Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 12/30/25

The world is on fire as a result of Donald Trump's weakness. We've never been this close to a world war since, frankly, the beginning of World War I and World War II, as Donald Trump has destroyed an established world order. Let's just talk about what's happened just over the past 24 to 48 hours. You had President Zelenskyy of Ukraine visit Mar-a-Lago, where Donald Trump has been holding court at the Mar-a-Lago dining room. Donald Trump was parroting Putin talking points and saying to Zelenskyy that Putin just wants to help Ukraine and make things better for Zelenskyy. You saw President Zelenskyy look at Donald Trump like he's absolutely crazy and a total and utter madman, because that's what Donald Trump is. You have China launching its most aggressive military operations or tests right around Taiwan. Taiwan has had to respond with putting its military on the highest level of military preparedness that there is. Donald Trump was asked about what he's doing to help Taiwan, and Trump said, I don't even know what's happening. What do you mean? China is running military tests. You have Iran saying that it is officially at war with the United States, with Europe, and with Israel, and says that it has more capabilities now than it ever did before.

You have Kim Jong Un in North Korea testing cruise missiles. Remember when that would just take place, like under former President Obama, and people would be like, Oh, my God, that's so weak. You're letting Kim Jong Un test cruise missiles. Well, yeah, he's doing it right now, and it's maybe a footnote on what's taking place in the world right now. That is related to, by the way, what's happening with China and Taiwan. All of this is also an effort to intimidate Japan. Japan and South Korea feel abandoned by the United States. But we'll get into how Trump has also given up America's role in Asia, given up America's role in Europe, given up America's role in Africa, Central America, South America, really throughout the entire world. Also, Donald Trump mentioned on a right-wing radio program that we actually attacked inside Venezuela as a throwaway line. Then Donald Trump was asked about it earlier in the day, and he's like, I don't know. Who cares whether we did that or not? That's what's going on in the world. Then here in the United States, the Trump regime continues to cover up the Epstein files. As Donald Trump said during Christmas.

Christmas, and the day after, a million documents were uncovered. By the way, it was uncovered by the Midas Touch Network when we uncovered the 1. 2 million documents with the Southern district of New York. But in the small amount of documents that have been turned over, we Identify, not we, Julie K. Brown, identified the public, was able to identify and see that back in 2019, Trump's DOJ was spying on Julie K. Brown. She's the top reporter who was exposing Epstein and his inner circle. There are documents in connection with subpoenas and other things that were in the current files showing Julie K. Brown's flight itinerary was being looked at by the Department of Justice at that time. We'll cover that. Also, Donald Trump's health continues to deteriorate while he was with Zelenskyy. It looked like both of his hands were now discolored, and on his left hand, it looked like now there was a... It looked like a hole. Again, we're just all somewhat speculating because this is yet another cover up as Trump refuses to turn over his actual medical records. It looks like an IV that's been going into both of these hands, and that would explain a lot.

But because Trump's covering it up, we're just left to speculate and give our informed opinions. Then I want to cover this as well. Another case got dismissed where ICE shot somebody, and this happened in Los Angeles. I'm very familiar with this federal judge, and I'm very familiar with this Central district of Los Angeles or Central district of California, Prosecutorial Office. This federal judge dismissed this case where ICE shot a guy because ICE was refusing to turn over body cam footage. They were refusing to, or the prosecutors were refusing to turn over the basic discovery documents. The judge is like, You're utterly incompetent. I'm dismissing this case with prejudice. So get another case where ICE shot somebody and then blame the person they shot getting dismissed. I think that shows you just how utterly incompetent this DOJ is on cases that are high profile, medium profile, and not so high profile. If you're a criminal defense lawyer right now, this is like your dream come true because this DOJ doesn't know how to function. But if you care about law and order right now as well, you're very worried because they can't accomplish basic tasks. That and more here on the Midas Touch podcast.

Brett and Jordie, we've got a lot to discuss. Obviously, it's wild when I turn on the news just to see, and I hate corporate news. Are others covering this? None of this is being covered at all.

It's certainly not being put in the appropriate context, I would say. What you described when you're looking at what's going on with North Korea, with Iran, with Venezuela, with Russia and Ukraine. I mean, I think it's fair to call it, at minimum, like some cold world war that is happening right now. It's happening as a result of Donald Trump's complete and utter weakness, and it's happening to his complete and utter capitulation to these other powers. It's also the philosophy of the Trump administration, as we've heard them say, as Marco Rubio has talked about this multipolar world where you have basically three countries running the world. You have the United States, you have Russia, and you have China. That's the way they want to carve up the entire world. When you look at it through that lens, everything begins to make a little bit of sense. One of the issues with covering this administration, and I think the way that corporate media has been trained to cover just the world in general, the way their templates are set up for them to cover stories, is they typically give the person providing them with the information the benefit of the doubt that the truth is coming their way.

I think the Trump administration has taken advantage of that fact, and they quite literally lie about everything, and then they end up getting the headlines that they want. Then the research is done after the fact to go, Oh, maybe they lied about this fact or that fact. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has gotten all the headlines he wanted about X, Y, and Z. When you look at all the various things coming out of this regime, when you look at, Ben, like you were saying earlier, if you look at what's happening with ICE, if you look at what's happening with this Department of Justice and all the Epstein stuff, if you look at their horrific... The Department of Justice usually has a 99% conviction rating. That has absolutely plummeted because they are so bad at these cases and they are lying about just about everything out there. If you look at what's going on in Venezuela and these boat strikes, if you look at the stuff Donald Trump is saying about Russia and Ukraine, it's just lie, lie, lie, Every lie, lie, disinformation, disinformation, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda. We essentially live in a Russian state right now with Donald Trump being the Vladimir Putin who's spreading the propaganda to us.

We cannot trust anything coming out of this regime right now. Nothing at all. We have to honestly speculate about everything, and we have to do our own research about everything. And that's why independent media is so valuable at this critical moment in our nation's history. We're going to dive into everything. I got to check in with Jordi first. Jordi, what's the latest?

What's up, brothers? What's up, Midas Mighty? Brett, well said. Look, I'm really excited for today's show because we have a lot of ground to cover, and you put it perfectly there, B. Corporate media is just failing, just failing left and right here to deliver people the accurate news. And so everyone knows that watches the show. We come with facts, data, and receipts, literally. And I'm excited to just jump on in. So Benjie, with that, where do you want to start off today?

Right. And you have the free world, which is not represented by the United States anymore. I mean, you You have Ukraine, you have Europe, you have Canada, you have Australia, and you have some other areas, right? And they are referred to by Russia as the Old World, and they're viewed as this outdated democracy, and that that's not the way of the future. Then you have this authoritarianism creeping back, where you had these centuries of democracies and the idea of democracy spreading Now you have authoritarianism back, asserting itself with these strong men leaders, which is what existed throughout most of history. They're utilizing the disinformation that's out there and AI and all of these tools in order to effectuate what they're doing. They speak to the authoritarians, speak to each other through their authoritarian language and lies and fake world that they create in order to justify to identify the atrocities they're inflecting. You wake up this morning and you have Russia announcing right after Zalinsky shows up, magnanimus, Zalinsky shows up with a productive idea at Mar-a-Lago, Zalinsky shows up and says, Okay, Ukraine and Europe is going to call the bluff of Donald Trump and Putin.

Here's what we're going to do. Why don't we allow there to be a referendum, a vote to take place, that if you want territorial concessions, if you want Ukraine to give up, Eastern Ukraine, Donbas, other areas like that, let's just take a vote. Let's do a 60 to 90 day ceasefire so that we can stop the war. Then let's do a vote. And if ultimately, and we'll do a vote for the President also. If people want to vote out Zelenskyy, and if they want to vote to be Russia, let's just make sure it has all of the aspects of a free and fair election. Let's protect a free and fair election, and let's put it to a vote. If people want to go with Russia, we'll allow that. But it has to be decided by people because this is an issue of sovereignty. It has to be decided by the people in a vote. A good way to really call the bluff of Trump and Russia. What does Russia do right away? Well, they first put out a statement that says, A ceasefire is just a prolongation of the war. It's an exact statement that came from Lavrov and Ushikov and Dmitriyiv and Putin.

A ceasefire prolongs the war, stopping the war, makes the war last longer. That's what they went with originally. Then they realized, Okay, well, what do we do? Just lie. Just make something up. Let's use the word terrorist because that's a way to rally support. So what are we going to do? If you woke up this morning, you may have heard the news on the Minus Touch Network that Russia's Foreign Minister, Serge Lavrov, said on Monday, Ukraine attempted a terrorist attack using 91 drones against the residents of Vladimir Putin right around Putin's house, right around the area, but that Russia was able to stop it. Now, a drone sworn with 91 drones that would have to evade all of the other areas of detection, and nobody would hear the drones being shot at by any of the defenses anywhere, including by where Putin actually lives in Northwest Russia. The story made absolutely no sense. But then Russia put out a statement and said, this Ukrainian attack will not go unanswered and that we need to adjust our negotiating tactics now to deal with the terroristic actions of Ukraine. And then Putin calls Donald Trump up right away and says, look what they did.

