The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump has DISASTROUS FIRST DAY at Criminal Trial

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

On this episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast: Trump has a disastrous first day in trial after getting instantly denied by the judge and then struggling to retain consciousness in the courtroom; LecternGate updates; The crime rate plummets; More good economic news; and more! Ben, Brett and Jordy break it all down. Deals from our sponsors! Policygenius: Head to https://policygenius.com/meidas to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save! Smalls: Head to https://smalls.com/meidas and use promo code ‘MEIDAS’ at checkout for 50% off your first order plus free shipping! Smileactives: Visit https://smileactives.com/meidas today to receive a special buy-one-get-one-free offer! Shopify: Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/meidas Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af 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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and it was an absolute disaster for Donald Trump. He couldn't even stay awake. Hashtag Sleepy Don is trending as he continued to fall asleep throughout the day's proceedings. We'll break down every step of what took place today from Donald Trump losing motions in the morning to the jury coming in in the afternoon, all the while Donald Trump sat there and could not stay awake. Of course, he continued with his routine of just whining and saying things are so unfair. But I'll tell you this about the judge presiding over the case. Justice Juan Merchan's got a strong grip over his courtroom. By this point, he knows all of Donald Trump's tricks and how Donald Trump's going to behave.

Justice Mershon has controlled the courtroom masterfully, and things are looking like a, all in all, other than the fact that Donald Trump is there, a fairly normal felony criminal case in Manhattan. Although one of the things that happened today as well is that the Manhattan District Attorney did file a motion to hold Donald Trump in contempt for Donald Trump's threats of witnesses, including my co-host on the Midas Touch Network, my political beatdown co-host, Michael Cohen. We'll break it down. Don't you worry. But speaking of don't you worry, let me tell you who should be worrying. Shareholders of Donald Trump's stock, DJT, and Donald Trump down another 18% on Monday. Let me repeat that. Trump's stock down another 18%.

This stock is just an absolute disaster. It's exactly what we were trying to warn retail investors about two years ago when this SPAC was announced. It's exactly what we said was going to happen. But as you look at this trajectory of the Trump stock, doesn't it just look like every single thing that Donald Trump has touched in his life, a complete and utter failure? He pumps it up, he hypes it up, and then he's so incompetent, what he's actually hyping up is all BS. Then it crashes, and then what does he do? He whines about it and plays the victim, and then tries to get everybody else upset that this is all a massive

conspiracy against us and everybody's going after us versus Trump, you just fail in everything you've done your entire life. And now we're in the find out stage. Talking about being in the find out stage, all of the kind of polling averages now have President Biden leading, although I don't want to dwell or really overly focus on the polls. But every time you hear Donald Trump or MAGA Republicans saying the polling, the polling, the polling, this, that polling, which I still think is not fully appreciating the trends that we're seeing now has President Biden in the lead and the momentum on President Biden's side. But folks, do not get complacent. Our democracy is on the line.

Law and order is on the line. And a microcosm of that, we've been covering it here on the Midas Touch Network, a little scandal, actually a fairly big scandal in Arkansas called Lectern Gate. A lawyer in Arkansas named Matt Campbell uncovered that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the MAGA Republican governor of Arkansas, purchased a $19,000 lectern from her friend who doesn't deal in lecterns. But at most, this lectern would cost about $7,500. And where is this lectern? In a state like Arkansas, where let's just say they're not at the top of things like education and infrastructure and healthcare and things like that, why are you spending, even if you were spending that $19,000 on a lectern that

nobody's ever seen? Well, there's been an independent legislative audit. It's not pretty for Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And a referral is actually being made to prosecutorial authorities there in Arkansas. We will break that all down for you and more. This, folks, is a historic episode of the Midas Touch podcast. I'm Ben Mycelis, joined by my brothers Brett and Jordy Mycelis. I always love brothers when we get to cover a historical day in our country, a historical day for democracy. Today is one of those live shows where we get to do just that. The first day of the first criminal trial against Donald Trump, and Trump was not handling it well at all. That would be an understatement. But Brett, Jody, how are you

doing? To say the least, sorry, I was pulling a Trump over there in the beginning of the episode. Should I say you actually worried me? I was pulling a Trump over there in the beginning of the episode. Should I say you actually worried me? I thought something was wrong for a second. I didn't know you were going to do that to start the show. I was committing to the bit, Jordy. I was committing to the bit. It was almost too believable. I was very worried.

I'm glad that you were doing a bit. Yeah, no, I was committing to the bit, okay? Donald Trump, you could – yeah, Ben, that is the understatement of the century to say that Donald Trump did not have a great day in court today. And it's going to be fascinating to see how he handles this. Like Ben has said, like Michael Popak and Karen have reported here on the Midas Dutch Network, this is not the kind of case when Donald Trump is in criminal court where he could just wander out of court as he pleases. Donald Trump needs to be there day in and day out. And if he is not, he is going to be arrested. And the judge made that clear today. Justice Mershon made that clear to Donald Trump at today's proceedings. And

MAGA, all these people, they go, oh, this is, look, I can't believe this is happening. This is election. This is a criminal court. This is invol't violent. He's not at the movies. Okay. This is not a voluntary thing. He's in criminal court and he has to sit there and he has to suck it up. And he has to do what the judge tells him to do every single day that this trial goes on. That's it. You're not special, Donald. I'm sorry. You're not. And to have to watch him do this, I am so curious to see how he handles this. He cannot even handle a few hours of the trial today without dozing off and sleeping and getting all angry.

And then a few hours later, he was waving his arms and screaming at his attorneys and pointing at the prosecutors. This guy is going to be in there for weeks, for weeks. I think he's going to implode in there. I don't know what the heck he thinks he's going to do. Jordy, what's new with you, man? Look, I could not agree more. Just the daily wear and tear that this man's about to go through as he's in court. He couldn't even get past day one without falling asleep in the court. I mean, that is, could you just imagine if President Biden took a nap anywhere? Like if he was on the beach relaxing for the weekend and like took a nap, you know, at like a normal spot,

