cover of episode Trump SCREWS HIS TERM before it EVEN STARTS

Trump SCREWS HIS TERM before it EVEN STARTS

2024/11/15
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The MeidasTouch Podcast

Key Insights

Why are some Trump voters showing signs of regret?

Chaos and extreme cabinet picks like Matt Gaetz and RFK Jr. are causing alarm, making some reconsider their support.

How is the international community reacting to Trump's threats?

They are urging action to protect themselves, with some countries like the UK considering their role without American support.

Why are GOP members of Congress hiding?

They are avoiding accountability by not opposing Trump's extreme nominations, fearing backlash from his base.

What are the key criticisms of Trump's cabinet picks?

Picks like Matt Gaetz, RFK Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard are seen as unqualified, corrupt, or compromised by foreign interests.

How does Trump's approach to governance differ from Biden's?

Trump focuses on chaos and drama for media attention, while Biden emphasizes stability and delivering for the people.

What is the significance of Trump's campaign kickoff on the 30th anniversary of the Waco siege?

It signals solidarity with extremists and sets a tone of defiance against federal authority, reminiscent of the siege's violent outcome.

Why is RFK Jr.'s nomination particularly concerning?

He wants an eight-year moratorium on infectious disease research and plans to gut the department, posing a threat to public health preparedness.

How does Trump's strategy of overwhelming the system with extreme nominations work?

By flooding the system with controversial picks, he hopes to overwhelm opposition, forcing critics to choose their battles and allowing some to slip through.

What does the international community think of Trump's foreign policy intentions?

They view his actions as erratic and dangerous, leading to a loss of confidence in American leadership and alliances.

Why is there a growing sense of unease among Americans about Trump's presidency?

His extreme and unqualified nominations, combined with his history of erratic behavior, are causing widespread concern about the future of the country.

Chapters

The chapter discusses the alarming cabinet nominations made by Donald Trump, including Matt Gaetz, RFK Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, and the potential impact on national security and governance.
  • Trump nominates Matt Gaetz as Attorney General and RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary.
  • Tulsi Gabbard is nominated for Director of National Intelligence despite concerns about her alignment with Russian propaganda.
  • The markets react negatively to these nominations, reflecting broader concerns about governance and stability.

Shownotes Transcript

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This is not a time to gloat and say, I told you so while wagging our fingers. That's not all that productive. We do have to fight. We do have to protect our democracy. For anybody who had some semblance of a delusional view or as I like to say a delulu view that Donald Trump was going to put responsible people into cabinet positions.

You are the weakest link. Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump nominates to be Attorney General. RFK Jr., Donald Trump nominates to lead the Health and Human Services Department. Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump nominates to be the Director of National Intelligence, despite many people believing she's corrupt.

compromised by Russia, who she parrots word for word in many of her posts. Kristi Noem, who killed her dog Cricket, the Homeland Security chief. Tom Homan, who talks about bloody mass deportations to be the border czar. And a random dude named Peter Hegseth,

who is a weekend host on Fox and Friends, not even the weekday host, to become Secretary of Defense. Donald Trump giving our nuclear codes to a dude named Hegsith.

That is where we are right now. The markets are not responding to it very favorably. Markets down today. Dow futures and other markets are down. This is the chaos, the drama, the torment that the corporate media, they wanted this.

They wanted this every moment now. There's drama. You have Matt Gaetz saying that he's resigning from Congress to avoid an ethics report from being released.

That will purportedly talk about how he had sex with a underage girl who was 17 years old. But then the House Committee, which is also led by Republicans and Democrats, but the Republicans pushing for this, the McCarthy disciples leaking the fact that the woman, the underage girl rather, who Gates had sex with,

She testified before the ethics committee that Gates did indeed have sex with her when she was underage. Are you happy, media? Are you happy with this? No one's watching you anymore. They're watching the Midas Dutch Network because you've lost all credibility.

And Jordy, who was it? I know it's your favorite reporter, Jordy, who said, oh, these hearings are going to be great for the ratings, right? Chuck Todd, man. Chuck Todd, who I actually, I started to slightly, I don't even want to say it, come around on the guy. Oh.

until very again recently you know it shows his true colors once again can you believe the post we're referring to chuck todd posted the hearings are going to be fire the hearings are going to be great you know it would be great if the people of america were safe and secure you know what's great stable financial markets you know what's great strong alliances abroad you know what's great helping our allies like ukraine you know what's great

infrastructure act chips act inflation reduction act pact act helping veterans that that's that's what i find great perhaps too boring perhaps it's not the hulka mania is coming for you the hulka mania is coming for you perhaps it's not that but you know for me i don't know about you brett jordy and minus mighty for me i like my politics

to deliver for the people. I like my politics with a side of no drama, the way President Biden delivered it. That's how I like it served, not chaos, torment, drama, Brett. Yeah, I think what it's been a little over a week now, I think

They're sure there's got to be a lot of people out there who are thinking, oh, wow, it's actually been relatively calm and nice and quiet. And all those, you know, people who would go sleepy Joe, sleepy Joe, I bet at least a small portion of them right now are like, I wish we had some sleepiness right now, because this is just chaos every single day. It's pandemonium. We're right back in it. And the guy is not even in office yet. And we are seeing just the government be completely up and

ended and we're just getting started folks. Like I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Um, I don't enjoy it. Um, I don't enjoy even like having to report on these things, but it's important that we are always, uh, you know, on top of everything that we're, uh, aware of everything going on. It's because it's our lives that are on the line.

