Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 5/8/26 New

Moments ago, Donald Trump had the United States military carry out strikes on Iran's Keshem Port and Bandar Abbas and Manab. We will discuss what's going on there. Iran retaliated, uh, striking back at 3 naval destroyers. We'll give you the latest information. In addition, you had, uh, the president of Brazil having a visit to the White House today. This meeting was supposed to take place before the press. It never took place. We'll explain how This press conference went sideways before it even began. Over the past 48 hours, we've seen more coverup of the Epstein files by the Trump regime. Howard Lutnick refused to sit for an under oath deposition on video. Instead, Donald Trump, Lutnick, James Comer, MAGA Mike all colluded together to have Howard Lutnick give a transcribed interview, not on videotape. And they're like not releasing the transcription right away either. It's a total and utter coverup. People described Lutnick as being sweaty. Said he kind of looked in all over the place and flustered. He said he didn't know how he even got to the island, as though he just kind of magically appeared. We'll explain what happened there. Meanwhile, we've now also learned that the MAGA Republicans are using this time while Congress is in recess to try to sneak in $1 billion from taxpayers in a reconciliation bill to fund Donald Trump's Golden Ballroom.

Let me repeat that. $1 billion of taxpayer money going to, quote, East Wing modernization project, as though they think we don't realize that means ballroom. Meanwhile, you have Donald Trump talking about the UFC fights, the new golf courses he wants to build in Washington, D.C., triumphal arches while the American people suffer, while the U.S. launches new military strikes in Iran and then says, whoa, whoa, whoa, we still want the ceasefire. We're just doing this because whatevs. I'll explain to you why they're doing it though in one moment. The American people are feeling the effects of Donald Trump's war crimes, of him and Netanyahu's catastrophic war in Iran. Prices are through the roof. People can't afford gas. People can't afford groceries. People can't afford their rent. Foreclosures now up 27% year over year. People are struggling having their healthcare ripped away while the Trump regime continues to inflict more pain, more suffering, on the American people. Meanwhile, the Trump regime engaging in more trade with Russia than ever before, bringing in lots of fertilizer from Russia right now. No tariffs on Russia, no sanctions really. The sanctions being removed on Russia. So Russia, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, the entire Trump regime focused on building those relationships which are not helpful to the United States.

United States at all. There was a big meeting though in Yerevan, Armenia, which is a pretty significant location given their prior affiliations in the kind of Soviet bloc back in the day. But Europe held their political community meeting in Yerevan, Armenia, showing that Europe's united and extending and expanding. Prime Minister Carney was attending as well, the first time a non-European leader was attending there. You see lots of alliances and relationships forming while Donald Trump's America First means America all alone. The Epstein class isolating the United States from the world. We'll talk about this and more on the Midas Touch podcast. Brett and Jordy, great to see you. Before we went live, we learned about the United States striking in Iran, Iran responding with attacks on these US naval ships. This is a rapidly developing story, and we'll talk about why I think this is happening, but I think they're doing it in service of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the UAE and all these countries who were blocking their air bases and airspace to the United States after Trump launched this disastrous Project Freedom and didn't notify them. And then basically said, oopsies, when Iran struck the Port Fujairah in the UAE earlier in the week and the UAE ship and the South Korean ship.

And so I think Trump, to get them to reopen the airspace and their air bases, which they've now done, he's like, all right, I'll strike them symbolically, symbolically. This will be part of the game. Americans don't want these games. Americans are sick and tired of this Epstein class schtick. Brett and Jordy, how are you doing?

Well, it's good to be here, Ben. Good to be here, Jordy. Good to be here. Midas mighty, I guess it is. Schrödinger's war— is the war on, is the war off? I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder. Who knows? Donald Trump is now calling, uh, these strikes love taps. That's the phrase that he's using. He always uses the most demented language possible to describe these sorts of actions. But you just see that there is just no thought going into any of this. It's kind of act now and then deal with the consequences later. It's been that way since the start of this war, which Trump claims is both over and also that he's still continuing. And the messaging is all over the place. None of it makes any sense. Every single day you're getting these headlines from the press and from U.S. officials and from Trump that says, oh, we're closing in on a deal. A deal is very close. A deal is imminent. We are moments away from a deal. It's been BS now day in and day out. I am sick of the constant reporting, um, just laundering the messaging of these U.S. officials who are so blatantly lying.

And man, how far has the U.S. fallen where we have to look at what Iran is saying, what the Iranian regime is saying, to try to get some semblance of the truth? And I'm not saying that everything they say is truthful, not by any means, but I can guarantee you that— well, I can tell you that so much of what we've heard from the United States government has been complete and utter lies and fabrications. We got a lot to talk about this episode. A lot of news breaking quickly while we are here live. First, I got to turn it over to Jordy. Jordy, what's the latest on your end?

Brothers, good to be here. Midas Mighty, great to be here. Can't wait to get into tonight's show. Brett, the messaging is all over the place, to your point there, because there's no plan. There's absolutely no plan and there's no leadership. So of course someone's going to say something, then Trump's going to say something else, then the media is going to report something. It is nonsense right now. And a lot of it just comes down to like they, they being the Trump regime, I guess corporate media, like they think you're dumb, like the viewer, the listener of all of this, because they think they could just trick you. They think they could pull, you know, the blanket over your head and make you just believe anything. There are some corporate entities out there specifically— I think we might even get into that tonight's show— that are just literal mouthpieces for Donald Trump and the Trump regime. And it's just like, don't take your audience for granted, right? People are smart, especially the folks who are hungry for information here in this country that don't like being lied to. Hey, people don't like being lied to. What a big shocker.

