Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 12/19/25

We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. The Epstein files are set to be released. What is Donald Trump going to do to try to obstruct it? We know he's already got a national security team at the Department of Justice working on redactions. What were they doing back in March? Also, a New York Times exposé landed today about Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and more Epstein photographs were released by Democrats in the House Oversight Committee. We'll talk about that. Donald Trump is trying his usual distraction tactics right before the release of the Epstein files. He's announced something called the Patriot Games, which is his own version of the hunger games, if you will. He's got a male athlete and a female athlete from each state in high school. They go to Washington, DC, and they compete against each other. Also, Donald Trump renaming unlawfully the John F. Kennedy Center, the JFK Center, the Kennedy Center, to the Trump Kennedy Center. We will talk about what went down there. Also, Trump announced what he's referring to as a warrior dividend, which is a bunch of BS. He's just taking money away from a housing allowance for the military and saying that this is a special warrior dividend that he's giving to our troops.

You have Maga Mike shutting down the House of Representatives as a discharge petition, got the necessary votes that would otherwise force a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire in basically a week, week and a half from now. Maga Mike said, No, we can't let that get to a vote. Shut down the House of Representatives. Everybody go home and And now a vote can't be taken until January after the new year. That's how vicious Maggie Mike and Donald Trump are. That's how much they hate the American people. You've got Donald Trump and his regime putting out essentially fake data today regarding inflation where they claimed that rental and leasing and housing inflation was basically zero %. And then they utilize Black Friday discounts to show that there were price reductions Productions. We'll get into more of that. You had Brandon Carr, Trump's chairman of the SEC on Capitol Hill this past week, where he said that the SEC is not an independent agency. You've got, of course, Donald Trump's speech that he gave on Wednesday night. I don't even know what the hell that even was. He took over the airwaves, took over survivor's finale, and I think we were all turned into non-consensual participants of Trump's version of survivor, if you will, because it was beyond deranged to even sit through that.

We've got a lot to discuss, folks. That and more. Let's bring in Brett and Jordie. Good to see you, brothers.

Good to be here, Ben. Good to be here, Jordie. Good to be here, Midas. Midi, as we said yesterday on the Midas touch Twitter account about that speech, that was some weird shit, folks, that we witnessed. I think everybody thought the same thing. I even saw people who were like, MAGA friendly people, like Republicans, MAGA types, saying, What the hell was the point of that? That made him look absolutely horrible to interrupt people's, I think, survivor was on, and a lot of these other shows that people were excited to watch. Then Donald Trump comes on and just lies to people about the economy and says that everything's great. Don't believe your eyes, don't believe your ears. Just a very bizarre thing. But I think a through line of this episode is going to be two Cs, corruptions and cover-ups. And that is exactly what we are seeing with the Trump administration in full effect. I mean, we've been seeing that over the past year or so, but that has gotten even heightened. And especially today, I think a lot of the news can be wrapped up with those two terms. I am excited to dive right into it, so I'm going to pass it over to Jordie.

Jordie, what's the latest?

I'm excited to get into I think there's another C-word people use to describe this administration that we won't get into here. Benji, where do you want to start off today?

Crooked is, I think, the word that you were looking at.

Exactly.

Crooked. It was definitely crooked. That was the first word that came to my mind.

Just imagine that You're watching survivor, the finale is supposed to be on right in the middle of the night. You've been looking forward to it, or you're watching another sporting event, or whatever your favorite TV show. After a long day's work, you've got Things are less affordable right now. You've got the Trump regime ripping away your health care. There's a lot of stress being placed on you at work. So all you want to do, just try to go home, watch some TV with your family. I mean, that's pretty much what's going on. So You turn on the TV, this is a presidential address, and you're thinking to yourself, okay, well, what's going on here? We're going to war. Residential addresses to the nation usually are done for something deeply serious. Is there some national emergency that we should be aware about. We're going to war with Venezuela unlawfully. What is happening here? Is there some crisis we're unaware of? So you turn it on and you go, Okay, it must be pretty serious. And Donald Trump says, My favorite word is tariffs. It's tariffs. Here, play this clip. Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs.

My favorite word, tariffs, which for many decades have been used successfully by other country is against us, but not anymore. Like, What did I just... What did I just watch? Then he keeps going and he's like, And I've slashed prices. Your prescription drug prices are now 400, 500, 600 100% cheaper. That's that much better. Here, play this clip. What a difference a year makes. In addition, I'm doing what no politician of either party has ever done, standing up to the special interest to dramatically reduce the price of prescription drugs. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taking advantage of our country for many decades to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600%. For real, what are we even watching there? And by the way, why is he so angry and he lunges at the microphone?

I think there's a reason. So after that speech, if you looked at Twitter or any of these apps, Adderall was trending. A lot more demands for Donald Trump's MRI results, a lot more demands to really understand what drugs Donald Trump is taking because the way that he was speaking there was just completely off the wall.

Then he goes, and I've got to... It's always like some game show competition, right? Because that's how he treats everything. As I said at the outset in my intro, non-consensual participants in his dystopian reality show, whether that's actually or the apprentice or whatever. It's just like, just what are you even doing? Then he's like, I'm proud to announce that 1,450,000 military service members. When he says 1,450,000, he's like, happy that he landed the number. Like, I said, I'm going to repeat it again. Then he goes, We'll each be getting $1,776, and I'm calling it a warrior dividend. A warrior dividend. Like as though, again, this is like the host of survivor saying, And the winner of this competition will be getting whatever. Here, just play this clip of it. Because of tariffs, along with the just passed one big, beautiful bill. Tonight, I am also proud to announce that more than 1,450,000, think of this, 1,450,000 military service members members will receive a special we call warrior dividend before Christmas, a warrior dividend. In honor of our nation's founding in 1776, we are sending every soldier 1,074 $776. Think of that. And the checks are already on the way.

Nobody understood that one until about 30 minutes ago. We made a-Why is that even a No one understood what I was going to say. Maybe they should have understood it because it's a lot of money, right? And where's that money coming from? Oh, we found out where it's coming from. Shout out to Defense One, Thomas Noveli and others over there who reported on actually where that money is coming from. And basically, Trump is taking money that was congressionally allocated for housing for service members, and he's taking the money that's allocated for housing, for affordable housing, and just taking it and giving it as a check to the service members. Trump's $1,776 checks for 1. 45 million troops announced Wednesday night come from congressionally allegated reconciliation funds intended to subsidize housing allowances for service members. This was then confirmed by the Trump regime officials. They admit this did not come from tariff money. It came from money that was allocated for housing.

And it's a very important-Not the tariff shelf?