And when people think it's funny that he's nominating this person for this position or this person for this, or you have these anchors and pundits and executives going, oh, this is going to be so great for our ratings. We're going to love this. This is awesome. Like to me, I'm just like,

This isn't a game, okay? Like, this is not a game to me. I don't think it's funny. I don't think it's humorous. I worry for the country. I worry about people. And I worry that we're going to look back at the country, maybe not even a year from now and go, this place is unrecognizable. This is not America. And we are already seeing the seeds of that.

be planted, at minimum, the seeds of that be planted. This was the Chuck Todd quote directly. He said on Wednesday, these confirmation hearings may just save cable TV for the short term.

I don't care about your cable TV ratings. I really don't give a damn about your cable TV ratings. And that's also assuming that there are confirmation hearings in the first place. If Trump has his way, you know he's going to try these recess appointments and he's going to try to jam these people through and rule like a dictator. I don't think people quite grasp what is going on in the media.

He still thinks it's funny. Ha ha ha. I don't think you're going to be laughing when he tries to actually take away your broadcast licenses and take you off the air. I don't think you'll find it all that funny. You won't have any ratings to worry about, Chuck Todd. Exactly. It just goes to show you how broken corporate media's brains have become. I mean, the fact that the first place that your mind goes to is

is, "Oh, I bet this is going to be great for cable ratings." It's like, "What are you doing, man?" Politics should never be gamified in such a way where it's a football game. And I know that we don't do that here at the Midas Touch Network. And it's what people appreciate, data, facts, actually news updates, and not this team versus this team, red team versus blue team. It's just a backwards way of thinking. And it's a type

tired way of thinking. And when I see Chuck Todd post like that, it just reconfirms all of my, you know, just beliefs about corporate media. It's a dying industry based on gamifying politics where there are actual consequences on the line for the American people based on the decisions that Donald Trump is making day in and day out. You know, as a kid, one of my favorite books growing up that my parents would read to me was C-Spot Run.

And it's a book that I read to my little daughter, Ximena. See spot run. It's kind of like the GOP mantra now, right? See the GOP run. Donald Trump makes a nomination. The press asks the GOP about it. See GOP run. Watch Senator run. Watch Congress member run. Watch it. I'm having trouble. What about Matt Gaetz? He's a bottom.

I don't know yet. I think about that. Do you have any concerns about it? We'll see. Do you think Matt Gaetz is confirmable? We'll find out. Senator Kennedy, what do you think of Matt Gaetz as attorney general? Happy Thanksgiving. By the way, one of the funniest things about Senator Kennedy, who's actually not a Kennedy, he doesn't really talk like that.

He does a fake accent to cosplay like a Southerner. I won't even do the accent. But Ben, real quick. Capacity. Should I go there? Restraint. That clip right there is also infuriating to me of

Just the reporter there, who's generally a solid, you know, does solid work, but just let them off the hook like that, right? And corporate media, again, letting Republicans off the hook. Happy Thanksgiving. Could you imagine if a Democrat congressperson gave that response to a pretty serious and legitimate question? And you just let him go on. You just let him go do his business. Frankly, I don't blame the reporters.

on that though like i you know it's it's it's the the republicans though in that situation right like they're going there they're making a mockery of the whole situation they're going oh what i can't hear you oh sorry i couldn't hear you oh sorry i don't have an opinion on that they're making a mockery of the whole thing so honestly what else could you do is he supposed to like attack

them? Like, what are they supposed to do? These are like the people that they're dealing with. They're dealing with like brick walls. They're dealing with the most soulless people on the planet. And to me, I'm going to criticize these Republicans who are just complete and utter cowards and who have been for now, what?

like a decade in this specific reign. I mean, I would go further back than that, but they really show their cards because they like to act tough if they think that there's no stakes in it. But once Donald Trump is coming to power, all of a sudden they need to bow down to him and they become so afraid of Trump. He becomes this big boogeyman. And now, because even though Trump is ultimately going to finish with this election when all the votes are counted by not even winning by like more than a couple of percentage points, it's going to actually be like a very narrow victory. He's going to win by less than he beat Hillary by in the popular vote.

But he's claiming a mandate. Less than Hillary beat him by, yeah. Yeah, less than Hillary beat him by in the popular vote. And he's claiming this mandate and he's trying to flex this muscle and the Republicans are all buying into it. And I saw a quote that was so revealing, Jordy, today from one of these reporters where they asked somebody in the Senate, they said like, so are you going to oppose all of these things that Donald Trump is doing? And the guy's like, I don't know, we're just so exhausted.

We're just so exhausted now. I don't know if we have the, I don't know if we have it in us. And it's like, okay, so an entire branch of the government is now abdicating its responsibility and saying, we don't even want to be a check on the government. We just want to be a stooge for the government, not provide a check on the other branches. We just want this to be a dictatorship. And it's all the people from like the MAGA cultists

to like the Susan Collins's of the world who try to act like they're these moderates. And then every time Trump goes to do something, what do they do? Oh, oh, oh, woe is me. I am shocked. I am so concerned. Oh my God. I'm so worried by that. Like she's still saying the same things that she said like back in 2016. This was what today or was this last night? It was in the past 24 hours. Susan Collins saying that she's shocked by Trump's appointment of Matt Gaetz. Shocked.

I was shocked that he has been nominated. If the nomination proceeds, I'm sure that there will be an extensive background check by the FBI and public hearings and a lot of questions asked. At least she found a new word from concerned, Jordi. What are you shocked about? What are you shocked about at this point? Are you...

