. So go there. And then as soon as this live show ends, we will go on the zoom. You can get the link to access the zoom meeting at patreon.com slash

Midas touch. And then you can meet me and Brett can't meet Jordy yet because Jordy's on daddy duty, but you may have seen him before on some of these other meetings, but you can meet me and Brett. Can't meet Jordy yet because Jordy's on daddy duty, but you may have seen him before on some of these other meetings, but you can meet me and Brett, ask us questions. I think that'll be a fun way to do it this month while Jordy's away. So if you want to meet me and Brett, sign up now at patreon.com slash Midas Touch. You'll see in the feed, the link to our Zoom meeting. Once this show ends, it'll probably take us, what, like three minutes to five minutes just to switch over and get in on that Zoom meeting. But then we'll do that Zoom meeting and we'll meet you. We still got a lot

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Again, that's trymiracle.com to treat yourself. Thank you, MiracleMate, for sponsoring this. There's Jordy. Thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. In the description below on the podcast and YouTube, you can find those discount codes for all of our pro-democracy sponsors. In the description below on the podcast and YouTube, you can find those discount codes for all of our pro-democracy sponsors. It is one of the ways we grow this independent media platform. And so if you are able to support those sponsors, they do have great products and Jordy's in charge of vetting them all. And so I'm really proud of our pro-democracy sponsors. We're on Verdict Watch, by the way, in the New York Attorney General civil fraud case. Justice Arthur Ngoron, back on January 11th during closing argument, told the parties that he expected to have his final ruling by January 31st, but January 31st came and

passed. But sources said that it's going to take Ngoron until next week now to issue his order. So naturally, people said, Ben, you and Midas Touch said it, January 31st. What happened? I said, well, Justice Ngoron was the one who said it, but we always have to follow the data. Was there some intervening event that may lead Justice Ngoran to say, you know what, I need three or four or five more days to process this new data? And sure, there was. What happened on Monday? You had the retired federal judge, Barbara Jones, who serves as the independent monitor. She was appointed in November of 2022, so she's been serving for about 14 months. She issued basically her final 14-month report and

found some serious issues in the Trump financials. She found inconsistent financial statements. She found erroneous financial statements and other serious problems. In fact, there was a footnote where she found this loan had been talked about. It was in some of the financial records, a $48 million loan between some entity called Chicago Unit Acquisitions, 100% owned by Donald Trump, made a loan purportedly to Donald Trump. It's a springing loan, meaning it characterized the borrower, Donald Trump, as a bad borrower. So there were punitive measures, but Trump was the lender characterizing the borrower as a bad borrower. So that was kind of red flag number one. So then, okay, well, which bank account has this 48 or $50 million loan? And the Trump organization had to admit it doesn't exist. The money's not there. So what happened?

Chicago unit acquisition. Chicago so seems to relate to the Chicago skyscraper. And during the economic downturn in 2008, you may recall Donald Trump sued Deutsche Bank. He sued some other lenders as well who were financing the skyscraper. They forgave loans. And when you forgive loans, it's taxed as income unless that debt is acquired and parked somewhere and serviced elsewhere. So was the debt parked at Chicago unit acquisitions or did Donald Trump pretend that's what took place? But really, the debt was just forgiven.

It was not acquired at all. It's a phantom debt in order to avoid income taxes if the debt was just forgiven by Deutsche Bank and Fortra. So to me, that's a very serious issue. And in addition to the $370 million that's being requested by New York Attorney General Letitia James with prejudgment interest and penalties, that could be close to $550 million or $600 million. One of the remedies is requesting that Judge Barbara Jones or somebody like that stay on for the long term as a financial monitor.

So I think one of the reasons for the delay is Justice N'Goran pretty much had his order done Monday or Tuesday. He's very meticulous, so probably wanted to make sure there were no typos, but then got this letter. This is a very impactful letter from retired federal judge Barbara Jones, the financial monitor, talking about all these issues. So then in Goran's like, well, I need to include that in my order now, and that may impact the remedy. One of the things that I think we'll be talking about when this order comes down is not just the amount. Sure, that'll probably be the headline,