Not the tariff shelf. That $2. 9 billion dollars was meant to subsidize basic allowance for housing, which is a monthly payment to cover troops off base expenses such as rent, mortgage, and utilities. Congress didn't just wing it. They weren't just like, 30 minutes ago, I just did this. Congress did studies, Congress did research, and Congress said, What's a big problem facing our troops? They need affordable housing. If you just gave sometimes young troops a check for 1776, they may not use it for something that's needed, and that may actually harm military preparedness and readiness and actually harm the military.

There's a national security- You know what it reminds me of actually, his whole idea behind this fake health care scam that he's trying to pull also, where we're not going to give money to subsidize these health insurance policies to make people are able to afford health insurance, but instead, let's give a thousand dollars or so to people and let them buy their own health care. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't add up, and it actually ends up screwing people in the long run. He's stealing from members of the military and then giving them their money in another form. You know what it reminds me of? As a kid, when we were very young and I wanted to get gifts for our parents, I would find a bracelet or something in our parents' mom's room, and then I would give her the bracelet as a Hanukah gift or a birthday gift.

Is mom's bracelet?

I would just take it.

It's a normal shared experience for the kids to do, though.

But I'd say, Hey, look at it. And then she's like, Oh, that's mine. I think this is Donald Trump's version of that. He's taking it from them, which you should not do. I want to be clear. And he is giving it back to the person and telling them to be grateful for it. Obviously, he picks the 1776 number because everything is some branding scam as well behind it. But when you see the way that Fox is presenting this, it's just one of these other propaganda schemes that he's doing, which is just such a total disgrace. You see their network, look at this patriotic move by Donald Trump. Wow, this should be lauded. I can't believe he got this from the tariff shelf. Well, you can't believe it because he did not get this from a tariff shelf. He's saying that every possible way that he money right now comes from tariffs, and it's all BS. It's just a lie every single time he says it. The 18 trillion, 20 trillion, 22 trillion, every number that he names is a massive, massive lie designed to scam the American people.

You had Kevin Hassett, Donald Trump's National Economic Advisor, go on MSNBC this morning. Everything that Donald Trump said brought in the speech, $18 trillion, is that? We've never been richer, all lies. Look, this was a good question to Hasset, which is like, Why does he constantly exaggerate every single number? Why can't you just say, Hey, here's what inflation is, and we're doing our best? Why does it all have to be a lie? If you brought in, let's say, $5 trillion of infrastructure investment or $5 trillion in farm, why not just go with that and then explain what the hurdles are going to be in the future? Because the impact is not being felt, so the American people know So this isn't happening. You may have been able to fool us for a few months, but now we're a year in. So you can keep showing us the fake data, but you can't convince us when our shared experiences say that's not actually... We now know that's all not happening. We should have known before. We knew before. You knew before. Watching others maybe didn't. But anyway, watch what Hassett said. Hassett's like, But did you see the slides?

This is a Trump regime official. I'm a little disappointed that the network didn't show his slides. Here, play this clip. We talked earlier in the show.

Steve Rattner was here, helped us with a fact check.

The President does have some good news to talk about the economy gas prices, for instance. But why the need to constantly exaggerate gas prices are $3, not $250? The idea of suggesting that I think a lot of the impact of inflation, yes, some progress made, but not as much as he says.

Why not just tell this present American people and say, Hey, look, these are the facts I can understand how you feel, why they need to exaggerate? You No, I'd have to go back and look at the specific language, and I hate coming back with questions for you guys. But the President, in order to make sure that everybody understood the facts and the facts were documented, spent a lot of time with us, with our team, preparing slides that showed the data for what he was talking about in the speech. And in some networks, while he was speaking, they showed the slides, and in some networks, they didn't. And I just thought that was unusual. I was expecting when I was flipping around to just see the slides everywhere.

Gosh. The slides, Brett. It's all about the slides, man.

Well, you know why they didn't show the slides? I actually read about this. It's because the White House created a bunch of fake data, put it on slides without any substantiation, without any sourcing for their numbers, and they gave it to the networks and they said, We want you to present this data, this made-up data. All the more legitimate networks, I will call them, said, No, we don't put unverified information, unverified on the air. That's not something that we do here. I think the one network that actually did show some of those slides, unsurprisingly, was Fox. I don't think anyone's going to be surprised by that. It's just a regime propaganda channel. Then if you watch the event on the White House's official stream, they put up those slides. But they just throw a bunch of numbers out there. It's all made up. Everything basically comes from Donald Trump just making up numbers. Even in a speech, when he says, We're bringing down drug prices, prices by 500, 600, 700. It's all made up stuff that even under the slightest bit of scrutiny doesn't make any sense. I think we saw these networks not want any part of it.

Then you have Hassett go up there and he's like, I can't believe that they wouldn't run the slides. Yeah, because you're cooking the books. You're making up the numbers. That's not a way to run a government. It's not a way to run an economy, and it doesn't help the American people. No matter how much you try to cook the books here and make things seem like they are rosy and great, it doesn't matter to the American people when somebody goes to the store and they know that they're spending far more money right now than they were spending a year ago. It doesn't matter. You could lie to people's faces all you want, but they know their own lived experiences.

Exactly. It's what folks keep saying about this Trump regime. If their lips are moving, they are lying. And you see Kevin Hassett up there. I said this previously whenever we show him. I mean, he's just got this shit eating grin on his face, and he absolutely he loves it. He loves going on TV and lying to the American people. And he is beside him himself when he's looking at the networks who refuse to air the propaganda slides that the Trump regime had given out. And he's like, I found that to be an interesting thing with his shit eating grin. And it's infuriating when you look at him up there, because at the end of it, again, I don't want to be gaslit. I just want the truth. And Kevin Hassett is a total puppet, man. It's awful.

Then you had Andrew Ross-Sorkin question Jamison Greer, who's Trump's top trade representative. Just so you know all the officials, so you don't get confused at home. You have Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, Treasury Secretary, Commerce Secretary, Howard Ludnik, National Economic Advisor, who you just saw over there, Kevin Hassett, and then Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. That's like the core economic team, if you will, and they're all losers. Here's Jamieson Greer. Trade is really supposed to be the one that deals with the tariffs, and normally it would be It's free trade is what it would focus on. So Jamieson Greer is asked by Andrew Ross-Sorka. By the way, I did an interview with Ross-Sorka. Check out the interview that I did with him, which is on our feed. We went into a lot of areas that I think-Great, great, great interview.

I got to say, this was a really good deep dive into the economy, into Donald Trump's claims about the economy. And I recommend that everybody either watch it on YouTube or listen to it. It's on the Midas Touch podcast, like the audio feed. Check it out, Apple podcast, anywhere you get your audio podcast. A great Very deep dive, Ben. Incredible stuff. Hold on.