Let me just make it clear for Susan Collins. I'm shocked that he does doing everything that he said he was going to do. And it's actually as bad as everyone said it's going to be. And let me tell you, it's going to get worse. Like I want to tell Susan Collins, I want to be real. I don't want to level with,

All the listeners and watchers out there, I don't mean to like depress you, but this is just this is just the beginning, folks, like like everything he said he wants to do, like he's he's going to do and he's going to have free range to do a lot of these things where we need to hope as a community here that we're able to apply enough pressure, that we have enough politicians with back

that we have enough judges out there with backbone that Biden in these last few weeks is able to get even more judges in the judiciary with backbone to stand up to all this, because ultimately that's what it's all going to come down to when we have to start opposing all of this crazy stuff that's about to happen, because he's going to go full speed with everything he was talking about. And people are going to get a real dose of what this Trump presidency means really fast.

And we're seeing the seeds of that. And those seeds are going to blossom like crazy. The second he steps into the office, it's not going to be pretty. Forget the seeds. It's here it is.

Look at this way we started the show. It's Matt Gaetz. It's Tulsi Gabbard. It's RFK Jr. It's Kristi Noem. It's Tom Homan. It's Peter Hegsiff. I could go on and on and on. It's here right now. And that shouldn't shock you. This is someone who launched his campaign pretty soon after leading an insurrection against our country.

On the 30th anniversary of the Waco siege to show solidarity with the individuals and the cult and the Branch Davidians who were attacking the FBI and who were holding out against the FBI where the first speaker was Ted Nugent who began his speech by saying President Zelensky is a raging homosexual. That's how Donald Trump kicked off his campaign.

Then Donald Trump took the stage and played the January 6th insurrection anthem that he created with the band that he was a part of called the J6 Choir, some of the most violent insurrectionists who attacked and tried to kill police officers. So let's wait until Donald Trump's other day one promise, in addition to 2,000, 5,000% tariffs, bloody deportations,

when he pardons all of the January 6th insurrectionists on day one, like he says he's going to. The Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, does that mean Stuart Rhodes? Does that mean Enrique Tarrio? I mean, actual terrorists getting pardoned on day one. That's what he said he's going to do. He's doing the other things he said he was going to do. Shocked, shocked, I tell you. But look, I thought Brett and Jordy and Midas Mighty were

What potentially was a worse outcome, if I want to find a silver lining here, is that he brings on still extreme people, but who are a little more under the radar. And he kind of drips out his agenda over a long period of time.

And doesn't try for this immediate thud kind of immediate crisis. Like immediate shock to the system. Literally on day one or before day one. To the extent there's good news here because we're ready to fight. The showdown is actually happening like right now. Already. And the pressure needs to be applied right now. I mean, just think about it. He announces Matt Gaetz.

What does the ethics committee do? They leak right away that Matt Gaetz had sex with an underage girl, which people knew about, but they leaked the fact that she testified before the ethics committee. The ethics committee is now meeting to try to ensure that Gaetz does not get confirmed by, are they going to release the full report? I think they're going to release the report.

Gates resigns from his seat in Congress, which actually many people are relieved for, so that he can take the position of Attorney General. But more importantly, he thinks that will preempt the Ethics Committee from releasing the report. But I think they'll probably just release it anyway, and they'll leak it even if it's not like a

And so we're going to see this. I mean, the outcry against Tulsi Gabbard, who Donald Trump nominated to be the director of national intelligence. I mean, she's someone who word for word verbatim is paraphrasing.

parroted Russian propaganda. She's the one who said that Vladimir Putin was justified for invading Ukraine because of bio labs, which frankly don't exist, but she was literally parroting his talking points. And she said, if NATO didn't encroach in Russian territory, Vladimir Putin would not have had to do what he had to do.

That's who Donald Trump is appointing as the director of national intelligence. And then a dude named Pete Hegsa to become the secretary of defense.

Like a dude who said that he doesn't like to wash his – he hasn't washed his hands in 10 years or washed his body in 10 years. So he could be – At least he's not in charge of health, I guess. But – On the other hand, the person in charge of health wants an eight-year –

moratorium on any research and development dealing with infectious diseases, Brett. I mean, just think about that. And he wants to gut about a thousand people as well.

The dogs are not happy about it, Ben. The dogs are certainly not happy. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're dealing with now, you know, a pretty big crisis where we're putting really incompetent people in positions of a lot of power. Like the department that RFK is nominated to run has a big budget and controls a lot of things.

I mean, he's going to be in charge of overseeing the FDA, the CDC. I mean, if this was during the COVID pandemic, we would still be in the height of the pandemic and there would be like even more deaths. And you saw how horrifically they handled it then.

And you see that across the board. I mean, putting a Fox host as the secretary of defense, like, yes, the guy was in the military and I, of course, respect his service there. But there are a lot of people in the military that actually have high ranking positions of power and leadership experience and have leadership.

been doing this for a very long time and actually know what the heck they're doing rather than somebody who hosts the morning show on Fox and has no experience in this field, has no business running this department with these massive budgets. Somebody who's a massive war hawk, by the way, like one of the big pitches of all the kind of Trumpers before he won was like, oh yeah, Donald Trump is going to, he's the peace candidate. He's the peace guy. He's got all these democratic warmongers and neocons. And then you've got Donald Trump, the peace guy.

nothing in Donald Trump's history has ever said he was the peace guy. I mean, he would constantly say that he wanted to bomb the crap out of people. He did bomb the crap out of people when he was president, just because he didn't like start new wars and stuff. He was still oversaw a bunch of other conflicts and wars and bombed a lot of people and did a lot of extra judicial, judicial killings and did a lot of kind of crazy things. And so let's like, not let's keep

put away this facade that he was some sort of anti-war dove. Donald the Dove, absolutely not. Who does he stack his new cabinet with? A bunch of warmongers, a bunch of these neocons where if these...