$370 million to $600 million. But look at the long-term monitorship. Now, imagine if New York Attorney General Letitia James is not required to keep on filing lawsuits every time Trump commits a fraud or during the dissolution process of the Trump organization. job was not just to monitor and report, but could actually take action, very quick action, with Justice N'Goran continuing to supervise the dissolution of the Trump organization. So every time there is something that Trump does that's unlawful, you don't need a whole new case. You just go right to court, Judge Barbara Jones or someone like that who's the monitor goes right to court with the New York Attorney General and a remedy is dished out immediately. That's part of the kind of post-verdict remedy that New York Attorney General Letitia James is requesting. And so for those who really wanted the verdict this week. I promise you this extra data is going to be worth it. We can wait

one more week to get this order, but I'll tell you that's to me actually good news, but I don't know what this DC circuit court of appeals is doing to Trump's absolute immunity appeal. They were the ones who expedited the briefing, right? So if you follow the data, they're expediting the briefing. What? The briefing schedule was all done in what, 12 to 15 days from the time the briefing started to when the oral argument, it was something like that, like two weeks, no longer than three weeks, I don't think. But then they've taken how long to issue an order at this point? It's been weeks at this point on a relatively simple issue. And now that we're in February, that's outside the outer limits of what my prediction was. I thought by February 1, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals would have rejected Donald Trump's

absolute immunity. I'm still confident that's where they're going to net out, but they're probably dealing with these jurisdictional issues, whether or not they even have the ability to hear this case. And I think that's causing significant delay. I think they want to make this appeal proof when Trump inevitably appeals to the United States Supreme Court. But the problem is, is that now we're in February. So that trial, the DC criminal federal case is not going to happen in March. What that also does mean, though, is the Manhattan district attorney criminal case currently

scheduled for March 25th for Trump's hush money payments and his unlawful classification of the hush money payments and his unlawful classification of the hush money payments. That's going to go. So to be very clear though, I believe that by early May, because of the Manhattan district attorney criminal case, I think Trump will be convicted by May. I think Trump will have been hit with over half a billion dollars in civil verdicts, and he will be a felon by mid-May, based on the current data. And then what my hope is, we'll have to see what the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals does, that they make their ruling so that after the Manhattan District Attorney case is complete, the D.C. federal criminal case goes late summer, maybe June, maybe July. And that wraps up sometime

mid-September. And then Donald Trump becomes a felon again there. That's my current thinking based on the dates and deadlines. And also, meanwhile, Brett, I don't know if Alina Habba is in good standing because what is happening is because Donald Trump posted the following. I am in the process along with my team of interviewing various law firms to represent me in an appeal of one of the most ridiculous and unfair witch hunts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, wine, wine, wine. I mean, I don't want to read the rest of it because it's just a bunch of whiny baby behavior, but he says he's looking for another lawyer to handle the appeal. But Ben, I don't understand. She said, we're just getting started. And she went to the cameras. She

goes, the judge gave me the best reason for an appeal. All of a sudden, are you finding new lawyers for the appeal? I don't get it. That doesn't jive with what Alina Habba has been screaming to the cameras. She seemed pretty confident in her appeal. I mean, she was celebrating, Ben, her $83.3 million loss. She also went in on the Taylor Swift stuff. She was saying there needs to be more Alina Habas and fewer Taylor Swifts is what Alina Haba said. I mean, the delusion, the delusion of these people.

My God. The breaking news before we went live also was that the Trump organization's former chief financial officer, Alan Weisselberg, is currently in negotiations to plead guilty this time for perjury based on statements and testimony he gave during the New York attorney general civil fraud case, where he was saying that he didn't know anything about the fraudulent valuations. You remember, we covered it here because then the Forbes writers were like, we emailed you all of this stuff and you responded to us. And Weisselberg never turned over those documents. He hid them from the New York Attorney General's subpoena. And so that's now resulting in the Manhattan District Attorney bringing more criminal charges against Allen Weisselberg. He previously pled

guilty to tax fraud charges back in August of 2022 and served time in Rikers Island. But Brett, that's our legal update of the day. Tell us about President Biden's meeting with the United Auto Workers in Michigan, because I'm loving President Biden going on the offense, speaking to workers, rolling his sleeves up, and this was great to see. Yeah, and President Biden out there in Michigan with the UAW workers, with the UAW members, obviously that union support, that worker support is a big thing for President Biden. He's always been a union guy throughout his whole career. That's why they call him Union Joe. Joe Biden, the first president to ever go on the picket line with striking workers,

really putting his money where his mouth is doing that. And the union, of course, endorsed him last week. It was a major endorsement. They said that he would have to earn their endorsement and earn it. He did. And now you have president Joe Biden and you have Sean Fain, who was the president of the United auto workers really coming out forcefully. Sean Fain, like I said earlier in this episode, he throughout this whole process is going to be one of the single best surrogates for President Biden. And he is a guy who likes being on the media. He's a guy who knows how to speak to the media. And he's also a guy who doesn't mind going into possibly unfriendly territory.