They tried kill Putin. Putin calls up Trump, They tried to kill me. They tried to kill me. Then all of the Russian propaganda that then goes out, which, by the way, Trump doesn't rebut. We'll show you a little bit. Trump agrees with it. Trump's like, Well, thank God I didn't give Ukraine the Tomahawk missiles because they may have used the Tomahawk missiles to go after you, Putin. I guess you're going to have to respond however you're going to respond. Don't you think that this was set up when Donald Trump was speaking with Putin, both before and after Zelenskyy left? I mean, think about it. Trump said he spoke to Putin for hours and hours and hours. When Trump was asked, Well, what did you talk about? He goes, What do you think we talked about? It's not like we talked about dinner or food or what movies we like. You don't think that they were coordinating this strategy and that when he met with Zelenskyy privately, that he was going to say, Hey, if you don't agree to the deal that we're doing, they may be able to find some pretext to start launching a tax on Ukrainian government buildings That's what was executed the day after Zelenskyy left.

Duh, that was the plan. Duh, that's what Putin told Trump. Duh, that's the message that Trump delivered to Zelenskyy when they were there in private and Trump kicked out the reporters. What Putin said he's going to do and what Trump threatened Zelenskyy with is he said, let me tell you what's likely going on in my own business. He's going to kill you, Zelenskyy. They're going to try to assassinate you. They're going, I could help. I can try to help you, but they're going to go after the government buildings in Kyiv. If you don't agree to surrender, that's what went down privately, in my opinion. How do you know? Just make common sense out of it. Putin and Lavrov execute that plan today. Zelenskyy comes out with a statement right away and says, This is all false. It's just yet another pretext to go after our government buildings and try to kill me. But that's what this is about. They're going to try to kill Zelenskyy right now. Let's be very clear, right? That's what they're going to try to do. I think Trump gave him a green light it. I think that's what Trump was threatening Zelenskyy with.

That's what this meeting was all about in the freaking dining room of Mar-a-Lago, Brett and Jordy.

We've talked about these pretexts before and how these authoritarian leaders feel the need to create pretexts in order to justify their autocratic actions. It's been a big theme of this podcast. We brought it up numerous times because it's Donald Trump's go-to move, and it's Trump's go-to move because it's also Vladimir Putin's go-to move. This scheme that they've devised that was announced earlier today could not be more transparent. If these were two kids, if this was a bully on a playground running to the teacher and telling the teacher that this kid threw rocks at me or something, and then they were trying to get the other kid that they were actually bullying in trouble, the teacher wouldn't believe it. So spare me the BS that this is the thing that Donald Trump is now believing and that this is what they actually believe may have happened. He obviously didn't look into the intelligence. He doesn't care to look into the intelligence. He wants to accept Putin's framing of this because he He views Putin as the good guy in this invasion, and he views Zelenskyy as the bad guy. You could just look at the way they greeted the two leaders as well.

Vladimir Zelenskyy comes to the United States. Not a single US official is there to greet him. Now, I want you to think about the red carpet treatment. I mean, literally, the red carpet treatment that they gave Putin when he arrived in Alaska for that summit with Donald Trump, that disastrous, horrific summit with Donald Trump, where he made a complete fool out of Donald Trump, where Trump had our United States military, quite literally, get on their knees and roll out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin. We see Trump do this all the time, whether it's with his 2020 election lies or whether he's speaking about Portland. There's an invasion in Portland Portland's in chaos. We need to send in the military. He did it here in my city of Los Angeles. Same thing. It's the same way that Putin operates. It's the same concept when Putin goes, Oh, nazification. We need to denoxify Ukraine, and that's why we're going in there. They're constantly trying to find their next lie that they could tell their supporters that they could amplify on their propaganda networks in order to justify their horrific actions. Because what these autocrats don't like doing is they don't go out there and go, Okay, I'm going to be evil now.

I'm going to go kill some people. That's my move. They try to wrap it in this other framing, whether it's framing a patriotism, whether it's a religious framing, whether it's a framing of revenge or retribution for wrongs that happened to them. You see right now what is happening. I think there's such a stark difference as well. First off, I feel horrible for somebody like Zelensky who has to be put in the middle of this and has to play this ridiculous game where he needs to go to Mar-a-Lago. First, why these leaders go in a freaking Mar-a-Lago? What a disgrace in general there. But has to go to Mar-a-Lago just so that Donald Trump doesn't get him killed, essentially. But thankfully, when he was here, he also met up with Prime Minister Carny in Canada. They had a good meeting. I think that contrast that we saw within a 24 hour period of Zelensky's meeting with Mark Carny and then meeting with Donald Trump, you see actually who is taking the mantle as leader of the free world, who is actually out there protecting democracy and protecting Ukraine sovereignty. Then you see evil. You see Donald Trump.

You see the people sitting at this very table that I'm showing right now to our viewers of the video podcast sitting around. I mean, look at all of these people. You see people like Stephen Miller and Whitkoff and all these people around Donald Trump who are just the epitome of evil right here. It's all very transparent. But that's how these autocrats work, and they rely on their propaganda networks. They rely on their mouthpieces in order to spin these stories and get it out there. But I think our audience is a lot smarter than this. And I think the American people as a whole are a lot smarter than this.

Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head right there, too, Brett, because that's exactly Donald Trump's plan, right? He is counting on the fact that Donald Trump thinks you, the American person, are too dumb to see through all of this That's it. For me, it comes down to this. In my heart of heart, I genuinely don't understand this need from Donald Trump to just bend over backwards to appease Putin. It's this love of this strong man mentality that has now put the United States in a very, very just awful predicament. Because coming out of this in a post-Trump era, Ben, as I like to ask you about, it's scary to think where our allies are going to stand with us just seeing how our President right now at this time is so buddy-buddy with Vladimir Putin, Ben.

Yeah, our former allies are in a containment mode, right? They have to do this dance and pretend that the United States is still an ally just to keep as much of the intelligence apparatus that still wants to be supportive, a close enough. But then they have to develop their own plans, and they have to assess the world, recognizing that Trump sees the world as the United States, as spheres of influence. The United States controls the Western hemisphere, Russia controls Europe and Russia, and China controls all of Asia. That's how Donald Trump sees everything. But just take a look right here about just even the statements that were put out by Putin and Trump this morning. As they signaled to each other in there, in our authoritarian language. Putin tells Trump that Kyiv's terrorist actions will not go unanswered and that there's going to have to be like, negotiations recognizing their terroristic goals. Then Trump's response is how shocked and outraged he is. Just think about what Donald Trump is doing to justify the war crimes taking place off the Coast of Venezuela. Narco-terrorism. These are terrorists. They are bringing in fentanyl in order to kill millions of Americans.

Every one of these boats that we blow up, we've saved 25, 50,000 lives. By the way, fentanyl is a scourge, but fentanyl is not coming from these fishing boats off the Coast of Venezuela. Venezuela brings zero fentanyl. If you want to remove Venezuela from the equation, think about how Trump weaponized the language of fentanyl and terrorist attacks, accusing Canada of bringing in fentanyl and killing America. That was Trump's pretext for tariffs. We have to. They're killing Americans. They're behaving in a terroristic way. It's the same deranged authoritarian language that is used. And watch, I mean, when Donald Trump held this press conference with Zelenskyy, and he was asked some pretty basic questions by the press. Just listen to how he answers the question. So the reporter asked Trump, did Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum? A pretty basic question, right? Donald Trump says that he was going to end the war in 24 hours. Remember a few months back where Donald Trump said that if Russia did not agree to the ceasefire, what was Donald Trump going to do? Impose secondary sanctions. You know what Trump did instead? He removed the sanctions.

Didn't impose secondary. He removed the sanctions. You know who he sanction?

No, Ben, that's not fair. I'm reading right here that he put sanctions Oh, on the EU, he put sanctions on Europe. Sorry, I got my-Yes.

He put the sanctions on Europe because Europe wanted to have moderation on bots and consumer fraud on social media apps that have more than 45 million users. So the Trump regime says, Europe is running an anti-free speech regime, but then all of these social media platforms are banned in Russia and Saudi Arabia, but they're rewarded. Russia's diplomats were jet skiing off the Coast of Miami. I mean, did you see these videos of Dmitriyiv, who runs their sovereign wealth fund, like locking the US? Dude was jet skiing in Miami. Miami, while these top European diplomats are now banned from coming into the United States. Saudi Arabia gets America's most highly classified and valuable semiconductor chips while Donald Trump does business deals with Saudi Arabia. Here's Donald Trump being asked, did Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum? Here, play this clip.

Russia agreed or did Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum?