What a crazy stance to take. And so it's very frustrating to see like the reports and Donald Trump's endless lies. But just know, Midas Mighty, this pro-democracy community, we bring the receipts with every single episode. Pumped to get into tonight's show. Benji, where we starting off? Yeah, you should—

we should just name drop the guy Barack Ravid over at Axios, who's probably the, you know, the worst violator of all of this. And he's also apparently, you know, very thin-skinned when it comes to criticism about it, right? So whether he is knowingly or unknowingly doing this, he seems to continue to post that there are deals that are right around the corner. I guess he takes issue with Iranian media saying that over the past 19 days, there have been at least 5 separate occasions. Frankly, I thought it was more than just 5 occasions where Barack Ravid said there is an imminent deal that's about to happen between Trump and Iran My sources tell me— I thought it was way more than 5 times. But then Barak Ravid, it's like, that's absolutely false and it's defamatory against me and I didn't say those things. Okay, whatever words you used, you continued to imply that your sources within the United States and Israel were telling you that there were deals that were right around the corner or very close to happening, or there were memorandums of understanding that were being exchanged and that this was the real time that there was going to be a real hope that there was a deal.

And forget the last 19 days. You know, this was since the very beginning of the war. You know, whatever kind of message the Trump regime wanted out, we've always been talking about this. It would be laundered through Barak Ravid over at Axios, and he would say he's got his sources and I'm sure he has his sources. I mean, he's probably talking to Kushner and Rubio and Vance and Trump, and they're probably, you know, saying, here are the things. And then he goes, Trump said, I've been told by these senior officials, Trump told me this. And on that, it then gets reported. Axios says often it's not like Barak Ravid, the same guy who's been wrong every time. It's like Axios said. Then that gets picked up on the newswires and that moves the market significant amounts. So Barak Ravid goes, I'm not intentionally doing it. All right, well, you should be aware that it's clearly, if I'm aware and most Americans and most people in the world are aware that your posts are moving the market dramatically and right before you make your post and right after there's unusual trading volume and you may not know, Barack Ravid, that should probably concern you.

Maybe I'm being used. So I'm frankly not sure what's worse. You doing it intentionally or you thinking— are you not realizing that this is actually what's happening but continuing to do the same damn thing? I'll let people make their own judgments, form their own opinions about it. But, you know, this week began with Donald Trump saying Project Freedom. They tried to sell us that epic fury is over. Why? Because we were approaching the 60-day mark where Trump needs authorization from Congress. So epic fury is over. Success. And now we've moved on to entirely new thing, right? Hegseth and Rubio both held press conferences and said that this is separate. This is a new thing. This is a humanitarian operation called Project Freedom. We're sending our ships in the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to escort these tankers out. Already we've helped escort 100 tankers out, they said, like just totally lied, like made up a number. And then you had CENTCOM and others have to walk that back and go, actually, Project Freedom is defensive. It's more of a coordination. And we're going to provide updated data to ships, to insurance companies, but it's not actually going into the Strait of Hormuz.

But Trump made it sound like we're going into the Strait of Hormuz. Then Iran saw it seemed like the United States naval assets were heading into the Strait of Hormuz. And so Iran saw this escalatory ambiguity. And so I guess the ceasefire is off. So Iran sees a South Korean ship, a UAE ship looking like it's gonna try to get around Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran hits those two ships. Then Iran, to send a message, hits UAE's Port of Fujairah, which is used by the UAE to try to circumvent Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz because there's pipelines there that can send the oil around through the land, and then the oil can be taken out through different waterways or on land. And so Iran hits those targets. Then all these Middle East countries are looking to Donald Trump the next day. All right, you're gonna, you're gonna like do something. And Donald Trump's like, nah, ceasefire still in place. We're good. So Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, they get livid and they're like, what are you— you're not gonna— you better take action. You know what we're gonna do, Donald? We're shutting down our airspace and our air bases.

You don't get to use them anymore. Then they leaked that to the press. And we reported that others reported that Trump banned from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and likely the UAE. You can't use our air bases anymore. So Donald Trump then had to go back and make a deal with those countries. Now notice, not a deal to open up the Strait of Hormuz. Donald Trump then found himself now in a quagmire with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and lots of these countries that he has personal emolument clause violations with. Where he's done personal deals to enrich himself and enrich his family, right? He owes favors to the Saudis, to UAE, to Kuwait, in my opinion, to Qatar, you know, to a lot, to a lot of these Middle East countries. And so then I think Trump and they manufactured what went down today because the one-two punch that we hear today is Saudi Arabia and Kuwait agree that they're going to open up their air bases and airspace once again to the US. Okay, so it's like, what's coming? Oh, got it. The US sends 2 or 3 of its naval destroyers into the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran then sees them coming, starts firing on them. It seems like those destroyers then kind of turn around but then open fire on these Iranian ports. And then these Iranian ports are hit right kind of by the Kharg Island area. And then CENTCOM immediately puts out a statement. Yes, we did these things, but we want to keep the ceasefire in place. We're just protecting the warships. So it seems that we sent 2 warships or 3 warships into the Strait of Hormuz as bait, knowing that Iran was going to strike. So then we could say it was defensive, then shoot at the Iranian ports so that we could ultimately tell Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Kuwait, see, we've done the damn thing, but then say, It's defensive. And Iran, we don't want to escalate this, so could we not actually go back to the war? Because Trump knows that'll cause a global depression and cause oil prices to further rise. And a lot of these entanglements are also built on his personal business dealings with these countries, which— and Kushner's dealings with these countries, which we need to call out. And whenever we're telling these Whenever we're reporting on this news, we can't neglect those facts.

So that's the latest update. But I want you to think how weak it looks. And the question is this: Was this a successful operation by the United States by sending these destroyers into the Strait of Hormuz? Was this successful? Do we control the Strait of Hormuz now? No. Who does? Iran. Does Iran still have its nuclear material?

Yes.