He was on Fox News all last week heaping praise on President Biden and speaking about why Donald Trump is so dangerous to unions. And the thing about this and the thing about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, period, is there are no more hypotheticals here, right? In 2016, you could get a little bit of a pass, right? Because nobody 100% knew which way Trump would be as a president, right? We all had our fears. A lot of people spoke out about it. The people who had the biggest fears, I think were proven to be correct, but I'll give you a pass because it was hypothetical at that point. At this point, we know the disaster that he brought to this country and we know who he worked for when he

was in that office. His entire claim to fame, the one accomplishment was giving tax cuts to billionaires. And he screwed over workers his entire time in the White House. He screwed over his entire career. He torched the entire economy. He's the only president other than Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he got here. He completely bungled the pandemic. He ignored it. He led to millions and millions and millions of deaths. And you have UAW, Sean Fain, the president, going out there and going to bat for President Biden and also speaking about how horrific Trump was. Watch this one. And you guys know, I don't have to spell this out for you because all of you know this, but this is our message going forward. We know who's been there for labor

and we sure as hell know who wasn't. It's a very clear choice in this election. It's a very simple choice for all of us in this election. You know what the hell is going to happen if this man's not president, because we've seen what happened. Labor went backwards. Working class people went backwards. The poor went backwards. Everybody suffered. So this is our shot. This is our time. This is our mission from this day forward. We're going to fight like hell and we're going to ensure that Joe Biden's the next president. So the working class keeps moving forward. So with that. And in case Sean Fain was not clear enough there, he also had this to say. There's one plan we have going forward, and that's to keep Joe Biden as our president. That's right. And then after that, Sean Fain gave the microphone to President Biden and President Biden spoke

about his economic agenda and how he's been delivering for workers. And folks, look, we now have in large part because of you and organized labor, the strongest economy in the whole damn world. We do. We do. In the whole world. Inflation's coming down. Jobs are growing. We created 800,000 manufacturing jobs. By the way, I don't see a teleprompter there. jobs are growing. We created 800,000 manufacturing jobs. By the way, I don't see a teleprompter there. He's kind of speaking pretty much off the cuff right there, comfortable being in a room like that. And I just think he's, I have a theory

that I don't want to fully predict it yet, but I don't think think you think Trump's going to be able to do all of the debates. There's no way that Trump's what's in the last debate in 2020, what was kind of the devastating line for Donald Trump? Proud boys stand back and stand by right. That people like, Whoa, right now, Donald Trump's like proud boys. Let's make another musical together. What's he what's in the debate? Yeah, I'm going to be a dictator. Yeah, dictator from day one. Just think about what this debate will actually look like with Donald Trump being like a total maniac.

He's going to make noises. Whoosh, a-boosh, a-goose, a-boosh, a-a-boosh, a-sa-woosh. And then you're going to have President Biden like that. And then all the MAGA Republicans are going to be like, Biden's on drugs. Biden must be on drugs. That's what's they're pumping him with drugs, which is all projection and confession, because now we know the drug pill mill that was the Trump white house with like ketamine and fentanyl and all these hard drugs that they were prescribing there like candy. Sorry, Brett, I digress. No. Well, anyway, let's go back to President Biden and let's talk about these polls.

Let's talk about the Quinnipiac poll, because as you said, the media loves to focus on the bad, the bad, the bad, but there are plenty of really good polls out there. And the biggest one this week was the poll by Quinnipiac. And I want to show you these numbers because this was a major shift from the last time that they did this poll. You have President Biden now leading Donald Trump in this poll in their hypothetical matchup 50% to 44%. In December, this was 47% to 46%. And there was also a lot of other data within that that showed a lot of promising

news. There was a big gender gap there where you had women coming out and saying they were going to support President Biden at a much greater number. 58% of women said that they would support Biden. That's up from 53% in December, and that's a 22-point advantage over Trump's support. Biden also leads independent voters in the poll by 22 points. And I love showing the screenshot that I showed because they actually let the poll slide on Fox News, of all things, which certainly had to set Donald Trump off. You also have The Economist, UGA poll, Biden's leading an app by a point. You have Moody's forecast. Moody's forecasts are usually pretty accurate.