Not a ceasefire a ceasefire, and that's one of the points that we're working on right now. No, not a ceasefire. He feels that, look, they're fighting to stop, and then if they have to start again, which is a possibility, he doesn't want to be in that position. I understand that position. The President feels strongly about that or something, but I think we're finding ways that we can get around that. But I understand President Putin from that standpoint. You have to understand the other side, and I'm on the side of peace. I'm on the side of stopping the war. But I think that's the problem that's going to get solved. What are those words even coming out of your mouth? I understand it. I'm on the side of peace. I understand why the ceasefire would cause more of the war. Stopping the war causes more of the war. Do we realize how idiotic the things that he's saying are? And by the way, the reason that we've covered on the Midas Touch Network what Putin has been saying, what Lavrov has been saying, what Yushaqab has been saying, what Dimitriyiv have been saying, what Pescov has been saying.

Maybe our corporate news wants to cover what these people are saying because Every time they talk about Trump's fake deals and how close we are, I'm like, Are you listening to what the Russians are saying? They keep saying that they want total surrender. They're saying that the special operation, as they call it, is never going to end. They say that Zelenskyy is the illegitimate leader. They say Ukraine is an artificial state that needs to be wiped off the map. Are you listening to what they're saying? There's not even an inkling or a desire on the Russian side for any piece. So it's like, What are we regurgitating? At every step, Zalinsky said, Yeah, we'll do a ceasefire. Yes, we'll do a ceasefire. Absolutely, we'll do a ceasefire tomorrow. All Zalinsky is saying is, We just need security guarantees to make sure that once we do this, it's not then going to result in further invasions and incursions. Just think about what the different positions are. Now, I want to show you this right here as President Zelinski has to stand there as Donald Trump is saying, I actually think that Putin really wants to help Ukraine by taking it over.

I think that the whole goal here is to help Zelenskyy, and that's what Russia's end game is. Watch Zelinsky's face while this is happening. Here, play this clip. In your conversation with President Putin, did you discuss what responsibility Russia will have for any reconstruction of Ukraine post an agreement? I did. They're going to be helping. Russia is going to be helping. Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. It sounds a little strange, but I was explaining to the President, President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity, and other things at very low prices. A lot of good things came out of that call today, but they were in the works for two weeks. What in the world are you talking about, Brett and Jordy? I mean, you listen to that, and it's like the fact that Zelenskyy has to sit there and take that.

The restraint that you need to have as Zalinski here. I mean, the guy, as the patience of a saint, I will say it's incredibly impressive of him. But quite frankly, he knows his life is on the line here. As I was saying earlier, he's got to play this, do this ridiculous dance with Donald Trump because Trump really does, unfortunately, have the fate of his life in his hands in so many ways. But thankfully, Europe has come together, and Europe has actually shown to be the leader of the free world, along with people like Mark Carny. I think you're actually seeing that leadership matter right now more than ever, whether it's with funding guarantees, as we saw Prime Minister Carny announced, or whether it's other measures that Europe is announcing. I mean, Frederick Mersh in Germany has, I think, been a real big leader in this in protecting Ukraine. Thank God for that. I mean, without that, they would just have the United States rolling over and Ukraine being handed right to Putin. But you have Zelensky there, and he just needs to suck it up during these moments when he's asked to come to Mar-a-Lago.

Unfortunately, I think he's like, pressured. He has to do it. People are like, Why does he even go there? I mean, he has to. His life's on the line. He's got a calculation that he has to make there, but he knows who Donald Trump is, as you could see on his face there. He knows who Mark Carny is, and he knows who these European leaders are, and he knows who Vladimir Putin is, and he knows where Donald Trump's allegiances lie. I think that's the important part here. It reminds me of You guys watch Hamilton. Do you guys see Hamilton? Like the king song when he says, When push comes to shove, I'll send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love. That's what I feel like Donald Trump is saying about Putin here. Oh, He just wants the best for Ukraine. He's just showing how much he loves Ukraine here. He just wants to protect Ukraine. It's like, Dude, what the hell are you talking about? There's been the most relentless bombing campaign against Ukraine that we have seen maybe since the beginning of the war just took place. We've We've been following and we've been posting these videos of the Ukrainian people who had to light their towns up by bonfire because the power was out, because of Vladimir Putin's attacks on Kyiv, because of attacks on their infrastructure.

There are all these horrifying videos of these missile attacks and drone attacks on a residential apartment buildings in Kyiv. This is a very, very serious issue. Right now, we have, I would say perhaps, but not perhaps, we have the single worst person in the entire world who could possibly be in charge in the United States right now, overseeing this issue in charge in the United States right now. And that's a big problem.

I give Zalinsky all the credit in the world for that restraint. And Brett, just building on your point, yes, Zalinsky's life, but also the life of his people. Zalinsky is holding a lot back there, a lot of restraints. Donald Trump says, Oh, Putin wants peace. Putin wants peace. He wants peace for the Ukraians. Zalinsky just holding his nose there. And good for him. I don't know how many people would be able to not just say, Hey, man, that's insane what you're saying right now, and actually speak out. But I give them all the credit because to your point, B, we have the single worst person in charge right now to be handling this. Not only that, he is guilty of, in my opinion here, helping the Russians and helping Putin and helping this prolong. And so what corporate media, Ben, I want to build on to your point earlier as well, what they're so guilty of themselves is they won't just hold Donald Trump's feet to the fire out of the nonsense that he's spewing. But what they'll actually do, and it's way more evil, they'll find a word or I guess two words smashed together when he says, Want peace.

And then the headlines that night on the evening, Donald Trump wants peace, calls for peace for the Ukrainians and Russians. That is so freaking evil to me, man. That's why I'm so happy we have this show. We have The Mightest Mighty. And you all know that, like I said in the beginning, we bring the receipts. I'm glad that we got to play that clip in its full context here, because you guys know when you're watching that corporate news at your dinner tables, whenever that be, they're going to clip that one teeny portion out. But the response that Trump gave was totally banana land. It was absurd. It made no sense. And yet no one wants to hold his feet from the corporate media side of things to the fire and be like, Hey, man, what did you say? It's not adding up, and you're not making any sense.

Go back to February, right around that time when Trump had Zelenskyy in, and Trump thought, I'm going to bring him in there. Jd, here's what we're going to do. We're going to corner him, surround him, threaten him. And then this is how it's going to go down. And then we're going to give Putin all of the Ukrainian land, the US, and Putin will splice it up. We'll get certain minerals. Putin gets certain minerals. Putin gets the territory. America can try to extract additional rare earth elements and stuff from Ukraine. That was the plan. And Zelenskyy didn't back down, and Europe didn't back down. You saw Trump lashing out there when Zelenskyy didn't back down. And then since then, you've actually had a steady growth in European solidarity around Ukraine. Brett, you mentioned Friedrich Merz in Germany, but you have Prime Minister Carny in Canada. You have Kier Starmer doing a good job. You have Vondrelay and the European Union Commission President, doing a really good job. You have Japan doing a very good job. You have Australia. You have countries across the world supporting Ukraine. I don't think Trump expected that to happen. I think if you're Zelenskyy, you look at the calendar and you're like, All right, I made it a year.

We got to make it another year, and we got to make it another year after that. Then hopefully, we can get somebody in this government who's going to We'll look out for Ukraine, and I think that's Zalinsky's calculus. We've got a lot more to discuss. We got to definitely discuss what's going on here in the United States, but we should also still talk about what's going on between China and Taiwan and the threats from China. We should talk about what's happening with Iran. We should talk more about this visit from Netanyahu, where Donald Trump said that he's spoken with the President of Israel, Herzog. Israel has a President and a Prime Minister. The President has the pardon power. The President is Herzog, and Trump says, We're going to get you one. I spoke to Herzog, and he says that he's giving you the pardon for all of your crimes, Netanyahu. Then Herzog had to respond, We've never talked. This is not true. Trump just makes up fake conversations with people. We'll talk about that and more a reminder, or maybe the first time I'm saying this, so not quite a reminder. We're going to be doing a state of the Midas address, like a state of the Union address, but the state of the Midas address, the Midas state of the Union address.

We'll be doing that January fifth on Patreon, where you can join us, listen to our state of the Union, and ask us any questions that you may have. We'll open it up for a long time. We'll answer all of your questions at patreon. Com/mitustouch. We'll be hosting our 2026 Mitustouch State of the Union, patreon. Com/mitustouch. You're not going to want to miss that. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

As you guys know, I take my health really seriously, but I also know I need to look out for my dog's health, too, because here's the thing, my dog tends to deal with itchy skin, licking paws nonstop, and those head shakes that make you immediately worry about their ears. And yes, my dog lives a very spoiled life, better food than me, endless treats, prime couch, real estate. But even with all that, dogs still share 99% of their DNA with bulbs, and modern life makes it harder for them to stay healthy. Dog allergies are actually up 30% in the last decade. They're exposed to pollen, dust, mold, and even human dander every day. And 90% of your dog's immune system lives in the gut. So when gut health is weak, allergies get worse. That's why I use Better Wild Allergy Relief Soft Chews. They're designed to support your pet's allergy defense system by strengthening digestion. They use a special blend of wolf probiotics called Ancestral Advantage to support long-term allergy relief beef by strengthening your dog's natural defenses. These chews include four key ingredients, an ancestral blend of wolf probiotics called Ancestral Advantage, El Sacchei, a patented postbiotic, not probiotic, derived from kimchi that's been clinically proven to reduce itchiness and redness in just two months, colostrum to boost immune function, and salmon oil for healthy skin and fur.