I'm going to hype it up one more time. I think it was the best interview when we squicked it in right before the New Year. Might be my personal favorite interview of the year. Oh, shit. It's getting the Jordie stamp on that.

This is Andrew Ross-Sorkin, though. These are the issues that I was speaking to him about, actually. I was glad to see that he asked these questions of Jamieson Greer. Let's play it.

Something I wanted to ask you about was the President spoke, obviously, to the American public last night and talked about the $18 trillion, I think was the number he used, of investment pledges made into the US as part of some of these tariff transactions or tariff deals with various countries. I think the American public wants to understand the math behind that because $18 trillion is an extraordinary amount of money. You look at some of the countries that have made these pledges, it's close to their entire GDP. Over what period of time should we anticipate these deals actually coming to fruition?

I should also just mention that Bloomberg had done an analysis of this and suggested that, in fact, there were closer to only really $7 trillion, which, by the way, is still an extraordinary number, but in terms of measurable deals that we should be thinking about.

Well, remember, the deals, they really have a couple of parts to them. One is the investment headline numbers that you're talking about, which are really important. It's helping to reindustrialize America. I'll talk a little bit about that. The other part are what I call the pure trade issues, where they're opening our markets to us.

They're taking They're moving their tariffs down. They're removing their non-tariff barriers.

On that part, a lot of that is already in progress. We're going through legislatures in foreign countries. On the investment piece, this past week, we saw a new Zinc smelter be announced by a Korean company. We have the Korean We're talking about more ship building in the tombs of hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars. We have the Japanese companies like Hitachi and others building. We see a lot of progress on that front, and we're going to be looking at it over the life of President Trump's term on the investment figure.

Okay, just to be clear, he just lied. Do you hear what he just said? Just break it down what he just said. He goes, When we talk about 18 trillion, write this down or just remember it. That's the investment headline number. What the hell does that even mean? The issue that you're being asked is that you're making up fake headlines. You go, It's the investment headline number. So that's what we look at, the investment headline. Okay, so you made up the number. That's basically what you're saying. And then the other thing we look at is pure trade issues. What does that even mean? You're the trade represent. You think there wasn't trading before? So are you just counting trading that takes place between countries as a gross number of investment into the United States? What does that mean? Pure trade issues, investment headline number. And then he says there's a Zinc smelter plant from a Korean company that we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps billions, but you need to measure throughout the lifetime of the presidency. That's what he said right there. Do you all realize he just literally just vomited out a bunch of words that make literally no sense at all.

Can I give some other facts also just to level set these numbers that the Trump administration continues to say? When you're talking about global trade, and I'm talking all of global trade, every single aspect of global trade, $35 trillion for 2025. So Trump is claiming he's brought in $18 trillion, $20 trillion, $22 trillion, $22 trillion of investment. The entire global trade, all of it is 35 trillion for 2025. And anytime he says the numbers about these various countries, it's oftentimes as much as the country's GDP, most of the country's GDP, more than the country's entire GDP. It just none of it makes sense, none of it adds up.

It's also why the Ponzi scheme that the Trump regime is running right now lying about the trillions and trillions of dollars that they brought in, just absolutely makes no sense to me because at that same token, they'll talk about, oh, we brought in this much money, trillions of dollars here. The economy, it's an A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus And then in the same breath, they'll go, Biden left me a disaster. This economy is horrible, but you should be feeling great about it because it's actually great. It's like the mixed messaging here makes absolutely no sense because they're lying. They are lying to you, and that's why.

It's Schrödinger's economy, right, Jordy? It's both the best economy, the golden age, A plus, plus, plus, plus, but also it's horrible, and it's all Joe Biden's fault.

Exactly.

And meanwhile, Dr. Oz was holding a press conference today, and Here's what he was talking about. Let's play it. A vaginoplasty, a procedure a child does not need, costs $60,000.

Shockingly, a phaloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs on average in America, according to this data, high quality, $150,000.

Now, look, we don't need to get into much more of what he was saying. I mean, he's trying to attack transgender people, and he's trying to attack gender-affirming care. That's the main thing, though, that his focus is on. Just to be clear, again, while Americans are having their health care ripped away from them, as Mike Johnson refused to allow a vote on the Affordable Care Act, subsidies to be extended to take place despite there being a discharge petition, they go to their toolkit, right? They go there.

Don't forget the massive measles outbreak.

Exactly. We have a lot more to discuss when we come back from our first quick break of the show. I want to give a shout out to the Midas Plus sub stack. It's our get shouting at our own sub stack. Check it out. I think you like Ron Filipkowski does a great job there with his daily summaries. Go check it out, midasplus. Com. Become a member of our YouTube page if you can. It helps grow this independent media platform. Subscribe across all Midas Dutch platforms. Youtube viewers go to audio. Check out the audio podcast, audio podcast. Listeners, go check out the YouTube page. Let's keep trying to grow this thing as much as we can. We appreciate all your support. Let's take our first quick break of the show.

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Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors. Links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know he sent you. And as we were at break, Ben and Brett, I was thinking of a fourth C-word about this Trump regime. And I'm going to say it. I'm going to say they're childish. Looking at those clips, that's what you're... Childish. What was it? They're childish because we need adults in the room. If we actually, as a country, want to start solving the issues that are in front of us, inflation, this economy, making everyone and our citizens actually feel better moving forward, we just need to be serious, and we need to have serious people as leaders. And the Trump regime are not serious. They are childish, Ben.

You look at what they even said this morning, right? They said consumer price index. They said, wow, big drop in Inflation all of a sudden, out of nowhere. Big drop in inflation, like a pretty drastic drop. And it's like, well, where's this coming from? Well, it's coming from housing and rent. Wait a minute. Housing and rent is all of a sudden going down, like dramatically over the past, what, month and a half? And then it's like, wait a minute. Did you all use the number zero and just make a assumption that there was zero increase without actually gathering the data? And is that one of the core inputs that dragged down in a good way that brought them, although it's fabricated information, that brought down inflation. And yeah, they did. And you can say, well, they did this because the algorithm just input zero. That was one of the excuses there. Just the algorithm did it. Okay, what does it mean the algorithm put zero? Why don't you just... They've had a lot of time to gather the right data. Why don't you put what it actually is before making a report that's false? And if the algorithm truly input zero improperly when it's not zero, then maybe you say, Hey, it input zero, so you can't trust this data.