Trump supporters saw them in any other administration, they'd go, what the heck is going on? This guy, these are horrible people. You have people who want to like literally, you know, wipe Palestine off the face of the earth. You have people who want to go to war with Iran. You have people who really want to ratchet things up. And so these are kind of all the things that we're seeing percolating right now. And part of the strategy I think is like,

With a lot of Trump things, it's throw so much crap out there that you just overwhelm the system, right? That's what he did with legal. You throw so much crap out there, you overwhelm the courts. You're able to push things back. With this, it's like, okay, let's just make every cabinet position just insane. And what are they going to do? Are they going to fight me on all of them? They're going to put up a battle on all of them or they're going to have to choose their battles. But that's where we're at. It's interesting because the first day when Trump made his initial appointments, his first few appointments,

And you started hearing about Rubio a little bit. It wasn't named yet, but you were like, these are...

They're bad, but by Donald Trump standards, they could be much worse. You could see these people in other Republican administrations, like more normal Republican administrations. But the whole time we were like, yeah, but wait. But give it a day, give it two days. And sure enough, everything since then has just been, all right, this is crazy. This is crazier. This is even crazier. This is even crazier. And it's not going to let up.

i couldn't agree more with you brett look i want to show you in their own words what these

individuals who Donald Trump's appointing have said. I want to show you what Republicans have said about them. I want to also talk about Donald Trump creating a make-believe government agency that doesn't exist, the Doge Department, and appointing Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead the Doge Department. I want to talk about

I want to talk about that in a moment as well because Elon Musk right now has a gray check mark next to the name of the Doge Department, which signifies this account is verified because it is a government or multilateral organization. Based upon my review and interpretation of the law, and this is my opinion, although I think if you look at the law, it will comport this

You can't create fake government agencies and masquerade as federal officials. Also, Elon Musk made a post. We are very or the Doge Department made a post. We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at Doge. We don't need more part time idea generators. We need super high IQ, small government revolutionaries.

willing to work 80 plus hours per week on unglamorous cost cutting. If that's you, DM this account with your CV. Elon and Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants. So I'm creating a make-believe government agency.

based upon a kind of scammy meme coin that is very volatile. For those watching, it's got this Doge meme logo.

By the way, Ben, a meme coin that Elon Musk is known to also own a lot of. So by creating this fake department, he knows that it's going to inflate his own net worth even further because he is bringing attention to this meme coin, which is causing the price to spike. And he gets the profit off it. And he also gets the profit off this whole concept of the way you even apply for the job. Like he puts it on Twitter.

And he says that message that you read about you got to work 80 hours a week. He says, send me in the DMs your resume. And we're only going to accept resumes via Twitter DMs and only accept them from premium Twitter users or ex-users.

So the people who are eligible for the pseudo government position, because they're trying to find a gray area, I guess, so they're not under oversight or something. But Donald Trump is like calling it a government position, but it's not because it's like they speak to like other departments and they give the recommendations. But so in order to apply for that.

In order to get the privilege of working 80 hours a week in this fake government job, you have to apply via Twitter DM and pay Elon Musk $8 a month. I mean, this is like one of the single most brazenly corrupt things.

things I have ever seen. And you think back to like Jimmy Carter, who had to sell like his peanut farm. You think back to all these things that used to be kind of ethics scandals. And then you have the biggest ethics scandal in the world.

staring you in the face, literally on social media, being retweeted and posted at you. And everyone's just like, oh yeah, it's just a billionaire thing. We can live in an oligarchy now. That's cool. Isn't that cool? Isn't that cool that we live in an oligarchy? And that's what you see forming right now. Unfortunately, you see really the US heading kind of towards a full Russian style oligarchy where you have people like Donald Trump, where you have people like Elon Musk,

who are completely, completely, completely running the show, who are dictating what people do, who are dictating where people spend their money, who are picking winners and losers based on... And you'll see Trump do this with tariffs too, by the way. You'll see him implement these tariffs, but he'll grant an exception to his buddy in this industry or he'll grant an exception to this buddy. It's going to be bribery.

through and through and through like the whole administration is going to be one big kind of scam. Um, and that's what we're already seeing with Trump. That's what we're already seeing with Elon. And it's just going to continue to get worse. I want to remind everybody that patreon.com slash Midas touch. We will be hosting a live zoom meeting on Monday.

So be there. Patreon.com. Oh, that's exciting. Might as touch. Monday after the show, we will be meeting with all of you. So stay

I haven't really seen anybody since the election. And so I'd love to see your faces, love to see it all. We've got a lot to discuss. I want to remind everybody or show everybody corporate media is not talking about this. Just how Vladimir Putin's just like trolling and dominating Donald Trump now ordering state run media to like Trump.

like play nudes of Melania over and over again, denying that he's had any communications with Donald Trump. I mean, I saw Russian TV yesterday. They were just saying, and Donald Trump showing his love affair, his love of Putin by doing all this. Like we know Donald Trump said like the world's laughing at us. No, right now Putin and our adversaries are laughing at us. And the rest of the world is like,

All right. See you later, America. You know, not sure how you did that, but like, I guess, I guess we're going to without America now. We've got a lot to discuss. Let's take our first quick break.