They also have Chews for joint support, dental health, and a digestive support meal topper. I give the Chews daily. My dog loves the flavor, and they genuinely feel better knowing that I'm supporting their health from the inside out. Better Wild is committed to helping your dogs with science-backed, veterinary-approved solutions that you can feel great about. Right now, Better Wild is offering our listeners up to 40% off your order at betterwild. Com/mitus. That's betterwild. Com/mitas for up to 40% off your order. Betterwild. Com/meidas, M-E-I-D-A-S. All right, real talk. What's the hardest part of eating enough protein every day? For me, it's not knowing what to do, it's that life happens. Some days I crush a workout and meal prep like a champ, and other days I look up at 3: 00 PM and realize I've only had carbs. That's honestly why I started using Hul. It helps on gym days, busy days, and especially those I tried days. A quick heads up, Huel is now in Target nationwide. You can grab the Black Edition ready to Drink right off the shelf, which is huge when you're sprinting through the store or straight out the door. What I love is pairing the ready to Drink with the Black Edition powder.

The RTD is my emergency button, a complete high-protein meal when I don't have the time to think. The powder is for home days when I want something customizable or post-workout. Having both keeps me consistent instead of falling off my routine. Both give you 35 grams of protein, 27 essential vitamins and minerals. They're gluten-free, no artificial sweeteners, colors or flavors, and it's all under five bucks a meal. It just makes the healthy choice the default. If you're focusing on protein right now or just trying to feel a little more put together, this bundle really helps. Grab Huel today in your local target or get my exclusive offer of 20% off online with code MITUS20@huel. Com/mitus20. That's huel. Com/meidas20. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show.

Let's go. Shout out to our sponsor's 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 we sent you. Benji, where to next?

So you also had Donald Trump at a presser, had a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu today, who's also currently being prosecuted in Israel for his crimes. And you have Donald Trump during this press conference saying that he had spoken with Israel's President, a guy by the name of Isaac Herzog. Israel, a lot of parliamentary systems, sometimes have a President who's like the head of state, and then a Prime Minister who's like the day to day head of like, foreign affairs, and the actual person who carries out like the Commander and Chief duties and more of the day to day operational stuff. So Trump says he spoke with Herzog, and in Israel, it's the President who has the pardon power, not the Prime Minister. So you can't pardon yourself. The President is the one who issues the pardons. So Trump says, Well, look, I spoke with the President, and he's agreed to a pardon. And I think that'll be coming very, very soon, to which the President said that we never had a conversation. He had to put out a statement saying there was no such conversation that ever took place, that this is entirely made up.

It's all a complete lie, and that's never happened. Herzog's office disputes us. There has never been a conversation between Herzog and President since the pardon request was submitted. Instead, his office says, Herzog spoke to one of Trump's aides and offered an explanation that was provided regarding the stage of process in which the request currently stands. This is how Trump describes it, just making it up, just like a total lie. Here, play this clip. A pardon? I think you will. How do you not? He's a wartime Prime Minister who's a hero. How do you not give a pardon? I think it's a very hard thing not to do it. I spoke to the President, and he tells me on its way. Mr. President. You can't do better than that, right? Please. In addition to the fact that Netanyahu is no hero, and that Netanyahu has committed so many atrocities and has caused him and Donald Trump seeing two incredibly destructive forces up there together, like saying, Oh, you're the greatest. No, you're the greatest. No, you're so great. No, you're so great. Look at how great you've made the world. No, you both have made the world an incredibly much more dangerous place, and he made it far, far, far worse.

Again, he's just lying.

He made their own country is a more dangerous place.

He made their own countries, yeah. Countries, the rest, absolutely. But everything that Trump says, dude, is just a lie. He just makes it up, like a fake conversation. Remember when he would say that he spoke to Xi Jinping, he makes up fake conversations.

Somebody on our team described it as a guy pressuring a woman on a proposal. Like, Oh, she said yes, or, Don't you say yes? Won't you marry me? And putting them in that public, awkward position to now try to answer when somebody said that this is going to happen, and now there's this public pressure. I think we see that Donald Trump, this is a tactic that he uses quite often where he just lies, as Ben says. He just makes things up publicly, and he tries to create a story around it. I guess his hope is that he builds enough pressure in order to try to pressure the individual into action. But in this case, we saw a quick response from Herzog, who came out and said, No, never had that discussion. That's not happening.

Yeah. So Trump has asked about what's going on with China's military operations around Taiwan right now. It's big story. China announced major military drills around Taiwan, and what it's calling a serious warning against any push for independence. Taiwan had to respond with rapid response exercising, exercises placing its military on the highest alert. Here's how the China Daily, China's and Abomey Propaganda Network, describes what went down. The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command is dispatching its naval and air forces to carry out combat readiness patrols around Taiwan Island, a military spokesperson said Monday. That's how they refer to Taiwan there. The vessels and aircraft will approach Taiwan Island in close proximity from different directions, said Xi, Spokes for the Eastern Theater Command. Xi stressed that the move aims to test the capabilities of the troops to conduct rapid endeavors, form all-dimensional posture, and execute a systemic blockade and control. Like, pretty serious stuff. Could you imagine, again, if this stuff was happening under former President Biden? Not to say that China was not taking ferventive actions before, whether it was Biden or Obama or Trump at the first. But not this. Okay, not this. Let's be very, very, very clear.

This is a big deal type Taiwan has to prepare as though there's an imminent war. Japan has had to put out statements in the past few months, basically saying, If Taiwan is invaded, Japan is going to have to step in, to which China responded with its top diplomats saying that, Hey, Prime Minister Takeishi of Japan, we will chop off your head. We will behead you if you say that again. Then Donald Trump called up Takeishi in Japan, the new Prime Minister, and said, Hey, you got to chill. Stop speaking negatively about Xi Jinping. That was what Trump's response was to Japan when Japan was standing up for Taiwan. Remember what all these magas used to be like, We're China Hawks. Remember, they're always Hawks. We're Hawks. We're China Hawks. We're fiscal Hawks. Why are you just baking up? Why do you get to call yourself a freaking predatorial bird? Hawk. You're predators, but you're not Hawks. You're a bunch of freaking pushovers is what you are. Or you're a bunch of sociopaths. Creating whatever framework justifies that at the end of the day, you all just wanted your own idiotic Kim Jong Un in the United States because you all wanted to go to your golf courses or not have to do whatever, and you wanted to hand it over so you could be your oligarchs and just do whatever you want to do while the American people get screwed while you go to your golf club or whatever the hell you're doing.

You go to Mar-a-Lago or whatever. It's ridiculous. So Trump has asked about this, pretty big deal. What do you make of these military exercises? Watch Trump's response. Let's play it. Nable exercises, basically to test encircling Taiwan. Can you explain to us what your knowledge is of that? What do you think about that? Have you had any discussions with Trump about that? Well, I have a great relationship with President Xi, and he hasn't told me anything about it. I certainly have seen it, but he hasn't told me anything about it, and I don't believe he's going to be doing it. Is it worrying you? No, nothing worries me. You said where there's smoke, there's fire, right? So if you're in circle, if you're doing naval exercises and air exercises- We've been doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area. Now people take it a little bit differently, but in fact, larger than they're doing right now. So we'll see. But they've been doing that for 20, 25 years. Yeah. Okay. No, they haven't. And it's just a very weird framework. We have a very good relationship. Let me ask you, if you had a very good relationship, Why aren't they buying the strawberries?

I just like how also our media gets so distracted, right? When he keeps announcing the fake deals, how many strawberries have they purchased? Weren't they supposed to buy 11 million metric tons or 12 million metric tons, which you hailed as a massively great deal. Then they lied and said, by the way, the same way they lied and said that the Biden administration never brought back any hostages, and only Trump brought back the hostages from Hamas. They go, We've never brought back... He goes, Biden never brought in any strawberries at all. We got the strawberries. No. First off, when it comes to the hostages, Biden got back what was 134, 143, significant number. Then when it comes to strawberries, the Biden administration in China, China was buying 27, 28 million metric tons of strawberries. So Trump's idea of a good deal was 15 to 16 million metric tons of strawberries US. And then China didn't even buy that. Maybe they bought a million metric tons. Maybe. Maybe. And then Trump says, They're a great friend of ours. He's a great friend. Just a very strange framework. No, dude, he doesn't like you like that. And the fact that Xi Jinping can see on Donald Trump, that all Donald Trump wants is to be liked by him, you know how easy that is to manipulate somebody like that as well?