Because we're going to figure it out. People saw it and said, Wait a minute, how did this happen? Wait, you put zero? They're like, Wait a minute, the cost of all these products and goods and consumer stuff, that went down dramatically as well. How did that happen? All of a sudden, oh, wait a minute, you didn't collect any data other than basically the Black Friday sales across the board. So you're literally using the Black discounts to claim that inflation is going down. And then when you see this, it's just like there's nothing you trust with these people, right? It's like what I said before. Oh, that's the headline investment number. Did we tell you about the Zinc plant? It's just, Jordi, to your point, when children lie or give fake gifts to their parents and re-gift them for their birthdays-Who would do something like that?

That's a weird thing to do. I don't know who would do that and then admit it on a podcast. Who to millions of people. That'd just be a freaking weird thing.

Just because it came out of like, you know when you're like a kid and it's your mom's birthday coming up and you give her her own necklace as a gift? People are like, I'm not sure about that one, Brett. I'm not sure that's a shared experience.

I definitely That's what I wanted to say. I really did that to you guys, too, by the way. You definitely got regifted gifts of it.

Maybe you were just winning.

You're like, Oh, no.

It's a unique experience to you, Brett. Okay, but the way they lie is the way a child gets caught in a lie, too. It's like, Okay, did you just come up with the stupidest lie? You know something can't decrease by 600%? What he really means, it's like, Okay, this is the American economy, though. This isn't Brett regifting on Mother's Day when Brett's eight years old. This is the American economy right here. So we've got that taking place. Then I want to talk about, though, what's going on in the House of Representatives because the American people right now are very alarmed. They're very worried that they're going to be losing their health care, especially if they were on Medicaid, the disastrous budget bill guttet a lot of people's Medicaid, then lots of people get their health care from the Affordable Care Act exchanges and plans. It wasn't some democratic talking point, though. Your premiums are going to triple or quadruple if these subsidies are not extended? It's called a fact. It's just the reality of it. Sure enough, people are seeing that their Affordable Care Act plans that they bought on the exchanges last year, that the premiums have gone up to amounts that they can't afford.

You're seeing in all of these states, people are not buying the health insurance off the exchange because they can't afford it. And so something had to be done about it. And MAGA Mike and Republican leadership at Donald Trump's demand as well, refuse to... And one of the things is, too, because Donald Trump hates Obama. Anything Obama, affordable care, any Obama's achievements or Biden's achievements, even if they're good for the country, Trump has to destroy. So that he thinks in that simplistic terms. I don't think he likes to see people suffering. So MAGA Mike refuses to allow a vote to take. Let's just let Congress vote on extending the Affordable the Affordable Care Act subsidies. What Maga Mike does allow for is a vote on just a hodgepodge of old plans that Republicans had come up with. And a lot of them in involve not allowing the Affordable Care Act plans to give women reproductive rights. In blue states also, not just the red states that basically have abortion bans. So just to be clear, not only was MAGA Mike refusing to allow a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. What he put on the floor and what Republicans did vote for was limiting Affordable Care Act plan's ability to provide for maternity and reproductive right care and and other types of things that are vital.

But you had four Republicans join forces with Democrats on Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffrey's discharge petition that would have a three, and shout out to Hakeem Jeffrey because he held his ground and he said, No, you could join my discharge petition or nothing. This is what the American people need right now. It's not just what Democrats want. It's actually what the American people actually need to live right now and to have this certainty. And Jeffrey was like, Look, we can negotiate. You want to talk about other plans? Come up with something real, but in the meantime, extend the subsidies so people aren't losing their health care and dying. So you had four Republicans join forces with the Democrats or sign the Democrats' discharge petition to go around Maga Mike. Discharge petitions are ways to get around the speaker who controls what bills are able to be voted on because Maga Mike wasn't even allowing the extension to get a vote because he knew if got a vote, it would be voted on because it's actually something that American people want. So what did Maga Mike do? After this Discharge Petition was signed, Maga Mike shuts down the House of Representatives.

Remember when he did this during the government shutdown, where he could still have showed up and actually done work, but they didn't want to swear in Adelita Grijalba because she would be the signature on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files? We'll talk more about that on the show. But remember when they did that, so he literally shut down Congress? That's like his playbook. Jordy, to your point, childish? He shut down. He shut it down and he said, Everybody, go home.

Think about the two recent times and the only times that really Mike Johnson has forced the rest of Congress to employ these discharge petitions, which are rarely used, rarely successful, but they've been used twice now in the past few weeks. And the first time was because Mike Johnson refused to put the bill to release the Epstein files on the floor. And now we have this, a simple, clean extension of health care subsidies to save millions, millions of lives.

And I'll give you one build on that, Ben, about how childish that is. So you guys remember when your kids and the older brother's beating you in a video game or something, and you turn it off really quickly because you don't want them to win? That's how Maca Mike is picking a government right now. He's shutting down the government because he's scared he's going to lose because that's how they see this, too. They see this as a game instead of just getting- Where did he get that example, journey? People. That one's hyper specific to me. I never let the brothers me in video games. That system would get shut off real quick. Oh, come on.

That was such a Ben move. Come on. I'd be so close to beating Ben in Madden football, and he'd turn off the game. I mean, that was the classic move. Classic Maga Mike move.

I was defending Mom's honor in shutting it off for all of your.

That's a good voice.

Classic Maga Mike style deflection.

I cannot allow someone who regifted necklaces on Mother's Day to defeat me in a game. That's why, to the extent I ever did that, that's why I did it. So Mike was then, Jordy, to your point, childish. He ran around the halls of Congress saying, I didn't lose control. I don't lose control.

That's how you know you're in control.

That's where I would perhaps say, or Jordy would perhaps say, I didn't lose the game. I didn't lose. I'm actually still the winner. While the winning brother would play, We are the champions, and make the other brother cry, you're I'm not going to play this clip.

Hypothetically, we're talking about. Hypothetically.

I have not lost control.

Because this is the third time. We have the smallest majority in US history. These are not normal times. There are processes and procedures in the house that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities. When you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you don't have to deal with it.

Okay, Sure.

They come in there, they're like, We have a mandate. We have a huge mandate. We're going to bulldoze through and do everything. Oh, I'm sorry. We actually have a very slim majority, and we'd love to get this health care. We'd love to do all that. We just can't. We just can't. Sometimes things like this happen. Okay, Maga Mike, this guy is such a disgrace.

Okay, well, Maga Mike, well, what about the fact that 22 to 24 million Americans are on these Affordable Care Act plans, perhaps even more, and they're They could be losing their health care now because of what you're doing. And you've never put forward a plan to actually reduce costs. And no, Donald Trump being out there and saying he's reducing the cost by 600%, that's actually not a solution. So what's your plan, Maga Mike? Here, play this clip.

But here's the false narrative.