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dot com slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S. Go and check that out now. Try Armra dot com slash Midas. Shout out to our pro-democracy sponsors. Links in description of both YouTube and audio. Use the links. Use the codes. Let them know we sent you. Benji, where to next? Let's just talk about what some of Matt Gaetz's own Republican colleagues have said about Matt Gaetz. So for example, here's Republican Tony Gonzalez when

when he was asked previously several months back about Matt Gaetz. He says, you know, Gaetz is a scumbag who pays minors to have sex with him at drug parties. So what his own party says about him. Here, play this clip. He will survive. Look, the House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is going to be just fine. I served 20 years in the military. It's my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I served with some real scumbags. Look, Matt Gaetz,

He paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they're walking around with white hoods in the daytime. By the way, he's talking about people in his own party, too. To be clear, that was a Republican talking about

Republicans having sex with minors and being Nazis. Here, listen to Matt Gaetz in his own words. This was back during the 2022 midterms when he said that really, he says the only women who are fighting for women's reproductive rights are the ugly ones, he says. Here, play this clip. - Is it safe to say that based off of your comments, you're suggesting that these women at these abortion rallies are ugly and overweight? - Yes.

What do you say to people who think that those comments are offensive? Be offended. Be offended, he says. And Matt Gaetz also once said that if he was the Attorney General, he would fire tons of people in the FBI. He would do a mass purge of the FBI. Let's play that one. Maybe I should serve as Attorney General of the United States. I'd be easy on marijuana and tough on big tech. Wouldn't that be a nice reversal?

necessary I'd fire every little shit kicker at the J Edgar Hoover building and send them all packing if you really want to drain the swamp hire a Florida man we've drained plenty of swamps in Florida and we know how to finish the job

Just like the alligators in the Everglades, DC swamp creatures have spent seemingly millennia adapting to their surroundings. They can be very dangerous if not properly handled. But we know that the swamp isn't truly drained until the hides of the gators are hanging on the wall.

It's Matt Gaetz. How about Mike? Next, Mike Huckabee, the new ambassador to Israel, who self-identifies as a Christian Zionist who believes that the West Bank doesn't really exist and it's Judea, Sumera. You shouldn't even call it the West Bank, he says. And he says that there's no such thing as the Palestinian state, that Palestine just doesn't exist at all. And look,

For Donald Trump, who convinced many Palestinians and Arab Americans as well. We took that trip to Dearborn, Michigan, and with leaders in the Arab American community, Donald Trump signed a peace plaque in Dearborn, Michigan, and they said, ah, he's going to call for the ceasefire. He's going to call. Meanwhile, you had Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden quite literally saying,

calling for a ceasefire and actually working to try to apply pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to have a ceasefire. You've heard President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris articulate a two-state solution as well.

We were trying to say, by the way, the uncommitted protests and a lot of people who I understand and empathize with the strong feelings, but they seem to only exclusively protest at Vice President Kamala Harris events and President Biden events. And they frequently went on the record and said, either vote for Jill Stein or Donald Trump, but under no circumstance

Should you vote for first President Biden and then Kamala Harris? Where did Jill go? Where's Jill Stach? She's back in her hibernation for the next four years when she's got to reappear for an election and then try to screw over another election. That's just her thing. She just goes just dead silent. And then she props up a couple months before an election. She builds all this animosity and then vanishes, disappears. Yeah, y'all got played. I just got to say.

Sorry. Well, here is Mike Huckabee at a recent speech that he gave talking about how he refuses to even acknowledge the word West Bank. Here, play this clip. My feeling personally, and I'm speaking only as a person, I think Israel would only be acting on the property it already owns. I think Israel...

has titled Eve to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities, they're neighborhoods, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation. That they get out of their minds that people are living in lean-tos and tents, sleeping in cars, circled around a tree. They're living in very

well-designed and beautiful cities and communities. Can't wait to get back. I'm going to take an extra hat. I'm going to get it to President-elect Trump. Build Israel great again. Who knows? We may see him wear this out there in one of his rallies somewhere. I don't know. Can't promise that. I can only promise he will get a copy of the hat. Thank you very much.

And here's another clip of Mike Huckabee saying that he just doesn't even believe that a Palestinian state should ever exist. Here, play this clip.

Basically, there really is no such thing as, I have to be careful saying this, because people really get it. There's really no such thing as a Palestinian. There's not. There's such complexity in that. There's really no such thing. That's been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel. So now, as I mentioned before, we're hearing from the uncommitted leaders, and they're now saying,

Are they protesting Donald Trump? Are they in front of Mar-a-Lago? Is that what we see? No, where are they? They're still either attacking or pleading with President Biden. You need to stop Donald Trump. Help us. Donald Trump's going to do an ethnic cleansing. You need to jump in and stop this, Biden. They're actually...

How do you go on TV after all of that and do what this guy just did? After everything we know that happened, he goes on TV. Have you no shame? You now go to Biden and say, Biden, I need you to help out. Biden's a lame duck president now. I hate that, but he is. Go ask Trump. Go ask Mike Huckabee. Here, this is for real. Watch this. Thank you.

It looks like ethnic cleansing. It sounds like ethnic cleansing. It's an ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza and West Bank and southern Lebanon. And Mike Huckabee was just named as the guy who's going to oversee the final stages of that campaign. And so our message right now is to President Biden, you've got to do something about this, President Biden. Stand up for the people.

for once to Netanyahu before Donald Trump successfully gets away with pinning this legacy of this ethnic cleansing campaign on you and you alone forevermore.

Sorry if I'm inartful here, but like, how dare you? Honestly, how dare you? It's really shameful stuff to try to pin this on Joe Biden. You're going to pin this on President Biden because now you realize the consequences of your actions. Like, this is an issue that we were all trying, everyone was trying to solve with this administration. This is something that...

