Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 5/1/26 New

No escape for Donald Trump. He can rant and rave like a lunatic on social media and claim that he's utterly defeated Iran, but no one's buying it. Donald Trump has no way out right now. He's too scared to escalate. He's, uh, too, uh, incapable of negotiating. And so right now the Trump regime has no plan at all other than to post weird AI memes of himself with AR-15 style rifles, uh, and just behaving like an utter maniac. And no more Mr. Nice Guy, he says, while Iran is continuing to mock him. Also, we heard from the new Ayatollah Mojtaba earlier, who stated that Iran will never surrender and that the only place that the US will end up if they continue its blockade is on the bottom of the water. I don't think that they are backing down to Donald Trump's naval blockade, but Donald Trump told us they were gonna be blown up and destroyed anyway by Wednesday. That That didn't happen. So, well, I guess we'll just see what lies Donald Trump feeds to his stenographers over at Axios tomorrow, which is always market manipulation. Friday also, we saw Donald Trump's just completely bizarre behavior with King Charles during that visit.

King Charles gave that, I thought, a pretty powerful speech to a joint session of the House and the Senate where he talked about certain things in code where he was obviously calling out Donald Trump. He was saying, when America speaks, its words matters. He talked about the importance of supporting Ukraine and NATO, um, and, uh, other topics that Donald Trump seemed really to only care that, uh, King Charles was there. And if you know Donald Trump's history, it was basically spending the '80s and '90s lying that the royal family loved him, and the royal family would always have to say, yeah, this guy's a con artist and he's a fraud. We had Pete Hegseth's testimony, uh, in both the House and the Senate. In my opinion, dude perjured himself multiple times. But just looked even more pathetic and petty, if that's even possible. Then you have Pam Bondi, former attorney general, uh, after she avoided a subpoena not to appear before her deposition last month before the House Oversight Committee. Democrats stayed on top of this issue, and, uh, after filing contempt charges, uh, she finally agreed that she'll be sitting for a deposition at the end of May.

It's why you got to keep on fighting, right? I mean, think about it. California Governor Newsom fought back against the MAGA Republican gerrymandering scheme and used Prop 50 to counteract Texas. And that inspired Virginia and other places across the country. Not only that, you may have forgot this. Remember when Newsom sued Fox for manipulating like audio and video regarding Newsom's conversations with Trump? Remember when Fox was working with Trump to claim that, you know, Newsom was not saying things that he actually was doing and just like completely manipulated and like actually altered conversations and like chopped it up. Remember, Newsom then sued Fox for $787 million, where a federal court said the case can proceed to discovery. So now Newsom gets discovery into Fox and their messages and their emails and what they're saying with Trump and how their hosts are coordinating with them. I just want you to think about what a powerful device is. And that's why you fight. You got to fight. You got to pull it all out there. When you fight, you win. I remember a lot of people saying, oh, it's a stupid lawsuit. Why would you even file it?

Prop 50, it's never gonna pass. You just gotta do it sometimes. You gotta fight, you gotta stand up for what's right. So hat tip to Newsom. We'll talk about that. Meanwhile, the American people are still feeling the pain in a very big, big way. Uh, we're seeing the price of crude hitting record highs over $120 per barrel, actually reaching the highest, uh, prices, uh, throughout the, uh, war. Uh, we saw a GDP Q1 numbers came in growth at 2%. That was under the estimates of 2.3%. While inflation, PCE, continues to rise at an elevated level, elevated level at 3.5% with the core PCE inflation at 3.2%. But the Federal Reserve is saying, look, we can't lower interest rates anytime soon right now. And inflation right now is elevated in both sides of the Fed's dual mandate. State, you know, which involves trying to increase jobs, decrease inflation. Both are being interrupted by Donald Trump's behavior and Donald Trump's terrible policies. We're in a jobs recession, stagnant jobs if not job losses, and rising inflation. And so we'll cover that. And also the Midas Touch Network Washington, D.C. bureau was out and about and they were able to get, I think, some incredible incredible interviews with, uh, Congress members and senators from both sides of the aisle and asking the questions that you wanted answered.

This and more on the Midas Touch podcast. Great to be with everybody. Brett and Jordy, great to see you both.

Great to see you too, Ben. Great to see you, Jordy. Great to see you, Midas Mighty. Excited to break down, excited to break down all of today's stories. And Ben, you were talking about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. I think one of the single biggest developments that probably hasn't even gotten enough attention is the fact that Donald Trump's attacks on Fed Chair Jerome Powell have completely backfired because Powell decided that, yes, he is not going to be the Federal Reserve Chair anymore because his term is up shortly. However, he is going to stay on the Federal Reserve Board until the end of his term, which ends, I believe, in like January 2028, if I'm not mistaken. And he specifically said, when he was asked why he was doing that, he said it was because the politicization of the Fed. You know, it's not supposed to have this sort of outside influence. It's supposed to be an independent body. Donald Trump has destroyed that with these BS prosecutions into Powell, these threats against Powell. And so he said, you know what, I got to stay. I got to protect the independence of the Fed. And what a power move.

And I think, you know, as we speak about that, as we speak about Newsom, all these other stories, you start to get this theme that Donald Trump is a paper tiger. Remember how we called the NATO a paper tiger? Donald Trump is a paper tiger. Donald Trump is somebody where if you stand up to the guy, he backs down. He may try to bluster, he may try to angrily tweet or truth or whatever the hell he calls it. But at the end of the day, he is incredibly, incredibly weak. So good on Governor Newsom for actually taking the fight to him. I'm excited to speak about that and all of the things that Ben spoke about. I think the one thing that has really just blown my mind in the Trump era has been how many people have refused to actually take up the mantle and fight Donald Trump when history has shown that the people who do often have incredible success. And this is my opinion. But, you know, as you look through all of these networks like Fox, OAN, Newsmax, as you look through a lot of these MAGA influencers, they lie so shamelessly and in my opinion, so maliciously that I am surprised that more people have— and I understand there's a high threshold to defamation.

Lawsuits. But it baffles me that people have not fought fire with fire more and gone after the people who are poisoning our information ecosystem with lie after lie after lie. We're going to get into it all. You know, I got to check in with Jordy first. Jordy, what's the latest?

What's up, brothers? What's up, Midas Mighty? A lot to get into tonight. Before we start, I just want to remind everyone here right now and watching the YouTube show, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. We are on our way to 6.4 million subscribers. We're getting there. We're getting there. We could use your help. Hit the subscribe button. Right now. You may think you're subscribed, but definitely double-check. And if you're not, definitely hit that subscribe button. On our way to 7 million subscribers. And look, that number is a great number and we're very proud of that number. But what we're more proud of is that means that this information gets to get out to more people, that the algorithm then starts to feed it to more, gets into more feeds. There are more videos served. And so please continue to subscribe. Let's get this pro-democracy messaging out to everybody because now more than ever, we need the truth. Benji, where are we starting off today, big bro?

Right.

Serious times call for very serious leaders, and Donald Trump is the ultimate jester. He's not a serious individual. He's an utter clown, and his behavior is as such. And the world sees it and looks at him and goes, that's a pathetic individual. That's a pathetic individual. I mean, here's someone who at 12:30 AM in the morning, uh, was posting QAnon memes, you know, earlier in the morning. The storm is coming. Nothing can stop what is coming. That's a QAnon term. And then if you look to the left, you can actually CAQ, and it's a QAnon account that Donald Trump likes to repost called Spiritual Street Fighter 17. QAnon is a literal death cult that says that Donald Trump will destroy the deep state and conduct beheadings on Capitol Hill when the storm comes. And that's what the storm is coming means. And this is what he's posting. I mean, you have the president of the United States posting QAnon memes and not a single paper, not a single, uh, you know, corporate news anything will even like cover this as like a thing. It's just, yeah, that's, that's Donald Trump, right, like over the weekend when Donald Trump says Iran has 3 days left, and in 3 days all of the oil pipelines blow up because the naval blockade is going to work.