Do the Iran proxy groups still exist? Yes. Is the Islamic Republic still in charge? Yes. Okay, so we'll maybe talk a little bit about the World Cup on this episode where we know attendance is significantly down, both because of the affordability crisis and tourism is down. But when we talk about the World Cup and teams winning, you win by scoring more goals, right? If it's 1-0, the team with 1 beats the team with nothing. If it's 5-0, the team with 5 beats the team with nothing. Think about the war. Who's winning? Who controls the Strait of Hormuz? Who has the nuclear material? Who still has their proxy groups? Who controls— who's now viewed as a regional power? Go look at who's— who do you think is winning? So I think that's how you have to look at it. Brett, Jordy.

Yeah, it's interesting to watch right now because I think I see that Trump is in this weird place right now where it almost seems like he is a little hesitant to really proceed with full-blown war, but he also doesn't want to negotiate in good faith. So we're now stuck in like this purgatory of every day, these Barak Ravid stories. Of a deal is close. The US has submitted their proposals to Pakistan, and it's the same exact proposal that the US keeps submitting to Pakistan that Iran says this is a complete nonstarter. It's a proposal that says like they need to hand over all their enriched uranium. It's a proposal that says that they need to completely end all their nuclear activity. It's a proposal that says, you know, that they need to hand over the Strait of Hormuz. Every single thing, every concession that the United States wants, Iran has already said, like, these are all nonstarters. We're not doing any of that. And meanwhile, Iran is staying firm in their position as well, where they want to keep all of those things. They want to continue to have tolls in the Strait of Hormuz because they now have control over the Strait of Hormuz thanks to Donald Trump.

And they have kind of positioned themselves now as a global power. And I think they're trying to flex a little bit. That's why we saw them go to China and the foreign minister of Iran go to China and meet with the Chinese foreign minister. Ahead of Donald Trump's visit there. I think that's just kind of a show of force to say, you don't think we have any allies? Well, guess what? China supporting us, Russia supporting us. I think the meetings that they are having are very deliberate to show, you know, kind of who has their back on the global stage. And the fact is, and we've said this from day one, Donald Trump's lying just does not serve the American people. It does not serve our troops. It does not serve the war effort. You know, even if you put aside your personal feelings on the war, whether we should be in there or doing this or not doing this— I think we absolutely should not be in Iran right now. I think we were led there on completely false premises. But if you're there theoretically and you want to win this thing and meet the objectives, not telling the truth about what's going on doesn't get you any closer to meeting those objectives.

And all it does is also let the enemy know that you are completely spiraling. And so in this case, when Donald Trump is like, they're completely decimated, they don't have any of their missiles left, they're just totally done, and Iran's like, oh, well, we got plenty of firepower to go, and we're actually going to be just fine, and we know exactly what buttons to press in order to give you pain and the rest of the world pain. Well, that puts Iran at an advantage, not the United States. And it's also lying to the American people, and it's putting our troops in harm's way, which I think is incredibly screwed up. One of the most interesting things that I think we've also seen over the past 24 hours is that there was a classified assessment reportedly delivered by the CIA to the White House. Remember, this is Donald Trump's CIA. This isn't— you can't claim deep state or whatever it is. These are Donald Trump's people who he put in charge of the CIA. And they told Donald Trump that Iran could actually withstand the Strait of Hormuz blockade for at least another 3 to 4 months before they face any sort of serious economic pressure.

And so This is something that runs completely counter to what Donald Trump has been saying and to what a lot of these reporters have been pushing, where they've been saying Iran is just days away from the collapse, the imminent collapse. Get ready. They are suffering really bad right now and it's almost all over for them. We just have to wait it out. Well, Donald Trump's own CIA has a much different analysis than that, which completely goes against everything that he is telling the American people. And so Trump the other day, he said they're totally decimated. They're definitely around 18 or 19% of the missile stockpiles that they had. Well, the CIA assessment says that they still have roughly 75% of its pre-war mobile launcher inventory and around 70% of its pre-war missile stockpiles. They've restored nearly all of its, uh, underground, uh, facilities, storage facilities. They've been repairing their damaged missiles. They've even been assembling new ones. And they also say that restoring the damage that has heard is going to take them a lot faster, uh, than previous kind of reports and statements by the United States government have led the world to believe.

And so they are actually much better positioned, um, than we've been told. And, you know, I think it's interesting seeing the reaction that you get from a lot of these MAGA supporters, the, the few who are still remaining who are supporting this war, where they go, why are you saying that? Are you supporting Iran? Do you hate the United States? No, I actually love the United States. And I hate that there is somebody lying about the situation on the ground and putting our troops in harm's way and leading the Americans on and lying about the progress in the war that we are, as Ben said, by all objective points, we're losing right now. I mean, I don't even understand how you argue any differently. I think that's why, you know, I'm going to give a shout out here to Adam Mockler here at the Midas Touch Network. Who was on TV the other day on CNN. I'm sure all of you have basically seen the clip. Mockler went toe to toe with Scott Jennings on the air and basically cornered him into saying that there was no real— you can't claim a victory in Iran for the United States.

Scott Jennings had nothing to say, so he, like, screamed like a baby and pretended like Mockler was, like, putting his hand in his face. But the fact is, you can't possibly— I mean, you see the people on TV, I guess they do. But there's no real way to spin these objective facts into something that they're not. And Donald Trump is lying to the American people. He's gotten us into this situation right now where he has zero exit plan, zero exit strategy. And when you kind of read the tea leaves as to what's going on and some of the suggestions that the United States is making behind the scenes and some of the things they're leaking to reporters, it feels more and more like they are kind of backdooring into the JCPOA, Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal, but a much weaker version of that, ironically, because Trump ripped it up by saying it was the worst deal ever. It seems like they're trying to backdoor into this Iran deal, which puts the United States in a much worse position than we were. I mean, this all falls at the feet of Donald Trump, who got rid of Barack Obama's nuclear deal, a deal that was, you know, and I think you see now with everything going on how difficult it is to do diplomacy like that.