Donald Trump's falling asleep in court, in criminal court? Sleepy Don. Sleepy Don. What was that name going around? Don Snorleone? Don Snorleone. Nicknames are so, so, so. I saw that one floating around. Well, look, Jordy,

if President Biden was found to be sleeping anywhere, I'm sure the right-wing MAGA crowd like Clay Travis and others would be the first to make sure that was front and center on right-wing media. But instead, this is what the MAGA crowd is saying. Clay Travis, one of the more popular right-wing podcasters, close with Donald Trump, big right wing influencer. He says today, if you're a Trump supporter in New York City who is part of the jury pool, do everything you can to get seated on the jury and then refuse to convict as a matter of principle, dooming the case via hung jury. It's the most patriotic thing you could possibly do, to which attorney Bradley Moss said. Clay Travis is arguably

conspiring to commit jury tampering here by encouraging someone to deliberately engage in jury nullification, not a wise move by Clay. And we've been seeing a number of responses like this today. There was someone else on one of the MAGA right-wing shows saying, I don't see what the issue is. Men are with prostitutes all the time. If Donald Trump paid her, he paid money for services received. What are we even talking about here? I mean, the pretzel knots that MAGA's tie themselves into to try to justify this behavior, let me be clear where I stand. I stand on the side of law and order. Ultimately, if a fair and impartial jury is selected or when a fair and impartial jury is selected, I will respect the outcome of that jury verdict, period, full stop,

regardless of what the outcome is. I harbor and hold my own personal beliefs that Donald Trump is liable, that Donald Trump has committed numerous crimes. I hold the opinion based on the fact that Donald Trump had also been found liable for fraud in a civil case, that Donald Trump has been found liable for sexual assault in a civil case. The Trump Organization was previously criminally convicted in the last few years. Let me remind you of that. The Trump Organization was previously criminally convicted in the last few years. Let me remind you of that. The Trump Organization was criminally convicted of over a dozen felonies for tax fraud, and it is my opinion that Donald Trump is guilty.

Nonetheless, I want to see a fair and impartial jury selected, and I would not respect anybody at all who wants to say, oh, I want to find a jury that's going to be biased. Regardless of where you stand on the issues, I want a fair and impartial jury. That's what law and order means. I hope everyone's also been enjoying the daily updates that Karen Friedman Agnifilo and I have been doing. We do that every morning and then every afternoon, right after the criminal case concludes for the day. Karen Friedman Agnifilo was the number two at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and had sometimes served as the number one. She served as the acting Manhattan District Attorney on numerous occasions. She was at that office for nearly 30 years and she's guiding all of the Midas Mighty through each and every step.

And it's such an honor to be doing that with her and also to see that the Midas Touch coverage is the number one coverage in the world on this Trump criminal case. Every single day, we're going to put together for you a nice, handy scorecard of what happened each day. This way, you can save these little cards. You could keep track. Here's what happened in Trump trial day one. This is the first scorecard for you. And you could collect them all. We could make them like- Got to catch them all. Got to catch them all, man. Got to catch them all. So here's what went down today. And I'm a graphic learner. Sleepy mom. them all. So here's what went down today. And I'm a graphic learner. I'm a visual learner as well.

So these graphics help me and hopefully they help you. Trump motion to recuse the judge denied evidence of Trump catch and kill allowed. Trump's subpoena backfires. Manhattan district attorney wants Trump to be held in contempt. The judge expedites a contempt hearing against Donald Trump to April 23rd. Trump falls asleep. Judge orders Donald Trump to submit his defense exhibits in 24 hours. The jurors arrive. Trump falls asleep again. 50 of the 96 jurors say they can't be fair. And then the voir dire is to the other 46 jurors, and that's what's taking place right now, or prospective jurors to get down to those 12 jurors who are going to be serving on this final jury pool. Let me just break down each of those things for you, but let me show you some of these videos as well.

This is Donald Trump entering the court today where he does his normal shtick, his normal routine. This is a persecution like never before. Do we have the photograph of what our researchers are furiously working to determine? Because we have a great team of researchers here at the Midas Touch Network. They're furiously working to determine if this photo is real or if this photo is AI. Do we have that photo, Brett? We're putting our crack team on this one. Yeah, there it is right there. Not sure if this is real or AI. Let me know what you think. Also, while there are no cameras in the court, I believe this one is AI envisioning it thusly as well.

But this seems to be what was going down today. That is AI. I want to flag that. Although Maggie Haberman, who Donald Trump scowled at as he left today, he was livid and pissed at her. She was the first to report. Donald Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack. Trump then apparently jolts back awake, noticing his lawyer passing him or passed him several minutes ago. And Trump's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where am I?

Where am I? And so that's what was going. That's what was going down today. Here's the video of Donald Trump whining. I'm not going to play you the whole thing just because you get it. I don't need to spread Donald Trump whining. But this is Trump saying this is a persecution like never before. Blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah.

I'm a little baby. Play the clip. This is an assault on America. Nothing like this has ever happened before. It's never been anything like it. Every legal scholar says this case is nonsense. It should never have been brought up. It doesn't deserve anything like this. There is no case. And they've said people that don't necessarily follow or like Donald Trump said this is an outrage that this case was brought. This is political persecution. This is a persecution like never before. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And again, it's

a case that should have never been brought. It's an assault on America. And that's why I'm very proud to be here. This is an assault on our country. And it's a country that's failing. It's a country that's run by an incompetent man who's very much involved in this case. This is really an attack on a political opponent. That's all it is. So I'm very honored to be here. Thank you very much. Okay, President Biden has nothing to do with the fact that you decided as part of a catch and kill scheme to cover up sex that you had while Melania was pregnant with other women, that you were going to first use the National Enquirer to catch them. You know, as the Pokemon catch them all. That's Snorlax.

I love Magus Snorlax. There you go. For the audio listeners, I just put up a photo I put together while Ben was speaking before that combines Donald Trump's head and the Pokemon Snorlax. I don't think President Biden had anything to do with Donald Trump using AMI, which was the parent company of the National Enquirer, to make hush money payments at first, funneled through AMI to catch and kill stories that would be harmful to Donald Trump running in 2016. And then when AMI realized that there may be tax fraud going on there, if they're giving a benefit to Donald Trump, they stopped doing it. So Trump's like, well, what do we do? I had three seconds of sex with Stormy Daniels and this access Hollywood tape just came out and David Pecker, he's not doing, he's not doing the catch and kill stuff anymore. And then Cohen helped him. And then Trump paid Cohen, Cohen paid Stormy Daniels.

Trump tried to act like the payment to Stormy Daniels were legal fees paid to Michael Cohen. Cohen paid Stormy Daniels. Trump tried to act like the payment to Stormy Daniels were legal fees paid to Michael Cohen. Cohen did this at the direction of and benefit for Donald Trump. Cohen went to jail. If you want to know, like, wait a minute, when Donald Trump goes, one of the things that the Manhattan DA filed against Donald Trump was Trump was like threatening Michael Cohen, like, and Cohen didn't go to jail. And why isn't anybody going after him? He did. He went to jail. Cohen was in solitary confinement for this stuff. Like Cohen was quite literally in jail and did his time and is now in his mea culpa of recognizing what he did was wrong. But yeah, this is a very serious crime of what transpired.