The pressure is such that all of the oil builds up because we're blockading them. They can't get any of this oil to actually leave, so the oil just builds up, builds up in the pipes. That causes an explosion. We win the war on Wednesday.

It's over.

I mean, he said that on interviews. There's all of these like Trump sycophants and people who, um, and, you know, just do whatever he says. Like when I did my last rant on Wednesday when I said, hey, that didn't happen, everybody, right? And Brett, you posted it on the Midas Touch. There were all these Trump supporters like, he didn't say that. Like, he literally said that. Like, that's literally the words that he said.

I'm quoting. I don't understand why these people try to come at me. Like, don't listen. Don't try to come at us. And it's like to watch the journey they go on, too. It's always just so, so cute to watch, right? I mean, they come at you. They say you're lying. You made that up. He would never say something So ridiculous. So stupid. Stop putting words in his mouth. And I say, in the words of Ben, well, play the clip, or let me show you the receipts. Let me show you the interview on the Fox News website. Okay. Not exactly a beacon of a pro-democracy or liberalism or whatever you want to call it. Let me show you what it says. Let me show you what Fox wrote, what the New York Post wrote. And then all of a sudden they go silent or they try to change the conversation or explain why Donald Trump is correct. You just said that I was making it up and that I made up something to make him sound stupid. But then I showed you that he actually said thing. And so it's like these people, they just think they could get away with lying and lying and lying.

Sometimes you got to check them.

Sometimes you have to check them for sure. Then Donald Trump posted this: No more Mr. Nice Guy. Do we have that post over there? Iran can't get their act together. They don't know how to sign a non-nuclear deal. They better get smart soon. DJT. DJT. And it's him, uh, holding an 15-style rifle and some weird AI image with apparently something that I guess purports to be Iran in the background, um, being blown up. And then like all the Iranian embassy accounts are just mocking him. You have the Iranian embassy in South Africa saying, when you post at 4 AM in the middle of sleep, it doesn't get any better than this. And then they say other narratives arrive when you eat too much at dinner, drift into restless sleep, suddenly wake up and start writing, imagining the continuation of your dream. You know, it's just, again, just utterly weird behavior. He's making posts attacking Jimmy Kimmel. When is ABC fake news going to fire seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel? He's had his, uh, Federal Communications Commission launch a formal investigation now into Disney, um, regarding Jimmy Kimmel and saying, oh, it's actually about their diversity practices.

And so now they're going to use regulatory tools, which they've also done before, to try to ban ABC and some of its local networks for saying, "You're unlawfully doing DEI hires," whatever the hell that even means. Most of his posts, he's been attacking Germany and NATO allies over and over again. "The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia, Ukraine, where he has been totally ineffective in fixing his broken country." I mean, it's just all posts like this. On the other hand, you have Iran's Parliament leader, M.B. Ghalibaf, posting In the year 1622 AD, after 115 years of occupation, we expelled the European colonizers from the Persian Gulf, and we celebrate Persian Gulf Day. That's today in Iran, in honor of this victory. Today as well, Iran, by exercising control over the Strait of Hormuz, will ensure that it and its neighbors enjoy the precious blessings of a future free from the presence and interference of America. Um, and so you have statements like that. I mean, heard all these conflicting reports. But, you know, at the end of the day, I always look at what's actually going on in the Strait of Hormuz.

I try to, you know, look at the facts. Donald Trump has leaked multiple things in the past 24 hours to his stenographer Barack Revida over at Axios and some of these other media propagandists. And first he's like, no, we're going to keep an indefinite blockade. It's like, actually, we're going to do strategic strikes, and CENTCOM is going to be briefing Donald Trump in the Situation Room today. And then it was like, oh The oil executives joined Donald Trump in the Situation Room earlier this week to talk about strategy. And apparently Donald Trump thinks that because oil prices are higher and because America produces a lot of oil, that that is a massive gain to the American— to America generally. I mean, it may be helping, I guess, the stock prices of oil and gas companies based on how high the price of gas is. But in terms of the price at the pump, it's not like that reduces the cost. If we, you know, export more crude from the United States, it's not even how crude is exported. It literally makes zero sense at all. But we are based on international oil markets and the price relates to things that are happening not just in the United States but across the board.

Also, we've been talking about the futures price, $120 a barrel, $122 a barrel. That's the futures price. The spot price, like the current price, is like in the mid-$200s per barrel. And we're seeing record-breaking prices now or very high prices across the entire country. So you have Donald Trump doing meetings with the oil executives, Trump, you know, apparently meeting with CENTCOM. And now they're saying, oh, actually we're going to do some additional strikes. And then you have like Israel then parroting that. And amid reports that the U.S. is renewing new military action, Israel's defense minister said says it's possible that soon we will need to act again in Iran to ensure the regime cannot threaten Israel for years to come. And then we learned, uh, on Tuesday that Donald Trump and Putin had a call for like 90 minutes. We didn't learn about it from U.S. media or Trump or the White House. Like, normally when you do phone calls with foreign leaders, you publish the readout, right? That's what happens. Uh, Putin published his readout with Donald Trump on TASS, T-A-S-S, which is the Russian media company. Where he said, Donald and I talked about economic cooperation between the United States and Russia.

And Putin warned Donald Trump of catastrophic consequences if there is a further invasion or further attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel. Russia pushed that out and Trump confirmed it. Just think about it. You've got Putin calling Trump. They speak for 90 minutes. That's covered up by our government. We learn about it because Russia publishes the readout of the phone call. On it, It reads like a wish list of things that Russians would want. You have the Russian president scolding the United States not to do any further action or else. Just think about the posture, right, of weakness that the US has even put in that. That's even how it's like— you would think the readout from US would be like, and then we told Putin that our national sovereignty is non-negotiable and that we instructed him that that's not You know how we don't take orders from it. Now, Trump's like, yeah, we did that. We did that call, you know, and talking about economic deals between Russia and the United States, when in fact the country that would provide the most help to the United States right now is actually Ukraine, which is basically now the world leader in technological innovation and how you fight modern warfare with its drone technology, anti-drone technology, and all its wherewithal that was learned from the invasion of Russia.

But you've got, you know, Russia making that phone call and you've got the situation again, as I said at the outset of this episode, where we're caught in this quagmire. Donald Trump goes back and forth, oh, we're winning the war. We've, you know, we are, we're doing a blockade. The war must continue. And nobody here knows, Bret and Jordy, what the heck is going on. You've got Pashinyan, the president of Iran, posting the following: The world has witnessed Iran's tolerance conciliation. What is being done under the guise of a naval blockade is an extension of military operations against the nation paying the price for its resistance and independence. Continuation of this oppressive approach is intolerable. And this whole situation at this point is just so typical Trumpian. We're gonna do this blockade. I'm gonna claim maybe we're gonna do this, maybe we're gonna do that. And then the American people are really, really suffering right now. They're absolutely suffering. So what did Donald Trump say in the Oval Office today when he was asked, what's the latest status? And again, Donald Trump goes, Iran is dying to make a deal. Now, how many times has he already said the deal is done?

Remember, I mean, seriously, he didn't say we did a deal, everything is great. They're still dying to make a deal. But Trump says, I don't really want to make the deal. They're dying to make the deal. I don't want to make the deal.

And everybody knows he's lying.

And it's just weird and it's pathetic and it's dangerous. Here's what he says. Here, play this clip.