Obviously, it goes without saying. He said the same exact things about Putin as we showed you before, as we went over before. It's no coincidence. It shouldn't be a surprise. But these people, they're not stupid. Okay? Xi is not stupid. Putin is not stupid. They have to be laughing their ass off at how easy it is to manipulate this idiot. Putin coming up with this plan, oh, Zelensky is coming to the White House. He's calling for peace. How do I make this look bad? Why don't you just tell him that he attacked your resident? Brilliant. Oh, easy. Done. Easy. Done. I mean, it's like the The dumbest script writing, if you want to call it that imaginable. And they know that Donald Trump will just accept anything they say hook, line, and sinker.

And then Trump always has to make himself out to be like the hero. So in that case of, oh, they attacked the residents. Oh, well, thank goodness. I didn't give them the Tomahawks. Thank God, it could have done serious damage there. He's just such a putz, man. And that's just what happens when you have someone so incompetent just at the helm. It becomes a very scary thing as a society to witness. Like, okay, what's this maniac going to say right now? And I could get how people get exhausted, generally, with, I just need to tune out. But really, we all just need to focus now more than ever, because I'd say what's happening in front of us right now is maybe the most important thing that's ever happened in our lifetimes. This is really scary, freaky stuff, Ben.

Kim Jong Un is testing his long-range cruise missile capabilities. And again, this is obviously happening at the exact same time that China is encircling Taiwan because they're showing what that alliance could look like. And it's happening at the same time Putin is engaged in upping and accelerating the attacks on Ukraine. This is what happens when there is a break down in the post-World War II global world order that kept... Not saying it was a peaceful, great time, and everything was amazing. Let me be very clear. There were horrible wars, there were horrible atrocities, and I do not want in any way give a pass to certain horrific things that have happened in that time frame. But we avoided, by and large, world wars of the scale of World War II, of World War I, for a significant period of time post-World War II. But for nuclear deterrence right now and mutually assured destruction, if you remove that from the equation right now, if you think about what's going on in the world, there would clearly be a world war right now. The main deterrent is how does that exist in a structure of nuclear weapons?

But if you think about it, everything from Thailand and Cambodia and Donald Trump continuing to claim another peace, more war, peace, war, peace, war, peace, war, peace, war. Just think about the war that's taking place between Thailand and Cambodia that Donald Trump wants credit for solving. When he hasn't solved, if anything, he's caused it. India and Pakistan, Same thing. You didn't do anything to help India and Pakistan, but that turned into a hot war this year with Russia accelerating its invasion and attacks on Ukraine, Ukraine standing strong with its European allies. You look at Africa, and Donald Trump says he solved the war in Congo, which he did not. Things are actually much worse there. The Rwanda-backed M23 groups and others continue to attack in Congo on a very frequent basis. If you look at just the United States' actions, threatening Canada to become the 51st state, threatening to take over Greenland in just the past two weeks, the United States attacking fishing boats in the Pacific and off the Coast of Venezuela as well, the United States gloating over posting videos of war crimes on a frequent basis, the United States dropping bombs in Nigeria and claiming it was to save the Christians when it wasn't even in the Nigeria, actually, where a lot of the terrorist attacks take place.

If you know Nigeria, the terrorist attacks that have taken place, if anything, kill more Muslims than Christians in Nigeria, rather than just buying Donald Trump's BS propaganda about it, is certainly more tribal-based than religion-based. But if you talk about religions, there's no specific attacks on Christians going on there. What Trump really wanted to do, I think, was to try to send a message there to the governing, the ruling government right there. One of the main opposition leaders is a Christian. So Trump, the same way we talked earlier about Putin's tactics, Trump is working with the Christian opposition leader in order to try to get that guy back into power or to get that guy into power because Nigeria has some of the biggest oil and lithium reserves out there. And Nigeria's current government has a big lithium deposit deal with China, which is investing heavily in Africa. If you look what I just describe taking place across the world right now, I know that it's uncomfortable, perhaps, to talk about it, or it may seem complicated, but it really isn't. It's actually not when you just describe it the way I just described it. What other words would you use for objectively what I just described happening in the world?

And this has all happened under Trump. Now, when we come back, I want to talk about what's going on in the domestic front, too. Like Trump's crushing our economy, covering up for child sex trafficking Things are not affordable. People can't afford homes. I'm not going to play the clips, but Trump threatened to fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, again, who Trump appointed and blames Biden for appointing the guy. And Trump says, I'm going to sue the guy and go after the guy. We don't have stable markets here. Our macro and microeconomic outlook in the United States is a complete and utter disaster right now. But just think about it from a global and from a US perspective, are we better off now? Not only are we not better off, I mean, we are in some pretty serious situations right here. And look, in terms of a world war type situation, whether you believe we're in a cold world war right now or an actual World War, however you want to describe what's taking place right now, everything is hanging right now on a very, very simple thread, a simple act itself, like the triggers for World or World War II is possible with a world order being utterly brought down by Trump.

It has not made America stronger at all. Let me just say that.

Yeah, I agree. As you go through your commentary on that, I think one of the interesting things, I don't know if that's the right word, but one of the things is that Trump really wears his pathology on his sleeve, and he also often accidentally or on purpose reveals his true intentions in a lot of these conflicts and wars and all the fights that he picks. And so when you see Donald Trump and some of these Republicans speak about Nigeria, they may let the words lithium deposits slip out of their mouth. When you hear Donald Trump speak about Ukraine, he always talks about rare earths. Are they going to give us their rare earths? When he talks about China, he uses the same terminology. Even if you go back in the day, Donald Trump's opinion on the Iraq War, for example. His regrets about the Iraq War is not that it was an invasion that killed so many people and that we never should have done it in the first place. It's we should have took the oil. We're stupid. We're stupid. We should have took the oil. Everything in his mind is how do we extract resources?

How do we bully people? When you look at that and then you add that to this idea of these pretexts that we've been describing that people like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump push in order to achieve to achieve those objectives, I think everything, boom, snaps into focus very clearly. We've got a lot more to talk about in this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. So much more to go over, as Ben said, especially here on the domestic front. I want to make sure that everybody subscribers to us on Substack, an incredible growing community. I got to give a huge shout out, by the way, to our Editor-in-Chief, Ron Philipkowski, who has been putting together these year-end specials such as the 500 Worst Things That Trump and His administration have done this year, month by month, documenting it all. I don't know how he even begun to embark on this task, but man, is this an important and valuable piece of work that Ron is doing? Part three just went up today. Make sure you check it out at mitisplus. Com. He has also ranked the top 25 villains of the first year of the Trump regime.

Make sure you check that out as well. Sign up mitisplus. Com. Check it out. Also, the Mitis Touch state. What are we calling it? The of Mitis Touch, the Mitis Touch State of the Union, whatever it is. January fifth. Be there on Patreon, patreon. Com/mitistouch. We're going to do a Zoom chat. We're going to break down everything that's happened in the past year and the look ahead on our Patreon, patreon. Com/mitas touch. Make sure you sign up there so that when we send a secret link out that you receive that secret link, all the viewers on here watching on the live YouTube podcast, make sure you go in and check out the Midas Touch podcast on the audio feeds. All the audio listeners, make sure you check us out and subscribe on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. We'll be right back after our final quick break. Don't you go anywhere. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, It's even safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Look, data brokers make a profit off your data. Your data is a commodity. Anyone on the web can buy your private details, and that can lead to identity theft attempts, fish messaging and harassment.

But now, you can protect your privacy with delete me. As someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. I've seen how fast your information can spread online and how removing your data from hundreds of data broker websites can help you protect yourself. If you haven't been a victim of identity theft or online harassment, you probably know someone who has, and delete me can help. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for delete me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to joindeleteme. Com/mitis and use promo code MITIS at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteme. Com/mitis and enter code MITIS at checkout. That's joindeleteme. Com/mitis, code minus, M-E-I-D-A-S. I've been using One Skin for a little while now, and honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect at first, but I've been blown away. I started with their OS1 face moisturizer, I could feel the difference almost immediately. My skin feels smoother, more hydrated, and just healthier overall. What really surprised me was how lightweight it is. It doesn't feel greasy or heavy, and it fits perfectly into my routine.

I also really love how simple it's made things. Instead of juggling a bunch of products, I could just use one skin and know that I'm getting everything I need in one step. At the core is their patented OS1 peptide, the first ingredient proven to target senescent cells, the root cause of wrinkles, crepiness, and loss of elasticity. All key signs of skin aging and these results have now been validated in five different clinical studies. Now is the perfect time to try One Skin because they just released their limited edition holiday sets, including the Nightly Rewind Gift Set. It's one of those rare gifts that's both impressive and genuinely useful, featuring their best-selling face moisturizer, their new peptide lip mask, and a cooling Guasha tool, all designed to work together as your body enters its natural nightly repair mode, helping renew skin at the cellular level for stronger, smoother, and more resilient skin. For a limited time, try OneSkin for 15% off using code MITUS at oneskin. Co/mitas. That's Oneskin. Co/meidas. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

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 we sent you. That was a Brett Brett sweep. Brett, add, sweep. The fans were calling for more Brett Adreads.

And so, Brett, way to bring it up. Got to give the people what they want there, Jordy.