The Democrats are pretending as though this affects everybody in the country.

It affects 7% of Americans, this extended subsidy.

Of those, even if it was extended without any reforms at all, it would only reduce that small group of Americans' premiums by 5.

7%.

The Democrats have tried to pretend as though this is all about- We are talking 22 and 24 million Americans. No, I understand that this is not for everybody, but it's 22 to 24 million Americans, and there are some Republicans whose districts are going to face some real trouble and some real issues with us. We've talked to some of them. I understand that Mike Lawler from New York was particularly upset yesterday that he was I'm furious about it, said it's idiotic, it's political malpractice.

But here's the thing, too. It's not just about Mike Lawler or Fitzpatrick. It's about the people. We're talking about people's lives here. We're talking about our viewers, our listeners, Mike and Mike in Louisiana, your constituents, Mike Lawler's constituents. I don't give a crap about Mike Lawler's job. You represent human beings who can die because you have not come up with a plan and you're failing to allow the plan, as imperfect as it may be, that provides people, though, with a solution that gives them comfort and that they like, you're also taking the option away from somebody without replacing it with something that help them. That's just cruel and unusual. I think about that term, cruel and unusual punishment. What a cruel and unusual way to treat the American people. It's just very strange, Brett A very strange behavior. It shows, I think, a hatred, frankly, for the American people.

You can see it there. Mike Johnson is treating 25 million Americans like it's some rounding error These are real people's lives. That's a lot of people. Honestly, you talk about Ben, and I know we've had Senator Bernie Sanders on the show speak about this, that idea of psychological torture. This right here is an example of that psychological torture that we speak about and that so many people in these rallies across America, whether they're Republican, Democrat, independent, doesn't matter what their political affiliation is. This is what they speak about. This is what they mean when they're talking about it. When you are faced with this spike in premiums that could be thousands of thousands of dollars, in some cases, $10,000 plus thousands of dollars a year. How do people afford that? I don't understand how this is feasible, how this is sustainable. There is a way that we have made it feasible and sustainable for people. In any other normal time, this would not even be a question. This would be probably a unanimous vote if this was 10 years ago. Of course, you would extend these subsidies because there are so many lives on the line.

You're going to push a lot of people into bankruptcy. You're going to make them have to decide between their health insurance or other necessities in their life. But instead, you have Mike Johnson writing them off so flippantly. And by the way, if Donald Trump came out tomorrow and said, Yes, I want to extend these subsidies and name them the Trump subsidies, he'd flip in a second because he has no values, he has no principle, he has zero foundation to stand on. These people do not believe anything except doing Donald Trump's bidding. That's all they care about. And because Donald Trump says he does not want these subsidies to pass, Mike Johnson just acts like he is a vessel of Donald Trump, and he repeats that, and then he makes every single excuse as to why he is about to be the reason that millions and millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, are going to be forced to pay astronomical health care premiums, health insurance premiums that could send them into bankruptcy and really destroy their lives, not to mention the psychological trauma that comes from that as they receive these bills and as they have to now monitor what the hell is Congress doing?

Are they going to pass this? There's a discharge thing. It's now not going to take the floor until January because Mike Johnson refuses to put it on the floor. Is it going to pass the House? It should pass the House. Will it pass the Senate? If it passes the House, why should the average American have to worry about these things? They should just be able to pay for their health care, their health insurance, and get the health care that they need. They shouldn't have to worry about the intric of politics and the horse race and who's up for election and who may flip on this because they're more moderate and in this district or that district. It shouldn't even be on any American's mind. They should be able to go about their lives. When I think about this notion of freedom, the idea of freedom Republicans pretend to be these representatives of freedom, there is nothing more the opposite of freedom. There's nothing more shackling than having to be worried about these sorts of issues in your life. How could you go about your day to day, enjoy your life, when you have to worry about the very fundamentals of keeping yourself and your family alive?

It is so hateful. There's no excuse for this.

One thousand %. And going back now to how he started the show with that Trump speech, the rally speech that he addressed the nation with, that he made us all watch, the bazar. Part of me really thinks why he did that. I'm not trying to get into his mind. That's a scary place. But we all know the holidays are here. They're coming up. Christmas is right around the corner. Families are going to be getting together. What that sounded like to me was he was giving his base the talking points to back pocket as they roll in. Oh, no, oh, no. Because look, politics inevitably comes up at these things. Oh, no, it's the Democrats' fault. And Here's why. And it's at the end of the day, again, people just don't want to be gaslit, man. The tone when you hear Mike Johnson there, it's just so, I'm going to use another C-word. I'm going to say it this time. Don't bleep me. Condescending. It's so evil and condescending and just so arrogant that they just continue to lie to us, to our faces. And I'm proud of this community here, the pro-democracy community, who pushes back, who says, Hey, man, this is not what the data is reflective of.

You continue to lie to us. You continue to gaslight us. Here's X, Y, and Z reason why. Now just keep Can you tell us the damn truth? Why are premium skyrocketing? Why is our health care skyrocketing, mega Mike? What's going on? I'm feeling this in my pocket. I am a human being. Don't talk to me like I'm some constituent that you need me. I just want to live, man. So what's going on, dude? Why can't we just be there as a society? How has this mega Republican Party so lost its way that they just hate the American people so much that they're willing to let them die so long as they continue to gaslight the founders?

Well, they thrive as this opposition, this anti-everything, and tear it down and burn it down. And so the contradiction is this whiny, pathetic dick, orange, Adderall-fueled loser in the White House, like whining and yelling, right? But you're in the White House, so you're in charge. And we're a year in, and you're whining about Biden, and you're whining that the unaffordable care... Dude, you're in charge. I'm watching an address that in the past, we had leaders, presidents, stress the American people on the most serious of matters, whether it was announcing war, whether it was announcing peace, whether it was announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden, whether it is announcing experiencing a national tragedy or being there as a consultant in chief, you're there with the trappings of the White House and this whiny, childish, immature, dangerous, racist. A lot of Americans don't see. We cover it, and a lot of people follow the Midas Touch Network, where the most watched digital news network that there is. A lot of people, though, just wanted to watch Survivor. They just wanted to watch survivor. They wanted to watch their favorite show, and they turned that on, and they don't really follow in politics.