So you've got Donald Trump blaming President Biden for all of, you know, for this stuff and whining. And then at the end of the proceedings, Donald Trump whines about the judge saying that he won't make a decision about whether he'll give one trial day off. Justice Merchant said, I can't make a ruling yet. I don't know where we're going to be on May 17th. Donald Trump's doing that thing where he claims he's going to be at a family event, which he never ends up attending anyway. He goes, I want to be at Barron's graduation. Really? That's where you expect us to believe that. But at any event-

He said one of his kids' graduations. It could still be Don Jr.'s high school graduation. We don't know. Eric's kindergarten graduation. It could be Eric's middle school graduation. But here's the thing. Justice Mershon did not deny the request. Justice Mershon just said, we're in April. We'll get closer. You're a criminal defendant. I don't have to answer that now. I don't answer to you. Let's go through. We'll see where we are in May. So then Donald Trump goes out and this is, Brett, I think our researchers are still trying to find this because they're furiously working to determine if this photo is real or AI because Donald Trump goes and just starts whining like a baby. And he's like, well, you know, they're not letting, they're not letting me get off on this date. Here, play this video clip. So thank you very much. We had some amazing things happen today. As you know, my son has graduated from high school,

and it looks like the judge will not let me go through the graduation of my son, who's worked very, very hard. He's a great student. He's so proud of the fact that he did so well. I was looking forward for years to have graduation with his mother and father there. It looks like the judges are going to allow me to escape this scam. It's a scam trial. Yeah, Barron's mother, who you cheated on with a porn actress when she had just given birth to Barron

and then made hushpunny payments to cover it up. That is something that I'm sure you've been looking to for a very long time to go to this graduation. I don't know. Perhaps when you were having sex with the porn star while your wife had just given birth, perhaps then maybe you would have reflected on your conduct. And then when you covered it up by making payments and falsifying business records, I don't know, maybe that would have been a gut check. But don't you, the whole case is about him, I mean, fabricating records, but there's all of this evidence that will come out as part of his plan that he was having, you know, sex and like sex and according to all the women, this was

disgusting and gross, and then paying them off while Melania was pregnant or Melania had just given birth. And then he goes out there and acts like he's a family man. Yeah, and what we learned today also, what the prosecution intends to introduce in terms of evidence is not only the Stormy Daniels story that we've all heard of a lot recently, that has been rehashed a lot recently, but also the story about Playboy model Karen McDougal, which Trump apparently had a year-long affair with as well, was also part of one of these catch-and-kill schemes. And the judge is allowing that evidence to be introduced into trial. Now, Justice Mershon is not allowing the jury to be informed of the element that Melania was pregnant while that year-long affair was going on. But it's certainly going to be interesting that this was a pattern of behavior, that it was not even just the Stormy Daniels incident, but it was also this years-long affair with Karen McDougal. It was also all these other attempts to catch and kill all these stories and to use

the National Enquirer as his means to go after and target his political opponents. We also heard today about Ted Cruz, about how he used the National Enquirer to plant stories about Ted Cruz, accusing Ted Cruz of having an affair, accusing Ted Cruz's dad of killing JFK. We all remember those stories at the time that Trump would spread and Trump would post and share the headlines with and everything. And now the more we learn about it, the more we learn that Trump was actually intimately involved in helping edit these stories and pitching these stories and getting these stories out there. This was a concerted effort by Donald Trump to do all this.

And as you see Donald Trump go out there and just lie, lie, lie, lie like this, you know, Ron Filipkowski, our editor in chief at MidasTouch.com and check out MidasTouch.com, by the way, Ron's going to do every single day of the trial. He's going to be doing live updates of every single beat that happens, all the important beats, you know, all the important stuff. You're going to be able to read it in an easy to digest way. You could check out every single day of the trial at MidasTouch.com, get a full recap. But the great point Ron made is that this whole thing about the judge, Donald Trump coming out and saying, the judge won't let me go to Barron's graduation. It's the same playbook that he did with Judge Engeron said Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million. He said it's worth $18 million. He comes out, he finds one phrase to latch onto, which is complete BS. And he just hammers it

over and over and over so that his cult repeats it. And I saw him, I saw his kids, I saw all of his surrogates saying, how dare Judge Mercer, How dare the judge do that today? How dare him? There was that line. And then there was the line that was being repeated by people like Elise Stefanik, the House Republican. Elise Stefanik writing, breaking corrupt Judge Mershon, a Biden donor whose family member has profited off these case who has illegally gagged. President Trump trump just said if you do not show up there will be an arrest a six to eight week show trial total election interference retweet if you agree yeah he's in criminal court you have to show up in criminal court okay she's apparently a harvard graduate right she went to one of the either harvard or yale i think harvard uh that's

how criminal court works and she she knows it. And all these people who continue to spread these lies knows it. And that to me is the most despicable part of this whole MAGA thing. It's one thing if you want to be honest about yourself and just be like, I don't care about the rules or say, I think this person's special. He shouldn't have to follow the rules. But to act like this is some new concept that Donald Trump actually has to show up for his criminal trial, to play dumb, to treat your followers like they are stupid. How dare you? How dare you, Elise Stefanik?

All of these people. It's so scummy. It's the biggest thing I hate about this whole movement. The constant lying that would make Vladimir Putin blush, that would make North Korean propaganda networks blush. It's just disgusting. One of the things that I've learned recently, well, over this last MAGA, whatever you want to call it, over the last couple of years is that education does not equate to brains. So many of these MAGA morons, quite frankly, went to these Ivy League schools and

these top schools, and they got nothing to show for it other than the fact that, well, one, they hate this country, and two, they're just idiots. It's unbelievable. Or they're just throwing away their actual knowledge in advance of helping this criminal. And they're deciding to just play stupid in order to try to help this authoritarian wannabe take over the country. It's even worse, right, when you put it like that? Totally. And what's Elise Stefanik even doing there with that tweet? Retweet if you agree. She's like engagement baiting based off of Trump's criminal trial. They are so pathetic. They're so perpetually online. Just such losers. They live on X. They live on Twitter. They're so pathetic. I want to go through that scorecard of what went down on Trump trial day one in a little bit more detail. Then I want to talk about the crashing Trump stock, which is just wiping out people's life savings.