Real quick, Benji, I know you really care about this. I see a lot of people in the chat right now asking, or throughout this episode asking what my shirt says because it gets cut off. So it says, Don't be a jag off. That's the central theme of this episode, if I'm listening to what you guys have been saying pretty much correctly. So don't be a jag off. One of my favorite Pittsburgh, one of my favorite yinzer words. Benji, Where to next?

Just to mention briefly that on an obscure right wing radio interview last week, Donald Trump just randomly said that we bombed inside Venezuela. Then Trump was asked about it today. I don't need to show you the clip. Donald Trump said, why would we care about that? Why would I even talk about? Well, who cares? It's like, okay, that's normally a big deal. Could you imagine another former president just mentioning in passing that we bombed inside a country, which would usually be a precursor to war, then asked about it? Why would I even talk about it? Why would I even talk about that? Who cares? I know that's why this community is special here, that we're not numb, we don't normalize it. But I just want to call that out as something that's not normal. That is something that we should take very seriously, and we need to call it out in each and every step. And by the way, when we cover what's going on in international affairs, when we cover what's going on as Trump engages in malicious behavior, attacking our economy and ripping away people's health care, the Affordable Care Act subsidies are what, two days from now officially expiring as we hit the new year.

And then people are off unless they were able to purchase it on the exchanges, which I don't know, it's very hard to purchase it on the exchanges when it goes up 300, 400 %, and it's twice, three times, four, five, seven times as expensive. We can still cover all of that, but then also that doesn't mean we're being distracted by Trump's malevolence, we could still talk about that he's covering up a child sex trafficking ring. We could still talk about what these MAGA Republicans are doing and how horrific it is. And obviously, we've covered in detail. We were the ones who broke the story about the 1. 2 million missing records out of the Southern district of New York. I'd like to act like it was very difficult for me to uncover that. It was tedious for me to read the files that were released, but there wasn't actually all that many when you think about it. This is what I used to do as a litigator. Then I looked at one and it said from 2020, and it was like, We are sending you the images of 1. 2 million documents for our cell bright software in US Epstein.

So I was like, Okay, well, it was clearly at least 1. 2 million more records than a reference writer. By the way, that's what I would do as a litigator. I look at something and I go, well, it references other records. I don't have these records. Like, those need to be produced. We broke the story. The DOJ admitted it. Donald Trump had his own freak out over it. And he was like, Now, let's just go after the Democrats. Embarrass them, name them, shame the Democrats. And now it's going to take so long. But I want to cover this as well because it's perhaps not getting that much attention, although we covered here in the Midas Touch Network. So Balania Trump has been going around and threatening to sue anybody who mentions her name and Jeffrey Epstein in the same sentence. Oopsie, did I just mention her name and Jeffrey Epstein? She didn't photographs with the guy, right? And so she previously threatened to sue Hunter Biden for a billion dollars. And Hunter is like, okay, sue me. A lot has been done to me already. You want to sue me for a billion? Sue me for a billion.

I'd love to get your deposition. I'd love to get your discovery. But Hunter didn't sue her back, and she never sued Hunter, as far as we know, and Hunter has never been sued. But she did this to Michael Wolf. Michael Wolf is Donald Trump's former biographer. Wolf knows where a lot of bodies are buried with Donald Trump, and Wolf was potentially going to be biographer for Epstein. I don't think anybody has spoken to Epstein in detail and at the length that Michael Wolf did during the key times leading up right before Epstein was arrested again and before Epstein died by suicide. Michael Wolf, a biographer who looks for the needle in the haystack in order to write these incredible books that he does, could you imagine handing this guy subpoena power? Could you imagine letting this guy take the deposition of Melania under oath or Donald Trump under oath? I mean, he's sat and he's had dinners with Trump and Melania in connections with writing books. He's been in Mar-a-Lago a ton. This is the guy you're going to go after. Melania threatens to sue Michael Wolf, and Michael Wolf is like, and she gives Wolf a deadline.

You must remove your retract and issue an apology by whatever date it was, like October 21st or something like that. Or else, we're going to sue you for a billion dollars and your life is going to be miserable. Michael Wolf is like, Hey, in New York, there's a law called an anti-slap statute, which not only allows you to defend against lawsuits that chill free speech. These are strategic lawsuits against public policy or against free speech, basically, anti-slap. In many states, you can assert it as a defense to get cases dismissed. It has this burden shifting analysis where if you're being sued of a matter of big public importance and you believe it's chilling your speech, you file this anti-slap motion, and then it shifts a burden back to the plaintiff to basically put their evidence in a way that is very compelling for the court. I'm oversimplifying it, but it's often used in a defensive posture. New York allows you to affirmatively sue. It gives you a cause of action if you are threatened with chilling your First Amendment speech. Wolf's response to Melania's letter, it's brilliant. You got to give him so much credit.

He sued her. He sued her affirmatively. Michael Wolf versus Melania. You threatened me. I have to remove my articles and you wanted a billion dollars. I'm going to sue you. My cause of action is is this strategic lawsuit against public policy? I'm going to anti-slap you with a freaking lawsuit right now. The lawyer is this Alejandro Brito guy. He represents Trump in a lot of cases. In the letter to Wolf, this Brito, this lawyer said, Direct all your correspondence to me in connection with this. Wolf said, Okay, I sued you. Do you want to accept service? Because in a lawsuit, before the lawsuit can actually get officially initiated. You file it, then you get a summons and a complaint, then you have to serve the summons and complaint on the defendant. Once you serve it, they then have 30 days from receipt of the service to respond. Certain jurisdictions, it's a different time, but generally, I figure it's 30 days. So he wants to get this lawsuit started. So he calls up the lawyer for Melania and says, Will you accept service? No, we won't accept service. Then Melania, from what Wolf recounts, is basically in hiding right now.

She's hiding from Wolf to avoid service when she threatened him. So this is her plan just to go into hiding right now? I did a whole video of this, but watch as Michael Wolf discusses what happened. Here, play this clip. This is an update about my lawsuit against the first lady of the United States. I think she's running from us.

By suing her, we have the right to subpoena her and her husband and their friends, and to ask all concern about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. We have tried to serve her lawyer in Florida. He has absolutely refused to take service of our lawsuit.

We've sent a process server to Trump Tower, where we understand she lives, not in the White House, but in Trump Tower.

And that Process Server, who seemed perfectly familiar with serving people in Trump Tower, a lot of dubious people there. When the server found out that it was It's the first lady.

They panicked. They refused to do it.

We got another server to go, and this was just yesterday. They arrived at Trump Tower.

They were prevented from getting in by security. Security told them that they would take any papers and throw them in the garbage. But they did confirm that Melania Trump lives in Trump Tower. So this is a historical point. The first lady of the United States does not live in the White House. She lives in Trump Tower. We will now go into court. So that's what's going on there. At the same time, that happened. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Hérald reporter who broke the big stories on Epstein and the Sweetheart deal with Alex Acosta, who ended up becoming Donald Trump's Labor Secretary. She broke all those stories in 2018, 2019. She was being trailed by the Trump regime. She was being spied on by the Trump regime. In the latest Epstein files that dropped, even though only a small amount of documents was released, one of them was this. And Julie K. Brown says, Does somebody at the DOJ want to tell me why my American Airlines booking information and flights in July 2019 are part of the Epstein files attached to a grand jury subpoena? As the flight itinerary includes my made in name, and I did book this flight, why was the DOJ monitoring me?

Was the DOJ issuing subpoenas to different airplane, airports to get Julie K. Brown's information? I mean, That's a wild thing. Also, what Julie K.

Brown- If you're going to be tracking people in the Epstein case, tracking the lead investigative journalist who has exposed Epstein, making that your target is what I'm going to call a tell, consciousness of guilt, whatever you want to describe it, the fact that they were trailing her. I got to give a huge shout out to Julie K. Brown for her steadfast reporting. She's been reporting on this now for a very long time. You could even say that She is probably the reason that Epstein got indicted and was caught finally on these crimes. She deserves so much credit, so definitely support her any way you can on her substack, read her writing, share her reporting. She is top-notch.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You have all that going on. We're going to stay on the front lines of reporting everything going on with the Epstein files. We know this massive cover-up is never going to end by Donald Trump and his regime. I mean, they've already violated the Epstein Transparency Act in so many ways. Everyone who's involved in that cover up, frankly, should be charged with felonies when a new Department of Justice comes into power because they're all... Anyone involved in this is part of a criminal enterprise. They're all part of a criminal. It's wild to think about that if you're at the DOJ and you touch this and you were involved in it in any way, why couldn't the DOJ pursue a criminal RICO case against us? Everybody in the DOJ is basically part of the criminal enterprise at some level of it and could all be charged with the same degree of crime based on a RICO statute right here. And by the way, just to see how awful this DOJ is, and there's so many ways to give you examples of this, but just take a look at this case right here in California. Central district of California, that's where when I was a litigator, I used to practice the most.