I mean, Iran is dying to make a deal. I can only tell you that. I don't want to get into the— but they got to— they cannot be nuclear. Other than that, but they are— their Navy's gone. Their Air Force is gone. Every ounce of any form of equipment practically is gone. You know, their drone factories are about 82% down, and their missile factories are almost 90% down. And many of their missiles have been knocked out between— they use some, but we knocked out more than they use. And it's pretty amazing what's happened. They want to make a deal. But despite the fact that we are in what some people would call a war, we just hit a new high today on the stock market. We have S&P. Through the roof. They're all— I mean, they're through the roof.

Could you think of anything more offensive, again, to the American people than that? And then tying it to the fact, well, this— the stock market's up when most people aren't sharing in that, uh, in that gain at all, and it's just Trump manipulating the markets all the time. And then a reporter says, yeah, yeah, but look, Donald, look, um, the reality is, is that people are suffering. The average price of a gallon of gas is $4.30. So like, what do you say to that? Like, what the people are experiencing here? Play this.

The average price of a gallon of gas is now $4.30 in this country.

And you know what? And we're not going to have a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran. The gas will go down as soon as the war's over.

It'll drop like a rock.

There's so much of it. It's all over the place, sitting all over the oceans of the world. And it'll It'll go down. But what won't happen is if Iran had a nuclear weapon and used it, then the whole world is a different place.

What about—

you're not going to have to pay a little bit more for gasoline. The gasoline, the oil will go down rapidly as soon as the war is over.

Yeah, but you said that you obliterated their nuclear capabilities last June and you had press releases. It's totally obliterated. It's gone. Doesn't exist anymore. You know, when Pete— we'll talk about this in a little bit— when Pete Hegseth was asked by, uh, I think we have the clip, but we have it, Brett, go take a look at the one from, uh, Congressman Smith, um, who leads the, um, he leads the Armed Services Committee. And, you know, and it was— it's when it's— things weren't really going well from the outset from Hegseth's testimony. And Hegseth was like, you know, we have to stop their nuclear capabilities. And then Congressmember Smith, it was like, but whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You said that you destroyed their nuclear capabilities last June. And then Hegseth's like, yeah, yeah, we're talking about their nuclear ambitions. They have ambitions to get it, so we have to stop it. And it's like the conventional shield, like North Korea. You know this, Congressmember. You know, Congressmember. Yeah. So things were not going right from the outset of Hagseth. Do we have that clip?

Who's hellbent on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to a point where they're at the table giving it up in a way that—

so they haven't or haven't—

so they haven't broken yet.

Okay. We haven't gotten there yet for all of the—

well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated underground. They're buried and we're watching them 24/7. So we know where any nuclear material— we're claiming my time for watching a second here.

We had to start this war, you just said, 60 days ago because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat. Now you're saying that it was completely obliterated?

They had not given up their nuclear ambitions, and they had a conventional shield of thousands.

So Operation Midnight Hammer accomplished nothing of substance.

It left us at exactly the same place we were before. So much so, their facilities are bombed and obliterated, their, their ambitions continued, and they're building a conventional shield. Let me try again. It's the North Korea strategy. You know this very well. The North Korea strategy was use conventional missiles to prevent anybody from challenging them so they could slow walk their way to a weapon. President Trump saw Iran at its weakest moment, took an action to ensure in a way that only the United States of America could do with our Israeli partners, and yet to ensure their conventional shield was, was brought.

One of the questions we've done, if I could get to it, conventional shield, it's their ambitions. And guess what? North Korea has nuclear weapons now because we all get this, right? Petey, Pete, you understand Donald Trump exchanged love letters with Kim Jong-un and then allowed Kim Jong-un to use those conventional shield to get nuclear weapons. And now it's being reported some places, although it's not really getting any significant national attention, that North Korea is basically producing, what is it, like 10 warheads a month or something, and they're going to have more nuclear warheads than like any other country other than like the US, China, and Russia very soon. So like North Korea not just has nuclear weapons now, they have more nuclear weapons than just about any country right now. And on a weekly basis, North Korea is doing ballistic and cruise missile tests. And it's just like, whatever, Kim Jong-un, he's, he's, he's Trump's guy. He can do that, right?

He could do it. How about this data point then? North Korea's nuclear arsenal now is big enough to possibly overwhelm the ground-based missile defenses the US spent billions developing over the past 30 years. So while Trump has been doing all this, while he was exchanging love letters, North Korea was building up their nuclear arsenal to a point where the United States cannot even defend against it if they so chose to use it. And just think about the lesson also of, uh, Trump's strategy here in Iran and going back to Trump ripping up the, uh, nuclear deal that Obama did, because when you had that deal in place, you know, there, there is a, a deal amongst countries where you say, you know, we're going to work this out, uh, don't build these weapons and we won't do XYZ. And when you violate the terms of that deal, all you do is you encourage all these other countries in the area to say, oh, we can never make a deal like that. First off, they're never going to respect it. Second off, they think they're going to just be able to bomb us when we're defenseless.

So instead of making a deal, what we have to do is ramp up our productions of our nuclear arsenal right now, because that's the only way that we could possibly deter an attack from the United States or any of these other countries. We need to be so big and so scary that they don't want to mess with us. You don't see the United States bombing Russia. You don't see Russia bombing the United States. If we build up our nuclear arsenal, we will be untouchable because they're not going to want to get into a spat with us. And I think that is the psychology kind of behind it and what Donald Trump has imbued in so many of these countries, uh, across the world right now, where instead of actually disarming nuclear weapons and denuclearization, which has been such a major thing over the past few decades, Donald Trump has actually encouraged countries all over the world to increase their nuclear arsenal and make it so, uh, we're in possibly one of the most dangerous situations that we have ever been in as a planet right now. It's all because of Donald Trump. And you notice when Hegseth says they have these nuclear ambitions, that's such an open-ended thing to say about anybody because it's, it's, you know, it's— there's nothing to it.

Like, the ambitions, they want it. Okay, so then you can use that excuse to bomb anybody, right? You could use that excuse then to bomb Iran at any time, to bomb this country at any time, that country. And if ambitions is the marker, I mean, you said you obliterated them, but they still have ambitions. It's the most ridiculous talking point imaginable. And Hegseth really isn't used to getting challenged on that sort of level. I want to remind everybody, because think about the press who he speaks to every single day. He's kicked out any sort of real journalists from those briefings. He has these fake pro-MAGA press that ask him softball questions. And so he's never challenged until he comes into these congressional hearings, which is why these congressional hearings are actually important. But what I've noticed across all of the Trump administration, no matter what the topic is, it comes down to a simple concept, which is you can't You can't solve a problem unless you acknowledge the problem exists. And when the Trump administration across the board is constantly lying about everything that is going on and it is refusing to admit reality, whether it's the on-the-ground situation in Iran, whether it's high gas prices, whether it's the affordability crisis that Americans are feeling at home, then they can never fix it because they don't think there's a problem to be fixed.

And we see that as we, you know, we had Pablo Monriquez and Scott McFarland on the Hill today. And they were asking very simple questions about gas prices to Republicans. And they were like, actually, I give Donald Trump— he's doing great. He actually brought down the prices. He brought down the prices and everyone's happy. And I give Donald Trump an A on the economy and an A on gas prices. He's just doing incredible. How can you expect that person to work on your behalf as a legislator to actually do things that lower gas prices if they think everything is amazing right now? You can't. How could you expect Donald Trump to change strategy to something that actually makes sense in Iran if he thinks that everything is going amazing? You can't, because he's using bad facts and he is trying to bluster his way through these things and put on a television performance rather than actually do the job. Because it's easy to lie to the press. It's easy to lie on TV. It's a lot harder to engage in diplomacy. It's a lot harder to actually engage in the mechanics of and the chess games of actual warfare and what do we actually need to do to win this thing?