They currently have the electoral college map out here, and they have it at Democrat 308, Republican 230. So there's plenty of good data. And the good thing is the economic data is starting to move people. The economic data, people are starting to feel all of that, Ben. Well, just some updates right now. We're now learning from a New York spokesperson from the New York court system that the verdict in Donald Trump's fraud trial will actually be coming later than expected. They're confirming it now with a decision expected in early to mid-February, they're saying, according to a New York court spokesperson said on Thursday. Of course, Judge N'Goran initially said he would aim to deliver the verdict by January 31st. And again, I think the reason is that Judge Barbara

Jones' letter right there. And I think it's going to be a long decision. It's going to be a powerful decision when it comes down. If it's an extra week, if it's an extra two weeks, I'd like it to come sooner, of course, but I think we can wait for justice to be served, especially knowing all the games that Donald Trump's going to try to play with an appeal here. And I think Justice and Goran wants to make this appeal proof. We still have a lot more show, but I want to remind everybody about our exclusive Patreon Zoom meeting that we're going to do as soon as this live show ends. So our secret Zoom link can be found at patreon.com slash Midas Touch. So when this live show ends in probably about a half hour or so, then we will start our Zoom

meeting. You can meet me and you can meet Brett. You can ask us questions at the Zoom meeting. We'll open it up for questions. We'll talk about some additional topics. But you have to be a Patreon member. And to be clear, I see a lot of people signing up. You have to sign up to be a paid member, just so you know, in order to access that link. I don't want you to be upset if you sign up for the free membership, which doesn't actually allow you to access any of the content. It just allows you to see when

we make posts, but not what's actually in the post. So I just want to be clear on that. So you go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch. You'll see on the feed on our Patreon, we have that exclusive Zoom link. And I'm so thrilled to see you after the show, but we still have got a lot more to discuss. I want to talk about the economy. I want to talk about these Federal Elections Commission reports that are coming out here showing how Donald Trump is spending his money. I want to show also, you got this photo, Brett, of the AI that MAGA Republicans are using to try to manipulate the vote. They're doing these AI photos where people have like three hands and there's like stickers floating manipulate the vote. They're doing these AI photos where people have three

hands and there's stickers floating in the air. I think we need to recognize this is going to be one of their tactics. MAGA Republicans want to create this deranged conspiracy of the Taylor Swift PSYOP while the Republicans are actually engaged in actual actual science to use AI to try to manipulate votes. And so we'll talk about that and more, but let's take our last quick break of this show. Ever tried to break a bad habit and felt like you're climbing Everest in flip-flops? Yeah, we've been there too, but here's a breath of fresh air. Fume. It's not about giving up. It's about switching up. Fume takes your habit and simply makes it better, healthier, and a whole lot more enjoyable. Fume is an innovative,

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10% off when you use our code Midas to help make starting the good habit that much easier. Go to tryfume.com slash Midas and use our code Midas. About these financial reports, these FEC reports, they were quite revealing, submitted because there was a filing deadline. So they had to be submitted. I don't think the RNC or the Trump PACs actually wanted to submit these reports. And I don't know, there's still a lot of shady stuff that appears in these Trump reports with all of these like this pack lent to this pack which lent that pack which refunded to this pack and you have to kind of like follow this thing and it's like that's not normally how it's done i mean normally the political action committee just

raises the money and then spends it on independent expenditures like that's it like for ads for the campaign you don't spend it on all of this other stuff and one's refunding the other. What I found notable is the one Trump PAC that was actually labeled legal defense was actually the one that raised the least, under $2 million, which to me says so much. And that's not really being kind of focused on, but he spent over $50 million, closer to $60 million on legal bills, which is an outrageously high number. But as a litigator, the number also just doesn't really make sense to me. You figure he's got four major criminal cases, and then he's got four or five major civil cases, right? So let's just say you pay your lawyers in each of those cases. Let's say you pay them, what, $2 million each, or you spend $2 million on legal fees in each of

those cases and say there were like 10 major cases and $2 million. If you even want to say $3 million, which is incredibly, incredibly high, like 10 times 3 million, what? So $30 million. Where's the other $25 million? Like it still, to me, isn't fully adding up that all of this money is going to like I know legal fees. The math ain't math. And as the kids say, what do you say? I said the math ain't math. And as the kids say, it's a very, very high number.