But Donald Trump, he doesn't want to do the work. He just wants to try to kind of bomb and get out and he hopes people will submit. But he's run into an adversary this time in Iran that is refusing to submit to his demands. And they are kind of holding strong to him right now while he is just flailing.

Absolutely. And here's what's so dangerous, in my opinion, is Trump doesn't deal in facts or he doesn't live in reality like he doesn't care what happened to the troops. He doesn't care what happens with oil prices or the impact of that on US citizens because he doesn't care about you, the American person. He just absolutely does not. He's a malignant narcissist that only cares about one person, and that person is himself, Donald Trump. He has so badly embarrassed himself here and this country with no clear exit strategy of this thing and no real reason why we got involved in the first place, and he's backed himself into this corner now with one foot in, one foot out, like what he should do in order to get out. And that's what makes this so dangerous, in my opinion. And my personal belief here is that just Trump is like waiting for Iran to escalate this in such a way where then he could just go ahead and just bomb the shit out of them, right? Like pretend that he has the American people's support. I don't mean to be so crude about this because I can only imagine how many innocent lives would get involved in something like that.

And I'm not saying I agree with it either, but it also just feels like that is his only sort of escape here to for him, what he's thinking for himself is like, how can I, Donald Trump, leave this in some dignified way and also put my fingerprints all over the situation even way worse than they already are right now? I mean, there is no exit strategy. There is no one to tell him no because he surrounded himself by yes people. And that's why now more than ever, it's so important for media, for all media. I'm talking about you, corporate media. I'm talking about you, Barack Ravid. Like, y'all need to report what is happening. You need to report what is happening because the outcome and the consequences here are dire, dire. When you start shilling for the Trump regime, Barak Ravid and Axios, and you start being mouthpieces for MAGA and him, like not once, not twice, but 3, 4, multiple times. Yeah, people are going to lose faith in your institution. People are going to lose faith in your company and question what your motives are as a person and as a company. And the reality is, too, again, deadly consequences are involved with every decision or lack thereof that the Trump regime makes or doesn't make.

And yet they don't seem to care. They don't care whether they, you know, this thing happens or that thing happens. All they want to do at the end of the day is try and do some self-preservation in whatever mindset and model that kind of makes sense in their own world. They live totally absent from reality, and they do not give a damn about what happens to our troops and the American people at large. And that's what is growing more and more apparent as each passing moment goes by.

Ben, you know, I think this, though, follows the pattern of Donald Trump's whole life where he drags something out. He loves the headline. He doesn't like the doing and the concluding. He likes the blaming. Is if it literally follows though the pattern of everything he's done and why he's bankrupted things and how he's announced that, because he loves the announcement and then hates the follow-through, and then, uh, a dignified conclusion, and then starting something new. It's always blame, destruction. And so, you know, what I think he wants to do is he knows inevitably this blockade leads to Calabity something's going to happen inevitably. That's just the way life works. Things happen. And he thrives in blaming when things are at their worst and people suffer. That's where he points fingers and blames. So I think for him, keeping a naval blockade allows him to save face. I didn't lose. Then something bad happens. We may run out of oil soon, like we're heading towards a position where there's going to be actual shortages. And then people go, oh my God, where did this happen? The same way when COVID started going from, you know, Asia and then it started heading to Europe, then it headed to the United States.

You know, that's going to happen with, with supply shortages, oil. This stuff's going to kick in. And then inevitably, you know, what's going to happen? You're going to have the midterms, even with all of this horrific gerrymandering that the Republicans are doing. And I'll talk a little bit about what's going on in South Carolina, what's going going on in Tennessee, what's going on in Louisiana, what's going on in Florida with all these MAGA states just getting rid of any Black congressional districts, just overtly racist. And yeah, it's political. The Democrats, I think, are still going to take control of the House. But what does Donald Trump do? This is what I think he's waiting for. Well, we had a plan and then the Democrats won. They took over the House and now it's their fault. You watch this.

This is—

he doesn't care about the country, cares about him. And so that's where their positioning— it was the Democrats' fault. They took over the House. They're the ones who did it. Well, I had the plan. It was so perfect.

Have you seen the kind of little nuggets that he's been putting out to you? You start seeing him like pre-buttal the midterms. And so in the past few weeks, he said a few comments that if you picked up on, he said things like, you know, well, I only wish I could be on the ballot. It's going to be a lot harder without me on the ballot. I'm the one who drives Republicans out to vote. He's already pre-butting why the Republicans are going to lose the midterms. I think that tells you a lot. And I think it also tells you that Ben's point of view here, that Donald Trump's strategy is going to be blame the Democrats why he didn't get anything done, is spot on.

Yeah, that's right. The Dow was at 50,000. We were in the golden age. Everything was great. We were there. We were right there. And then it collapsed. When did it collapse? November. That's, that's just—

we're about to get your dose.

You're about to get your dose, your dividend checks, your tariff rebates. We were this close to the precipice of, of— that's his whole damn life. And in to counter it, you better be ready to message that, and you better be prepared to rebut it. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. A quick reminder Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and become a member if you can and gift memberships to others. Let them access the Trump taco emoji and you get the special podcast episodes that I do with Ron Philipkowski that are available only to members. Subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio. Also, Jordy, store.midastouch.com. Get the Midas Touch merch as well. Store.midastouch.com. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break.

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Homechef.com/midas. Must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Let's go! Shout out to our sponsors, links in description. In both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. As Ben mentioned before the break for the audio listeners, you guys didn't get to see it. So make sure you go to the YouTube channel, subscribe there. It's totally free. On our way to 7 million subscribers. We got this new great MTN Play the Clip dad hat. I think they're called dad hats. I didn't make the name, but that's, I believe that's how they're mostly referred to. So definitely check those out. Store.midastouch.com. Get yours while they last. Benji, where to next?