How can we get out of this thing safely? What's our exit plan? And that was basically the point that Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, was making the other day when he said the United States has been humiliated by Iran, been totally, utterly humiliated by Iran right now. And as I'm looking at the situation, Donald Trump and the United States have no exit strategy. It's an objectively true fact. And after Donald Trump's call with Vladimir Putin the other day, What did Donald Trump do? The first thing he did was threaten to remove any sort of U.S. defenses, any sort of U.S. troop presence from Germany. And so he's already taking retribution of him for simply reporting the facts. We've known how kind of malignant facts are to the MAGA movement, how they repel them at all costs, how they want to live in their alternate reality. Well, right now in this war, we are seeing the consequences of people who refuse to bit reality.

Exactly, Brett. Really well said. Like, they being the Trump regime are just such dishonest brokers of information. You see Hegseth up there just lying through his teeth, and he gets called out on it. Wait, I thought we won this war back in, back in March. It's, it's May. What are we still doing bombing?

Like, what do—

like, what's, what's still— what are we still doing there with our presence there? I thought, I thought we're done. Hey, how can we get out? When can we get out. The reality of the situation is, to borrow a Trumpian phrase here, we don't have the cards. The United States doesn't have the cards right now. Donald Trump certainly does not have the cards right now. He has put himself into a situation with absolutely zero clear exit strategy. And, and we being the public, being the citizens, being our troops, we're the ones in danger right now because Donald Trump is too stubborn to admit that he does not have the cards, that he messed up up and that he is too just, I don't know, macho of a man to figure out like, hey, no, it's actually time to get out. But no, he's going to continue to put our troops on the line. He's going to continue to crater our economy by jacking up these oil prices. I mean, I just don't understand this whole notion why this entire party, this Republican Party, just bends over backwards to protect him. Brett, you said it perfectly. If they don't admit there is a problem, then nothing in this country will ever actually get solved.

And all they're doing every single day of the week is defending Donald Trump with every last breath that they have rather than working for their constituents, rather than working for the American people. To me, it's just deeply painful because when you see Donald Trump up there taking the questions, when we go back to those clips a little bit earlier that we played before, first off, it's a guy that is just totally and utterly unhinged. And I'm not saying that for like clicks. And to be like rage-baity or whatever. He, he is totally out of his damn mind fielding these questions, and that's the President of the United States right there. So every other country around is looking at us like we are the damn fools, like we are the assholes, because that's our leader right there. Meanwhile, he has his hand— if you're watching this, just— he is so embarrassed by the fact that he's got these marks on his hands, that he's literally deteriorating before our eyes, that he covers his hand with— on top of his other hand just so no cameras could get any photos of what's going on. That's Literally, he is so vain.

That's what he's thinking about as he's fielding these questions, because that's all he cares about is himself and his legacy and what he could do to put his fingerprints on this world, for better or for worse. And meanwhile, it's for worse. It's for worse off of the American people. It's for worse off of our troops. It's for worse off of the world when our leaders behave like Donald Trump.

Ben, I want to take our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss when we come back. I want to talk about uh, Hegseth's testimony. I want to talk about what's going on at that PGA tournament in Doral right now, where like it seems like nobody showed up for this. Everything Donald Trump touches, this guy bankrupts. I mean, on the 18th hole with some of the biggest stars, like there's like literally nobody showing up there. Remember Donald Trump built this gold statue for himself? The whole thing was very strange. So while you have basically this PGA Tour just in utter humiliation ritual for Donald Trump at Doral. Donald Trump is also saying that he's welcoming the LIV Golf tournament at his golf course in Virginia, which he calls the Washington, D.C. course. And LIV is now going out of business because the Saudi— look, for those who are on audio, I'm showing people what the— this is the active PGA. This is the tournament. Nobody showed up. There's nobody at the— there's nobody at Trump's Doral. This is the PGA that those— that would be packed normally with people everywhere. You need to have the rafters even higher.

And then he's bragging about the LIV Golf tournament in Washington, D.C., and LIV is now shutting down because the Saudis said, we're not funding anything really in the United States unless it's something essential because America's security umbrella in the Middle East is gone. And Trump's bragging like, I've got LIV. LIV is coming here. Dude, you bet you destroyed all this stuff. You know, and, you know, Trump's expression is like a miracle that will all just go away like a miracle. What he really means is he's looking for a bailout because he's been bailed out from his failures his whole life, either by his daddy, either by lenders, either by threatening just to, like, sue everybody or by blaming people. We'll talk about that and more. Let's take our first quick break of the show. Reminder, will you become a member of our YouTube channel? Click join. Join and gift the memberships to as many people as you can. We know it's a difficult economy now. So if you have the ability to become a member and you want to gift memberships to other people, click join, give people memberships, and you get access to the exclusive podcast I do with Ron Philipkowski, the emojis that are there like the taco emoji and more.

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Just going back to that Oval Office presser for a moment. Donald Trump spending a lot of his time attacking NATO allies Germany Italy, Spain. Trump thinks that, uh, the fact that they don't want to join his war crimes and his unlawful and criminal invasions, uh, is a betrayal of NATO, when NATO is a defensive alliance. And Donald Trump and Netanyahu went it alone when they invaded Iran. But Donald Trump now attacks all of these countries, attacks their leaders, and Donald Trump's, you know, making social media posts, we're gonna whip draw American troops from Germany, from the German base. All right, I mean, that's not just gonna hurt Germany, I mean, it's going to also hurt the United States. I mean, there's, there's reasons that America established these bases, and ultimately America's, uh, you know, security umbrella and interest in the region were also part of a broader plan to, uh, help America's economy, help, uh, you know, try to create stability in the world, I suppose. But here's Donald Trump attacking Spain, Italy, and Germany. You talked about possibly pulling out some troops of Germany.

Would you be considering the same thing for Spain and Italy? I mean, they haven't been exactly on board. Yeah, probably.

Yeah, probably will. Why should I? You know, look, why shouldn't I? Italy has not been of any help to us, and Spain Ukraine has been horrible. Absolutely horrible. You know, NATO, it's not even the fact that they've been— it's one thing if they said nicely or if they said, okay, we'll help, but the help's a little slow. But the level— and we helped them with Ukraine. You know, they made a mess out of Ukraine, a total mess. And we helped them with Ukraine. Ukraine has nothing to to do. You know, we're an ocean apart. It has to do with them. It's like for them, it's their front door. We help them. And Biden gave them $350 billion, which is insane. It's one of the reasons the war—

you know, it's always Biden and it's— I don't even know what he's even trying to say there. We had to help NATO with Ukraine. And I don't even know what he's even, you know, talking about other than yesterday he kept on confusing Ukraine and Iran. And so he's just continuing to go down that path of, you know, mixing up Ukraine and Iran to act like what he was saying yesterday made sense when he was confusing everything. But just think about it, from the Oval Office, spending his time saying they should have been nicer to me, they could have just been even nicer. I mean, nicer to you? What are you even talking about? Do you want— like, at the most basic level, you don't understand what NATO is. You don't care about what NATO is. You're doing phone calls with Putin for 90 minutes talking about economic cooperation, inviting Putin to Miami for the G20, and then just every day attacking NATO allies. I think interestingly, while, uh, you know, while, while that was going on, CBS and other news outlets reached out to the State Department and to the Department of Defense officials and said, are you currently working with Germany on a drawdown of troops?