People who support Donald Trump, retail investors, are getting absolutely crushed. We should talk about Trump's bizarre and incoherent speech in Pennsylvania. It was one of the most unhinged and moment after moment of cognitive decline by Donald Trump there. And I do want to talk as well about President Biden actually doing the types of things that presidents are supposed to do. Wall Street Journal just ran a piece how the United States economy is now the envy of the world. Economists are even shocked about how quickly the American economy has been growing. And this has been the result of actual policies by President Biden,

like the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS Act. We'll talk more about Biden's investment, the Democrats' investment, pro-democracy investment in the economy through the CHIPS Act paying off, and also recent studies showing that violent crime is actually way down right now, totally countering all of the kind of MAGA Republican narratives out there to try to scare people. Look, I just want the facts. I want the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. And we'll lead with the facts here always on the Midas Touch Network. I want to remind everybody about our Patreon, patreon.com slash Midas Touch. We'll do a fun after show today, p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash Midas Touch.

We also have posted on our Patreon last week's live show we did with Michael Cohen. We did a special live Zoom meeting with Michael Cohen as a send-off for him as the Manhattan District Attorney criminal trial is underway. Let's talk about all of that and more, but let's take our first quick break of the show. Life insurance is an important safety net for your family, but trying to find the right policy on your own, it can be time consuming and overwhelming. Policy Genius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace and marketplace I use and trust. It saves you time and money so you can provide your family with a financial safety net. Starting today with Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Some options

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Shout out them. And look, they really work. They work. You guys like how I worked in that I had best smile in high school in the read? It's a true fact. I can confirm. It is a true fact. Confirm.

We showed my yearbook photo. That is crazy, man. That's like, I don't know what, like almost 15 years ago now. Anyways, shout out Smile Actives, shout out Policy Genie. Link in descriptions on YouTube and the audio. Click it. Use the codes. After today's trial proceedings concluded, Donald Trump went out in the hallways and then started whining like he often does. One of the things that Donald Trump complained about is that after the prospective jurors were sent back home, Donald Trump, through his lawyer, requested that Trump be able to take off not just for Barron's graduation,

which I highly doubt Donald Trump was going to attend anyway, but also for Donald Trump to attend the absolute presidential immunity hearing in Washington, D.C. on April 25th before the United States Supreme Court in connection with the D.C. federal criminal case for Trump's attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Donald Trump was whining after Justice Merchan said, no, I mean, there's no role for you to have there. You're not a witness there. There's no, you know, your lawyers can argue and you need to be here. This is a criminal case, a serious felony criminal case. You will be here each and every day. Your request to go to Washington, D.C. is denied. And here's Donald Trump on video whining about it after the proceedings.

Let's play it. In addition, as you know, next Thursday, we're before the United States Supreme Court and we're being hearing on immunity. And this is something that we've been waiting for a long time. And the judge, of course, is not going to allow us. He's a very conflicted judge. And he's not going to allow us to go to that. He won't allow me to leave here for a half a day, go to D.C. and go before the United States Supreme Court because he thinks he's superior, I guess, to the Supreme Court. We've got a real problem with this judge. We've got a real problem with a lot of things having to do with this trial,

including the D.A., because you go right outside and people are being mugged and killed all day long. And he's sitting here all day with 10 or 12 prosecutors over nothing, over nothing, over what people say shouldn't be a trial. No, I mean, that's not what people are saying at all. People are not getting mugged outside. Violent crimes are actually down. The only places that they're actually up are in red states and MAGA-controlled states if we actually care about the data. And it's important that people who care about- And in Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, and exactly, in Mar-a-Lago, which is- Anywhere Donald Trump goes.

A crime scene tends to follow Donald Trump each and every step. Let's just take a look at the Pokemon trading card for day one of the Trump trial right here. Got to catch them all. That's Snorlax. Magus Snorlax. Magus Snorlax. Let's go to Trump trial day one. So again, the morning proceedings began just as Merchan denied Donald Trump's 12th request to try to get him to recuse himself.

The judge said it bordered on frivolous. There was then the issue, Brett, you mentioned about whether or not evidence of Donald Trump's prior catch and kill schemes with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, would come in at trial. Justice Merchant ruled it should come in at trial or it is allowed to come in at trial because it's part of a common pattern and plan that Donald Trump had at that time period. And when AMI and National Enquirer feared that they would have criminal exposure, and by the way, David Pecker is going to testify, others associated with the National Enquirer are going to testify to this, that when they got scared that they could be criminally prosecuted for tax fraud because they were giving these benefits to Donald Trump and they weren't paying taxes on it or Trump wasn't paying taxes for their services rendered. That could be tax fraud, right? I mean, they're paying off people on his behalf. It wasn't like even Trump was paying them. This was all kept quiet and kept secret. So then they

wouldn't do it. So when Trump needed to pay off Stormy Daniels, that's when he did his own fraudulent business record entry and then ran the money through fake legal fees to Michael Cohen that were then paid to Stormy Daniels to try to buy her silence, which were reflected as legal fees when that's not what they were. And that was to interfere with the 2016 election. Remember when Donald Trump recently subpoenaed the Department of Justice and he did it at the 11th hour to try to cause delay of this trial and then whine that all of this evidence would be helpful to him and now it was just turned over? Well, Trump's got the worst instincts in everything he does because that backfired. Far from getting exculpatory evidence to help him, by Trump demanding that the DOJ turn this stuff over, Trump would have been so much better if he just kept quiet, because the evidence that was now produced is extra harmful to Donald Trump. What they have is text messages and emails from Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway in Hope Hicks right after the Access Hollywood tape came out.

And so it actually, Trump helped produce more damaging evidence against himself that the DOJ would actually not have turned over, but for Donald Trump's gambit right there. So wanted to flag that. The Manhattan District Attorney wanted to hold Donald Trump in contempt for Donald Trump's threats of our co-host, my co-host, Michael Cohen and others. Justice Mershon said a hearing on April 23rd regarding potential finding Donald Trump in contempt. Then Donald Trump fell asleep. Donald Trump's lawyers did not submit any exhibits. Normally, by now, you would have submitted your full exhibit book.