But then you look at like federal judge Barbara Jones, the monitor's letter to in Goran about like, you know, there are these phantom loans on prior documents that Trump filed, right? $48 million. So if that doesn't exist, like the question really becomes, I know that this is what's being reported by Trump and Trump's PACs, but we also know that he has a history of not reporting things accurately. So is this too low? Is it too high? We don't know. But I'm just telling you the numbers that he's reporting right now. And so then you have Melania, it's being reported the political action committee paid for $371,000 to our stylist, $100,000 to our hairdresser. Waltie Nauta, Donald Trump's co-defendant, got paid $155,000 from the political action

committees. Donald Trump spent the political action committee. So donors, right? People in probably middle America, people who call themselves Magadonians who are struggling paycheck to paycheck, they're the ones who are paying this money. They're donating it to Trump so that Trump then pays for it. A purported billionaire uses that money to pay for his wife's stylist, $18,000 a month. I mean, just think about that, $1.7 million for Donald Trump's private jet. I mean, grifting off of your supporters. It's really, really insane.

But then you look at the RNC had its worst fundraising year since 2013 when adjusted for inflation. It's the worst year since 1993. I wonder why. I wonder why people may not want to donate to Republicans when they go, wait a minute, are you going to use my money for politics or are you going to use it for Melania's hair? Are you going to use my money for ads or are you going to use it for polishing Donald Trump's shoes or for his private jet? So they're in kind of a deep, deep hole right there. And you're talking about they have $1.8 million in debt. You're talking about that they raised about $87.2 million and spent $93.5 million. Jeez.

Right? So they ended the year with about eight million dollars cash on hand but like here's the thing this is donald trump's entire history this is not a builder this is a destroyer everything he's touched has gone bankrupt in his life why would it be different when he takes over the republican party it it would be any different. They're just his new Atlantic City. This is how he spent his entire life. He destroys something and then grifts off of them. And he had never been held accountable until recently, but that's his MO right there. You look at the state Republican parties, whether it's Michigan, Arizona, Minnesota, they're all going bankrupt as well in key swing states while the Democratic parties

are thriving when it comes to raising money. Building something in the image of Donald Trump combines this like idiocracy and dysfunction and selfishness and weirdness and wannabe fascism. Everybody's grifting off of each other in that MAGA movement. And Ben, they all hate each other. Like we're constantly seeing these videos from various state Republican parties of literal fistfights breaking out between people. We saw a video last week of Carrie Lake, Carrie Lake in Arizona going on stage because she had just ousted their state chair by secretly recording him

apparently trying to bribe her, so it seemed. And when she went on stage, all the MAGA people, all the Arizona Republicans booed her. They booed her, basically booed her off the stage. This is what we're seeing throughout the country. They are just at each other's heads. One of the things I also thought was pretty interesting too, is Trump's campaign donations actually slowed by 20% in the fourth quarter. And remember, this is all the while the Biden campaign, the DNC are like absolutely crushing it in fundraising.

The disparity is so clear. This is why, Ben, you know, Ronna McDaniel might be my favorite RNC chair because she's really bad at her job. Ronna, Alina Abba, James Comer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz. I feel like it's the Jeopardy question. Lauren Boebert. I mean, did you see that debate in Colorado's fourth congressional district where they were all asked a question like, how many people here have been arrested? And then the biggest applause that was received that night is when they all raised their hand. All but two candidates had been arrested. And you look at the things that Lauren Boebert's been arrested for, some pretty disgusting stuff too, just overall gross.

And anyway, but that's what the macro-republican Party has become. I think we've talked enough about the Trump PAC spending. It's a massive grift. I did a whole video on it. I want to spend some more time, Brett, though, talking about some good news. Can we hit this AI photo just quickly? Because I just want people to be looking out for it. Because when the Republicans are going through all this, what do they do? They resort to dirty tricks,

right? They're trying to trick people and they're trying to tip the scales with fake information. And AI is going to be a disaster in this election. I'm just going to tell you that straight up right now. Watch out, be careful. We already saw the other day in New Hampshire, they tried to do fake robocalls with President Biden's voice telling people not to vote for him. And that's being investigated right now. But the truth is, law enforcement agencies, Congress, they can't keep up with the technology. It's moving at too fast of a rate. And so this guy, his name is right here, Patrick Ruffini. This guy runs one of these popular right-wing pollsters. It's called Echelon Insights. You've probably seen it. These are polls that they show on Fox News. These are polls that Donald Trump tweets all the time.