You know, I think when we talk about how bad the Supreme Court is, this right-wing fascist Supreme Court, what we shouldn't ignore is a little— just digging one step deeper, because obviously we all know now that they basically struck down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prevented discrimination in voting, and specifically as that relates to these racist gerrymandering that these states with, you know, that we're trying to create by eliminating Black congressional districts. And there was, you know, a need, right, to have states that had 30, 40% of the population that was African American have Congress members who represented the community. And so we talked about majority Black congressional districts as a way to counteract states from diluting the Black vote by looking at Black neighborhoods and carving them up so that a Black neighborhood couldn't vote as a voting bloc and their votes would be diluted by putting them into other districts where there was a majority white population and you would have a dilution of the Black vote in that by kind of carving it up almost like a, like a pizza pie, if you will, where it was carved up in, you know, 8 different directions or 12 different directions as opposed to being the actual concentrated of the Black vote.

And now the Supreme Court saying this whole idea of Black majority districts is racist. The idea of being anti-racist is racist because the moment you talk about race, that must mean you're racist. And if states just simply say, oh, we're not diluting the Black vote, we're just encouraging Republican votes. And if that correlates with diluting Black votes, we're just doing a political gerrymander. Aha, you're not being racist because you said the magic words political gerrymander. Whereas if you say that we need to make sure there's fair representation of the Black community, that that is a racist construct. Okay. Now, I just think it's important as we talk about Tennessee now following up the Louisiana Calais decision, which gutted Section 2, what are these MAGA states doing? They're getting rid of any Black congressional district, right? So Tennessee pushes forward a map, eliminates the fact that there's zero Black representation in Tennessee, no Democratic seats in Tennessee. And now they're going to go state by state, these MAGA states. Doing emergency sessions to eliminate all Black representation, all minority representation, just kind of fully eliminating, eliminating it. And here's the thing when we talk about this, and this is what really should anger us all on a bipartisan basis, frankly.

And this is what I teach my law students, not in a political way. I just say to them, like, you realize the Voting Rights Act wasn't really a partisan thing. How do you, how do you know that? Because it was passed on a bipartisan basis in 1965. Democrats and Republicans came together and they recognized the problems that we're seeing now in 2026 that preceded 1965. That's why they came up with the Voting Rights Act. Similarly, John McCain and Senator Feingold came up with McCain-Feingold, McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform to get rid of corporate money and to get rid of of all of the, you know, you know, these corporations buying elections only for the Supreme Court to say, you know what, Democrats and Republicans, you came together, screw that. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution actually says that corporations, as a free speech right, gets to say whatever they want by spending billions of dollars to buy an election. You go, where does it say that in the Constitution? Well, clearly, that's what the First Amendment means. I'm an originalist. That's what the founders meant. That's what the founders meant, that corporations could spend unlimited money.

You know, so I think when we talk about this, these are bipartisan pieces of legislation— McCain-Feingold Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act— that the Supreme Court guts and says, you know what, we're sitting in 2026 and we're telling you we want to go back and predate when there was collegiality and Congress actually passed laws that benefit the people. And what you get is a perverted, grotesque, and disgusting Congress now that is led by MAGA Republicans that cover up for the Epstein class because they go, we're not even going to work with them. We're just going to be arms of fascism at this point. And quite literally, when I say they're grotesque and perverted and sickos, I mean it, because they're covering up child sex trafficking rings. And I'm not being hyperbolic. They're covering up the damn Epstein files. I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, independent. Heck, I don't care if you're— I don't care what you are. How could you be OK with Howard Lutnick not testifying under oath? Who roots for that?

Like, who?

That's like rooting for COVID. That's like rooting. What's the name of the new horrific virus that were the hantavirus? It's like rooting for like who roots for the virus, right? Some of these MAGA people do it the same way they did back then, right? It's bizarre. But you are okay with, with, with, with Lutnick not testifying under oath like that's something that you're okay with. So James Comer, MAGA Mike Johnson, Donald Trump all get together and they go, oh crap, Lutnick is subpoenaed to testify. He had to show up before an Appropriations Committee last week. He had to talk about the budget. He had to speak in front of budgeting committees. And he was asked about Epstein. He goes, I'm not going to answer that. I have to testify next week or in 2 weeks before the House Oversight Committee. And he— remember, he doesn't actually He goes, I'll voluntarily testify under oath. You don't have to subpoena me. I'll voluntarily testify. So he shows up yesterday and I'm not going to do it on video. What do you mean you're not going to do it? And I'm not going to do it under oath.

What do you mean you're not going to do it under oath? I never agreed to do that. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. No, do a transcribed interview. I don't have to tell the truth. It doesn't have to be on video. That's what I'm going to do. And then the Democrats are like, no, we got it on video. And James Comer controls the rules. Republicans control the rules. They control the House Oversight. This is what they want to do with Bondi on May 29th. Transcribed interview, no video, not under oath. This is what Trump— this is what they want. Now, Howard Lutnick previously said he was never on Epstein Island. That's what he said in 2005. I won't do the Lutnick. Maybe I'll do the Lutnick. I was never on Epstein Island. I saw the guy once.

Never again.

He's the ultimate blackmailer. He's disgusting. I would never see him again. And now his whole point is, I said that I would never see him again. I brought my little kids. That's we. We went and saw him again. I would bring my friends' children. We went, not I. There's a distinction between the we, me and little children on an island where children are sexually assaulted, We went there, not I, but nothing bad happened. Lutnick said nothing bad happened on Blackmail. What did I say? Blackmail? I didn't say no.

He's not— he never did any sort of—

he goes, nothing bad happened on the island. I just brought my kids and my friend's kids to this island, and now I'm not going to testify under oath. And then he was asked questions. By the way, they don't release the transcript either. You know, the transcribed interview, it's like takes whatever. And then he's asked, apparently, though, he's asked about why did you go to the island? It was a surprise to me. It's a surprise. You didn't know how you could surprise. He goes, it's inexplicable. And his words were, it's inexplicable and surprising.