We were all hoping for, right? Everyone was pushing for a ceasefire. Everyone was pushing to get the hostages home. This is something that Kamala Harris reiterated on the campaign trail over and over and over again. We want peace in Gaza. We want a two-state solution. We want to bring the hostages home. We want to ensure that people aren't dying every day. And this is a very delicate situation that goes back a very, very, very long time.

And it's horrible to watch, of course, every single day. But to see all these efforts happening and to see all these intricate pieces where you have a Netanyahu who's like a Trump of Israel, like we got to remember that, right? And then you have all these other bad actors around him.

all with their interests in mind, right? And you see all of this happening and you see President Biden and Kamala Harris trying to thread the needle and doing everything they can. And then you see Donald Trump going out there and saying, we want Israel to quote, finish the job.

We want them to finish the job. What do you think he meant by finish the job? What do you think Jared Kushner meant by there's some good beachfront property over there in Gaza that we could build some nice high rise condos in? What do you think he meant by that? He said that, it was on a recording. I'm not making this up. It's not a rumor. It wasn't a leaked email. He said this on a recording. You knew that.

And to fall for Donald Trump's gaslighting, to fall for his constant lies, and then after it's all said and done, to then go back and blame President Biden? I mean, how dare you? Honestly, how dare you? It really makes me angry. And honestly, I'm very scared for all the people in that area right now. I mean, they've just given a green light for anything to happen there. Donald Trump, you think he's going to handle this delicately? Yes.

You think he's going to go in there and try to thread the needle and try to ensure that all sides get a lasting peace? Or do you think he's going to do the same strategy he does where he goes anywhere, which is, all right, let's just let him take over everything. That's my peace plan. That's the peace plan. That's what he wants to do in Ukraine also. He just wants Russia to take over everything. I mean, that's how Donald Trump envisions peace. So if you had another vision of peace in your mind, I don't know what to tell you.

Well, you know, I understand that somebody like an Elon Musk is voting in his interest, right? I understand that there is a group of rich oligarchs voting in their interest. But there were so many groups voting against their interest repeatedly over and over again. And, you know, as I said at the outset, I don't want this to be an I told you so moment. But

But what do you think it meant when Donald Trump said, you are vermin, you are the enemy from within? What do you think he said when he said bloody mass deportations? What do you think that actually meant?

What do you think he meant when he said he was going to send Haitian migrants who were lawfully here back to Venezuela? What do you think he meant when he made those comments? There are so many people now Googling, what's a tariff? Can I get deported? What's going to happen? And it's like the time to do that research was before the election.

Still have a lot to discuss. I want to remind everybody, patreon.com slash MidasTouch. We're going to do a Zoom meeting with all of our patrons on Monday. Then we're going to start doing more regular patron meetings. I just think it's a good time to just spend time with each other and see each other. So patreon.com slash MidasTouch. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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Shout out to our sponsors, links in description of YouTube and audio. Use the codes, use the links, let them know we sent you. Benji, where to next? Let's talk about what's going on in international affairs because one of Donald Trump's promises, of course, was that within 24 hours of being elected, he said before he was even sworn in, he said he was going to call Putin. They were going to call up Zelensky and he was going to say, hey, Putin, hey, Zelensky, will you stop it?

Stop it. And then voila, a deal would be made. A deal would be made. Well, that didn't happen. Instead, Donald Trump leaked to the Washington Post that he had called Vladimir Putin and said, Putin.

de-escalate. Now, in reciprocity of mutual respect in international relations, one would assume that Vladimir Putin would issue a response. We had a phone call that was productive, and we are exploring options. That would be a signal back of respect. What did Vladimir Putin do? Hey, Russian TV, show some Melania nudes.

And they started airing the nudes of Melania on basically their version of Sean Hannity each and every night as the hosts literally were laughing and saying, ha, ha, ha, America, your body, your choice. Huh, Donald? Your wife's body, her choice. Ha, ha, ha. So that's what was going on there. And then Vladimir Putin denied having any conversations with Donald Trump. He called it pure fiction.

In other words, saying to Donald Trump, didn't happen. Don't know what you're talking about. You're a liar. You're making it up. And then you know what he did? He intentionally blew up a reservoir in Ukraine to escalate

further pushing North Korean troops further into Ukraine and amassing another 50,000 troops demonstrating actually an escalation versus a de-escalation. So quite literally all of those steps, every single one of them was basically to give the middle finger to Donald Trump on purpose right there. But what does Donald Trump do in turn? You have to realize

You have to think about the Tulsi Gabbard selection in the context of Putin showing domination to Trump, right? As Putin dominates, dominates, dominates, what does the beta do? I'm using their MAGA language, right? What does the weak one do? Trying to now show, but boss, but boss, I got Tulsi, boss. But boss, I've got Tulsi, I've got Tulsi Gabbard. So are we good now?

And I think we're going to see more and more of that. And just complete and utter weakness, you know, is being shown by Donald Trump. You know, the international community is taking notice as well. You have in the UK, the British Parliament, you know, and parliaments across the country, you know, they're factoring in what,

Things will look like, of course, without America being an ally. This is now part of the discussion. I think we have it here. Here's Ed Davey in the UK Parliament addressing the prime minister. And they're basically saying, look, just listen to how he says it too. Listen to how Davey says it. He goes, Donald Trump's senior advisor, his son, Don Jr., is posting memes about

saying that Zelensky will have his allowance cut off. What are we doing now? Because America has just completely lost it. Here, watch. I could show you dozens of clips in different parliaments, but I think I just want to give you an international perspective of what's going on. Here, play this clip.

A senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump Jr. has shared a post on Instagram that declares that President Zelensky will soon, within the next few weeks, lose his allowance.

If the Trump administration does withdraw support from our brave Ukrainian allies, will the UK and Europe step up to fill the gap? Will he seize frozen Russian assets, not just the interest, but the assets underlying that, so we can fund a huge boost to the Ukrainian forces in their fight against Putin's war machine?

Mr. Speaker, as he knows, we've been resolute and strong in our support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. And I have been speaking, as he will know, in recent weeks with other leaders about how we put Ukraine in the best and strongest possible position at this time. And I'll continue those discussions. Thank you. I mean, I think the whole world at this point has to look at it.

I think the whole world has to look at America right now and be like, this is a country that's been infiltrated. Like that not meant to sound conspiratorial, but in many ways, you know, whether in many ways it feels like America has been infiltrated by like Russian intelligence and we're getting like literal, you know, who people say are like Russian stooges. When you have a Tulsi Gabbard and things like that, you're getting them in places of power. You're getting people who repeat,

literal Russian propaganda against America in power. And that includes Tulsi, that includes RFK Jr., who both spread this bio lab conspiracy theory. Russia on Russian state TV, they call Tulsi, they call her something like our little girlfriend and like our little agent in America. Like that's how they refer to her on their

that same show, like those versions of Sean Hannity. Those are the things they're saying about these people. And those are the people who Donald Trump chose to put in high levels of his administration. So, you know, a guy like Putin has to be laughing his ass off right now about what he's done to this country.

laughing his ass off when he sees these people who go so against America's interests, but so pro-Russia that he's got to just be, wow, that was far too easy. You know, Brett, you raised such an ultimate point now, and we could tie this whole episode together.

Because here in the United States of America, we saw so many groups vote against their interest. I mean, some groups voted technically for their interest in a short-sighted way. But by and large, you had people voting to deport themselves, ban themselves, destroy the countries that they care about and that they've been fighting for.

You've had people vote to increase their own taxes, to destroy their own unions. You could go through all the lists, right? Groups voting against their self. But the biggest group that voted against itself at large is the United States of America. You add it all up as a collective whole. America just handed this all, and this is the big reveal of who is Kaiser Sose at the end of the movie, to Vladimir Putin.

At the end of the day, all of this, who did this all benefit? Who's the one who's laughing at this? Because he didn't have the military power to even be the second biggest army in Russia. Ukraine was. He couldn't do it with

actual military might, but he did it psychologically, turning America into an idiocracy where Hulk Hogan's there going, oh yeah, do you smell what the Hulkamania is cooking? And we're watching that in the Republican National Convention, like what the heck?

And by the way, on CNN, do we have the clip of Scott Jennings, Brett, or whatever the guy's name is, who's on CNN, and he's there talking about this like last night, and he's wearing a Hulk shirt, and he's like, and this is what they do on CNN now, and he's like, all right, here's what we're going to do.

Let me tell you someone who's going to deliver a smackdown on the, and I'm watching this and I'm like, people's lives are on the freaking line here. You know, this would be semi amusing if, if, if this was commentary for like WWE wrestling where it belongs, but this is the United States here. Play this clip.

All right. If Marco Rubio does, in fact, become secretary of state, we're going to need a new senator from the state of Florida. And we need someone with Rubio's national security credentials. Now, there's one Floridian who can do it. He stood up to the Russians and the Iranians in the 1980s when he defeated the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkov, two of America's most lethal foes. He is a real American. He fights for the rights of every man.

He knows that courage is the thing that keeps us free. Ladies and gentlemen, I announce Ron DeSantis, get on it. Hulk Hogan for US Senate. And what you gonna do Chuck Schumer when Hulkamania runs wild on you brother? All right, we gotta leave it there. Everyone talk, thank you very much. By the way, you could say Ben, where's your sense of humor in all of this? He's just, he's joking. Well, really?

Because Hulk Hogan was the keynote speaker on the final day of the Republican National Convention. Hulk Hogan was one of Donald Trump's main surrogates on Fox, who was selling Donald Trump's lie that tariffs are a tax on the foreign country, not a tax on Americans, which it is.

So I don't find it funny when my fellow Americans are going to be hurt and injured or worse and feel pain. Or as Elon Musk, who's now worth like $400 billion said, the American people are going to have to face hardship. You're going to need to feel the hard. Why would you vote for your hardship? Why would you vote for that? We were on a path out of it. Why would you vote for your own suffering? But

Here's the thing. And I was going to talk about Melania Trump, you know, I was going to talk about Melania Trump ditching the White House when President Biden invited her there. And she and this looks like an A.I. statement.

She goes, Mrs. Trump will not be attending today's meeting at the White House. Her husband's return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging. She wishes him great success. That's my Borat impression. In the instance, several unnamed sources in the media continue to provide false, misleading, and inaccurate information. About what, Melania? You didn't show up. It seems pretty damn accurate to me. Yeah, but you could.

What false information are people spreading about you? You didn't show up. You were invited to show up, to be at the White House where President Biden was going above and beyond anything he needed to or frankly should have been doing. But

But I reflect on that moment too. I mean, oh, by the way, Melania is now, she's selling photos of herself for a hundred, it was $195, these photos of herself that she's selling. This isn't a real post from her today. This is her new series of photos of her for $195.