They'll always show what? Like Red Wave, Trump crushing it, and then Fox reports on it, and then Legacy Media reports on it, and then everybody panics. And that's why we always go, don't worry about that one. Don't worry about that one. And so this guy runs one of those polls and he posted an AI photo, an artificial intelligence photo of a canvasser, I guess, registering a voter. And it says Republican victory in 2024 depends on their being able to do this. And it's a black canvasser and a black voter. I guess they are trying to reach this community through deception and they could not find an example of actual Republicans who support them in this way. And when you look at the picture, you don't even have to look that closely. You see a lot of weird things. And so the good thing about the AI technology

right now in terms of being able to identify frauds is that it's very imperfect at the moment. So he puts up this picture. And by the way, it's still up. He didn't take it down and everybody has called him out on it. He's purely trying to deceive people. But you look at various things. You look at the guy's arms. He's got three arms. You look at his hand. His hand is disappearing into the clipboard. You go out, you look at the guy's arms. He's got three arms. You look at his hand. His hand is like disappearing into the clipboard. You go out, you look at the hat, the hat. It looks like a Trump hat. It just says gibberish on it.

It's just like a bunch of squiggles. You see like in the back, there's like this random photo that's just sticking out of the wall. There's a lot of very weird things going on with the photo. But at first glance, when you just look at it quickly, it could look real. And so the reason why I want to make sure that we bring this up is because A, I want people to be aware of AI. I want people to be aware of this threat and how it is currently being weaponized. And B, I want you to understand that the people who run a lot of these polls that are cited are not exactly on the up and up. This guy, Patrick Graffini, runs one of these polls that is often cited by legitimate people, and he is the one posting this. Okay, I just wanted to get that out of the way. Let's talk about some positive economic news in

the real world, because like we were saying before, a lot of good news to discuss. The American economy in 2023 grew faster than all other economies, all of them, and is expected to do the same in 2024. If you said a few years ago that America would lead the recovery after COVID, not be number three, four, five, six, if they'd be number one, number one, you would say that is an incredible job and the person who was in charge during that recovery deserves some credit. And we can look at the charts here and we see the United States leading all the G7 nations here with Japan right behind us. And you see the projections for 2024, the United States once again in the lead. And it goes beyond the G7 nations. This is the first time in over 40 years

that the United States economy is beating China, beating China. We need to make sure that people know about this, that it's clear. Inflation is now hitting the Fed's target, also a very big deal. Real wages continuing to rise. The Dow hit yet another record high today. Another record high today. Construction spending is going through the roof thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS Act, and other things implemented, signed by President Biden. I know Democrats don't like to talk about this, but I think they should be able to talk about this. Donald Trump likes to say, drill, baby, drill. What are we going to do when we get in there?

Drill, baby, drill. The crude oil output right now in the U.S. in November hit a record high, a record high. So in addition to all the green energy initiatives that President Biden is doing, that is not killing the industry like the Republicans try to make it out to seem. Also, very big news. This one is probably going to affect a lot of your lives. For the first time, Medicare just made offers to lower prices for the top 10 most widely used and expensive drugs, which is going to lower prices for millions of Americans. This was part of the Inflation Reduction Act. It is now being implemented now that we are in 2024. These are those Medicare negotiations that we've been hearing about from, honestly, so many presidents. Trump promised it, didn't deliver. Obama promised it, didn't happen.

This has been promised for administration after administration. President Biden here got it done. So expect to see lower prices for these drugs on Medicare when these negotiations are made. Already, the bill right now, I'm sure a lot of you are feeling it. Insulin costs cut to $35 for seniors and people with disabilities. 15 million Americans, Ben, saving an average of $800 a year on health care costs, health insurance costs, and seniors' out-of-pocket drug costs will be capped at $2,000 starting next year. That is going to fundamentally change people's lives. This is what is important. That is actually what is governing, not talking about indicable crimes or whatever we want to talk about here. Yeah, look, these are real things.