They blindfolded him. They put him on a plane and then he just walked on Epstein's island.

It's like, it's like when someone takes you on like a surprise date, right? It's like, all right, don't wait.

Wait, don't open up yet. Don't open it.

We're almost there.

Don't open up yet.

We're at Epstein's Island.

Welcome.

I, you know, I, I don't mean to make a light of it by any means. It's just so— it's so beyond parody what they're doing. And I think it's pretty clear, but I, I want to emphasize how anytime they are doing these sorts of interviews and stuff behind the scenes, one of the reasons that they're fighting for all these to not be under oath and to have these, uh, not taped, um, uh, interviews with James Comer and, and stuff. It's part of the cover-up. This is all part of the cover-up scheme, and they're doing it under the guise of what? We're seeking transparency. You wanted us to ask Howard Lutnick questions, we're asking Howard Lutnick questions. This is all part of actually suppressing the truth and preventing people from speaking out. By the way, I, I gotta say, have you guys seen that exhibit in New York City, I mean, in Tribeca, they— there's a museum that they set up, Epstein Files Library, where they actually physically printed out all the documents from the Epstein Files, put them in bound books, and they— it's like 2 stories tall, thousands and thousands and thousands of binders and pages, millions of pages of Epstein Files they put in there.

And I just thought it was just— it's, it's, you know, it's one thing to see it online. I think it takes on an extra Uh, there's just even more power when you actually see it physically, uh, like that laid out. Katie Fang, by the way, Midas Touch Network, did an incredible report on this. She went there with Danny Bensky, one of the Epstein survivors, um, and it was such an emotional, powerful, uh, segment. Check it out on Katie Fang's YouTube channel because honestly, one of the more powerful, uh, segments I've seen throughout this entire Epstein Files saga and And shout out to the survivors who are continuing to fight for justice when the Trump regime continues to push back. And, you know, when I'm just looking at Trump right now, it's hard for me to understand, like, who is supporting this guy right now, right? If the Epstein files were a big issue, he's been covering up the Epstein files and specifically protecting Epstein's associates, including himself. And he even said, as Marjorie Taylor Greene has said, he yelled at Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and all these people, telling them not to vote to release the Epstein files because it would hurt his friends.

I'm paraphrasing there, but that was something he said. If you're the anti-war guy— well, clearly he's not the anti-war guy. We're, we're at war with Iran right now, and he's been bombing things non-stop and trying to invade countries and take over countries. If you're one of the Maha people, if you're a Make America Healthy Again person who thought that Donald Trump was going to get in there and he was going to push for healthy foods and all this stuff. He's betrayed you. He's been pushing glyphosate, this toxic herbicide, which is devastating to people's health. He just had his FDA— he like stepped in personally to ensure that they approved flavored vapes because he wants young kids to vote MAGA. And he knows that young kids like flavored, flavored vapes and want wants them to partake in that. Like everything that he's done, he's, he's completely betrayed his base. And so when you look at this Trump regime right now, it's hard not to see just a regime completely propped up by the billionaire class, by the Epstein class, by these billionaire institutions like Fox News, by these— by this money that's being funneled to these influencers on the internet who really don't have any beliefs or any backbone whatsoever, but they're just doing what the money tells them to do, what these entities are telling them to I mean, what a complete betrayal of everything that Donald Trump claimed to have stood for.

We're seeing it play out now in real time.

Absolutely. And Ben, I know you want to show some clips coming up, but I just wanted to make this one point. I've never seen you make a decision quicker than when you went from saying that you weren't going to do the Lutnick impression to like, all right, actually, let me do it. And you're very good at it.

I just—

the audience likes it. The Midas Mighty love it.

Let me say, I've got more comments. Jordy, I know you see them because you're on the socials a lot. People, the people are talking about Ben's Lutnick impression.

They say it's his best impression to date.

Yeah, it actually hurts my throat and it goes—

well, that's why people, they know no pain, no gain, and, and you're putting in the work.

I looked at Epstein and I said, you're disgusting, I will never see you. I went to my wife, I said, that man is a blackmailer. That man disgusts me, and I don't even want to look at him ever again. Okay, Howard, so it turns out that you were on the island. Yeah. And you said that you were never gonna see him again. I never said I, I, I said I, I never said we. Oh, so you went with people? Yeah. Who'd you, who'd you bring to hang out with Jeffrey Epstein? My little kitties. You brought your children? My kitties, yeah. Who else did you bring? My friend's kids. So you went to the island? Yeah. You know that's an island where children are sex trafficked, right? Yeah. You brought your kids? Yeah. You brought your friend's kids? Yeah. Okay, Donald, uh, you okay with— he brought his kids. What's right? He brought his kids. That was fun.

Okay.

Are we living in some crazy world? What are we talking? All right. Surely, James Comer, you're the oversight guy, House Oversight Committee chair. I know you're MAGA through and through. I know you're corrupt. I know you've got a very dark past and dark stuff in your relationships. But come on, you're the House Oversight guy. We care about this, right? You surely You want to see him go at least under oath and videotaped the same way you made Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have their depositions be under oath and videotaped, at least Lutnick, who was actually on the island and lied to the American. We all agree, right? James Comer comes running out. I mean, like, quite literally runs out of the door while Lutnick's getting deposed. And this is what happens.

Let's play.