Like, is there a plan to do that? You know, Trump said it, so have you alerted Germany to that? And, you know, all of the sources in the know said, no, no, we don't even know what he's talking about. Like, that's not a thing that we're doing. And Germany's actually helping us quietly behind the scenes with a lot of different things, and we actually need that base for a lot of what we've been working on, what we've been doing right now. So you have that. It's just also fascinating, right? Like, as Donald Trump praises Pakistan and acts like, you know, Pakistan's the biggest ally. Um, you know, important to note that, you know, Pakistan gave lots of money to Trump's crypto company, and they said that Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize when India didn't say that Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize. So it's why Donald Trump basically threw in the garbage, you know, multiple decades of building a strong relationship between the United States and India, which is often called the world's largest democracy by population size. Um, but now one of the things that we're seeing is that Iran seems to be using a lot of the land routes that Pakistan's offering in order to move supplies, resources, to get around the blockade.

Also using the territorial waters of Pakistan to get around the blockade as well. And, you know, and, and, you know, and so I guess Trump thinks that they're being nice to him by investing in his company You know, but Trump's— this is why we have things like the Emoluments Clause that prohibits these foreign entanglements. This is why we're supposed to have a system of checks and balances. Trump sees himself as America. Trump sees himself as the United States. Trump sees himself having a golden age because he's looting from the American people. He's— and him and his right-wing oligarchs are looting from the American people. The American people are struggling. Trump's focused on UFC fights, golden ballrooms, triumphal arches, um, putting his face on passports. That's the new one that the State Department's going to put Donald Trump's face on newly issued passports, putting his signature and face on national park cards and on currency and all of these buildings and this building and that building and renaming the Kennedy Center, which is a memorial in his name. I mean, you could go down through a whole list. And by the way, not that we needed to see a poll like this, but Washington Post-AP-Ipsos poll showing that like 12% of Americans support Donald Trump doing most of the stuff.

At the high end, 25% of Americans support all this crap with him putting ballrooms in name. Like, Americans hate this. Overall, Donald Trump's approval is worse than Nixon at the time that Nixon resigned. On the issue of standard of living, Trump has like 11% 11% approval amongst independents on the issue of standard of living right now, like 11%. Trump's approval overall in the economy is 30% right now. In every generic poll, Democrats are just destroying MAGA Republicans right now going into the midterms, which is why Donald Trump needs to call in his right-wing Supreme Court to make a ruling like they just did, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation from 1965 that provided for safeguards to prevent racist gerrymandering on a bipartisan basis. Democrats and Republicans came together in 1965. One of the crown jewels of civil rights litigation was the Voting Rights Act. I want to repeat that Democrats and Republicans came together. It was like a Democratic initiative. This was a bipartisan issue, right? All of the civil rights legislation was bipartisan. Environmental protection was bipartisan. It was passed. EPA basically came into existence instance, under Nixon.

If you think about it also, campaign finance reform, McCain-Feingold, bipartisan basis, right? Democrats and Republicans. Yet the Supreme Court, they say, ah, the Constitution as it relates to campaign finance, uh, that's an unlawful law Democrats and Republicans came together with because corporations are people, and so they should be able to spend as much money because it's a free speech issue. Where in the Constitution does it say corporations are people and they should spend unlimited money because it's free? Uh, We think that's free speech, corporate free speech. You can't prohibit it. Corporations are humans. I mean, right here, the Supreme Court this week saying, yes, Section 2 is basically unlawful because it is already factoring in race as a consideration in creating congressional districts that have majority Black congressional districts. And that's racist. "What do you mean that's racist? It's implementing the 15th Amendment and other amendments regarding equal protection. So it's blocking racism." And the Supreme Court goes, "No, no, no, no, no. The very focus on racism is racist. If a state legislature says they're not racist and they're gerrymandering for political purposes and you say they're being racist, you being anti-racist and calling them out as racist You're the racist and you want to build majority congressional Black districts in areas to represent, say, 35% of the population is Black and to make sure they have equal representation.

That's racist. You're focused on race. The state legislature just says they are focused on political gerrymandering and that they're not doing race. So we just have to accept them at their word. That's basically what the Supreme Court said. And this is going to have have far-reaching implications in future elections as well, as states are just going to continue to say, hey, we're not doing racist gerrymandering. Sure, we diluted all of the Black vote by putting Black voters in multiple congressional districts so that they don't even get to elect a single congressmember. But we were doing political gerrymandering, you know, which is perfectly okay. Democrats want to ban all forms of gerrymandering. Republicans block Democrats effort to block all gerrymandering. And, you know, I bring all of this up because, you know, there are— there is a path forward, Brett and Jordy and Midas Mighty, where people on a bipartisan basis can work together and do deals. But every time you do it and every time you see the polling data, you know, says, you know, look, Donald Trump and MAGA's policies are detested and despised. What do they do? They call in the favors from their Supreme Court.

They engage in rigging the maps and cheating. And it's like the American people are livid. All of this stuff is going on that we've been talking about in this episode. So MAGA then calls in a favor from their Supreme Court. I mean, it's utterly pathetic.

And what happens immediately after this? Well, Ron DeSantis specifically holds a bill that they were working on in order to rearrange the Florida maps to attempt to add 4 seats because this Supreme Court case basically allowed that to move forward. It was going to be unconstitutional. This basically gave them the green light. Now it's to be determined if this Florida gerrymander will actually be a dummy mander, as they've been calling it, because it relies on the Latino vote a lot from the previous elections, which of course has shifted dramatically. But it shows you where their mind's at. That was one of the first things they did. Also, we saw Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency. And to me, this should be like a major, major, major, major scandal that anyone does this. But he literally canceled the state's upcoming congressional elections that were happening so that they could do their gerrymander based on the Supreme Court decision, because that's what the Supreme Court decision was about. It was about this majority Black district in Louisiana. And so they said— so the governor said, nope, suspending the election election. It's not going to happen until these maps are passed.

It's so corrupt. And Ben was speaking about how unpopular the Republicans are. And I think so many people ask, like, I've seen this in our comments. I've seen people email me this and leave it in my comments and they'll say, Brett, why are people— why are these Republicans still supporting Donald Trump and all of this chaos when his approval rating is in the 30s, when all these policies are so unpopular? And I started talking about this a little on the last episode, but I'll bring it back right now because it applies to this horrific Supreme Court decision. And that's when you have these gerrymandered districts, the voters aren't choosing the politicians, the politicians are choosing the voters. And so they're able to carve out these districts where they pack in the most extremist MAGA people all in the same district, or they put in, you know, as many Republicans as possible into a district. And they dilute these other districts. And what— who ends up coming out to these midterm elections? Well, it's usually the most diehard of the supporters, the most MAGA of the supporters. And so, so many of these politicians know that if they are not completely subservient to Donald Trump, somebody even more radical, even further to their right— I mean, that's why we keep moving further and further and further— is going to come along and going to primary them.

And this is something we've seen over and over and over again over the past few years in the Trump era of people who maybe at some point reach a breaking point and decide, I am going to not, uh, go along with Donald Trump on the Epstein files, right? Like a Thomas Massie. And then you see Donald Trump try to uplift a candidate to try to force somebody like that out. That's why they are so afraid of Donald Trump, despite the fact that he is the most unpopular president that we have ever seen. And we've now heard people like Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announce that Democrats are looking at these plans. I also want to be clear, like, the, the effects on these upcoming midterms are going to be fairly minimal. I mean, you see what Florida is doing, you see what Louisiana is doing, but the real impact of this is going to be seen kind of 2028 and beyond. But what we're noticing is Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic leader. You're seeing all these governors now say, OK, well, if this is the new standard, we're going to gerrymander our seats, we're going to redistrict and we're going to be super aggressive.

