MeidasTouch RESPONDS to BREAKING NEWS before DAY 1 - 1/16/25

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Speaker 3 Trump's approval rating is in the toilet bowl right now. Some of the worst approval ratings in the history of pre-inauguration.
Only 41% of Americans approve.

Speaker 3 This is supposed to be the honeymoon period. It's turning out to just be more of the same for Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, the American people hate you.

Speaker 3 And you take a look at those confirmation hearings, you get confirmation why.

Speaker 3 I mean, you got some of the most unqualified unqualified people avoiding answering the most basic questions, whether they'd follow the Constitution, whether they have basic competence and qualifications for the job.

Speaker 3 When they did answer questions, they made it very clear their priorities are to help the billionaire oligarchs and screw over we the people.

Speaker 3 We'll break down not just the Hegsith hearing, but we should talk about Trump's Treasury Secretary pick, Scott Besson. We should talk about Pam Bondi, who Trump wants to be Attorney General.

Speaker 3 We should talk about Russ Vogt, the Project 2025 architect who Trump wants to run the Office of Management and Budget. We will talk about all of that.

Speaker 3 Also, we'll talk about the world uniting against Donald Trump. Who said Donald Trump can't bring people together?

Speaker 3 Well, here in the United States, he can't, but when it comes to the world, he's finding a way to unite countries against the United States.

Speaker 3 We're seeing that, for example, in Canada, where a big meeting was held in Ottawa, where mostly all of the premiers

Speaker 3 at the provincial level and then the federal government, regardless of the political parties, joined together. There was one premier from Alberta.
Her name is Danielle Smith.

Speaker 3 She took the pilgrimage of shame to Mar-a-Lago, where Donald Trump just further shamed her and said that 25% tariffs across the board, no exceptions, are happening on day one.

Speaker 3 But other than her, Canada is fairly united against the United States, ready for retaliatory tariffs, ready to inflict pain on the United States in retaliation for the United States inflicting pain on that also.

Speaker 3 Mexico's ready, Europe's ready. Basically, everyone's ready to inflict pain on the U.S.
on day one when Trump goes through with the executive orders he's threatening and promising.

Speaker 3 There's a MAGA civil war taking place.

Speaker 3 You have MAGA Mike Johnson basically firing Republican Mike Turner, who heads the intelligence committee, or did head the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives.

Speaker 3 Turner had been a Republican Congressman, represents the Dayton area of Ohio since 2003, a fairly respected guy on a bipartisan basis. He supported Ukraine.
He supported NATO.

Speaker 3 So Donald Trump told MAGA Mike, you got to fire the guy. MAGA Mike fired the guy.
The Republican conference is pissed. They like Turner.

Speaker 3 We're seeing it at the state level as well, where a MAGA Republican state senator was literally beat down by other Republicans because he was banned from showing up to Republican Governor Brian Kemp's state of the state speech.

Speaker 3 He still tried to show up anyway, and then he was like literally shoved to the ground and he got arrested. Republican on Republican violence right there.

Speaker 3 Then we'll talk about President Biden's farewell address to the American people from the Oval Office, where he warned about the oligarchy. He warned about the tech bro-industrial complex.

Speaker 3 And then he also talked about how he wants to make sure there is a constitutional amendment banning presidential immunity. We'll talk about all of that and more.
This is the Midas Touch podcast.

Speaker 3 I'm Ben Micellis, joined by Brett and Jordy. A lot to discuss, brothers and Midas Mighty.

Speaker 6 Whole lot going on, folks. It's great to be here with everybody.

Speaker 6 Quick update here from Los Angeles. It feels like things are stabilizing here, which is good.
Hopefully, things stay that way. Hopefully, these wins don't knock anything back up.

Speaker 6 Thanks again to everybody for all your support over these past few crazy weeks. Oh my gosh, so much in the news right now.

Speaker 6 We made a big announcement on our social media as well this week that we will not be airing the inauguration here on Midas Touch.

Speaker 6 We've decided our editorial staff came together and we have determined that it is in the best interests of our audience, of the country, for us not to be streaming the inauguration live.

Speaker 6 We will be having some alternative programming. We could get to that maybe a little later, or give you some of our ideas,

Speaker 6 see what you think about it.

Speaker 6 I think we could

Speaker 6 still have fun on that horrible day.

Speaker 3 Int, int lots of puppies.

Speaker 3 He's not kidding.

Speaker 3 Come on.

Speaker 6 I was trying to do the deep tees over here, but no,

Speaker 3 that's not how hints work.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Ben's not good at the deep tea. It's okay.
It's okay. There's more.
We'll get into more of that after. But that's it for me for now.
I'm excited to get into the news.

Speaker 6 Jordy, how's it going by you?

Speaker 3 Super, super excited to get into the show today.

Speaker 3 Ben, excited for you to talk about how Donald Trump is this great unifier against Donald Trump and MAGA.

Speaker 3 Just so incredible to see what's happening over there in Canada.

Speaker 3 By the way, new friend on Blue Sky. We're on Blue Sky for everyone who's been asking at Midas Touch and then at all of our regular handles that you all know.

Speaker 3 My buddy Jarv came up with the Maple Mighty. He's a fellow Canadian and he's like, he's like the Maple Mighty.
Love y'all out.

Speaker 6 I love Maple Mighty. I've also seen people because

Speaker 6 we have a lot of people in Canada who listen to and watch the show, which is super cool. We've obviously been entering Canadian politics a bit and covering Canada and we will in this episode as well.

Speaker 6 I also saw the Maple Midas, which I, which I really, which I really like as well.

Speaker 6 I love our Canadian fans. I love all of our fans.
Our Canadian fans have been so awesome, so welcoming as we do the coverage. So shout out Canada.

Speaker 3 Well, it stands in contrast to Maple MAGA.

Speaker 3 The issue was a lot of the Conservative Party was overtaken by all of these, you know, MAGA extremist views, and they were kind of proudly declaring themselves as MAGA Maple or Maple MAGA.

Speaker 3 A lot of them stopped that because they felt betrayed by Donald Trump. They were like, dude,

Speaker 3 we were your team.

Speaker 3 What are you doing?

Speaker 3 I mean, the person you see there on the left, Doug Ford, the conservative premier of ontario he would like wear maga hats now he's wearing hats that say basically canada you're not touching i mean united states you're not touching canada canada's not for sale um and so you know he's done a complete 180.

Speaker 3 you still have this uh conservative premier from alberta daniel smith um who's very problematic and she tried to divide and conquer but got humiliated but let's start here domestically in the united states where donald trump's a favorability rating is like the lowest ever going into an inauguration.

Speaker 3 Usually the

Speaker 3 shocked me.

Speaker 6 I'm not going to lie, Ben. This really surprised me because, like you said, usually you're in this period and you think you're having this honeymoon period where your ratings are going to be high.

Speaker 6 And some of the initial approval polls of Trump were in the positive territory.

Speaker 6 I mean, some of the best polls that he's received. And by the way,

Speaker 6 while being in the positive territory, still lower historically than most presidents, if not all presidents, when they actually enter office, but positive nonetheless.

Speaker 6 So, it's been interesting to see over the past few weeks that these numbers have shifted so strongly.

Speaker 6 And I think it's because folks are finally already rather seeing what a Trump administration means and are seeing that a Trump administration is quite literally an administration for the billionaires, for the oligarchs.

Speaker 6 So, I'll pull up this poll, Ben, while you speak about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, look, you've got Biden's approval rating heading in was about 65%, 70%.