I litigated against a lot of Department of Justice lawyers. You could disagree with them. They were top-notch from top law schools, the best and brightest. They would go from working in the government to working at large law firms. They'd go back and forth. When they would leave the DOJ, there would be big law firm jobs for them because these were... You could dislike the fact that they could be aggressive or this or that, but they had resources and they outpapered you. You had to fight. You knew it would always be a fight and that they would put forward top-notch work. When the DOJ would go in front of federal judges, the judges would almost give... It would be annoying when you were going against the DOJ, but they'd already basically get the benefit of the doubt that they were good lawyers, and the federal judge would almost put them on a pedestal in any case, and they'd go in front of these judges all of the time. Well, now a federal judge, Judge Olgen in the Central district, he dismissed with prejudice an indictment against a well-known TikToker who was exposing some of the conduct that ICE was engaged in Los Angeles.

Federal agents arrested this guy, Carlitos Richard Piraias, after they accused him of driving his car back and forth, hitting law enforcement cars that had boxed him in. They then shot him, and they shot at the vehicle, and some of the shrapnel from the shooting actually hit the guy. But in the order, US district Judge Fernando Olgen dismissed the indictment with prejudice, citing that the defendant was deprived of access to counsel while being detained and the government failure to comply with the court's deadlines, including including the release of body camera footage of the incident, meaning the federal government did not even turn over the discovery in the case. If you think about them not turning over the Epstein files, there was another case that I covered this past weekend involving the lawyer for James Comey, where the DOJ was ordered back in early December to return his files back to him that they stole without a search and they were trying to use against Comey by having an FBI agent testify about attorney-client privilege information. The Comey case was dismissed on other grounds because Lindsay Halligan was not lawfully appointed as the United States attorney. But had that not happened, it would have been dismissed on other grounds.

Too likely one of them was that this FBI agent that Halligan brought in got this attorney-client file of Komi's lawyer. Komi's lawyer went into a DC court that ruled that the government stole his attorney-client files. They ordered that they delete it and returned the files back to the guy. Then the government wrote an emergency motion over the holidays saying that they don't have the technical capabilities of deleting it and turning it over during the holidays, and they begged for an extension until January fourth. The court granted a brief extension, but warned them, too, because the court said, I've been telling you over over and over again. You can't look at these files. Just press the freaking delete button and turn it over. There's nothing to review because they're like, We need to review it. The judge is like, There's nothing to review. Freaking press delete, hand over the files, and end this. You don't have the right to these files. I wanted to highlight those two things because from a criminal defense lawyer perspective right now, where you were being outpapered, outmatched by the DOJ, the government, the United United States versus your client, the US had unlimited resources.

The lawyers I know who are still at the DOJ, who occasionally will talk to me off the record, or some of the people who left the DOJ, just say this is a disgrace. They're not political people that I know. These aren't political people. They just think that this is like that Trump has turned the DOJ into his crappy law firms that would make foules of themselves before federal judges. Now this once proud DOJ is behaving this way. Just think about all, not even the high-profile cases. Think about all the screw-ups that they're having. Think about the case that's going on right now, and this is a more high-profile one, though, with the pipe bomber. The pipe bomber in DC is saying, I'm ready to go. I want a preliminary hearing. The government's saying they're not ready to even do a preliminary hearing. They know that the government doesn't have the resources sources to go in court and make arguments. Just at that basic level, guys, that's what's happening. The defendants know that the government doesn't have lawyers who can show up and make a legal argument, yet alone actually do the case.

You have the worst people running every branch of the government. The only thing that is required for you to be a part of this MAGA movement, for you to be a part of this United States government, as it's currently constituted, is not skill or knowledge, intelligence. It's one thing, it's loyalty and it's adherence to whatever the cult wants you to believe. Not too different from the mob, not too different from Scientology. You name it, that's how this organization is... That's how this government is run, like a crime organization at this point. You need to look at everything through the lens of that. When you look at everything through that lens, I think everything starts to make a lot more sense. When you see Marjorie Taylor-Green, of all people, speaking out against Donald Trump and not speaking out against his policies. She agrees with Donald Trump on 99. 99% of everything. But speaking out on one thing, and that one thing is, You know what, Donald? Let's not protect the sex traffickers. I'm down for all the other crazy stuff, but on this one thing, let's not protect the sex traffickers. The reaction that she got from Donald Trump was excommunication, as if she was in Scientology and if she was a suppressive person, as they call it.

You're excommunicated, you're hereby no longer MAGA. In fact, I guess you're just a Lib now. Scott Jennings was on CNN the other day. We don't have to play the clip. But he was like, Oh, Marjorie, Taylor Green turned Lib. You think we're upset about that? Okay, yeah, the liberal Marjorie Taylor-Green. It defies all logic and intelligence. It's insulting to your intelligence. There was another piece out in the New York Times today about Marjorie Taylor-Green. They did a whole piece on her where she gave this interview to the Times, and she was speaking about basically being excommunicated communicated from MAGA and this entire movement. There was one area of this story that really stood out to me when she was speaking about this. Apparently, she said that she got into this huge argument with Donald Trump about the Epstein files, and she had just held this hearing, and she said, I'm going to go on the floor and I'm going to name names. I'm going to name the people who are Epstein's co-conspirators, and I'm going to expose them. She made clear that she does not know the names herself, but she says that the survivors know the names and that they would share the names with her if she pried and if she asked.

Donald Trump's reaction was not great. Let's expose the child sex trafficking ring. Let's get it all out there. His reaction, and I want to quote it directly, he screamed at her, and other people heard him screaming at her on this phone call, screamed at Marjorie Taylor-Greene and said, Don't do that. My friends will get hurt. My friends will get hurt. Where's Donald Trump's reaction? Oh, your friends. Your friends. Okay, got it. I thought you didn't know Epstein. I thought you weren't in the same circles as Epstein. You can't get your lie straight. Your friends will get hurt. I think we see how he's handling that situation. I think there's a whole lot of consciousness of guilt, I think, as Ben says, you could draw adverse inferences from the way that Trump is handling Epstein. I would even surmise that if Epstein was not indicted and everything didn't happen with Epstein, Epstein would have been a cabinet member in the Trump administration. This guy would have been Secretary of Treasury.

He would have been the Treasury Secretary.

Honestly, he would have been like, Treasury Secretary, Trump would have pardoned. I'm not even being facetious. If that indictment didn't happen, if Julie K. Brown's reporting did not lead to the indictment, you could see Secretary of Treasury, Jeffrey Epstein. It's not out of the realm of possibility with this regime. Everything in this regime goes through, Are you loyal to Donald Trump? Will you repeat what Donald Trump says, even if it's contradictory, even if it is completely contradictory to the thing you said yesterday. If Donald Trump changed his mind on something and is now saying the opposite thing. Are you now saying the opposite thing? That's what everything is measured by this regime. Nothing makes sense. It's also at a detriment, of course, to the United States when you have people running the government in this way. And affordability is obviously a big problem right now. And when you see the United States government doing everything it can to make the problems worse, be it with tariffs or attack on climate policy, you name it, they are making everything worse. And the same way with the Epstein, how they hide it and they don't let people tell the truth.

The people in the Trump administration also have to parret the party line, the Trump line of, Oh, in fact, what you're seeing, what you're feeling isn't actually true. In fact, everything is amazing. And one of the tactics that they use in order to manipulate people is constantly shifting the goalposts. It's going to be great by the middle of this year. Remember COVID, by the way, 2020? Everything's going to be open by Easter. Everything's going to be open by Christmas. They kept setting these dates. The dates would come, the dates would go, repeat, repeat, repeat. Now, the same thing with the economy. It's going to be great by April. It's going to be great by summer. It's going to be great by the beginning of next year. It's going to be great by next Easter. I just want you to watch how these Republicans are now speaking about the economy. Let me play this clip quickly.

Then two-thirds say that things are getting worse. This, to me, is a messaging issue. How do you continue to tell the American people, Look, the big, beautiful bill is now law, and that is going to translate into 2026 for you? There's only one path, Sheryl, and that's going to be in the pocketbook. I think the first and second quarter of '26 is going to show a lot. Remember, all those tax cuts have not been implemented yet in the Great Big Beautiful Bill.

Interest rates were just cut.

I just had a meeting with my brothers yesterday. All the prices in our grocery stores are dropping like a rock. Eggs are going all the way down to 99 cents.

We see the beef market is dropping. We see sugar is dropping. We see all aspects of the grocery store prices are falling. Gas prices in Trumbull County are at $2 a gallon.

Once all this starts to happen and those tax breaks happen, and I think we're going to really see an economy, hopefully by Easter, that is roaring.

If you want to win this midterm and you want to keep the gavel, the answer 1,000% is going to be in the pocketbook. They understand what they keep. By Easter, folks.

Just keep digging on the carrot, folks.