By three weeks ago, you would turn over your defense exhibits. Normally, by now, you would have submitted your full exhibit book. By three weeks ago, you would turn over your defense exhibits. Donald Trump has not filed any of the documents that you need to do when you're a criminal defendant in a case. If you were being represented by a public defender, they would have done this far in advance. Trump has not done that. Trump's lawyers tried to whine and complain, and then they claim they need more time. Justice Merchant said, you have 24 hours to give me your exhibits or else there will be serious sanctions against you. The jurors arrived, Trump fell asleep. And then the way the jury pool is being handled, you've got 200 jurors at a time who are outside of the courtroom. You've got 96 who are filling up the courtroom themselves. There are some reporters in the courtroom and there's a overflow room where

some of the court reporters are. It's a hybrid approach to jury selection where they first ask the jurors if they could be fair and impartial. If they can't, they're disqualified. And then the remaining jurors answer the questionnaire of 40 plus questions, asking them everything from what news networks do you watch and what books have you read and do you follow politics and questions like that. And then after that, the lawyers then conduct the voir dire process with the remaining jurors and seeing if those jurors can be fair and impartial. You then ask the jurors questions and that process is what will take place each day of the week. A court is dark on Wednesday,

meaning no trial proceedings will take place on Wednesday. And then during the holidays coming up, Passover and other holidays, you will have no trial on those days. But other than that, trial will be every day. Donald Trump's going to have to show up there each and every day. These will be long and grueling days. It's a document intensive case. So some of the days are going to be very boring. And Trump's just going to have to sit there. And I think that we will see Donald Trump falling asleep over and over and over again. He's just not able to sit in a location like that for any extended period of time. And of course, everything is projection and confession. And we always learn that if Trump is accusing President Biden of doing something,

Trump is going on with Trump. It's always the case. So Trump says he's sleepy Joe. Trump can't stay awake. Trump wants to accuse President Biden of having mental decline. Trump clearly is having massive mental decline. And we'll show you right now what went down in Pennsylvania. Ben, isn't this not the perfect example of that? When you look at the headlines that Trump helped plant before the 2016 election in the National Enquirer, while Trump himself was gauging in affairs with these women. You have Donald Trump going to the National Enquirer, cruises five secret mistresses. This was the stuff that Donald Trump was pushing about his opponent in the 2016 election. Now, just think about now. He's doing the same exact

things. He's always projecting the things that he does. I'm starting to think that maybe Donald Trump had something to do with JFK at this point based on the level of projection from him. But it's just like the whininess. And you see Trump there and even his attorneys today, people who try to act like they're serious people, like Todd Blanch, right? And they're just kind of like very whiny. Even Blanch made some sort of comment to Justice Mershon at the end of the day when they were trying to get this thing pushed next week, or they wanted Trump to be able to skip trial to go to the Supreme Court hearing. And the judge was like, listen, we shouldn't even have to be here anyway, right? Everyone agrees we

shouldn't even have to be here at this trial. And Justice Mershon was like, excuse me, what did you just say? You don't think you should have to be here? And trial. And Justice Marchand was like, excuse me, what did you just say? You don't think you should have to be here? And I think we're going to continue to see moments like this where they are underestimating the severity of this case. 34 felony counts. This is a very serious criminal trial and Donald Trump and his attorneys better buckle up because Justice Merchant is taking this incredibly seriously. And I like that Justice Merchant is shooting them down at each step of the way here. Merchant going when they made this request about the Supreme Court, going, you're in criminal court. Your client is required to be here. He's not required to be at the hearing on

the immunity, but he is required to be here and he will be here in my court. Okay. And that's what you got to do. You had to stand up to these bullies. You got to stay strong. You have to enforce the rules every step of the way. And Donald Trump is going to have to be there in court while Justice Merchant says the most basic things like, yes, Mr. Trump, and Trump winces and whines and scowls and frowns and is a little baby. And he walks past the journalist, walks past Maggie Haberman and gives her a dirty look because she reported that he was sleeping during the trial. It's just going to be these little moments every single day showing how unfit this man is. Speaking of Sleepy Don, what this also goes to show you though is, well, yes, MAGA Snorlax, thanks for bringing that up, Brett. When we have just an open source

of a data set, right? Donald Trump sleeping and then being neutral news outlets in the court, being actually able to report versus when Trump does his weird stuff in Iowa or wherever the heck the MAGA rallies. And they write about these legacy medias, write about the energy that Donald Trump possesses on stage is electric. And they're just like, what are you doing? Like when the data doesn't match, when your data points, because they're made up, don't match reality, and people actually have a chance to observe it for yourself, people are shocked because ultimately it doesn't match all the BS that they've been spoon-fed by these legacy media components. It's utterly, utterly ridiculous. Yeah, Dirty, I want the narrative to be the same thing as what the data is.

Yes. Narrative and data should be married. When so when you watch, and we've been observing these Trump speeches now every single day when he gives one of them. And I'm not trying to be hyperbolic in the description of what goes down here. I just want to say, here's what's happening, folks. And he's not talking about policy. He's not talking about issues. He's not talking about the American people. He's just up there kind of whining and just slurring his words and attacking prosecutors and praising the January 6th insurrectionist and changing the words of the national anthem. And then he goes and he tells these like weird stories about,

you know, where he goes and there's like a woman and she's trying to weightlift. And then he's just like, and he can't actually finish the sentences. So then he just goes like, and then he like, he makes noises and, and it's like,

what is going on here? There's no other way to describe this other than what the heck is this? He's not saying actually even sentences and words. So can we just be real and talk to the American people about how odd and weird and strange this is? Let's marry the narrative with the data. So let me just show you, Jordy. You brought up Donald Trump's

traveling fascist circus events that they call speeches and rallies. But here he is in Pennsylvania over the weekend. Let's just go through some of the things that went down. He says something about an illegal Aladdinth or something. Here, let's play this clip. Is he crazy? Really? Just this week, it was reported that an illegal and you just look at this, what's happening. And then he always kind of doubles down on like the mistake. So he'll say something like an illegal. And you know what they're saying? And they're saying that, and everybody knows they're saying that. And, and then a majesty, everybody knows the majesty. Everybody's talking about, everybody's talking about the majesty. Everybody knows the majesty. Everybody's talking about the majesty.

I love women. I love women. I love women. I love you, women. I love you. I love you. And SEAL, United States SEAL. Everybody knows what the SEAL is. And you know what? Robert E. Lee, not in favor. Robert E. Lee, they say that the Civil War, they say that the Civil War, many people say it's bad. Many people say it's bad. Many people say it's danger. Some people say it's beautiful. Some people say it's beautiful. I think it's beautiful. I think it's beautiful. They've gagged me. They've gagged me. I'm gagged, everybody. I'm gagged. Just so you know, what I just did is quite literally what Donald Trump did. Here he talks about the majesty, whatever that even word is. Play this clip.

This is a magazine that I've never read, but probably doesn't like Trump. Left wing is to wind. They hate wind. I hate wind. Here, play this clip of while we struggle with wind. Where's the wind? You know, the other problem, we can't get the windmills. You know why? They're made in China. China says, don't worry about America. We'll give them. But wind doesn't work anywhere. It's too expensive. It doesn't work. Kills all your birds. If you'd like to see a nice bird cemetery, walk under a windmill sometime. That's the birds. What about the seals?

U.S. seal? Play the clip. Under Biden, U.S. seal is being sold. Think of this. United States seal company. One of the great companies of the world 50 years ago is being sold to Japan. Congratulations, Japan.