And by the way, you may listen to what Brett said, and you may think that you have a better approach to figuring out how to solve those issues. You remember when I interviewed Governor Asa Hutchinson last week, we had a respectful dialogue, but what were we talking about? Talking about actual issues. That's what I wanted to show in that interview, that there actually is a way with people you disagree with to have a real conversation in a respectful way, but talk about the issues and then let people decide. With MAGA Republicans attacking Taylor Swift and talking about the green M&Ms not being sexy enough and making up

conspiracy theories about gas stoves and talking about Mr. Potato Head and calling everything woke this, woke that, and boycotting beer because there was one photo of a transgender person with with a beer can like like that's that's not politics that's hate that's weird and i hate it when the media both sides this that there's that this is what just happens generally and everything this is just the way it is. They make it like a fait accompli, like this is what it has to be. It isn't. It is coming from, the diagnosis is that this is squarely coming from MAGA right now. And that MAGA, and then I think there's some other Republicans too where it's coming from. But this MAGA takeover is primarily responsible for active efforts to harm this country and also just to go about politics in a very just bizarre and weird way. turning off independents and mainstream Republicans who are like, this party left me.

Where do I go? And I know sometimes it's hard because politics is very tribal. Like if you've been a Republican your entire life, it's hard to be like, well, everything I believe that I was, I'm not. That's a tough, I understand that that could actually be a tough thing. That's why when we talk about the pro-democracy community, it's really an inclusive, welcoming kind of community with all different views, progressives, liberals, independents, mainstream Republicans, people who are not affiliated with any political parties. Let's just join together and we'll be able to debate policy issues and we can figure out,

do you like this type of energy over this type of energy? And are we doing this too much or this too little when it comes to Medicare negotiations? Do you think we should be focusing on these 10 drugs? Should we do 50 drugs? Should we have focused on two drugs? Should we expand this Medicare negotiations to all healthcare generally? I think so. I want lower prescription drug prices. What should we do about things like access to educational opportunities? What should we do when it comes to raising wages? I think we all, but we should all want Americans to have living wages and to live their lives with dignity. Let's have conversations about the best way to achieve that. with corporations that if the tax policies change this way and I'm not seeing that issue the right way, let's have a real honest conversation about it. But this MAGA weirdness, it's just really- It's why I hate the framing, Jen. It's weird.

It's why I hate when you see the media framing and you often see a lot of Republicans speaking about this. All of a sudden, there was all this division in the country. Everything is just so divisive all the time. Oh, things are so polarized. Our politics is so polarized. It's really not. It's really not. It's all coming from one side right now. It's like saying this is a real dangerous situation where one party's holding the gun,

the others on the receiving end of that and the threats. And your way of describing that is this is a very dangerous situation. Yeah, because one party's trying to harm the other one and the other party just wants to get away and they want to live their life. And I think that applies to everything as these MAGA Republicans, they then want to take away our freedoms. They've taken away women's reproductive rights. And that's one of the reasons they want to focus so much about the border and talk about invasion. They don't want to talk about the fact that they're taking away rights and freedoms, that they took away women's reproductive rights. They've set us back 60 to 70 years, these MAGA Republicans. They don't want us, but we're going to talk about that. And we're going to keep building this pro-democracy coalition together, thanks to you brett i want to play this last clip right here

larry kudlow from today where he had to admit that once again i mean everything this guy says is wrong everything literally everything on covet i mean literally every if the guy told me the sky was blue i would have to be like let me check that that myself, Larry. I'm just going to do this for a second. And he says it in this typical kind of MAGA-ish way with this like arrogance. Like everybody, everybody. It's like, okay, you're wrong. Dude, dude, you're wrong about everything. And then he has to then go and like, at least he admitted he was wrong.

But then like the co-host on the show was like, like you aren't wrong. We all thought this. No, we didn't all think this. You know how I know that? Because president Biden didn't think this president Biden's economic team didn't think this. It was the media pushing the narrative. He didn't think this we've been pushing against it the entire time. Trump and MAGA. And we've been pushing against it the entire time. I, Trump, and MAGA, and we've been pushing against this narrative saying, okay, the data doesn't show that, but okay, here, play this clip. I mean, my mea culpa, I was wrong about the slowdown in the recession. So was the entire forecasting fraternity.

Well, the Fed, everyone was wrong. Okay. The Feds, everybody. How much longer do we have to like hear that right with the red wave in 2020 they were wrong they were on this part this person this person was wrong no president biden was actually right there was actually data that suggests what you do and their whole framework even where they know that they're not self-aware or they just refuse to be like, why was I wrong? Why? Maybe because I viewed things through an incorrect prism. No,

they treat it more like a coin toss. Yeah, I thought it was heads. It was tails. No, it's your entire framework for the economy has never worked. It didn't work with Reagan, although y'all pretend it did. It didn't work with George H.W. Bush. It didn't work with George W. Bush. But you know whose framework did work? Is it just kind of magical that when the Democrats take office and are president, and all of a sudden, they were like, balanced budgets, the deficit decreases. Was that just a random event? No. It's because there's a difference between bottom-up, middle-out, believe in the workforce, have a fair level playing field where rich people can get rich. No one's saying there shouldn't be billionaires. No one's saying that there shouldn't be decamillionaires.