I've seen people throw out saying, hey, in California, we have 50-plus seats. We're going to make those all Democratic seats. I've seen Jeffries say that he's going to target 4 different states at minimum in order to try to do this. And now I 100% agree with the need to fight fight fire with fire. And they absolutely— they need to do this, right? They have to do this. But I will totally acknowledge and admit that I hate it and that I think that this is horrific for democracy because this sort of brinksmanship that we are seeing, it dilutes the power of the people. It makes it so that your vote counts less, whether you're a Democrat or whether you're— whether you are a Republican, because it turns all of these seats that should be competitive into safe seats for the incumbent congresspeople, for the party who has selected those maps. And as somebody who is pro-democracy, as a network that is pro-democracy, I am extremely against that. But like I said, Jeffries, he's got to do it. These Democratic governors, they have to do it right now. Hopefully, as I said in the last episode, the brinksmanship becomes so intense that at a certain point we see actual legislation, actual sort of reform here that creates independent commissions that draw these lines fairly across the country, some sort of national standard.

I'm incredibly doubtful that that will happen, but we need to get there. I mean, that is kind of one of the big ways that we could save democracy. And it will not only save democracy, it will tone down the extremism because everything kind of flows down from the extremism that results from these gerrymandered districts. Imagine if these politicians instead of having to play to the most extreme of their base, had to actually compete in competitive districts against each other, you would see a much different perspective. They would actually be terrified that gas is over $5 in a lot of the country. They would actually be terrified that things are super expensive and that people can't afford things and that Donald Trump is a maniac who is destroying the entire world. But as of now, the incentive structures are not there. And if the incentive structures aren't— are not there, then they're not going to do it, plain and simple.

Well said, B. And look, we just— we just really have to get back to a point of our society where— where our public servants are our quote-unquote leaders, actually want to work for the people, want to better the lives of the citizens in this country. You know, I agree, right, that the Democrats have— they have to do this, right? But it's also just such a damning indictment of our society and our democracy that this is where we are at this time. It's deeply concerning, especially someone who has a kid, another kid on the way. You guys have young children as well. And not just for our families, right? But for everybody's families. Like, we love this country, not to get too preachy or whatnot, but we genuinely love this country. We want to see it succeed. But it has to start with our leaders, our public servants serving the people, trying to do what's best for everybody. How can we, how can we make housing more affordable for, for all the generations? How can we make healthcare more affordable? What should we do about, you know, reproductive rights? Like, these are like issues that genuinely people want to figure out and solve.

And yet there's an entire constituency of leadership out there that don't actually want to solve it. They want to use it as issues to kind of like raise money and just make you angry at the other. It's deeply disappointing and deeply concerning. The other thing that honestly keeps me up at night, Ben, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, this. It like— are these Donald Trump weird quirks where he's just putting his name on everything now, right? Whether it's the, the triumphant arc that he wants to, to build, or renaming the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center, putting his face on the passports. He's just such a malignant narcissist that just needs to see like literally his fingerprints on anything. It's very obvious that he is sort of coming to grips with his own sort of mortality that he needs to leave his mark on this world. Like, in his mind, he physically needs to leave his mark on this world in some way or some form. And yet he's now surrounded himself by yes people that constantly tell him how great he is and what a great job he's doing. Whereas the American people at large don't agree with that, know what a horrible job he's doing because we all feel it in our lives.

And this person, Donald Trump, this thing is just at this point where I'm concerned like there is a nuclear option here where quite literally there is a nuclear option here where he just wants to leave his mark on this world so badly that he will do whatever it takes to make sure that Trump print, the stamp, the face, the whatever you want to call it, is left on this world.

I do think that's so much of it. He wants— he wants to have something that lives beyond him. I think he, you know, he's made comments especially recently about his his own mortality, not going to heaven, all the kind of weird comments he makes. And I think a lot of that is a reason, honestly, if you dig deep into his psyche, is one of the reasons for the ballroom, for these posters, for his name on these things. I, I, I completely agree.

I almost compare it to like the pharaohs and how they, you know, the pyramids for the— like, that, that is this modern version of that, the ballroom or the triumphant art. Like, that is that.

Which is why I think any future candidate, you know, who's running for office, one of their big priorities honestly should be de-Trumpifying everything, just going through every agency, getting rid of the people he put in, going through, you know, if he builds the ballroom, at minimum, take it, his name off the stupid ball, like take his name off everything, take his photo off everything, change the passports, change the money, change whatever he's going to do. There needs to be a process of removing all of that. And I think when you look at all of these things that happen, especially when it's an issue like the Voting Rights Act, this has become such a priority for this Republican Party. And we've seen it we saw it coming because even when you listened to like Charlie Kirk before this election, what were big things that he spoke about? Well, what did he say was the biggest mistake? The Civil Rights Act. He said it was the biggest mistake. They've gone after the Civil Rights Act. They've gone after the Voting Rights Act. That was like one of the biggest things that hurt these people on the right.

And if you really want to go back all the way, I think you can make a pretty solid argument that the Civil War kind of never really ended and that we've kind of been in a cold civil war ever since. And while the factions have shifted and they may have had a D in front of their name when it started, and now they have an R in front of their name or behind their name, it's, it's the same kind of arguments that are playing out and the same kind of racist forces at play that we're now seeing in 2026. And they've seen an opportunity with Project 2025, with Stack the courts, with having Donald Trump in office, with having this Congress where they think we could finally actually push these racist policies forward and we could dilute the Black vote, we could dilute the vote of anybody who doesn't look like us, and we want to ensure our power in this society. You know, the ridiculous argument that always comes from the Trumpers and things where, you know, nothing makes sense is when they go, but the Democrats were the party of slavery, the Democrats were the party of the Confederacy.

Well, who Who's flying the Confederate flag right now? I'm going to say you're not seeing too many Democrats flying the Confederate flag right now. Perhaps the parties shifted. Perhaps they flipped because y'all seem to be the ones who are supporting them. You guys seem to be the ones who every opportunity you get are trying to pass legislation in order to ensure that Black people don't vote, don't have a say in our society. And you are trying to make a white ethnostate here in the United States of America. So I think your actions speak much louder than your BS arguments.

Well, if you think about it, right, just how did Donald Trump and MAGA react to losing in Virginia on the yes referendum, which is in response to all the MAGA Republicans gerrymandering? It's rigged. It's so unfair. How could Democrats do gerrymandering? It's like, this was your game. Like, you started this mid-decade redistricting, and now you're whining about the results in Virginia. And if you go back and you look at these pieces of legislation from the 1960s, '60s, or even the EPA, all the Environmental Protection— I mean, these were again bipartisan laws that were Republicans, Democrats came together, passed a law, it was signed by a president, and ultimately a group of people didn't like the outcome of the, of the rules. And so rather than live within that framework of equality, of, of, of just a better way way of living. They, these sociopaths are like, how do we cheat? How do we break it down? All right, let's invade all of the courts and let's have the court say it's unconstitutional, even though these laws were passed on a bipartisan basis, intrude on the laws and say that the laws are, you know, aren't real, you know, and then just don't enforce the laws and all that.

And so what comes with it is, you know, this MAGA idea is we're not going to play by the rules and we're just going to cheat. That's how we're going to do it. The whole thing is one big kind of cheating racket, then accuse the other side. You've rigged it. You're cheaters. And that's the biggest tell because everything is projection with them. They just accuse the others of everything that they're doing all the time.

All right.

Let's take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to share with you what was going down with Heggstad's testimony. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Gavin Newsom getting into the discovery phase and more. Become a member. Click the join button right now. Help us get to 7 million subscribers as well. Gift emojis for people by clicking join, and then you can gift emojis to people and give other people memberships to some of the exclusive bonus features here. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

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Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors. Links in the description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there is an exit survey. Let them know we sent you. Benji, where to next?