I feel compelled to have to come out and clean up. And correct some of the statements that the Democrats made. I couldn't believe as I was getting updates of what they were saying. And I hope that when you get the transcripts, you fact check them on what they say. This is a habit of the Democrats on this committee coming out telling you all stuff that was said that was not said. The only cover-up that I've seen on the oversight Committee is the cover-up of the Democrats trying to cover up our investigations of the Metro Police Department lying about crime statistics and the cover-up of the Minnesota fraud by Tim Walz and Keith Ellison and the cover-up of the hospice fraud in California. So, quote, we asked some very substantive questions the first hour. The Democrats during their hour repeated the the exact same questions because there's only so many questions you can ask Howard Lutnick, who lived— had a property next door to Epstein in New York, but talked to him 3 times over a decade. 3 interactions over a decade. He was on the island with his family, with his wife and kids, 6 people in his family.

And 6 people in his friend's family for lunch for 2 hours. And he has admitted that. So the Democrats are going to go another hour. I'm sure they're going to try to filibuster and do whatever. They had a narrative to come in. They were hoping Lutnick wouldn't come in. They were hoping Pam Bondi wouldn't come in. Remember, Pam Bondi came in in a month ago to answer questions. The Democrats didn't ask him a single question. The first 20 minutes of the Democrats' questioning here, they complained about not having video and not having things to be able to put on MSNBC for their angry purple-haired viewers to be outraged over. This is a serious investigation.

Okay, but we could— but on a serious note, like, this isn't— you're no longer making it a serious investigation. When you're just going to haphazardly choose, okay, Bill and Hillary, you're coming in video deposition. We're going to have all our people there. Camera, lights, action, go. Lutnick, let's close the door. Let's not bring in any cameras. And, you know, let's just have this conversation over here.

Or, or it's the Democrats. The Democrats said that.

The thing is, it's just a mockery of like the very serious situation and what people actually wanted to get to the bottom of, of like this should not be politicized. Yet at every step of the way, Trump and MAGA have politicized the Epstein files, have politicized this entire investigation because their investigation into this is a total— like, it's like a sham because they're trying to just do this gotcha on anyone that is a left-leaning person. And it's biz— no, no, I want to see Lutnick's deposition. I want to see him under the cameras. I want to see Bill and Hillary under the cameras. I want everyone who is potentially in these files to be under the cameras on their deposition. I want to hear from their mouths. And so do the American people. It's not a Republican-Democrat issue. It's just simply not. But they're making it weird. The Republican Party is making this weird. And it's frustrating because it's hard to, you know, see what's coming out and believing what's coming out when they're going to, like, take their buddies aside and be like, you know what, you actually don't have to be on camera.

Why don't you just tell us behind closed doors what's going on? And, and that's all you need to do. It's bullshit.

Let me just say, I don't think Hillary should have been taken in at all, and not, not even a little bit. I have to disagree with you there. I mean, I think that was ridiculous. I think that was complete weaponization. And they're going—

my main point in that, just so I could quickly correct the record there, is I'm just saying, if they are going to take the stance of everybody that we bring in is under video depositions, then everyone needs to be under video depositions.

Yes, for sure. But Hillary had no reason to be there. They shouldn't be blaming wives for, uh, actions or alleged actions of their husbands? Absolutely not. She shouldn't have been in there. But Hillary, to her credit, went in there and she answered every question. She did it under oath. And remember, they lied about that too. James Comer, oh, you know, they're coming here and they're lying about what was said in the room and they're trying to say that he said this. And that's what you did with Hillary, right? You came out and you were like, oh, she was so shrill and she was yelling at everybody and she threw a tantrum in there. And then you had Lauren Boebert taking these like spy pictures and giving it to MAGA influencers and blowing the whole thing up. And then you see the footage and you see that Hillary Clinton was the one telling the truth and the Democrats were the ones telling the truth. And it was James Comer again who was lying about all of this. And so you could like— it's just once again, it's objective facts like who is telling the truth in these situations and who is not telling the truth in these situations.

And James Comer is a proven liar. And for you to say something like, Oh, but the Democrats want to do something like— like they think he needs to be put under oath or needs to be put on camera like— like that. They just want their clips for their blue-haired viewers over at MSNBC. No, no. Like, put everybody under the same standard. To Jordy's point, ensure that everybody is given equal treatment in this process. And of course, the bare minimum of these investigations, you need to put people under oath and you need to make there be some consequences if they're not telling you the truth. Every— analyzed every single little thing that Hunter Biden did and made the biggest stink out of it. Hunter Biden sold the painting. We need to do hearings. We need to do this. We're going to do this for weeks and weeks and weeks. But then the way he just minimized— oh, well, Howard Lutnick, okay, so he was Jeffrey Epstein's neighbor for many years. Okay. And then he bought Jeffrey Epstein's apartment.

Okay.

Okay. So he went to the island and they care about him going to the island. Okay, he went with his kids.

Okay.

I mean, the way they just brush these things off as if they're like nothing. It's like, no, those— everything you said there. And by the way, that's the bare minimum that we know right now. Those are all like pretty bad things. And the fact that you're brushing it off as just like a side thing is pretty messed up.

And then he lied about it to the American people. He went on the New York Post interview and then just said he didn't do it. And then he got caught doing it because then there was photos of him and the— what? What are we even doing? One final point there, though. Hunter Biden wanted to have his— he wanted to be in a hearing. Remember, he showed up and he said, I'm here, let's do the hearing, let's do it in public. And the MAGA Republicans went, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we do that private. Nobody gets to see. So I just want you all to think about that generally. Who wants to put the things on camera? Who wants to do the things under oath? Who wants to do it publicly? Who continues to hide? Who rushes to regime media to manipulate the facts but then won't speak in front of the American people in a format that actually allows for accountability? Just to me, it's sometimes that basic. All right. Last quick break of the show. A quick reminder. Hit subscribe. Help us get to 7 million subscribers. Also, click the join button and become a member of our YouTube channel.

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Links in 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. Those are some really great products. Midas Mighty, enjoy all of them. So definitely check them out. Let me just say this, and not to talk about, you know, Barack, Barack, whatever his name is again, Barack Ravid again, but it's just you can't be a puppet for MAGA, for Trump, and then have like the thinnest skin and get upset when people call you out for your bullshit.