And what about women? I love you, women. Women, I love you. Play the clip. I mean, I don't want to get into it. It's very demeaning to women and I love women more than I love anything. I love women. But it's very demeaning. And then he talks about Gettysburg. I mean, Brett, you have the actual transcript of what he said here, though. Let me just play the clip. And then, Brett, you go through it. We also have it so you can read along like a sing-along. We'll have the words come up while Donald Trump is speaking so you could both read it and see it.

Okay? Because I think to really take this in, you have to actually see the words that he is saying, because just watch. Where our union was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The Battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable. I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow.

I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert E. Lee, who's no longer in favor. Did you ever notice that? No longer in favor. Never fight uphill, me boys. Never fight uphill. They were fighting uphill. He said, wow, that was a big mistake he lost his great general and they were fighting never fight uphill me boys but it

was too late this is actually the speech that he gives and he goes around the country and does this routine and that's why i wanted to do it for you before showing you even what he said, because it is actually crazy. And again, this is not like my political view, like, oh my God, can you believe what the conservatives are doing? This is crazy. It's just straight up nuts. And it's not a both sides issue. It's not like, well, President Biden, no, I watch President Biden's speeches. President Biden talks about issues. He's talking about jobs and the CHIPS Act, and he's talking about healthcare and social security. Look, if you want to say, is President Biden talk as quickly as he did when he was younger? No, he doesn't. But it's coherent sentences and thoughts

and policies and you know where he stands on these issues. And look, I think that's what's being reflected in a lot of the polling data. Now that people are focusing on this, all of the national averages have President Biden ahead. That polymarket betting thing that Donald Trump always posts about no longer has Donald Trump in the lead. And that was like Donald Trump's go-to thing that he would always post on his social media. Trump had to release his own internal poll about Arizona. And you know, whenever Donald Trump has to reach his own internal poll, that's a fairly desperate thing to do at this age. The momentum has shifted to President Biden.

And to me, I don't even view it as like President Biden. I think the momentum has shifted to normalcy, like folks, like what? What's going on there? And the media has been feeding people a steady diet where the narrative did not meet the data. And so now that people are seeing these things with their own eyes and observing it however they're observing it, they're saying, what? Huh? What did he say? Then they're seeing President Biden talk and go, wait, but I thought that you were saying that he's not capable of

delivering these speeches, but he seems pretty good to me. Yeah, sure, he's a little bit older, but he seems to be saying pretty normal things. And Donald Trump's talking about Robert E. Lee not being in favor and he's talking about seals and he's saying that he loves women and he's talking about Aladdinith and Majestines and killing birds. Like, why? What are we talking? You want to give him the nuclear codes? Nah. Nah, we're not going to give that guy the nuclear codes, okay? I think that's what's happening. We got a lot to talk about. Let's talk about Trump's stock crashing. Let's talk about lectern gate. Let's talk about good economic news and more. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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That's the best offer that you'll find, but you have to use my code Midas for 50% off your first order. One last time, that's promo code Midas for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. Great ad read there, Jordy. Special shout out to our pro-democracy sponsors. You had a great ad read, Ben. So I'm proud of you. Brett, I love that you're mixing in the game now. You have fantastic ad reads. Shout out Smalls. Smalls, man. My cat loves Smalls. Definitely check that out and Shopify, unbelievable. Links, discount codes, everything in the description of this episode. If you're watching on YouTube or audio, click, check it out. So the Trump stock continues to crash.

It's like every single day when we wake up in the morning, it like immediately shoots down like three to 5%. And then as the day proceeds, it closes even less than that. On today's recording, today's live, the stock went down another 18.35%. It's now trading at just $26 a share. So there are so many people who have lost their life savings or substantial portions of it. And let's also reflect upon the potential civil liability of Donald Trump. He was making statements last week and the week before that trying to pump this thing. So it's my opinion that those statements constitute false and misleading statements under applicable securities law. I'm just wondering when we're going to see

the first shareholder lawsuit against Donald Trump and that board. We'll see the level of insurance that they have. But they're individually on the hook from the delta of when they tried to pump this thing to the loss. They're personally responsible and the board members can be responsible as well. So we could be talking about potentially billions of dollars in liability. And again, this is only my opinion. I think this is one of the strongest shareholder class action, our foundations for a shareholder class actions that I've ever seen in this area. The bar for securities class action plaintiff's lawyers are some of the top lawyers in the country. And so I'm just waiting to see

when the first lawsuits are going to happen. And then of course, Donald Trump's going to whine, oh, this is unfair. This is the deep state. No, it's just, if you look at the financials, you see a $58 million loss in 2023, $4.1 million with an M in revenue, under 10 million unique users. If you just want to look at the amount of total outstanding shares, and you want to attribute a value to it, and you say, even at $26 per share, and say there's $100 million, that there is $100 million or 100 million shares rather outstanding at $26 a share. You think about that number, then you think about, well, wait a minute, the company lost $58 million and only made 4.1 million in revenue. So if someone's buying one share for $26 and there's $100 million of those outstanding, how does that justify $58 million in losses and $4.1

million in revenue? And the short answer is that foundationally and fundamentally, it's not there. Even Trump's own independent auditor who has his own issues, That BF Borger said that the Trump media, as a going concern, has substantial doubts about its even ability to exist based on the massive losses. That's Trump's own auditor. So I think we're going to see that stock continue to get lower and lower every day. And as I said at the outset of the show, looking at this stock, looking at Trump media, it's just a perfect microcosm of everything Donald Trump, from the lawsuits to one person's accusing another person of a corporate coup, to criminal insider trading of some of the initial top investors, to shady family trust, to banks connected to Vladimir Putin to keep the thing afloat, to shady auditors.

You just go through the list and it's just like, how Trumpian is this entity? And it follows his playbook to a T. But speaking about following his playbook to a T, the Independent Legislative Joint Auditing Committee in Arkansas released its final audit report into what's been referred to as lectern gate. This is where back in June, it was uncovered through the great sleuthing work of Matt Campbell, a reporter in Arkansas, that Sarah Huckabee Sanders purportedly paid $19,000 and change to one of her closest friends, Virginia Beckett, who she was partying with in Paris at that time. Virginia Beckett is not her friend, is not a dealer of lecterns. And so people were saying, what, you gave your friend $19,000 and

you're claiming it was for a lectern and your friend doesn't actually deal lecterns? Like, can we see this lectern? So then Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried to change the public records law in Arkansas to prevent people from, to prevent further public records requests on this. And that was fortunately rejected. Matt Campbell and the public records, people who were requesting public records found more information finally. And one of the things that they found was that the internal Sarah Huckabee Sanders administrative officials were asked to change the invoices and say that it was going to be reimbursed from the Republican Party in Arkansas. And just changing the documents themselves constitutes a manipulation and fabrication of government documents.