Speaker 3 Donald Trump's approval rating is like 41%.

Speaker 3 I mean, just think about how underwater that is right there. And I think Americans are realizing that Donald Trump is a WMD, a weapon of mass distraction.

Speaker 3 I don't know, like all of the crazy stuff that he's posting doesn't hit the way it did. I know corporate media wants us to chase it.

Speaker 3 The good news is that our platform's just as big, if not bigger, than corporate media now.

Speaker 3 So when Donald Trump wants to try to distract us, we'll cover how serious some some of these bizarre and dangerous and threatening statements that he make are.

Speaker 3 But we're going to always bring it back to egg prices are at record highs.

Speaker 3 mortgage rates at record highs the price of goods record highs we showed previously on the last episode that trump's envoy to ukraine keith kellog is saying that he'll need at least 100 days before even a framework is developed for trying to discuss a peace deal there where trump said it would be 24 hours after the election, or just even assume he meant 24 hours after inauguration, which is not what he actually said.

Speaker 3 That's not going to happen. So it's lie after lie after lie.
And Americans who have now been Googling what are tariffs, he probably should have done that before the election.

Speaker 3 And also, Americans and corporations that rely on labor from foreign sources, including undocumented labor and construction, and hospitality, and agriculture, and other areas

Speaker 3 in red states like Texas and Nebraska and elsewhere. They're saying, well, wait a minute, so you're actually going to deport all of our workers and do workplace raids?

Speaker 3 Well, why are you going to do that? We need those workers. Can we do some sort of comprehensive immigration plan?

Speaker 3 I don't know, like the one President Biden introduced that Donald Trump killed, which would have had the strongest border, as well as a comprehensive plan to make sure that the bad guys were prosecuted, which, by the way, they are, and those contributing have at least a pathway towards citizenship where they don't have to hide in the shadows and we can actually fix a broken immigration system.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, but Donald Trump intentionally killed that bill because he said it was a winning issue for him to create chaos at the border and to create chaos in our immigration system.

Speaker 3 So, look, when Donald Trump makes a post like this, remember, he's just trying to do a bait and switch.

Speaker 3 Oh, Donald Trump goes, it's my honor to announce John Voigt, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, they'll become special ambassadors to Hollywood, California. Okay, really?

Speaker 3 I mean, you're creating, you're making up an ambassadorship to Hollywood, California? Okay, Donald, cool, bro, but what about lower prices? Cool, bro, but what about the prices of eggs and groceries?

Speaker 3 Cool, bro. How are you going to make housing more affordable when the 10-year yield on the bond market is pricing in the chaos you're about to cause? And now mortgage rates are up past 7%.

Speaker 3 Oh, and by the way, those billionaire oligarch bros of yours, the guys like Scott Besant, who run hedge funds at private equity companies, yeah, they're the people who are scooping up the supply of housing and making it so expensive because the supply is diminished because they are commoditizing housing and buying it up so regular folk can't buy homes.

Speaker 3 Oh, those are your buddies. What are you doing there? Donald Trump says, I am hereby creating the external revenue service.

Speaker 3 The external revenue service will be like the internal revenue service, except they're going to collect the tariffs. Dude, what are you even talking about? This is a real post from him.

Speaker 3 External revenue service. Okay, tariffs are a tax on American companies, the importing company in America to try to dissuade them from getting goods from abroad.
That's what it is.

Speaker 6 Do you notice, by the way, that everything that he says, like the whole thing in the beginning, right, was Doge, right?

Speaker 6 We're going to create this Department of Government Efficiency, which is like a fake pseudo-department.

Speaker 6 And then the first hint that this wasn't going to be super efficient was him assigning two people to run Doge. He had two people run the departments.
So he had two people run it. Not very efficient.

Speaker 6 Now it seems like every announcement, he's just making government bigger. Like, I don't know if people who consider themselves conservative realize the irony of this.

Speaker 6 Like, we already have departments that collect tariffs. That's already a thing that we have.
Like, the custom service, the custom and border patrol, they handle tariffs.

Speaker 6 So now Donald Trump wants to put a duplicative

Speaker 6 department in the government, thereby making the U.S. government even larger.
Just doesn't sound super efficient.

Speaker 6 But what I've noticed about a lot of the things that Trump says is that, and I don't mean to sound demeaning to people, but a lot of things probably sound really good to really dumb people. And

Speaker 6 I've noticed the people, the people who get excited about this are always the same kind of suspects. And I see them on the other apps too.
I see them on TikTok. I see them on the various things.

Speaker 3 They're like, yeah, bro, external revenue, sir. Yeah.

Speaker 3 F yeah, where this is Gulf of America, bro. Gulf of America.
Yeah, exactly. Gulf of America, bro.
We got Gulf.

Speaker 6 I'm like, this is the dumbest shit on the planet. What are we doing here, people?

Speaker 6 And you know what? That's the weapon of mass distraction, right? Because like the dog in the movie Up, Donald Trump is able to go.

Speaker 3 Gulf of America, Gulf of America, wave the keys. It's a squirrel.
Squirrel over there.

Speaker 6 And then his followers, like the ones I'm speaking about, they go squirrel and they look over there.

Speaker 6 And then meanwhile, all this stuff is damaging their their lives, raising prices, raising mortgage rates, really screwing them over while they're pumping their chests and pumping their fists over the fact that he wants to rename something Gulf of America or has created another department that is useless and has no point.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's the same thing every time. I think this every time the guy posts.

Speaker 3 And the oligarchs just sit back, laugh as they count their money. It is so pathetic.
Well, you know, it's that first scene or one of the first episodes of the new squid games.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to try to ruin it on on netflix and by the way i really couldn't get through it because i really can't watch anything on netflix in general like i i can't i i i i there's nothing i can

Speaker 3 yeah i'm zero zero attention span but there but you know to watch that type of stuff like there's so much real world stuff that i just can't get into like fake worlds personally i don't know that's uh my own thing but the guy who won the actor who won in in the fictional character who won squid games one comes back to squid games two and then tries to like warn all of the people how the games work.

Speaker 3 Look, here's what's going to happen. They're going to shoot you if you do this.
Hold the line and stop. Do not be distracted by what they're about to say.
I'm telling you what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 And so in the scene, as he's warning the people about what's going to happen, For most of it, he's able to do it. He goes, you see, that's the hustle.
I'm proving it. Look right there.

Speaker 3 This is what they did in the first season. You know, this is what they they did when I won it.
And then as he's trying to tell people, the people still couldn't resist it.

Speaker 3 And they're like, I don't know about it. I'm going to go and try to run anyway.
And then they would get like shot, basically, right? I mean,

Speaker 3 we've played the squid games before with Donald Trump or the Hunger Games. We've been through it once before.
This time, it's going to be worse. But we actually know the playbook.

Speaker 3 So what we always want to warn you about is do not get distracted by the shiny objects. Focus on what we need to focus about.

Speaker 3 It's why let's talk about what I think are some of the most important clips from some of these confirmation hearings that are actually not getting the attention they deserve.

Speaker 3 Look, we've covered the Hexeth hearing. Hexeth's completely unqualified.
The guy's got a horrific past. His moral character is garbage.

Speaker 3 I would just describe it as just consistent perpetual moral turpitude is what this guy's engaged in. He's unqualified.
He's never led anything before.