Like, Wait, what? What are you saying? Now, when we come back, I want to talk about a few things. I want to talk about what Trump is doing to cover up the release of the Epstein files, what I expect is going to happen when they're released on Friday, what's going to be released, what's not going to be released. Let's talk about what Trump's priorities are. What's he actually focused on doing right now? Renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, putting his social media posts and attaching it to the White House. Like he's doing truth social posts on the White House. He's focused on his own Trump media acquired or merged with an energy fusion company. And then all of a sudden, Trump media stocks soared. A fusion company that requires Department of Energy approval merges with the Trump Media because Trump Media, as we've always talked about, was doing hard. My opinion was doing really bad. I mean, well, it's tens of millions of dollars each quarter. So now it announces a merger with a fusion company, this technology that hasn't even been implemented yet while Trump is getting rid of solar and wind, which we know work and reduce energy energy prices, while energy prices are up 13% to 15% year over year.

I mean, these are the deranged. He's announcing the Patriot Games. Patriot Games, one male high school student, one female, battle out in DC, at the capital, at the federal capital.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

May the odds be in your favor. Let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder, hit subscribe. Help us get to 6 million subscribers. Subscribe to us on audio and video. Just search Midas Touch wherever you get your audio podcast. We'll leave a five-star review there. And if you can go to midasplus. Com, check out the sub stack. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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I said, When we come back from a break, I'm going to discuss all the distractions, and I just discussed them. I ended up saying all the things I was going to say when I came back. So I could be redundant about it. But yes, Donald Trump said that he was announcing the Patriot Games, which is like the hunger games, except it's a little bit different, obviously. But it's literally borrowing the idea. But it's one female high school athlete, one male high school athlete, and they compete each other from the different districts. He's renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, which, again, is illegal. The Kennedy Center was named that by Congress. But Donald Trump doesn't care because it's an unlawful regime. They're a gangster regime, and they do what gangster regimes do. They've changed the website of the Kennedy Center, so it now already says the Trump Kennedy Center. They're going to replace all the signage, but it requires a Congressional act. But the MAGA Republicans It won't keep him, won't hold him accountable. But all the Kennedy's other than RFK Jr. But all the Kennedy's are like, This is so horrible. This was part of the legacy of a fallen President.

You have Maria Shriver saying, Some things just leave you speechless and in a rage and in a state of disbelief. At times such as that, it's better to be quiet for how long I can't say. You have Joe Kennedy III. The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen President named for President Kennedy by federal law. It can no sooner be renamed than someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says. You had Caroline Levin over there saying, I've just been informed that a unanimous vote was taken, and the entire board voted to change the name, and they're now calling it the Trump Kennedy Center. First off, Donald Trump appointed 90% of the board. They're all Trump people. It's Pam Bondi and Steve Scalese and Dan, not Steve Scalese, like Dan Scavino, and all the Trump. It's just Trump's people. The For the people who were not Trump's people, their phone was muted during the vote. So they were not even allowed to voice their objection, even though Trump had packed the board with enough people to have the board can pass resolutions. They can't change the name. Again, it's a crime. Frankly, those board members, when everything's said and done, they should be criminally prosecuted.

This is a crime. It would be like putting graffiti on it. You can't put graffiti on it. So again, another Other crime that I think these people should actually be... Look, there's a lot more that these people should be prosecuted for. A lot of them are war criminals also. Not all of them, but some of them, Pam Bondi, others. But it's just every day they commit crimes, crimes, crimes, crimes, crimes Screw you, Supreme Court, for giving Donald Trump absolute immunity, because right here is part of the consequence when you say that someone has king-like powers and all they got to do is say, Oh, national security or this or that. That's what they claim with everything. By the way, Donald Trump's latest briefing regarding tearing down the East Wing. I did a whole video on this. You know what he cited? National security because they're building a bunker underneath it. They're renovating a bunker. You think the taxpayers are paying for that? Absolutely, the taxpayers are. They said, The ballroom won't be done until 2028. So, Judge, it's moot anyway. You can't tell us to stop building. We've already destroyed it. But national security when it comes to the bunker.

So they invoke national security for quite literally everything. Do we have one of the board members, the Congresswoman, who said actually what really went down during the vote. I think we have a video of her. Let's play this clip if we got it. I'm Congresswoman Joyce Bady. I'm sitting here in my Congressional office in Washington, DC, just ending a call with the Kennedy Center, where I serve as an ex officio member.

I am bringing this to you live today because what you may hear is that there was a unanimous vote to rename the Kennedy Center, the Trump Center. Be clear, I I was on that call, and as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted.

Each time I tried to speak, I was muted. Participants were not allowed to voice their concerns who were online. Yet it was said at the end, it was a unanimous vote. Clearly, the Congress has a say in this. They muted the Congress. Like, who literally required to pass a law. They muted Congress's ability to object, and they said it's unanim. Jordy, that's... I mean, yes, it's childish behavior, but it's like, these people are thugs. I mean, this regime, this gangster regime, I mean, look at their behavior. I don't know how anyone looks at this and goes, Oh, yeah, I like this. I like this, bro.

I mean, it's Arwellian and it's just fascist behavior. I mean, this is how fake trials are run in Russia. It's straight out of 1984. It's unanimous. Oh, why? Because you muted all the people who object and the way that they stack these boards with all of these Trump's sick offense. I mean, you could go down the list. It's just atrocious. They made a mockery of all of our institutions, and the American people hate it. No one's even going to the Kennedy Center for events anymore. They've just totally desecrated the place. It's just so, so appalling. You got people like Susie Wiles, Usha Vance, you've been said, Dan Scavino before, Lee Greenwood, Laura Ingram, the Fox Host, Maria Bartaromo, Elaine Chou, who was in Donald Trump's administration Pam Bondi, Sergio Gore. All of these people are the people who are making these decisions about the Kennedy Center. It's not like some independent board. It's Trump's sycophants, and it's against the law, as Ben said. But that doesn't matter to them. They just press ahead. I think it's very ominous when we see them doing things like this, when we see things like them calling it the Donald Trump Institute of Peace, when you see at the Department of Labor, a giant poster of Donald Trump's face.

I mean, these are the things that we would look at Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or we'd look at North Korea, and we'd go, wow, what an effed up society that is. I'm thankful to live in a country where that's not how things are here. But Donald Trump has quickly transformed our society into that, thanks to all the enablers around him.

For me, I look around sometimes, and I'm hopeful that we will get out of this one day. I really am in restored normalcy here and really put our best foot forward as a nation. But I'm talking like 15, 20, 30 years down the line when we all reflect back on these cowards who just bent the knee so willingly to Donald Trump. And for me, I'm just so curious as to genuinely why? Is it money? Is it because you don't want to get called a bad name? Do you not actually like this country? Do you not actually want this country to be better off for its citizens? There are so many ways, so So many ways to look at this thing multiple times. And it's frustrating. And only time will tell. And I hope we're all around collectively still in this country, still standing for us to see the light of day on this and actually have that debrief here and understand why. But it genuinely upsets me as someone who truly loves this country.