I want to talk just very briefly about Donald Trump's new Surgeon General pick, Nicole Sapphire. She's basically a talking head on Fox. That's how Donald Trump picks members of his cabinet and top officials. You'll recall Donald Trump's prior Surgeon General pick, like, really didn't believe in conventional or traditional medicines and didn't really believe in current modern science practices and lots of conflicts of interest also people were alleging regarding products that she would kind of push and sell that she didn't disclose that she had an investment in or had a stake in while pushing that as an alternative to other forms of medicine. But his new Surgeon General pick is someone by the name of Nicole Sapphire, and you may remember her from some of the clips we would pick of her from Fox, like where she said, uh, inside-out elements, people are not interested in these woke ideologies, especially men who are watching these movies. This is, this is the type of ideas that come from her.

Even younger too, some of the animated, like Jungle Book, Hercules, Aladdin, Peter Pan, all of those. What has happened in the last decade when it comes to Disney is is demasculinization of all of their characters. And while they're wanting to lift up the women to be these strong characters, instead of having an equal man, they had to push that man down. And you even hear— you've heard directors and producers and even some of the talent coming out and saying— maybe she was talking about Snow White. She was saying how we can't have him give— there's no consent to the kiss at the end, that like, whatever it is, they're taking away from it, and men are not interested interested in this, right? You look at Inside Out, which is one of Pixar's movies, and it was— they had an anxiety character. Elements, which was another animated movie, they had a non-binary character. People are not interested in a lot of these woke ideologies, especially men who are watching some of these movies. You have to get back some of that testosterone and that adventure. And I'm sorry, but these movies just don't cut it.

Just the oddest conversations that nobody's having. No one sits around their dinner table and says, you know what really bothers me? This demasculinization of the Disney male characters. It's really becoming a barrier for lots of adult males to watch Snow White, and it's becoming a big problem here. And that's what Americans are really thinking about right now. No, I mean, what do you— that's though part of their culture war attacks in order to try to create divisions from the real issues that most Americans share. The struggles of affordability, the struggles to afford a home, the struggles to afford gas, the struggles to access healthcare and have education and to have a job with dignity. They don't want you focusing on those things, which Donald Trump and his right-wing oligarch buds are ripping away from all of you. They want you to focus on demasculinization of, of Disney characters, and that, that's a major issue that we all have to, uh, confront. So that's who Donald Trump wants to be, the Surgeon General. I mean, just beyond weird. Uh, going to Hegseth's, uh, I don't think we need to address that anymore. Going to Hegseth's testimony, uh, want to share something that he repeated over and over again.

Um, and, uh, well, first let me share with you, uh, what Hegseth said. Uh, let me show this clip first where Hegseth said the biggest adversary that we face as a country The biggest adversary that we have right now, you would think, what's the— who's the biggest adversary? Is it Russia?

Is it China?

What's the biggest adversary? We're in war with Iran. Is it Iran? Because, you know, you're— we're at war with them and you say they pose an existential threat based on their ambitions. Is it Iranian ambitions? Is that what's the biggest threat? Is it— is it al-Qaeda? What, what, what is it? Tell me, tell me, Pete, what's the biggest threat that we face? Right now. Here, play this clip.

Unfortunately, as I said yesterday, and I'll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans, defeatists from the cheap seats who, 2 months in, seek to undermine the incredible efforts that have been undertaken and the historic nature of taking on a 47-year threat with the courage no other president has had, to great success and great opportunity for preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

It's beyond pathetic. Then Congressmember Goodlander asks, do you agree with the statement that the military won't follow unlawful orders? Do you agree with that? The military shouldn't follow unlawful orders.

Pete, our service members follow lawful orders and lawful orders only. Is that right? Do you agree with the statement, quote, the military won't follow unlawful orders?

I do.

Mr. Hegseth, do you agree with that statement?

I do, but understand what you're insinuating, a partisan point.

I'm not. I'm actually quoting you directly, Mr. Hegseth, from April 12th, 2016. And I appreciate that on the record you've clarified this important principle of American—

generally, times expire.

We also take a look at the exchange between Hegseth and Moulton, where Hegseth dismisses concerns over the Strait of Hormuz being closed because the US blockaded Iran's blockade. And I'll show you what Congressmember Moulton had to say. Let's play it.

Okay, so let's just imagine, which by the way, if they had one, which the Obama administration allowed them, including the first Trump administration, they had prevented them from having a nuclear weapon.

So listen, how is this war going?

Do you think we're winning? Winning militarily on the battlefield? It's been an astounding military success.

But are we winning the war?

Absolutely.

Okay, so do you call Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz winning?

Well, I would say the blockade that we hold that doesn't allow anything to come in or out of Iranian ports— okay, so always— so we've blockaded their blockade.

So they blockaded us and then we blockaded their blockade. That's like saying tag, you're it. Or, you know, if President Madison had said, well, the British just burned down Washington, but don't worry, we're going to burn it down as Well, let me show you, Senator. This is a good point. Let me show you Senator Blumenthal next. Let's play it. Today, the president said that Ukraine has been, quote, militarily defeated. I assume you don't agree with that assessment.

The negative nature in which you characterize the incredible and historic effort in Iran is part of the reason, Senator, why the American people view it the way they do. It's why I looked out at our press corps at the Pentagon and called them the Pharisees in the press, because they look for every problem. I'm asking you, you look for every problem that exists, and you've missed—

militarily defeated.

You missed—

I would submit, based on my 9 trips to Ukraine, that is a false narrative that the president's—

we are 2 months into a historic military success in Iran, and you want to call it defeat. And it's defeatist Democrats like you that cloud the mind of the American people.

And it's just really a scumbag. Like, when you think of like a real vile piece of trash human, I mean, it's Pete Hegseth. And comparing the press and Congress members conducting oversight to the Pharisees— so is Donald Trump Jesus in this? Is that, is that what this is? Trump is Jesus, uh, the press asking questions is Pharisee. I mean, what a weird dude. And also the constant use of him, of the right-wing Christian nationalism and the religious extremism. You know, it's like you're looking because you're like, you're looking at the propaganda and the battlefield and what's taking place. And you're seeing that the Trump regime is saying, you know, the Iranians, they're a bunch of religious extremists screaming Allah Akbar, and they're out of control. And then I look at the Trump regime and I've got, you know, actually the religious extremist. I got that guy right there talking about Pharisees and Jesus told me to do it. Everything that you said that they were is how Trump and Hegseth and this regime is basically, you know, is behaving.

Basically, I've never in my life seen a political party treat treat the other side of the other political party in this country, other major political party, with such disdain and so attack half of the United States of America. I mean, no matter how intense political campaigns got, um, all my life, you know, whether it was George W. Bush or whether it was Obama, they all had outreach to the other party. They all made it a point, um, when when they were in office, when they were president of the United States, to reach out to the others and say, we're all Americans. And Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime and all the people around him who view anyone who is not them as the enemy. And not only the enemy, which is bad enough, but the worst enemy imaginable, worse than any of our adversaries, worse than people who we are literally at war with. And that is a dangerous, dangerous thing. And you see the power the way they're wielding this power in all different facets. Like when you see Todd Blanch going out there with all this James Comey nonsense— and hey, I'm no fan of James Comey, but the fact that they're going after him for these clearly political reasons over this completely BS indictment shows you how they just want to attack all their enemies.