Our whole federal government right now is just like one big grift. It's so great. Yeah, Melania is selling this. You have Elon after he posted about after he was nominated or whatever. It's not a real job. It's not a real agency to this Doge committee. He's like, guess what, guys? Merch is coming soon. Get ready for the Doge merch, the Doge department merch.

This is what we're doing. This is what we've done with the government. I guess, yeah, I guess this is what we're doing. And by the way, on Fox, on Hannity and all these shows, they're like, Donald Trump's appointments are triggering the woke libs. It's so triggering. It's like, could you just have normal people do the normal positions? It should triggering woke –

Just hire competent people. And by the way, I'm happy to acknowledge when there's something good. Okay. The bad is far outweighs anything, but I'm happy to acknowledge if somebody is qualified for a position, even if I do not agree with them and what they do, I, I, I'm at least like, that's, that's somebody that, Marco Rubio. Yeah. That's why we didn't attack the Rubio position because any other sort of administration, I'd be like, okay, I guess. Yeah.

relatively normal, all things aside. Such a good point, Jordy. Rubio, fine. I disagree with him on everything, but that's fine. That's fine. For an administration like this, fine. Go ahead with Rubio. Who else has Trump been like? He's nominating Todd Blanche to be like deputy AG. Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer in the criminal cases. I mean, he's a real lawyer.

Did Blanche work in DOJ, Ben? I forget. Blanche is a serious guy. You might not like that he represented Donald Trump, but he's a serious guy. He's a competent guy, far more competent than Matt Gaetz. You could actually see a situation where a Matt Gaetz doesn't get...

the nomination, if they bring these into hearings, and where somebody like a Todd Blanche ends up getting boosted up to that position, which would actually make sense and be a responsible thing to do. But we're seeing at the tops of these levels, far too many of the positions, him put in people who do not have the experience, who do not have the

qualifications and they are putting those people in control of your lives. And this is something like we've warned about what the entire time where we said, you know, we, we, we joked, watch, she's going to put, we didn't even joke. We were like, watch, she's going to put this person in charge of the education. This person in charge of this, like these lunatic people. And you'll see if a, if a Supreme court seat opens up, I he'll definitely put like ILD in Canon or so, you know, somebody like that in there. Like that's, this is what he's doing. He's also, he's rewarding all of his loyalists also.

All the people who stuck by him, who may have risked their careers, all this stuff, they're also now getting rewarded by Trump. And Trump is putting them in to be loyalists to him to also further insulate himself from any other damage or any sort of discord or any sort of disagreement or anything. So it's very clear. And I'll be, you know, I'm happy.

to be straight and say, I don't agree with this person, but that person's qualified for the job, or she is qualified for the job. But there are far too many people who quite literally, Trump is putting our health in their hands. He's putting our education in these people's hands. He's putting our military in these people's hands, a military in the hand of a Fox News host. It's just the whole thing is so baffling. It's so dangerous. You know our adversaries are completely laughing at us.

It's not an own the libs thing. I don't – whatever. Governing should not be about triggering the libs. Governing should be about what is best for the country, what makes us a serious country, what makes a country that's ready to handle challenges. Because as we've seen with literally every administration going back to the beginning of America and going back to the beginning of any country ever, there are always going to be big problems that arise. Right.

problems that arise. And when those problems arise, you better hope that you have the right people in those positions. COVID, Donald Trump, woefully unprepared. And when it came, what happened? He did everything wrong. He denied that it was a thing. He called it a hoax. It

It was a disaster because he was in charge and it led to the deaths of more than a million people in this country. And we can't let that happen. We've seen through other administrations too, right? We've seen other things that could have turned into pandemics that could have been really bad, but the government dealt with them.

And we'll never know at this point how bad it could have been because we had competent people in charge. But now, inevitably, if conflict breaks out overseas, if another pandemic hits, if any of this happens, we are leaving our fate, not to end this on a cheery and optimistic note, but we are leaving our fate in the hands of these lunatics quite frankly. And it's incredibly unsettling to me, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

- Jordy, I wanna pass it to you for your final thoughts of this, but look. - That was dark. - I'll leave it at this though, look. But look, dark times call for leadership. Dark times call for solidarity and people to speak up and not be silenced. It's why the day after the election, we picked ourselves up and it was hard.

But we immediately made it clear to everybody in this community that we stand with you. We're going to keep on growing. We're not stopping. And we are going to keep building coalitions, getting the word out and making sure that people know what the stakes here. I not to end it on a dark note like Brett, but on a optimistic, positive one like Ben.

or like me, I like when you refer to yourself in person. That's why I called myself out on it, self-aware. But I was doing the Brett Bend dichotomy. Is that we, I believe love and hope and optimism and helping people and progress will ultimately always win because people want to be happy.

you know, the being filled with hate and being driven on anger that that that the gas runs out quickly on that. So we want to be optimistic and help each other and and live in communities where we can love and support each other and respect each other's freedoms and respect each other's ability to live as human beings and not hurt each other. And so

I'm confident that we build that. I'm confident that people are seeing what's going on. And you all might as mighty who are a part of this community, you're going to help get the word out right now about everything that's happening, about what tariffs really are, about who Trump's appointing, about like Huckabee, about Homan, about Tulsi Gabbard. That's why we give you the clip. Show people the stuff. Show people the data. Show me the data. We're doing an after show, patreon.com slash Midas Touch.

See you at the after show. After the show, we'll see you there right now. And then we're going to do the live Zoom meeting. Not today. The live Zoom meeting, patreon.com slash Midas Touch, next Monday after the show. Today we're going to record an after show. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Jordy, shout out to the Midas Monday.

- Hey, Midas Mighty, love this report? Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram @MidasTouch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.