Speaker 3 The fact that Republicans want to make this guy the Secretary of Defense just shows you there's no depths to their depths of depravity and, frankly, in my opinion, hatred of the United States of America.

Speaker 3 If you're willing to make that guy the Secretary of Defense, you hate this country because why else would you pick somebody who would do such damage to the country? So stipulated, we get it.

Speaker 3 That's who the Republicans are.

Speaker 3 I can go on for hours about what it how dangerous this guy is we've done other videos on i want to show you clips that you're not seeing though so trump's pick for treasury secretary scott besant his uh his confirmation hearing he was asked by bernie sanders so

Speaker 3 we've been told a lot about you know you're gonna you're gonna help the workers right that was some of the campaign promises you're gonna raise the minimum wage huh you 725

Speaker 3 we should raise that federal minimum wage, right? Because you want to help the billionaires. How about bringing the minimum wage up from $7.25 to something a little more? Watch the exchange.

Speaker 7 Right now in America, we have over 22 million workers who are making less than $15 an hour and nearly 40 million.

Speaker 7 people in our country earning less than $17 an hour.

Speaker 7 Shamefully, the federal minimum wage, despite the efforts of myself and other people here, have not been raised since 2009 and remains an unbelievable $7.25 an hour.

Speaker 7 Will you work with those of us who want to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage to take millions of Americans out of poverty?

Speaker 8 Senator, I believe that the minimum wage is more of a statewide and regional issue.

Speaker 7 So you don't think we should change the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour?

Speaker 8 No, sir.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Mr.

Speaker 3 Besson, just think about that answer right there and then juxtapose that to this clip where Besson says his top priority, the biggest priority, how he thinks he's going to be judged.

Speaker 3 is by ensuring that the billionaires get their tax cuts. Here, watch this.

Speaker 10 Senator Crapo, thank you for this and thank you for the meetings over the past few weeks. I've enjoyed working with your staff.
And this is the single most important economic issue of the day.

Speaker 10 This is pass fail.

Speaker 10 That if we do not

Speaker 10 fix these tax cuts, if we do not renew and extend, then we will be facing an economic calamity.

Speaker 3 And then I want you to see this clip right here of him as well, where he's asked, do you think that there are any policies that Trump has proposed that will increase prices for families?

Speaker 3 Hintint tariffs, hint hint bloody mass deportations, hint hint, and then Besant. By the way, let me give you Scott Besant's background.

Speaker 3 You know how all the MAGA Republicans are like, this is a George Soros plant, which it's never true.

Speaker 3 And it's always like some attempt at being like anti-Semitic to link people to like a like a Jewish banker and like that's the whole concept that this is all George Soros.

Speaker 3 This guy was literally George Soros's money manager. This guy ran George Soros's money and then launched his own hedge fund after rising the ranks for Soros.

Speaker 3 And then he became basically the tool of the oligarchs to implement their agenda. That's who this guy is here.
So watch this next question though.

Speaker 3 And then just listen carefully at the end where the senator says, so let me get this straight though, because if the prices go up then, because we all know the prices will go up under Trump, they're already going up in anticipation.

Speaker 3 You'll agree that it was a failure though, because you're saying that because prices went up under Biden, Biden was a failure. And then he goes,

Speaker 3 I just don't think I can say that.

Speaker 3 I don't think I'll be able to say that at all. Here, watch this.

Speaker 11 Are there any specific policies proposed by the president-elect that you expect will increase prices for families?

Speaker 10 Nothing I can immediately think of.

Speaker 11 So that's a no. If the President-elect were to propose a policy that you believe will increase prices, would you advise against it?

Speaker 10 I would

Speaker 10 speak to President Trump about it. It is his decision, and I believe that we think that if we look back, that it is a complete composite

Speaker 10 return

Speaker 10 in terms of aggregate inflation numbers, and I think it's very difficult to do. Well, if you believe

Speaker 11 I have limited time, so if you believe that a policy that is proposed by President Trump would increase prices, would you advise him against doing it?

Speaker 10 Yes or no?

Speaker 10 I can't answer that question because it's a hypothetical.

Speaker 11 All right, let's move on to when we met prior to the hearing, you told me that President Biden was responsible for increased prices over the past four years.

Speaker 11 Something we can litigate, but I don't want to right here. By the same token, I assume you would agree that if prices increase in the next four years, President-elect Trump would be responsible.

Speaker 10 I think there could be a variety of reasons.

Speaker 3 I can't answer that. I think it's a complete composite on the returns of the aggregate inflation.
The first 15 seconds

Speaker 3 wasn't even a sentence.

Speaker 3 President Trump.

Speaker 3 I cannot respond to the hypothetical that you're giving me it's a complete aggregate mosaic it's a mosaic and uh i need to i need to do the mosaic he's clearly coached to say as little as possible in in these hearings and by the way i feel like all these people are kind of coached to say as little as possible and

Speaker 6 you know you kind of have to assume that most if not all of these nominees are going to get through now that they've made it to this stage just the makeup of the republicans the makeup of the uh of the senate of the Congress, and

Speaker 6 they're going to vote along party lines.

Speaker 6 Some of them will be much wider margins than others, depending on if they're more serious candidates or if they're people like a Heg Seth.

Speaker 6 But Bessant's going to get in there easy, but it's still good to get these folks on the record with these questions.

Speaker 6 I think why that line of questioning was so important, even if he didn't give a straight answer there. But he did give a straight answer in that Bernie Sanders clip.

Speaker 6 And I thought that was very telling to hear him say adamantly, no, I'm not interested in a federal minimum wage. That's a state issue.
The federal minimum wage is a federal minimum wage.

Speaker 6 It's absolutely not a state issue. It's been $7.25 for decades now.

Speaker 6 It's quite frankly an embarrassing minimum wage that our country is at.

Speaker 6 But what I think that folks who want to oppose this administration and this party need to continuously emphasize is the fact that this is the party of the oligarchs.

Speaker 6 And that's why I was very excited to hear President Biden make that stark warning during his speech, which we'll get to later, his farewell address.

Speaker 6 But one of the things that I've been pulling my hair out, and I know I've said it on the show, maybe every episode since the election, is like, isn't it so obvious?

Speaker 6 Like, look at the people who are running this party.

Speaker 6 You have Vivek Ramaswamy, who, in my opinion, by all accounts, basically scammed his way into becoming a billionaire with the way that he basically did this pump and dump scheme to get rich.

Speaker 6 You have Elon Elon Musk, you have Donald Trump, you have people like Scott Bess. You literally, you have all the oligarchs coming together right now.

Speaker 6 You have all the kind of big tech people coming together. You have the Zuckerbergs, you have the Bezos.

Speaker 6 Like it couldn't be more clear and the contrast couldn't be more clear. So it's like you have something to run against here.

Speaker 6 And you have policies that the people are, that are very popular amongst the people.

Speaker 6 I mean, there's a reason, love him or hate him, there's a reason that Senator Bernie Sanders has something like a 69% 69% approval rating. I saw this earlier today.

Speaker 6 69% approval rating in a state, highest in the entire United States Senate. His disapproval is just at 27%.

Speaker 6 Those are unbelievable numbers, unbelievable approval numbers to have in the Senate. And why? It's because he is speaking to these issues.

Speaker 6 Now, more people should be speaking to these issues that actually resonate with working people.

Speaker 6 Ironically, many of the people who voted for Trump for whatever reason, but these are the people whose policies, Trump, the policies of Trump are going to ultimately end up hurting.