And that could be a crime in and of itself. Finally, Huckabee Sanders showed the Democrat Gazette in Arkansas a photo of the lectern. They claimed it was a Falcon lectern, which at most goes for about $7,500. And it looked like a fake Falcon lectern. And then no one saw the lectern ever again after that. And so even if it's a real lectern, why are you spending $19,000 of state funds? But why are you then overpaying by $10,000? And where the heck is this lectern? And were you just giving your friend Virginia Beckett $19,000 so you can party with her in Paris? Or were you just using the lectern as a pretext to funnel money, to funnel state funds to your friend? Well, this legislative joint auditing committee, in their report,

they're recommending that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and that the lectern gate issue go to a prosecutorial authority for criminal prosecution. Now, we'll see if that's ultimately taken up, but that was requested by this independent auditor, bipartisan commission. Tom Mars, who I've become friendly with, he's a major lawyer in Arkansas. He was asked whether federal law enforcement was looking into this matter and Mars responded, quote, I'm not trying to be evasive, but I can't answer that. He noted that a grand jury subpoena explicitly warns against disclosing even the receipt of such a subpoena,

essentially indicating that there is likely a federal investigation into Huckabee Sanders and Lecter and Gate. And then Tom Mars issued this statement following the legislative audit. Regardless of one's party affiliations, no one from Arkansas could be happy about what's spelled out in the audit report. In my opinion, the report just confirms people's worst fears about the dishonesty of the governor and members of her staff who appear to have participated in a transaction that any intelligent, objective observer would describe as fraud. That said, it's a sad day for Arkansans who care about truth and integrity in government and don't believe in

making exceptions for politicians from either party. The thing about Tom Mars is Tom Mars is actually a conservative. He actually worked for Huckabee Sanders' father, had major roles in Arkansas government. He's like a right-wing guy. He's a conservative, like a real conservative though, not like a MAGA. And so the fact that he's coming out and saying these things, I think is important and telling and also just talks about the need for law and order regardless of political affiliation. So Sarah Huckabee Sanders then came out with her statement and she made like a rap video. And I'm not going to play the audio because it's a Jay-Z song that she plays, but it's like a 19 second music video. And there's like Jay-Z hip hop music playing while on the screen. It's like, go take my lecture and find it. And she writes my thoughts on the podium. And it's like a weird video about the podium, come and take it. And it just makes such

a mockery of our legal system and of law and order. And this is just kind of this like this Elise Stefanik, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Trumpian form of like – I don't even know what to describe this. This is just utter clowns, gutter, no offense to clowns. And just to be clear, we can't play the Jay-Z music because it's a copyright and we'll get a strike on the account. That's why we're not playing the Jay-Z music. Not because we didn't want to play some music here. By the way, by the way, how much do you think that video cost to produce? She had to probably to pay somebody to produce this little jokey rap video that she released on her channel in response to a criminal referral. Just the height of unseriousness. But I will go to some... The only thing I was going to say is that I heard someone describe it as what Trump and MAGA do every single day is they cross the Rubicon of just normalcy so much and the conduct is so offensive.

And there's such a deluge of normalcy that they basically shatter all semblance of normalcy so that people, and this is what authoritarians rely on, people just feel that their power has been taken away and that nothing's ever going to happen. And then it allows authoritarians to act in that void. So I don't want anybody to ever think, oh, well, no one's ever going to be prosecuted. Because when you start to think that, then nobody ever actually gets prosecuted. If this type of stuff pisses you off, regardless of your political party, this is a government of we the people. And it's important that we don't let authoritarians and wannabe authoritarians trample on what should be law and order for all of us. Brett, give us some good news. Good news coming from all places from, this is going to be a shocker, folks, from

the Wall Street Journal reporting some good news about the U.S. economy. When you have the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal reporting good news about the U.S. economy, you know it's got to be undeniably good for headlines like this to be coming out of the Wall Street Journal. Envy of the world. U.S. economy expected to keep powering higher. Economists lift their growth forecasts in latest Wall Street Journal survey. So this is continuing from all those doom and gloom headlines that we saw last year. Jordy, I think we know the most infamous one, 100% chance of recession. Well, guess what? Economists are now reiterating that

they were a little off on that prediction. And by a little off on that prediction, they mean completely off on that prediction. Now they say, oh, actually, the US economy is not going to be anywhere close to recession. Actually, the US economy is growing actually at a much faster rate than we ever anticipated that it was going to grow. They don't expect any sort of major slowdowns in growth anytime soon. On average, they think the economy in the first three months of this year grew at around a 2.2% rate. They were forecasting a 0.9% rate over those months. Just for comparison, the US economy has far outperformed expectations over the past year and a half. And this has just kind of been the theme that we've had of all these

expectations just being completely shattered once the actual data comes out. We're also seeing retail sales up, consumer spending up, retail sales up a strong 0.7% in March from February, once again, reaffirming this resiliency in the US economy. And the reason for the increase in consumer spending is they are saying that it's directly tied to increase in wages, job growth, and all the improvements in the economy. The jobs market right now is historically strong with sub 4% unemployment being the longest period of sub 4% unemployment that we've seen in over 50 years. While Donald Trump was in criminal court today, you had President Biden actually engaging in these

bilateral meetings with the Prime Minister of Iraq, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, before preparing for a trip. He's heading to Pennsylvania this week. He's going to Scranton tomorrow to give a major speech on the economy. You know, that's what presidents and presidential candidates are actually supposed to do. They're not supposed to constantly be in criminal court and whining about their court cases over and over and over again. And chips, chips, chips. We've talked about the CHIPS Act a lot. And I love when we have updates on the CHIPS Act because this is kind of one of the most just, you know, when President Biden speaks about ideas and how Donald Trump, they may be around the same age, but Donald Trump's ideas are ancient, quite literally taking us back to the year 1864,

and even probably further back than that, President Biden's big push here is for these chips, these semiconductor chips, which power really kind of everything in the modern global economy. One of the things that President Biden has really pushed here is making the United States of America the epicenter of chip production in the entire world. Usually these chips would have been produced in China, other areas overseas. President Biden wants it all done right here. So as part of the CHIPS Act, the Biden administration is giving Samsung $6.4 billion to help build this massive new semiconductor chip plants in Central Texas. It's the latest in a series of investments. We've

talked about a bunch of these investments recently that are part of the growing manufacturing and growing this manufacturing in the computing sector specifically. And we've seen the results of this already. The US is now the world leader in semiconductor chips. It never used to be like that. Samsung itself, to their credit, is investing $40 billion in the project, which is going to build new plants in Taylor, Texas. That's like northeast of Austin, expanding the company's existing plant in Austin. And these kind of chips, they're used in like AI. They're used in medical devices like pacemakers.