Truly. Yeah. And with all of these and they're incompetent. You know what, Jordi? Because a lot of the people who take these positions, though, who are willing to say these things and behave in this way, would not otherwise, on their merit, be able to get into these positions. And so they, like Akash Patel being the FBI director, Pam Bondi becoming the attorney general. I mean, Dan Bongino who's quitting, but becoming the Deputy FBI director, Pete Hegset becoming a Secretary of Defense. What is Trump picks? And this is the thing about authoritarian regimes in general. He picks the most unqualified people. Do we have the clip, Brett, of Gloria Chávez-Doremer from one of the appearances she gave this morning, where she at least was asked by Fox about the bad job numbers, and if they're coming from... Jobless claims are up 54%, unemployment is at 4. 6% and rising. I think it will probably be at about 5% soon. She's like, Yeah, AI isn't a big deal. Ai is not taking... You're the labor secretary, and you're saying AI is not a threat to labor? Here, play this clip. Back to this weakening of the numbers.

Do you believe that the weakening of the numbers month to month on jobs and the unemployment rate ticking up, is that a function of AI, or is that a function of some weakness in the broader economy? Absolutely. Absolutely not.

It's not a function of AI, again, because we want to make sure that we're answering the call, these market demands. Post-covid, there was a lot of companies who increased their employee growth numbers, and maybe they're laying off for those reasons, and they have to answer that to the American people. But I will tell you, at the Department of Labor, what we're doing is focusing on the apprenticeship program. We've registered almost 300,000 new apprentices.

We're answering the call for 700,000 jobs in electricians, machines, Yes, plumbers. Again, did you see that she was basically attacking companies for hiring labor? She was like, They're going to have to answer for hiring all those people or keeping people hired. You're the labor secretary, and you're saying that AI isn't a threat and it's answering a marketing demand. You could say that AI... If you're the Labor Secretary, you should say what? Yes, we need to harness the power of AI, but we need to make sure that we protect labor. Isn't that literally your all job is? And then it's like, why is energy bills going up 13% right now since Donald Trump took office? Because it's literally going rampant. Why is heating costs going up? Why are all these costs are going up? I wonder why, Brett. I wonder why.

It's all skyrocketing, too. It's like it's not even close. Like, electricity prices, I think you said this stat before, they're up 13% since Donald Trump took office. Heating costs are expected to rise 9. 2% this winter. So think about all the other costs We talked about this episode, right? Health care costs and things like that. On top of that, all of these costs, in addition to prices for everything being more expensive. Trump just makes it worse because he keeps canceling all of these clean energy projects. So while he's giving all of these AI companies carte blanche to build all these data centers in all these towns, he's canceling these clean energy projects that would actually help the energy load, that are actually clean ways to help with this energy load. So already, Trump has either threatened to cancel or clean energy projects or companies. He put more than 165,000 clean energy jobs on the chopping block. $53 billion in clean energy investment is gone. And these projects, just so you could wrap your head around it a little bit, they would have generated enough electricity to power 13 million homes, but they're gone because of Donald Trump.

All of this while... Think about the other orders that Donald Trump wants to sign and what these Republicans right now, what they're fighting for. They're fighting to stop any regulation on AI, to not allow any states to regulate AI whatsoever so that they can allow these billionaires to build these data centers which are destroying communities, straining the energy grid, consuming massive amounts of water. In many cases, they're even making water unsafe to drink in the towns. They're just allowing them to build these carte blanche with no guidelines, and no guidelines, obviously, for the end result of AI for its many use cases that could be quite dangerous. Ai, if harnessed correctly, It could be a good thing. It could be used to improve efficiency. It could be used to help find cures to diseases. There's a lot of great use cases for AI, but it's also a very dangerous technology that also needs a lot of regulation. They do not want any regulation on this. Then that brings me to another really important story that I don't think is getting nearly enough attention, but the Trump administration just moved to dismantle the country's leading climate research center, which is the National Center for Atmosphéric Research in Colorado.

It's like the world renowned, one of the top research centers in the entire world. People all across the planet rely on this facility for life and death information about natural disasters and so much more. But the administration says because they report on climate issues and give actual data on the climate, not cooked books like the Trump administration gives out, but they give actual facts to the people. The Trump administration says that that is alarmist and woke. I wish I was being facetious when I said that they called the work that they do Woke, but they literally said that it's Woke. It's Woke to know about natural disasters. It's Woke to have information on the climate. It's Woke to save lives, I guess. It's all because they're just giving truthful information that goes against this regime narrative. It's part of the danger of having these sycophants, of having a regime that doesn't care about the facts and just wants to push forward its agenda without any regard for anything else.

I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the Epstein files, though, for a moment. First off, on Thursday, the New York Times dropped an incredible exposé. By the way, Brett, that was a great segment. New York Times dropped an exposé. The headline, Dawn's Best Friend: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women. The article talks about It's very well sourced from people who worked with Epstein at the time, Epstein's Assistant, all the people who knew what was going on at the time. The two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other's closest friend, the times found. The President has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women, say girls, but chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were current I see. There's also photos that the Democrats from the House Oversight Committee released, and it's like Epstein with... It looks like very young girls in the photo. Their faces are redacted, but it looks like very young girls in this photo. You go to what the New York Times also and they say, One of the assistants who worked for Epstein, who would work late, recall that sometimes when the office emptied out, Epstein would check to see that she was at her desk and put Trump on speaker.

Mr. Trump, she said, seemed to enjoy regaling Epstein with tales of his sexual exploits, and Mr. Epstein seemed to delight in how uncomfortable it made her to overhear them. She remembered one call in the mid-1990s in which the two men discussed how much pubic hair a particular woman had and whether there was enough for Mr. Epstein to floss his teeth with. Epstein frequently mentioned his friendship with Trump, according to several accusers, telling when he had a bedroom reserved at Mar-a-Lago. So while this is going on, Donald Trump has also assigned a national security team, a national security team at the Department of Justice and FBI to work on the redactions, which is removing things and hiding things or not disclosing the names before the deadline, which is on Friday. If you're listening to this on Friday, it's today. And so hundreds of national security employees, lawyers, FBI agents, potentially in the thousands. Interesting thing to think about, though, because didn't they do this in March also? From the Foyer request that we know that Bloomberg sent out? We know that redactions were made in March. Remember, there was one week where there was a thousand overtime hours that were spent by the FBI and the various teams there.