I had a meeting with Mickey Mouse the other day, and Mickey Mouse told me, I mean, okay, I spoke to my brothers. I don't do it. I don't know who your brothers are, number one. What is... Oh, he spoke to his brothers. Okay, guys. His brothers told him that when they went to the supermarket, I mean, just even the way Fox frames it, though, Fox goes, What this really is, we seem to have a messaging issue right here. No, no, no, no, no. You are the messaging issue, number one. This is an issue issue, okay? This is an issue that people feel, and the issue gets worse when you message it to them that they should feel good and they're not feeling good because you're hurting them. Let's be clear about that as well. Then when he goes, I spoke to my brother. My brother's like, Look, everything's amazing at this point. If my brother says, who are you? Number one. But, Brett, what an interesting status, and I'd love for you to talk about this.

Ben, just to be fair, that's how I win a lot of my arguments I have with people, I talk about what you and Brett say. So I said my brother.

But they know your brother.

I do want to comment on this really quickly. I want to comment on Marjorie because it's just amazing to me that that's the threshold for, I guess, Scott Jennings to be like, oh, she's a lib now. She's totally libed out. She's doing the absolute bare minimum. I want to make that clear. She is calling out child sex trafficking.

Jordy, if being against child sex trafficking makes you a lib, then everyone should be a lib, okay? It's been on the lipius lip to ever lip. What does that make you, Scott Jennings?

It goes so much deeper because you have to, Brett. You're right. Exactly. You have to parret all of the regime talking points all of the time. And it even goes to the guy's hands, man, to Donald Trump's hands that are literally deteriorating in front of our eyes that Fox News decided to run a clip from this podcast on a few weeks ago talking about how, oh, you know what? This is just so normal. That's what Fox News said and all of their analysts. They're like, if you're an A-lister, your hands, you shake so many hands. This is what your hands just look like. Okay, so Fox News, please explain it to me tonight. What's the excuse this time now that his other hand is looking very similar to his right-hand? So his left hand, you don't shake with your left hand. So maybe I'm not an A-lister. So maybe A-listers, when their right-hand gets tired out, they start shaking with that left hand. But it is you have to parret the talking points at all times. Otherwise, you're a subservient person and you are a detriment to the MAGA movement. That's what this is.

And because they lie about everything, you could only speculate, right? You could only speculate. And so when you look at Donald Trump's latest hands, you see the bruises are spreading, right? What are you saying?

Serbian person. Subversive.

That's what I said. Exactly. It's subservient.

Yeah, you called it- All the same. When you look at Donald Trump's hands, you see, first off, you see now you see these holes in his hands as well. You see the bruising spreading to other the other hand, as Jordie said. And now you could even make out that there is, it appears to be a hole, which appears to be an injection site. This is the first time a camera has gotten this close where we've actually seen what looks like a hole where the bruising is surrounded. I apologize for the viewers of these images. They're a little gross to look at. But Ben's done in-depth reports on health and the implications of what these injection sites, parent injection sites on Donald Trump's answer.

We have the photos, Fred, of what someone looks like who gets injected by Lecambia. I don't know if we have the photos of what it would look like if you were taking an Alzheimer's experimental drug like Lecambia. There's a few other ones that target the areas of where Alzheimer's is. Just show this. Just play the one on Lecembi that I did, because when I watched these videos, I did a whole deep dive into Lecembi. The bottom line is that... Let me be very clear. I'm giving you my First Amendment freedom of speech opinion right here, okay? But I know that is not from shaking a lot of hands. I I know they're hiding this pretty significantly, okay? Play the video about Lecembi for a second. Kirelyn Davis' story of how she ended up in this Emory video, one of the first patients in Emory University Hospital in Atlanta to receive an infusion of the recently FDA-approved Alzheimer's drug, Lecembi, begins last summer back home in Pensacola, Florida, with a pretty brutal diagnosis from a local neurologist Davis went to see after experiencing some memory problems. The brain scan or whatever they did at West Florida Hospital, they gave that to the doctor, and he told me to get your affairs in order.

When you look at the hand and the fact that he keeps saying he gets these Montreal, these MoCA exams, these Montreal cognitive exams multiple times, which you don't get unless you're evaluating somebody who's got issues that are accelerating. That's why you would keep on taking. These are not exams that people take for fun. Some Sydney Kalmager, Congresswoman, Dove, says, Here's the Alzheimer's drug, lechembi. It's administered through an infusion, through the hand. It can cause swelling, bleeding, or fluid leakage in the brain, requiring regular MRIs. It can cause tiredness. Brett, before I got off on that track, I just wanted to toss it to you because one of the things that as the regime is parroting this idea that everything's affordable and everything's amazing. It's interesting It's interesting that people are also now linking climate change as causing an affordability crisis as well as being a contributing factor. As climate change is going ignored, it is making things cost more money in the long run, and it's causing food prices to increase, and it's going to cause systemic issues. People are making that connection, Brett.

Yeah. And thankfully, people have to this, and it's very clear. And this is what happens when an administration like the Trump regime puts ideology ahead of actual facts and ahead of science. It's not just a theoretical thing. It actually screws people over. These climate issues are incredibly important to focus on. They're also, other than just being a nice thing to do good things for the environment, there are two major things that actually helping these causes assist with, and that are jobs, very important. Donald Trump is slashing all of these jobs across the country at all these clean energy plants and facilities, all these projects that were booming and set to go under the Biden administration's legislation that they had passed, and prices, because there is such an incredible strain on the energy grid right now, especially with the proliferation of these AI data centers, which are screwing up a whole lot. They're screwing up the water supply. They're screwing up electricity. They're going into these towns, and they're causing bills to skyrocket. It's bad enough that that's a thing on its own. But when you are taking away all the supply of the energy for these AI data centers, and then you are also taking away the clean energy projects that help provide more energy, it's a recipe for disaster.

I'm happy to see some media focusing on this. The Guardian did really good piece on this. I recommend you all read it. It's called US Voters linking Climate Crisis to Rising Bills despite Trump's Green Scam Claims. It says that new polling shows that 65% of registered US voters believe that global heating is affecting the cost of living. Sixty-five %. You don't see a lot of polls with that high of an amount of the American people agreeing on something these days. The article says, Most Americans now connect the worsening of the climate crisis with the cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and hold wind farms. New polling has found about 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to polling by Yale University. Extreme weather events such as flood, drought, storms, and heatwaves exacerbated by the climate crisis are taking a toll on food production, with the recent spikes in the cost of coffee and chocolate, blamed by experts, at least in part, on global heating. Meanwhile, many Americans have faced rising home electricity costs and steep increases in home insurance premiums, with Both of these areas also influenced by the climate crisis and the Trump administration's decision to choke off solar and wind power, one of the cheapest sources of energy.

It then goes into the data center issue that I was talking about. There is a real backlash to this policy by the Trump administration, or rather, the stripping away of these policies, of these climate initiatives. It's screwing people over. At a time when the issue of the day, the issue of the year, maybe the word of the year is affordability, affordability, affordability. Affordability. This administration, with the way that they are approaching the climate, is not only bad for the environment, but it's bad for affordability, and it goes counter to all the promises that were actually made by this administration, and that so many people now are demanding solutions for, and that's a big deal. And it's also why we need to stay focused on issues surrounding the climate because they do affect us in our day-to-day lives.

Well said, Brad. I think we covered it all on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Always thorough and always wanting to make sure that you're left with really having all the most up to date.

I think this is our last brother's show of 2025. Is that accurate? When is Thursday? I think is the first, which is going to be our next Brother Show. And so what a year it's been, brothers. I mean, an incredible year. We've had so many new people join us watching this show. We've been the top podcast on YouTube most weeks. Definitely the top pro-Democracy podcast. I want to thank everybody for this year entrusting us. It's been a tough year for sure. But I think we are all in this together, and we're all working to share this information. I think the cliché knowledge is power. I believe that. And I think that's why platforms, not only like ours, but platforms, pro-democracy platforms all across the ecosystem, are more important than ever right now, because we need to find ways to get the truth out, especially when we see capitulation by networks like CBS, especially when we see capitulation by networks like ABC or by the Washington Post or these universities or law firms or you name it. We've seen a lot of these organizations fall and bend the knee, and then we've seen the opposite of that.

We've seen the organizations that held strong. We've seen the people that have actually stood up and said, We are going to speak truth to power, and we do We don't care what the consequences of that are because getting the truth out is of the utmost importance. And that's a big belief of ours here at the Midas Touch Network. And I want to thank you for being a huge part of that.

A reminder, the Midas Touch State of the Union address or the State of Midas Touch address will be taking place January fifth on patreon. Com/mitistouch. Subscribe there. We'll also have it opened up to answer all of your questions. If you have any questions for us, we'll take your questions and be great to hang out together. Patreon. Com/mitistouch for the Midas Touch State of the Union address. I want to thank everybody for everything that you do. Happy New Year, Happy Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Happy Hanica, Happy Holidays, whether you celebrate or not. I celebrate you as being a member of the Mitis Mighty. We're grateful to have you on our team and by our side. Let's keep fighting together in 2026. Jordie, take it away.

Shout out to the Midas-Midi.

The Midas-Midi, standing strong. Against the fascists, we sing our song.

We will get it right whenever.

Want to stay plugged in?

Become a subscriber for our sub stack at midasplus.

Com. You'll get daily recap Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content, only available at mitisplus. Com.