Speaker 6 And it's like they're laughing in their face when they have Elon Musk up there,

Speaker 6 kind of mocking them and mocking government workers. And you have the Bezos and all these people.
It couldn't be clearer. You have such an opportunity for clear, concise messaging on this topic.

Speaker 6 Don't let that slip away.

Speaker 3 Hair Brett, ask me a question. Let's pretend that I'm one of Trump's

Speaker 3 cabinet officials or picks who he's picking.

Speaker 3 Ask me a question about how I would handle matters in the administration.

Speaker 6 So how would you handle, sir, sir, sir, sir? How would you handle matters relating to tariff policy, what Donald Trump's going to do by imposing blanket tariffs on

Speaker 6 every country, basically across the world? Will that raise prices?

Speaker 6 Is it going to create hardship for everyday Americans?

Speaker 3 Well, I haven't spoken this stage to the president-elect. I cannot answer a hypothetical of that nature.

Speaker 3 I will say that I have full faith that the president will engage thoughtfully.

Speaker 3 He will build a composite structure with the right team. There will be synergies in place.

Speaker 3 I am confident that ultimately a solution will be reached reached that will be complementary to the overall operation.

Speaker 3 It's a long bit.

Speaker 6 You're in, but that's what they do, though, right?

Speaker 3 It's a long bit. You're right.
We got to go to our first hand.

Speaker 3 That's my issue with the hearings, at least this stage, given the makeup of the Senate.

Speaker 3 We didn't force out the nominees up until this point.

Speaker 3 They're confirmed.

Speaker 3 I hate to say, there's nothing that any of these folks could say up you know, when they're being questioned,

Speaker 3 aside from I hate Donald Trump, that would get them removed from the cabinet position that

Speaker 3 they're going for. And so

Speaker 3 I do want to say this. I like it for the Bernie Sanders moment.
And I think Dems in general need to get more pointed with their questions instead of these open-ended, more ambiguous questions.

Speaker 3 Because if this is just a, hey, let's get this person on record so we all could hear it and see it, then let's get real friggin pointed with how we're asking these questions because everyone here is going to get confirmed.

Speaker 3 Oh, and it was a long bit. We got to go to our first ad break.
I want to remind everybody to check out patreon.com slash Midas Touch. In the next week or so, we'll hold another meeting.

Speaker 3 If you ever wanted to meet Brett, Jordy, and myself in a private meeting, sign up for patreon.com slash Midas Touch. We don't have outside investors, so it's one of the ways we grow.

Speaker 3 Let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 3 Links in the description of both audio and YouTube. Use the links, use the codes.
If there's any exit surveys, let them know we sent you. Very helpful.
Ben, I'm sorry. I saw you at break.

Speaker 3 I didn't mean to like make fun of you because the bit was going long. You looked a little upset with me.
I apologize. It was a good bit.

Speaker 6 I mean, Ben, Ben knew how long these senators actually have to ask questions. He was going to fill that whole time.

Speaker 3 They have seven minutes. And so you can.
But I was showing how it's, this is not like complicated stuff.

Speaker 3 But the funny thing is, is, and I think they've done this intentionally, it's not all that funny.

Speaker 3 Cash Patel,

Speaker 3 who Trump picked to be the FBI director, I think the Republicans like that he's not going right away. They're having him watch all of these.
And they're saying, this is how you do it.

Speaker 3 You're going to get asked these questions. When you get asked these questions, just don't give real answers.
Okay, that's all you have to do.

Speaker 3 Just don't answer the questions, just say other crap, or just say you don't know and you never heard about it, or you can't recall or you don't remember, which, by the way, is pathetic.

Speaker 3 That shouldn't be the case, right? I think when our founders

Speaker 3 created our constitution, and I think over time, unfortunately, so much has been based on good faith and norms, the ability that co-equal branches of government will protect their turf, that even if you're a Republican senator, you will respect that you're a senator and not just do anything that the Article II president tells you to do.

Speaker 3 And that's unfortunately, though, what this Republican Party has become. They gave Trump an inch.
and he took their life.

Speaker 3 Here's Pam Bondi, Trump's pick for attorney general. General.
She was asked a very basic question about, have you heard that audio recording where Donald Trump said, find me the 11,780 votes?

Speaker 3 And as Trump's Attorney General pick, what do you think about that he was threatening and intimidating a Republican Secretary of State in Georgia to commit fraud?

Speaker 3 And her response is, I've never heard that. I've never, I've heard of it, but I need to see the transcript.
I don't know. Here, play this clip.

Speaker 13 Have you heard the recording of President Trump on January 2nd, 2021, when he urged the Secretary of State of Georgia to, quote, find 11,780 votes and declare him the winner of that state?

Speaker 14 No, I've heard about it through clips, but no, no, Senator, I've not heard it.

Speaker 13 What was your reaction to President Trump making that call?

Speaker 14 I have, I would have to listen to the tape, Senator.

Speaker 13 Well, the quote that I give you is exact.

Speaker 4 He said to the Georgia Secretary of State, find 11,780 votes.

Speaker 14 Do you have the entire context of that call? I feel like it was much longer than that and maybe taken out of context.

Speaker 12 It was an hour long.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 13 You can certainly listen to it.

Speaker 4 I hope you will.

Speaker 13 Every American should.

Speaker 4 As the former prosecutors, are you not concerned that the President of the United States called a state election official and asked them to find enough votes to change the results of the election?

Speaker 14 Senator, I have not listened to the hour-long conversation, but it's my understanding that is not what he asked him to do.

Speaker 4 You need to listen to it.

Speaker 3 That is my understanding. That is not

Speaker 3 what he, I mean, it literally is what he asked him to do. It's on the audio recording.

Speaker 3 And, you know, look, I know that people aren't, people are more focused on the Hegseth one, but I did think it was important to show you Scott Besant and Bondi.

Speaker 3 And then also you had the head of the OMB, Russ Vogt, literally the guy who authored Project 2025, who's put in the position to implement Project 2025 in terms of all of the budget priorities for the DECA billionaires.

Speaker 3 I did a whole video on that. It's on our YouTube feed.
You should go take a look at that as well. But I want to talk about this MAGA civil war.
taking place right now at the state and federal level.

Speaker 3 At the state level, like it's literally Republican on Republican violence. You had the state of the state state speech, kind of like the state of the union, but within the state of Georgia.

Speaker 3 Republican governor Brian Kemp was delivering the speech, and he banned the pro-Trump state senator Colton Moore.

Speaker 3 And Colton Moore was always out there saying the most like cultist stuff about Donald Trump, which is really weird. He's like a Marjorie Taylor Greene type guy.

Speaker 3 That same level of derangement.

Speaker 3 But Brian Kemp banned him from showing up. So what did Colton Moore do? He shows up and then

Speaker 3 he got pushed. But, like, look at it.
Like, it looks like he took a dive.

Speaker 3 Watch for yourself as Republican on Republican violence. And then I'm not even going to show you after, because then afterwards, he gets arrested.
And then, like, he takes a

Speaker 3 video of himself in the hospital and he acts like he broke his arm. And it's like, all right, relax, dude.
Like, it looks like you literally just took a spill on the floor yourself. Like,

Speaker 3 watch this.

Speaker 16 I have an obligation to be in that room.

Speaker 16 I represent 200,000 people in Northwest Georgia who duly elected me to be here today.

Speaker 3 Key play it again. One more time.
Look at him again.

Speaker 3 Last fall when he looks like a fish.

Speaker 6 Now people are ready for it.