They should just play by the same set of fair rules to get there versus manipulating the markets to cheat to get there. You can't let them cheat to get there. And our priorities shouldn't be, oh, you know what we got to rush to do? I wonder how I can do some tax cuts to get the billionaire write-offs for all of their private jets and yachts because that's what the American people want. No. Well, some of the Brazilianers. President Biden believed in the American worker, stood with the American worker. He stood with the American worker. And when you did that, the reward is that the American worker, that's always been the strength of the United States of America. That's what built the American dream, the whole concept. That's what built the boom. And that is how we're going to continue this manufacturing boom and we're all going to benefit. We're just a

greedy group of billionaires. Don't keep on taking. We should all benefit. Everybody in this economy should benefit. And by the way, there's a lot of work to do. Governing isn't easy. Being a leader isn't easy. It's hard to take positions on issues the way President Biden does. People get pissed off when you take a position, but you can either take positions like President Biden does, or you can be like Donald Trump who gives speeches now and just makes noises. I mean, you got President Biden detailing, here's what I'm doing. Here's my strategy. Here's the types of Medicare negotiations. Here's how I'm going to boost wages. And then you got Donald Trump going, oh, oh, whoopie.

Oh, what a show. And then, uh, and then a whoosh and then a whoosh. And then, uh, you know, then people are like, yeah. And did I tell you, uh, did I tell you about the cognitive test? I took a, there were six things, care, votes, goats, elephants. Did I, did I say elephant elephants? And, and, and, and none of you could pass this. Boom.

And then, and then we're like, well, you know, Donald Trump is firing. And then the New York Times writes, Donald Trump's firing back on the issue of democracy. Don't give me that. Defiant Donald Trump on the campaign trail. Donald Trump running a much more disciplined campaign this time around. He's making noises. He's going, hunk, hunk, whoosh, whoosh. It's not a more disciplined. I saw that headline,

by the way, like last week from one of these publications. It's like their AI headline that they generically run each and every time. Well, look, I'm really excited right now to hold our live Zoom meeting with all of you watching this. Zoom. Here's what you got to do. You got to sign up at Patreon, join one of the paid tiers. Look, we're trying to find ways to build this independent media platform. More people watch this network than watch Fox on digital right now. Think about that. And Fox has billionaire investors and gets billions of dollars pumped into it. Sorry, we don't have that. So we try to do fun things with like emojis and our pro-democracy sponsors and our Patreon. So Patreon is just one of the fun ways we're able to build this platform and have all the triggers and build out MidasTouch.com.

I think you're seeing the growth of this network brick by brick. So we're going to switch over right now to that Zoom meeting. For you to access the Zoom meeting, you go to Patreon.com slash MidasTouch. Look at the feed. The last post has that exclusive Zoom meeting. Keep it exclusive. Please don't share it. Keep it exclusive. Then Brett and I are going to be on there. We're going to spend an hour with you, talking to you, answering questions. So sign up right now. I'm excited to do that. Thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. Once again,

I want to wish a congratulations to Jordi's wife, Lexi, their beautiful baby boy. What an incredible, incredible day in all of our lives here at the Midas Mighty. And I want to thank all of you members of the Midas Mighty. This momentum that we're seeing in the country and throughout the world, I think a lot of it has to do with you. You're spreading the message. You're sharing these videos. We're learning how impactful it is when people are empowered with the data that you're providing them by sharing these videos. Let's keep up. Let's keep registering pro-democracy voters. If we do just a little bit every day, that goes a long way. That's going to be the difference maker. And every day when I wake up, when Brett wakes up, when Jordi wakes up, our entire team, one of the first things we always say is just how grateful we all are to be doing this. And that's because of you.

Thank you for welcoming us into this pro-democracy community that you all created. We're so happy to be doing this show with you and building this community with you. So with that said, patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Become a member right now and we'll see you in the Zoom chat. The link is in the feed. Thank you, everybody. And shout out to the Midas Mighty. At Midas Touch, we are unapologetically pro-democracy and we demand justice and We will get it right whenever.