There was also, I think, national security teams and other teams that dealt with these redaction teams back then. Yeah, a million dollars, I think it was. I think it was a thousand employees that worked on it in March and over a million dollars in overtime pay in one week alone. That's when Bondi said they were going to release it. Then, of course, they didn't release it. They said they're not releasing anything. I think given what we know, Trump's not going to produce things that have his... It's either going to be redacted or not produced. They'll probably produce, in my view, duplicates of what the estate turned over. I think they'll produce some things that have Trump's name on it. But just to be like, Oh, you see, his name is on it. But I think they're going to produce a lot of things that implicate people who Trump views as just other people, not him. Him, other people that he would perceive as enemies. Anyone who's friends with him, I'm giving you my opinion, friends with him, him, I think they're not going to produce it or just produce a little bit enough to be people like, Hey, you see, we turn stuff over.

I think they're also going to be sloppy, and I think we're going to find out pretty quickly, and you can go back to this tape when it happens, that they will probably violate a lot of actual privacy issues of the real victims and survivors. We saw them do this before in other settings where they give social security numbers. I think there's going to be a great degree of sloppiness that we're going to find out right away. But I think there's going to be a lot of cover up, and I think a lot of the work is going to begin in terms of exposing what their cover up is. We will be on that every step of the way. I just do want to show these two other points, though, just before we go. There are just two separate hearings, and I just want to make sure I give everybody this info. You may have seen it on hot takes that I've done, but I want to show some of the Democrat cross-examination of witnesses that took place in the Senate. The first one where you had Democratic Senator Blumenthal cross-examining Trump's pick to be federal judges.

You see who are the future federal judges that Trump is pushing forward and that the MAGA Republicans are pushing forward. To what we described earlier, I think you said, Jordie, who would want to... Who would do this? Who would debase themselves? These people want to be federal judges when they're willing to say anything. They know that if they say January sixth was an attack on the Capitol, that they will not become judges. So they say, I can't answer the question. You'll see how people like this bend and break These are disgraceful human beings. They're vile human beings. I hope that their children and their grandchildren see this and say, You know what? These individuals in my family were utterly disgraceful. Here we play this part. Was the United States Capitol attacked on January 6, 2021? Again, Senator, as a sitting judge under Rule 2 of the Missouri Rules of Judicial Ethics, I believe that there are cases pending in front of courts, and so due to pending or impending litigation, I cannot comment on anything of political controversy. I'm not asking about a specific individual. Was the capital attacked? Again, I I do believe that there are cases currently in front of courts.

As a sitting judge under Rule 2, I cannot answer.

Mr. Lee? Same answer. I would add that as an employee of the Department of Justice, I would refer to the Department of Justice's positions and briefs. Mr. Wilson? Senator, the January sixth events are a matter of public controversy and debate on how to characterize those, and I think to wade into that. All right. That's very low character individuals, very shameful individuals, right? But there are going to be federal judges deciding cases. How do you think they're going to decide cases that involve Donald Trump and MAGA, right? Such low character, such scumbags, frankly. Let me don't know how to describe these people. Such shameful humans. They can't say that... But look, if they want to not being asked to opine on do you agree with Donald Trump's impeachment, which should be an easy answer. Sorry, Donald Trump, a pardon, should be impeached. But also, they weren't asked to opine on what are your thoughts about Trump's impeachment in his first term. They weren't asked about those questions.

They were literally-Not even, by the way, Ben, they weren't even asked, is Donald Trump responsible for the events on January sixth? Was there an attack on the Capitol? It was simply, was the Capitol attacked on January sixth? This is common knowledge that we all know happened, and they refused to even say that.

Yeah. Okay. Then you have Brenda Carr, the current chairman of the SEC. Fcc is an independent agency. It's always been. Their website said it was independent until Brenda Carr said what I'm about to show you. Then they deleted their website language and removed independent agency from the website. But it's supposed to be an independent agency. And Brenda Carr, and it's great questioning by Senator Lujan, watch what Brenda Carr, the chairman of the SEC, this is the guy who threatened Kimmel in ABC, and he's been threatening all the comedians. This guy is the guy who threatens all the networks. That if you don't say what Donald Trump wants to say, I'm coming after you as the chairman of the SEC. And so he's asked by Senator Luhan, do you believe that the SEC is an independent agency? Again, not a controversial question. The answer is yes, of course, it's an independent agency. It's his own agency that he's supposed to defend. His job is literally to defend the independence of his agency. Watch what he says. Let's point. The Is it an independent agency? Senator, thanks for that question. I think that- Yes or no is all we need, sir.

Yes or no, is it independent? There's a test for this in the law, in the key portion of that test. That's yes or no, Brenda. The key portion of that test is- Okay, I'm going to go to Commissioner your trustee. Just so you know, Brenda, on your website, it just simply says, Man, the SEC is independent. This isn't a trick question. Okay, the FCC is not. Is it yes or no? Is not. Okay. Is not an independent- So is your website wrong? Is your website lying? Possibly. The SEC is not an independent Okay, can I read this to you?

The FCC's mission on the homepage of the FCC.

It's an independent agency. You see how Brandon Carr was going to go into his state regime media BS? Well, I like that Senator Luhan's like, Hey, Brandon. Hey, Brandon.

Answer the freaking question. Yes or no. But by the way, what they did after that hearing, within the hour of Brandon Carr saying that, you might think, Oh, they corrected him. They showed him, Oh, this actually says it on the website. No, they changed the website. They changed history. They changed the website, despite that being the history of the SEC forever. That was the way they handled that situation.

The only thing is he missed an opportunity at the end of that to just say, Thank you, Brandon. Would have been just really funny for the one person that made that. That gets that joke. I like that.

Well, I'm not sure where you're going. Well, on that note, Jordy, and the hilarious conclusion, the episode, we covered a lot. Covered a lot. I just want to thank all the Midas-Midi out there. Thank you all for standing strong. It's been people-powered resilience. Institutions may have bent and broken. We've seen a lot of leaders, a lot of people bend the knee, a lot of disgraceful behavior. But the people have stuck together, and I've said this before, and I'll say it again. The country is far worse off right now, but I think there's a lot more hope because of the resilience of people. Whereas last year, I think there was far less hope, but the country was far better off when Biden was still in office, this was around the time when I had interviewed Biden in the Roosevelt Room a year ago. It's almost probably exactly a year ago. When I asked former President Biden what he wanted his legacy to be, he said that I kept my word, that everything I said I was going to do, I did. I didn't care if you were from a red state or a blue state or a purple state.

You were an American and I fought for you. And those words back then seem so distant, yet what we should all be aspiring, I think, in future leaders. And so I'll leave you all with that. Thank you all for watching. Brett, anything else you want to say?

Paul Jordy.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

The Midas Mighty, standing strong. Against the fascist, we sing our song.

We will get it right whenever.

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