Speaker 6 So he just takes a big spill right off the bat, just nose dives backward.

Speaker 16 I represent 200,000 people in Northwest Georgia who duly elected me to be here today.

Speaker 3 It's so MAGA. That whole moment is just so MAGA because the fight ensues or the flop ensues.
He falls. It's all for, like, it looks ridiculous.
And he gets up and they both go, it's gone too far.

Speaker 3 It's gone too far. And then they try to have like some sort of civil conversation.
It's like, y'all can't just like throw down on the house floor like lunatics and then try and have a conversation.

Speaker 3 No, you're going to get arrested, buddy.

Speaker 6 Yeah, to remind everyone, he gets arrested after that.

Speaker 3 You cannot come in.

Speaker 6 Oh, my God. He gets arrested after that and then ends up in the hospital and takes a picture in the hospital.

Speaker 6 You can judge for yourself if you look up the picture whether this injury is legitimate or not.

Speaker 3 It's the most ridiculous thing.

Speaker 6 It's got vibes of Nancy Mace Mace wearing a sling after

Speaker 6 she took a handshake.

Speaker 3 The rough hand.

Speaker 3 But then they go around. I mean, the whole thing, too, is like, oh, the Alpha Bros.
Like, this is alpha. I'm like, okay,

Speaker 3 that framing is so weird, but this is like the least alpha-ish stuff I've ever seen. I mean, he's like a big guy, too.
I just want to talk about it one more time because

Speaker 3 he seems like a big guy. And then he just falls in the most hilariously awkward way.
And then this photo at the hospital is just anyway,

Speaker 3 you have a guy named Mike Turner, Republican Congress member from Dayton, Ohio,

Speaker 3 was the chair of the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives, had been a member of Congress since 2003. a respected guy on a bipartisan basis.

Speaker 3 He said a bunch of stuff that I disagree with, but overall, he was viewed as a very kind of competent guy, a competent actor.

Speaker 3 You know, you'd be happy that he, if any of these Republicans were the head of the intelligence committee, that at least it was this guy. But he was very pro-Ukraine.
He was very pro-NATO.

Speaker 3 He was very anti-Tulsi Gabbard. So he had to go.
Donald Trump gave the order to MAGA Mike Johnson to get rid of this guy from the intelligence committee because MAGA Mike is the speaker of the house.

Speaker 3 He gets to pick who leads the committees and MAGA Mike. takes his orders from Donald Trump, so he fired Turner and then replaced Turner with the guy by the name of Congressmember Rick Crawford.

Speaker 3 Let me do it in reverse order. Let me show you Rick Crawford first.
He's an Arkansas GOP Congress member. This is what he said on July 31st, 2021 about COVID.
Here, play this clip.

Speaker 17 Look,

Speaker 17 we need to understand, I believe that the COVID virus is real.

Speaker 17 However, I don't know that it's any worse than the common cold, and we somehow managed to get through the common cold as we develop overtime vaccinations and herd immunity and things of this nature.

Speaker 17 I'm not downplaying the severity of the pandemic, but I also we have to learn to live with it.

Speaker 18 While I have to have you here, I do want to move on to infrastructure.

Speaker 3 I mean, the fact that that's a political issue is the most ridiculous thing. The fact that that guy...
is now chairing the intelligence community. That was the least intelligent thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 He's also opposed aid to Ukraine,

Speaker 3 and he's now leading the intelligence committee. Let me contrast him with Mike Turner.
And here, Reb Turner says that it's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 Congressmember Turner says it's absolutely true that Russian propaganda has infected the GOP. This is from April 7th of 2024.
Let's play it.

Speaker 19 Let's turn to Ukraine, an issue that's important to you and your fellow Republican chairman, Michael McCall, who runs the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Speaker 19 Congressman McCall made a comment this week about what he says sounds like Russian propaganda from some conservative media

Speaker 19 and why it's so difficult to explain to Republican voters why supporting Ukraine is important.

Speaker 19 He told Julia Yaffe, I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base.

Speaker 19 He singled out primetime shows on conservative channels. Do you agree with him? And how big is this problem?

Speaker 8 Oh, it is absolutely true.

Speaker 8 We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.

Speaker 8 I mean, there are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not.

Speaker 8 Vladimir Putin having made it very clear, both publicly and to his own population, that his view is that this is a conflict of a much broader claim of Russia to Eastern Europe, including claiming all of Ukraine territory as Russia's.

Speaker 8 Now, to the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is.

Speaker 8 President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified it as such. We need to stand up for democracy.

Speaker 8 We need to make certain that we know that authoritarian regimes never stop when they start in aggression.

Speaker 8 Ukraine needs our help and assistance now, and this is a very critical time for the U.S. Congress to step up and provide that.

Speaker 3 So Republicans got rid of that guy because Donald Trump ordered that they get rid of that guy.

Speaker 3 He's still a member of Congress, but all his seniority, his entire career, right, working up through the ranks to chair the intelligence committee, Trump just said, not you.

Speaker 3 I want the guy who thinks that COVID is the same as the cold. And that's the problem.
I mean, one of the biggest problems to me is just the basic facts, right?

Speaker 3 Just the basic character, basic qualifications, and the fact that any of this stuff is political, especially out here in Los Angeles, the way they've politicized the fires, but that's not just unique to us, not just politicized, that lied about it the moment it started.

Speaker 3 It was a hurricane of lies, as California Governor Gavin Newsom had said in the recent interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. That's what it was, but it wasn't unique to California.

Speaker 3 Any tragedy, any situation over the past four years, they pumped the disinformation.

Speaker 3 And with Elon's acquisition of Twitter, Now X, it just gets pushed out with such force that it's a full-time job of a governor who has to deal with a crisis. to deal with the crisis of disinformation.

Speaker 3 That's the unfortunate reality that we inhabit in the MAGA world that's removed the norms and good faith. and we're all Americans, kumbaya, let's lock arms, let's do things together.

Speaker 3 That's not where we're at. And I think Democrats are playing by old school rules while the MAGA Republicans are playing an entirely different game built on lies and propaganda.

Speaker 3 I want to share with you when we come back President Biden's farewell address. I want to talk about the state of the economy.
Brett will break that down as the handoff is made from Biden to Trump.

Speaker 3 And we'll talk a little bit about Canada uniting against the U.S. Let's take our last break of the show.

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Speaker 20 Benji, where are you next?

Speaker 3 One of the other things to mention is that on the dais next to Donald Trump during the inauguration, there will be the physical manifestation of the oligarchy, right?

Speaker 3 You're going to have Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos sitting together, the richest people in the country. They're sponsoring all of the events.
They're going to be right there.

Speaker 3 Just, you're going to see it. So if you want to know who is screwing you, it's right there.

Speaker 3 Then the cabinet basically that they bought. And then the MAGA Republicans who they bought as well.
Michelle Obama is not going to be there. Nancy Pelosi's not going to be there.

Speaker 3 Others will be there on the Democratic side. We're not going to stream that there.

Speaker 3 The interesting thing is, like, when you have Charlie Kirk, who previously didn't like, you know, these individuals, posting like, this is great. Look who's going to be there.

Speaker 3 Even some of like the MAGA supporters are like,

Speaker 3 these are the billionaires that you told us that we were supposed to hate. Like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 3 You know, and I think it's important, again, WMD, weapon of mass distraction, anytime that Donald Trump tries to bring our attention to, oh, Mel Gibson, I'm appointing to become the ambassador of Hollywood.