And frankly, I believe that any of the people who are involved in this, the Todd Blanch's of the world, anyone who signs these lawsuits, these are the people people who should be criminally prosecuted and shunned from society when this is all said and done, because this is grotesque behavior. I want to go back to that blockade that they keep bragging about over and over very shortly, uh, because this also is not getting enough attention, that Pakistan opened apparently 6 land corridors with Iran to help them route around the naval blockade, because the blockade only works if Iran is actually isolated. But Pakistan is actively running cargo now, essentially opening up a huge hole into Iran, which basically makes the whole blockade useless on its face. And so— and by the way, Pakistan, obviously, of course, as you know, is the mediator in this process. They're people who JD Vance has been in touch with, who the United States government has been in touch with. So to show them giving like an eff you to the United States in the middle of all that also speaks volumes and also shows how They are just so out of their depth in everything they are doing in this region right now.

And they are causing this country to go to the brink of ruin. And they just don't seem to give a damn. And as I said earlier, this only— all of this is only possible with the lackeys, the sycophants who agreed to live in this alternate reality, even when the objective facts show otherwise, when the objective facts, the data show you that there is a reality that exists, not a both sides, or he says one thing, he says another thing, so it's probably somewhere in the middle. But someone's actually telling the truth here, and someone's actually telling a lie, and the truth is not somewhere in between. So that's why we had our, uh, incredible reporters on the ground today in Washington, D.C. interview these members of Congress and ask them very basic questions like, what grade do you give Donald Trump on the economy? What do you think about gas prices? And as I hinted at earlier in this episode, they all would just lie about it, say that Donald Trump's doing great for the economy. A, he's the— the prices are actually down. Everyone's happy. Here's an example. This is Representative Byron Donalds. And I think this is an especially important clip because Byron Donalds is running to be the MAGA candidate for Florida governor.

And let's see what he thinks about the affordability crisis in this country and the job that Donald Trump is doing. Once again, this is from our reporters in Capitol Hill. Congressman, do you think Donald Trump has delivered on his promise to lower prices? Yeah, he actually has. I know gas prices are a little bit higher because of what's happening in Iran, but across the country, a lot of prices actually have stabilized. I think, you know, inflation is hard, but I remember where we were with the Biden administration. You know, airline tickets jumped 50%.

It was insane.

So he's doing a great job. We need, you know, the other side of the aisle to come and help us just do common sense business. But the president's doing great. If it were a report card, what grade would you give him on the economy? Oh, he gets an A.

An A?

Yeah, an A. An A on the economy. Prices are down. Everything is great. Gas prices not a problem according to Byron Donalds and these MAGA Republicans.

He was also able to fit in a Biden mention in that response to Joe Biden. Yeah, it's the whole gamut of the MAGA response.

Yeah, you got, you got to throw in a Joe Biden. By the way, prices are far higher today than when Joe Biden was president. Inflation is higher today than when Joe Biden left office. And remember, this is a thing— inflation continues to add on. And yes, there was extremely high inflation early on in Biden's term because we had a global pandemic that Donald Trump completely bungled, but they don't seem to ever want to mention that fact. And all the people who were complaining about prices back then are suddenly oddly quiet. I saw a funny tweet online today about this, actually, because there was a viral tweet when Biden was president from an individual. I think this person works at like RealClearPolitics, which is like a right-wing website, and they were talking about their Outback Steakhouse bill and they were saying how bad inflation was. You know, people at all income levels notice it. And they were talking about their $150 Outback delivery on like DoorDash that they had ordered. Were the reason why this became so viral back in the day. If you, if you're looking at 6.7 million views on this tweet is because they were complaining about their steak and lobster dinner prices being so expensive.

And so they said, I have 2 teenage boys, 2 bloomin' onions, a steak salad, lobster tails, a filet, a chicken sandwich, and a sirloin plus tip and tax, $125 on DoorDash right now. It is crazy. That was December 13th, 2023. And so I noticed somebody yesterday, they said, I randomly started thinking about this Bidenflation tweet back from December 2023. So I downloaded DoorDash and I decided to put in, you know, the same items that they ordered and see the price. And so that same order that was $125 that this guy was complaining about back in December 2023 came out to about $220 today, an 85% increase under Donald Trump. Yet those same people who complained day in and day out during the Biden administration, suddenly it's no problem. A-plus economy. Money, everything is great.

Jordy, to your point earlier, Brett, which you so brilliantly pointed out, like the Byron Donald's response right there is exactly the issue that we have with this Republican Party. They refuse to admit that there are real issues with affordability or with anything. Then how can we look to our leaders in a bipartisan way to solve these issues? We, we just, we just simply can't. It is so ridiculous. And the last thing I was going to say, it's going to make a little bit less sense now, Brett, But I was going to interrupt you a little bit earlier and tell you to, hey, Brett, why don't you tone down the rhetoric over there? I mean, corporate media is just like, they're such putzes, honestly, right? Because anytime there's ever, you know, a situation or whatever, their initial, like, instinct is to blame, like, the Democrats' rhetoric. We were talking about this earlier, like, earlier in the week with Shapiro when Caroline Levitt was, like, going after, like, misquoting stuff from Josh Shapiro. Over here, governor of Pennsylvania. And she's like, yeah, we— they really have to tone down their rhetoric. And the media just like eats this stuff up and they'll like bring a Democratic politician on, for example, and they'll go, hey, Jamie Raskin, is it time for Democrats to tone down the rhetoric?

And meanwhile, like every clip that we showed, like this wasn't old footage. This stuff just happened this week. This just happened today. The rhetoric from these MAGAs, from Hegseth, from Trump, from literally everyone that we saw, is out of control. Like out of control, 5-alarm fire shit. And it's unbelievable to me that legacy media out there just does their bidding for them. But it makes sense, right? These are the same people that hang out with them behind closed doors that actually like them, that want them to win and succeed and want all of their billionaire buddies to win and succeed at the expense of the American people. It's deeply disheartening. But not to end the show on a bummer, I do feel like there's a way out of here, and that's with communities like this, with independent media. With, with asking the Byron Donalds of the world like, hey, affordability, where are we ranking Trump on the economy? And getting his response and now holding that footage forever to show his constituents, hey, if you're suffering right now, the guy that's, that's running over here, he thinks that, that the economy is great, that everything's an A+.

So look, I'm grateful for this community. I'm grateful for the entire network. I'm so excited, uh, to continue to grow this network alongside everyone here So let's just keep doing it, y'all. Just can't wait. Thank you guys so much for listening.

Benji, I'll just say this quickly, Jordy. The statement on Josh Shapiro was Josh Shapiro said, and heads need to roll because of the corruption.

Like he wants to rip their heads off.

He's using an expression, heads will roll. And they're like, so that's the equivalent of Donald Trump posting photos of like Biden being hogtied and like looks like he said head roll. It's like, okay, come on. Stop it. Just like, let's, like, let's be real. Just quickly to, uh, really shout out to, uh, Governor Newsom for bringing that lawsuit against Fox, pushing forward with that case, and now getting to the next phase, uh, getting to discovery as the case was not dismissed. And that means Newsom can redo document requests and depositions, and Newsom can bring in all the Fox executives and really find out all of their communication with Trump regarding the National Guard. And it's fascinating because, you know, he's not a traditional litigant who's going to be swayed by money, you know, personally. So he's going to get all this discovery. And I think it's going to be like, if you're Fox, this is like a catastrophic ruling for you right now that Newsom prevailed because Newsom, again, is motivated by getting out the information. And so Newsom is just going to go hard on discovery. Think about We know that Donald Trump talks to reporters and text messages them because we see that Newsom is going to get all that stuff.

And so to be continued there. Stay tuned. That's all we've got. Thank you so much for watching. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Once again, the number one podcast in the country. We appreciate it. That's all thanks to you, Jordy. Take it away.

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