They're used in all sorts of things. It's kind of like the engine that fuels the entire modern economy. And this investment in chips specifically in Texas is set to create over 20,000 new jobs, like good paying, future-proof jobs, and bringing really important technologies so that we don't have to rely on other countries. In the past, the US, we'd have to like, even if we made the chips here, we would normally send the chips to places like Taiwan to get them packaged and kind of finalized and ready. Now with these reporters on a conference call earlier, we're saying for the first time ever, Samsung can conduct in the United States of America core research and development, support the future in manufacturing at scale and advanced packaging all in Texas. Meanwhile, Al Brainard, Biden's top economic advisor, said it will boost our production capacity for chips in critical U.S. industries, including aerospace, defense, and autos.

And in doing so, it will bolster our national security. Great news for the economy. Great news for jobs. Great news for manufacturing. Great news for defense. Chips is one of the things that hits every kind of bucket that we need to be thriving and succeeding in the country. Now, let's bust some narratives here. We've talked about this, but now we have so much more hard data on the issue. Violent crime way

down under the Biden administration. You see all these narratives being pushed, especially by the right-wing networks, but honestly, on all of the networks, because as we know, I'm sure you've heard the phrase, if it bleeds, it leads. You turn on the news, what do you hear about? You hear about a robbery. You hear about a murder. You hear about all these things. They try to hype up all the crime because the news believes that that sells.

But when you peel back the data, it's actually the complete opposite. And here's the facts. Under Trump, murders skyrocketed in the United States of America, insanely, insanely spiked. And under Joe Biden, they're plummeting at a record pace. In 2023, dropped at a record pace. In 2024, homicides in the United States are shaping up for even bigger reductions. The number of homicides in the US rose nearly 30% in 2020 under Donald Trump from the prior year. It was the largest single year increase ever recorded, ever in history recorded by the FBI. The biggest rise in crime in history, to repeat, occurred under Donald Trump's presidency. And now under President Biden, homicides in American cities are falling at the fastest pace in decades. Homicides dropped around 20% in 133 cities the beginning of the

year through the end of March, compared with the same period in 2023, according to the new crime data statistics that have come in. Philadelphia, for example, saw a 35% drop in killings as of April 12th compared with the same period last year. New York City, these fell by 15% through April 7th. In Columbus, Ohio, 58% through April 7th. And I'll pull up for the folks watching here on YouTube or Twitch or Facebook. I'll pull up the graph here that the Wall Street Journal also published about the falling crime rates. And you could feel free to screenshot this and you could send it around. This shows the big cities with the largest year-to-date decline in homicides across the country. And these numbers are absolutely

staggering when you see them like this, minus 82% in Boston, minus 58%, like we just said, in Columbus, minus 50% in San Antonio, minus 48% in San Diego, and so on. When you look at basically all metrics in the US economy, whether it's in the US, whether it's the economy, whether it's crime, whether it's all these various issues, you see just incredible progress that we have not seen in many, many years. And we're at a historic period of growth that I think tells just a really positive story. And I think, Jordi, I would say one of the under-reported or I would say one of the underappreciated things about this administration is that Biden not only had to be like an exceptional president and get through all

this historic legislation, but he had to do it in this very dark shadow of Donald Trump and this Republican party. And there's never been anything like this before, having this guy day in, day out, basically acting like this, I don't know, this unelected dictator of the Republican Party, telling them what to do, trying to make them destroy the country at every point, trying to shut down the government at every point, trying to literally get truckers to protest at borders so that they could destroy the supply chain and increase inflation. We have had a rogue force inside our government. Economic terrorism, let's just call it what it is. Yeah, absolutely. Biden has had to deal with all of that in addition to just the monumental task of bringing back the economy and the American spirit after the deadliest pandemic in more than a century.

Honestly, that part of it to me is so underappreciated. as well. Just how just the headwinds that he's faced with this just disgusting party with this man who refuses to let America just be America without him trying to get his disgusting orange hands all over it. Just back off, man. The American people got this. Stop saying America's a crappy country. Stop shitting on us. Stop talking down to people in this country. Stop talking down to union workers. Stop talking down to people of religions that you don't like or people who disagree with you. Just enough, okay? Stop trying to turn Americans against each other. Stop with the lies. Stop with the gaslighting. Let's be a normal country. Let's just get shit done in the words of Josh Shapiro. That's what

we're supposed to do, right? People get into government to make things better for people, not to do whatever the hell it is that Donald Trump is doing every day. I just want serious people. I want people who support normalcy, people who support our democracy. That could be mainstream Republicans, not this MAGA thing. It could be conservatives, independents, liberals, progressives. I just want to, I want seriousness back in these discussions. I want adults to be in positions of authority. I would, I want to bring back empathy. I want to bring back kind of leading with a moral compass. I want to make sure that we protect and defend and preserve our democracy. I mean, it's really simple for me. That's what it all

boils down to. And we're going to keep on growing this independent media platform with each and every one of you every single day. I mean, look, our coverage of the Trump criminal trial is the top coverage of any large media network out there. And they're funded by billions of dollars and lots of billionaires and deca hundred millionaires. And I always like to say, I'll give you, I give you our little secret. We're doing this with emojis, the pro-democracy sponsors, and our Patreon. So everything that we can do together helps grow this thing. So if you want to help grow this independent media platform, one of the ways to do that is patreon.com slash Midas Touch. That helps as we kind of grow the team and build out our editorial team and bring on more editors and bring on more staff.

And I think you all see how we're growing brick by brick. And I hope it's kind of responsibly, slowly, steady, maybe not that slow. It's growing pretty fast, but in a steady, principled way. And that's because foundationally, this is led by you, the Midas Mighty. And we're so grateful for you. Remember, every morning, early in the morning, and then right after the court proceedings, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and I will give updates on everything to expect. Make sure that you make Midas Touch your first destination, your first place where you go to get your news about the Trump criminal trial. And there's nobody out

there who has the experience as Karen Friedman Agnifilo providing that experience here on the Midas Touch Network. Thank you all for watching this episode, this historic episode. Incredible spending this time with all of you. Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty! It's Ken Harbaugh with the Midas Touch Network. The film Against All Enemies, which I co-produced with Ben Maisalis and this network, has won awards around the world for its up-close portrayal of America's insurrectionist movement. It premieres in the U.S. on March 29th on Amazon and Apple TV. Go to againstallenemiesfilm.com or click the link below. But don't just watch against all enemies tell

your friends about it it's one more way to hold accountable those who threaten our democracy thanks mightest mighty let's use our power well