Speaker 3 We go, okay, cool, bro, but what about egg prices? Okay, cool, bro, but what about the costs of groceries? What about making housing more affordable?

Speaker 3 What about all of your promises about workers and all of these things? Oh, wait a minute, you're not doing that. And look, I think on day one, look, here's the thing.

Speaker 3 And, Brett, I'll let you do this economic update. President Biden had things in the right direction, just objectively.
It's not like, oh, you like Biden, you interviewed him.

Speaker 3 I mean, just look at the charts and the graphics and where the market was. It was up 50 to 60 percent from where it was under Trump.

Speaker 3 You had great job reports every month, never a single month where jobs were lost, 16.6 million jobs created.

Speaker 3 All Trump actually would have had to do is basically nothing, just coast on it and take credit for it. But pathologically, Trump can't do that.

Speaker 3 And now we're already seeing before day one, the market reacting to it. Brett, take it away.

Speaker 6 Well, first, I just want to pitch before we get into the economic updates, I just want to pitch our idea for the inauguration.

Speaker 6 I want to see what the folks think in the comments. So you can let us know in the comments.

Speaker 6 What if instead of airing the inauguration, because we're not going to air the inauguration, what if we just air videos of puppies throughout the inauguration? Like, I'm not even exaggerating.

Speaker 6 What if, throughout the inauguration, we just do a stream of a loop of a bunch of videos of adorable puppies the entire time?

Speaker 6 If you like this idea, let us know in the comments, let us know here in the live chat.

Speaker 6 I want to hear your thoughts. I'm not kidding.
Like, we will go ahead.

Speaker 6 And you know, it would be hilarious as well if our stream of watching puppies uh gets more views than the streams of the inauguration just an idea just an idea folks we're throwing it out there if you like it let us know okay every time for everybody's favorite segment let's get right into it this is the netsuite by oracle know your numbers minute all right it's time for the netsuite by oracle know your numbers minute let's get into the latest economic updates here as everybody knows netsuite provides easy access to economic data and trends through integrated analytics.

Speaker 6 So let's break down some of that data, shall we folks? So we're seeing seeing some news on mortgages and mortgage rates right now.

Speaker 6 The 30-year mortgage rate is back above 7% for the first time since May. Freddie Mac says the average rate is now 7.04%.

Speaker 6 This is quite frankly one of the least affordable times to buy a home in the past 40 years. And it's going to be hard to spur a lot more buying or building with rates this high.

Speaker 6 And I want to be clear, rates were coming down quite substantially leading up to the November elections. That all changed following the results of the elections.

Speaker 6 In fact, just a few weeks ago, the CEO of Compass was interviewed on CNBC,

Speaker 6 and they said that prior to the election, it was Compass's view that the mortgage rates were heading to the fives either next year or the following year.

Speaker 6 But then we had these fears of new tariffs and other inflationary policies from Donald Trump, from the incoming administration that have now changed the court's course of rates.

Speaker 6 Now we're seeing them come back up to

Speaker 6 historically high levels in the past few decades. It's honestly, I think it's a huge bummer because, as Ben was saying before, things were heading in the right direction.

Speaker 6 Everything was on the up and up. And then we had this huge reversal over these past few months, just a sign of more things to come.
And in inflation news, we had a new inflation report come out.

Speaker 6 Inflation was a mixed bag in December. And the report that came out this week, the Consumer Price Index, the CPI, showed some relief in core inflation, which was definitely a...

Speaker 6 some positive news but the threat of those sticky high prices continue to loom although inflation has been slowing it still remains above that 2%

Speaker 6 level by the Federal Reserve. The Consumer Price Index increased the seasonally adjusted 0.4% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.9%.

Speaker 6 That number was exactly in line with the forecasts of what the experts thought that it was going to come in at.

Speaker 6 The core CPI annual rate, and for those who don't know the core CPI, it excludes food and energy prices because those are much more volatile.

Speaker 6 So this is a more stable way to measure the underlying inflation trends. Those slowed to 3.2%, which was a notch down from the month before.

Speaker 6 So slightly better than the 3.3% outlook that analysts had predicted. That excited investors quite a bit.
If you all saw the various markets, the stock market indices rise in a big way on Wednesday.

Speaker 6 That was why, because the markets reacted positively positively to that number.

Speaker 6 NetSuite offers tailored reporting features that allow businesses to focus on specific stock market indicators relevant to their sector.

Speaker 6 That way your business can always be ahead of the curve no matter what happens. Shelter prices, housing, which comprise about one-third of the CPI waiting, rose by 0.3%,

Speaker 6 but we're up 4.6% from a year ago. That's the smallest one-year gain since January 2022.
And the stubborn inflation numbers are going to present an interesting

Speaker 6 situation, I'd say, for the Federal Reserve in the coming year, because as you remember from our reporting, the Fed was getting ready to do a lot of aggressive rate cuts over the next few years.

Speaker 6 And we saw the beginning of that happen kind of prior to the election and kind of just after.

Speaker 6 But now, as Trump's policies are expected to contribute to higher prices, and this is how you can kind of separate, right, the BS, the bluster, the messaging from what's actually happening.

Speaker 6 You see how the actual, how the Fed's reacting, how the economic experts are. are reacting because these policies are expected to contribute to higher prices.

Speaker 6 Markets aren't expecting the next Federal Reserve rate cut to come now before June, despite the fact that we've had this better than expected economic data. So, there's my economic update.

Speaker 6 That's where things stand. That's where things are heading.
Obviously, things could change, but we always think it's important to bring you the latest updates as we have them.

Speaker 6 Thank you to NetSuite by Oracle.

Speaker 21 That was the NetSuite by Oracle Know Your Numbers Minute. Do you know your own numbers for your business? Download NetSuite's ultimate KPI checklist right now at netsuite.com/slash Midas.

Speaker 3 Thanks for for that update, B. That was a really, really solid one there.

Speaker 3 I agree that streaming puppies versus the inauguration is the route to go.

Speaker 6 People seem to like the puppy idea.

Speaker 3 I gotta say. I'm pretty confident that the puppy stream is going to get more than any inauguration stream.

Speaker 6 That's really what I want to know. Could we get more, like if we look at the Midas Touch puppy inauguration stream and then we compare it to like the MSNBC or

Speaker 6 name your stream? Can we get more viewers on videos of puppies? And Ben could come in and narrate the puppies too and do some voiceovers.

Speaker 6 You know, tell you what's going on with the pups, right? They're super adorable, super cute.

Speaker 6 Could we get more views?

Speaker 6 Just an idea, folks. Just an idea.

Speaker 3 Stay tuned. All right.
WMD, Weapon of Mass Distraction, one of the things that Donald Trump

Speaker 3 is promoting at his

Speaker 3 Palm Beach golf course.

Speaker 3 He's now doing,

Speaker 3 I guess, his mug shot, which is basically his portrait now. The his portrait is his mug shot photo.
That's where we are in the United States international.

Speaker 6 Well, he basically replicated the photo. I want to be clear, it's not the same exact photo, but he basically replicated the post.

Speaker 3 It's the same exact pose, it's the same exact pose. That's what I meant.
Lynn and Harris, there, right? Okay, got it. Okay, here he is, though.
He's doing his face on burgers.

Speaker 3 So, if you eat the burgers, his face appears on your burgers at all of his properties now, which is,

Speaker 3 you know, I mean, it's a very weird thing. It doesn't look like him.
It looks, I mean, honestly, it looks like Putin.

Speaker 3 Don't get distracted by that. Let me show you what's going on in Canada, though.
This is Doug Ford. He was Maple MAGA.

Speaker 3 You see right there,

Speaker 3 projecting unity, the various different parties, provincial level, federal level.

Speaker 3 Ford is a conservative leader, the premier of Ontario. You see Justin Trudeau, prime minister.
He's resigned.

Speaker 3 Canada's in the pro-rogue period right now as they pick their new leader, their new prime minister for the Liberal Party. Then we probably will have a vote soon.

Speaker 3 I've seen a lot of people call for a unity government there.

Speaker 3 Parties need to unite against Trump, but they're projecting unity as well. Here's what dumped Ford.
Again, this guy was Maple MAGA. This guy was a Trumper.

Speaker 3 He said his support for Trump would never waver. Well, not only has it wavered, he removed his MAGA hat and now wears the Canada is not for sale hat.

Speaker 3 And here he is describing this meeting where he says,

Speaker 3 you're never going to see what you see right now here in Canada. You'll never see Democrats and Republicans meeting in the Oval Office united on stuff.
He goes, here we all are.

Speaker 3 He goes, I don't care if you're the Orange Party, Green Party, NDP, Liberal Party, Conservatives. We're uniting.

Speaker 3 The one wrinkle to that, though, is that the Premier of Alberta, she's still Maple MAGA. Her name is Danielle Smith.
She showed up at Mar-a-Lago with Kevin O'Leary. You see them right there.

Speaker 3 And then, I mean, Donald Trump just utterly humiliated her. I think she like lied to the press, too, and she said she was on a vacation, but with her husband, but she ended up being in Mar-a-Lago.

Speaker 3 And Trump said to her, no, we're doing tariffs on day one. You're not exempt.
There's no Alberta exemption, 25%.

Speaker 3 We're going to do it on crude oil as well.

Speaker 3 Screw you, basically.

Speaker 3 And she's been really odd. She's been like attacking this unity government from Alberta, saying, No, you're going to screw us over in Alberta.

Speaker 3 The issue with Alberta is that they have a lot of big oil companies there. And so she's a shill for the oil companies.
That's what's taking place there.

Speaker 3 But anyway, let me show you Doug Ford from Ontario.

Speaker 3 Again, this guy used to be a Trumper, but here he is now saying that we're united to cause pain to the United States and have retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. when they come after us.

Speaker 3 Play this political parties.

Speaker 9 Sitting down and we have a robust conversation. We may agree or disagree, but we're coming out united.

Speaker 9 I can tell you, spending a lot of time in the U.S., you would never see a group of Democrats and Republicans sitting here collaboratively. I promise you one thing.

Speaker 9 President in Trump's office, a whole bunch of Democrats and Republicans saying, how can we attack Canada? It's not happening. We have the greatest country.

Speaker 9 We have the greatest elected officials, the greatest democracy in the world that we can sit here from one extreme to the other extreme to in the middle.

Speaker 9 And I've always said, I don't care about political stripes. I don't care if you're from the Orange Party, the Blue Party, or the Red Party.
We're going to be united. We're Canadian.

Speaker 9 We're going to get this done.

Speaker 3 And by this done, he's talking about uniting to inflict retaliatory tariffs on the United States, which, by the way, Mexico would do on day one as well if Trump, when Trump imposes the tariffs, you know, for all these people out there too, you know, who are like, well, we still need to see what he's going to do.

Speaker 3 He's going to do it. He's going to do it on day one.
Okay. He said he's going to do it.
So, like, when all of a sudden all of these analysts are like shocked, you're like, oh, he did it.

Speaker 3 And then the markets are impacted by it. Yeah, he did it.
He said he was going to do it. We warned you about it.

Speaker 3 What else is it that you need? Like, what other things do you need to be shown?

Speaker 3 And, you know,

Speaker 3 it's a wild thing.

Speaker 3 If you were to tell me, hey, Ben, I got a great investment for you. Over the next four years,

Speaker 3 we can increase your income by 50 to 60 percent.

Speaker 3 I would go, that's a great return on investment, right? That's good. That's what President Biden did with the markets.

Speaker 3 He was up 50 to 60 percent, but he was like excoriated and attacked by all of these so-called finance bros or finance people. Oh, we're going to do it better.

Speaker 3 Are you going to do it better than a 50 to 60 percent increase? You're going to do it better than 16.6 million jobs.

Speaker 3 I'm just so sick of this prevailing narrative that, oh, the Republicans are better on the economy.

Speaker 3 Look, over the past three, four decades, with 50 million jobs created, 48 million of those jobs were created during Democratic administrations.

Speaker 3 The big recessions that took place, right, were under Trump, were under George W. Bush, Reagan.
I mean, those, I I mean, like, it's such a strange thing to me.

Speaker 3 What they're really saying is that these billionaires want deregulation so that they can basically rip people off and that they can have

Speaker 3 not just 10 yachts, but 20 yachts. And then they get bailed out by the government while we, the people, get screwed and we don't get the bailouts.
They get the bailouts.

Speaker 3 And so there's zero risk and they just, you know, snatch up all the money and view it as a zero-sum game. It's really screwed up.
But it's what President Biden warned about in his farewell address.

Speaker 3 He gave a few warnings. And I thought it was great.
I thought it was substantive.

Speaker 3 One thing he was very critical of is the Supreme Court, a ban on stock trading in Congress, and also he wants a constitutional amendment to say no to presidential immunity here at Playlist.

Speaker 22 We need to get dark money. That's that hidden funding behind too many campaigns contributions.
We need to get it out of our politics.

Speaker 22 We need to enact an 18-year time limit, term limit, time interm for the strongest ethics reforms and the strongest ethnic reforms for our Supreme Court.

Speaker 22 We need to ban members of Congress

Speaker 22 from trading stock while they're in the Congress. We need to amend the Constitution and make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office.

Speaker 22 The president's power is not limited.

Speaker 22 It's not absolute.

Speaker 3 Here's what President Biden said about the threat of the oligarchy that has formed in the United States. Let's play it.

Speaker 22 And that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people. The dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.

Speaker 23 Today,

Speaker 22 an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence.

Speaker 22 that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.

Speaker 3 Powerful, powerful stuff. And then, Brett, he talked about remembering your oath.
I know you wanted to share that.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I thought this was a powerful clip. And I think President Biden is obviously, he's always very deliberate in his language.

Speaker 6 And so, you know, these warnings carry a lot of weight to me when he says these things. I think we need to take it to heart.
So earlier today, President Biden was speaking.

Speaker 6 He gave a farewell address as commander-in-chief to the United States military, and he gave them this message.

Speaker 23 Let me close with a final request.

Speaker 23 I say it not as your president or commander-in-chief. I say it as a man

Speaker 23 who spent 50 years of his life serving his country in a different way.

Speaker 23 Remember your oath.

Speaker 23 My son, Major Beau Biden, used to call it home base.

Speaker 23 That's a set of principles of values that give you light and darkness that guide you.

Speaker 23 It's true to the military, it's the best weapons, the best training in the world.

Speaker 23 We're the most cutting-edge ships, planes, and subs.

Speaker 23 We are the smartest, most well-trained force on earth.

Speaker 9 That's all critical.

Speaker 23 But that alone is not what makes us strong.

Speaker 23 This is not

Speaker 23 what brought Washington, its band of brothers brothers together all those years ago.

Speaker 3 Powerful, powerful stuff right there. And Brett, as you said, very deliberate.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I'll leave everybody with this thought because we see it with California Governor Gavin Newsom right now, who

Speaker 3 he wasn't ready

Speaker 3 for the, at first,

Speaker 3 for the deluge of the lies and disinformation, right? He just,

Speaker 3 and then it hit. And he was about two days late, not because he was negligent negligent or anything, quite the contrary, right? He was head down focusing on the crisis.
He was solving the issues.

Speaker 3 He couldn't fathom that as he was doing that, though, there would be all of this disinformation and lies that were harming his ability to handle the crisis.

Speaker 3 Then he's like, oh, we need to create a whole website that debunks the lies. I got to be out every day.

Speaker 3 I got to do videos and highly produced pieces every single day the the thing is he's doing such an effective job at it right now you have even speaker mike johnson mag and mike saying instead of making highly produced clapback videos with social media influencers you should get to work helping californians you know which which he is but you see how effective

Speaker 3 Newsom is, but you have to do it relentlessly. You shouldn't have to do it, be clear.
Like, this was not

Speaker 3 the country that President Biden

Speaker 3 grew up in.

Speaker 6 This was not part of the job

Speaker 6 not too long ago.

Speaker 6 It wasn't you had to be a social media influencer yourself

Speaker 6 in addition to being a governor or a president. But that's where we are now.
And you could tell it's effective, quite frankly, exactly because of what Speaker Johnson there. Speaker Johnson responded.

Speaker 6 That was a response to one of the clips that Brian Tyler Cohen. Brian Tyler Cohen, by the way, did a fantastic interview with Governor Newsom.

Speaker 6 And I think it's very smart that Governor Newsom is doing these interviews on site and is getting the message out to people in unique ways. It's one of the things that folks need to be doing.

Speaker 6 It's one of the things that Republicans have excelled at. And so now that Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, these people are seeing that, oh, shit.
Democrats are wising up.

Speaker 6 Look at them going on, getting their message out in ways that they're supposed to be, the way we've been doing. They're like, oh, no, no, no, that's our thing.
You're not allowed to do that.

Speaker 6 That's what we, that's what we do. And so now we're going to demean you for doing exactly what you need to be doing in this era because we don't want you to counter our bullshit.

Speaker 6 We don't want you to counter our lies or disinformation. We want to be able to do this and we'll just run over you with these lies every single day while you're out there trying to do your job.

Speaker 6 But Newsom realized, you know, I'm talking, he's like, I'm talking to people out there these first few days and they're coming to me and they're saying,

Speaker 3 oh, this is to

Speaker 6 form a the democratic cabal pedophile ring.

Speaker 6 And he was like, where are you getting this stuff from? Like, what are you even talking about right now? And they would be like, Twitter, Elon Moscow, you know,

Speaker 6 and that's the problem with this, with this new ecosystem. These lies spread so quickly.

Speaker 6 And I think, yeah, I've even made the mistake in the past of thinking that this was insulated into this online bubble. The fact is, these lies go beyond that bubble.
They reach normal people.

Speaker 6 And by the way, people who are pretty smart people, I hear, echo a lot of these lies. It gets to them.
They think it's fact. They then spread it.
They tell it to their friends, their family.

Speaker 6 Next thing you know, there's a whole large section of the population that believes these lies are the truth, no matter how outrageous they are, no matter where they started from, because they even lose where they, people don't know, oh, this started with Donald Trump or started with the, they just know the information that their friend told them that this is what's happening, even when it's the complete opposite of the truth.

Speaker 6 Like I saw this post that was saying that Gavin Newsom was trying to, this is all part of Gavin Newsom's plot to sell sell off the land to speculators on the cheap so that he could give all the land away in Los Angeles to these to these speculators.

Speaker 6 It was actually like when you actually played the clip that they were referencing, it was Gavin Newsom saying the opposite, that he wanted to make sure that the people of the city were protected from vultures trying to swoop in and take their property.

Speaker 6 It was the opposite, Gavin Newsom signed like an executive auditor.

Speaker 3 I didn't dread to that point, but then MAGA then attacks him and says, well, now you're screwing over the people because they should be able to sell yeah their homes to the land developers so now you're screwing the people to which gavin's like wait ted cruise said that so now you're a shill for predatory land developers it's in they're not consistent things but it doesn't have to be when it's a lie it's just everywhere and then whoever gets it gets it's easy to lie about everything if that's what you if that's what you and let's face it all of this right now is also coming from a place where republicans are looking ahead in politics They're looking to 2028.

Speaker 6 They see that Governor Newsom is clearly going to be one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination.

Speaker 6 They view this as a moment where they could weaken him politically and weaken Democrats politically in the state of California and nationally. That is part of this whole plan.
It's sick. It's devious.

Speaker 6 It's cynical. It's in the middle of a crisis where people are suffering.

Speaker 6 And it truly hits home for me and all of us here because we are living, well, not you, Jordy, but me and Ben and so many people who work with us live in this city, live in this state.

Speaker 6 And it is just so abhorrent to see this kind of behavior.

Speaker 6 But, you know, all in all, watching this, I actually think that Gavin Newsom has done a remarkable job. I think he has risen to this occasion.

Speaker 6 I think, despite all the shit that they've thrown at him, that Newsom has proven himself to be a very effective leader in a time of crisis. I think he's been very effective at getting the truth out.

Speaker 6 I think he's been very effective at consoling people in this state and the city.

Speaker 6 I think he's been very good at kind of telling people where we go next from here, dealing with the crisis in real time and being an effective communicator.

Speaker 6 And that is one of the reasons why MAGA hates him so much. That is one of the reasons why they try to spread all of this crap about him.
And I'll definitely defend him.

Speaker 6 I think that he is doing a fantastic, a fantastic job during a very difficult time. And shame on the people.
And by the way, I'm not saying that anyone is above reproach.

Speaker 6 I'm not saying that anybody is beyond receiving criticism, but what they are doing to Newsom right now is possibly even more than what they've done to Biden over the past few years in a truncated time period.

Speaker 6 The lies they are spreading, the disinfo they are throwing at this guy, the way they are doing this in the middle of a crisis, it is absolutely vile, vile stuff, inexcusable stuff.

Speaker 6 And, you know, but thankfully, I think he's equipped well to handle the situation in the climate.

Speaker 3 I want to remind everybody, we're going to be doing a meeting at patreon.com slash Midas Touch next week. Helps grow this independent media platform.

Speaker 3 We don't have outside investors, so it is a way to help us grow.

Speaker 3 We're billionaire-free, no oligarchs here. So, patreon.com slash MidasTouch.
And you get to meet us. You get to ask Jordy questions.
Jordy gets the fun questions always when we do those Zoom meetings.

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Like, if you miss the day of news, just go get Midasplus.com.

Speaker 3 Just read it all. It's pretty incredible.
So that's where I go, honestly, to consume the news and make sure I've done all of the videos that

Speaker 3 I need to do.

Speaker 6 I'm just going to make sure if you're not reading Ron's recaps of Midasplus.com every day, you're missing out. I'm just going to be honest with you.
You're missing out. You're missing out.

Speaker 6 You got to read Ron's recaps. It's today in politics bulletins that come out every day.

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Sometimes I look at these recaps and I go, I didn't even know half these things happened.

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All right. Thanks, everybody, for watching this episode.
We covered a lot. Jordy, send us out.
Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

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