It's like, Uh-uh.

You can't play both sides of that. You want to— you want to have thin skin? That's totally fine. Then you can't be a MAGA puppet. I'm sorry. You just absolutely cannot. Ben, Brett, takes on that.

Yeah. I mean, first off, he's like responding to the Hormuz letter, which seems to be like an Iranian aggregator. Like it's someone from Iran, by the way, who does a decent job aggregating. But it's like, dude, you're— you're like the editor-in-chief at Axios. You're like a senior editor at Axios. You're responding to the Hormuz letter. I mean, you've now— and by the way, the Hormuz letter is like, sources are telling me Barack Ravid has manipulated the market. And Barack Ravid's like, that's a lie and that's defamatory. And then you have a lot of other corporate news dudes like running to Barack Ravid. Yeah, and that's defamatory, dude. It's the Hormuz letter. Who even knows what the Hormuz letter is? They're doing a decent job baggaring. And then Barack Ravid responds to the Islamic Republic broadcasting network, like literally the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, like, designated propaganda, like, like they're posting it, like you're the writer and why are you responding to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards like media entity? This is a lie. Axios didn't report even once over the last 3 weeks that a deal was imminent. The Iranian regime at state TV and its bots and influence accounts on social media are pushing this lie.

It's regime propaganda. Don't fall for it. Look, literally what Barak Ravid posted yesterday was the following scoop. The White House believes it's getting close to an agreement with Iran on a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war and set a framework for more detailed nuclear negotiations.

Right.

So what the Iran regime posted was Axios reported 5 times that a deal was imminent. What Ravid says is getting close. So are you parsing Iran's words of imminent versus getting close? I think imminent means getting close or some variation.

I said, I said, I said getting close. I said we were in the final stage. I said we were making great progress. I said this was nearly complete. I did not say the word imminent. That is—

it just so happened that like billions of dollars of oil was shorted, you know, and there were all of these options taken out right after. Just— it just so happens that every time I'm about to do these stories, these— whoopsies.

Oopsies. Bring up the tweet. Bring up the tweet one more time because like it's so preposterous to me.

And him responding to the literal— yes.

Propaganda, because I just want to also focus on how he ends that tweet, which he says something to the effect of, don't amplify this. And meanwhile, what he did, what he did was he took a screenshot. He goes, bots and influence accounts on social media are pushing this lie. It's regime propaganda campaign. Don't fall for it. Don't amplify it. And then he takes a screenshot of, of what he's telling people not to amplify and puts it right under his his tweet for everyone to see, in fact amplifying the tweet.

And he's saying it's okay, but everyone's dunking on him too in the comments. Here's the thing.

I don't want to spend that much more on Raviv, but it's the perfect split screen because he's like, okay, this is what we were saying at the beginning. It's like, okay, we understand IRIB, Iranian broadcasting, is— that's their propaganda. But they kind of say it like it's not like he doesn't say Israeli. Like his name is Barack Raviv. Axios. He's not Barack Ravid, Trump Israel, Trump Netanyahu. At least the Iran's like, okay, here's what we are, IRIB, you know. But in my opinion, he's Trump Netanyahu regime media. So I have both. I have Ravid regime media versus Iran regime media. And Iran says that he said that. He goes, I didn't.

And I'm—

look, I'm genuinely trying to search out the facts here.

So I'm like, huh.

He's— I believe he said it. Am I going crazy here? Because I'm pretty sure dude said this a lot. Then I looked at what he wrote yesterday and he said, like, super close to getting a deal done. And so it's like, okay, right there, not only are you amplifying Iran media, but they're kind of right. I'm sorry you take issue with the word, quote, imminent versus getting close, but your post every other day, it's I thought if anything, Iran media undercounted. I was surprised it was only 5 times.

I honestly think, though, it speaks to like, I think, a greater—

the doubt.

I think it speaks to like a greater rot, like in the— and honestly, it's a lot of what's kind of wrong. And not to harp on this point too much with kind of the state of corporate media is there's like there's a disdain for the people who follow them and the people who read them. And to me, if every time you are posting these things, the comments are always like, oh, this again, you've been saying this for the past 5 weeks, 6 weeks, like, oh, we're getting close again.

Really?

Really? Oh, the markets just moved on your tweet again. Really, really, really? Like, in all seriousness, like, instead of arguing with those people and fighting with people online, maybe just like think inwards for like one second and think like, am I, am I laundering propaganda? Like, yes. You know, like I said, like Ben said earlier, like, I'm sure his sources are good sources in terms of them being high level in the Trump administration. I believe them to be people like Steve Whitcomb, and Jared Kushner and Trump and folks like that. I mean, those are, those are very high-level sources, but are they, uh, sources that have a track record of giving you truthful information? I mean, even if you stacked all three of them, three sources say, say it was Trump, Kushner, and, uh, and Whitcoff, those are three very bad sources. And if the information you're getting every day and that you post all the time turns out not to be true and turns out to continuously be clowned on by the public and you just essentially get mocked when inevitably things start escalating every time you say that. And you're seeing these major swings of the market coincide with those messages.

Instead of arguing with random people on the internet, maybe just go like, maybe I hold back on this one and I see what happens. Or maybe I try to consult somebody who has an alternative opinion here and try to figure out what the truth is in between these two. Like, whatever it is, but just continuing to be a stenographer for the liars to me, and then arguing with the people and showing disdain for the people who are simply— I mean, are people trying to get the information during a very tense situation right now? To me, that just— it just shows a lot of what's wrong right now with the way a lot of these legacy outlets are reporting.

You know what it reminds me of? When I used to be a litigator and I would handle sports-related cases, I was always fascinated by how in these different sports leagues professionally, they had their insiders. The NFL insiders, the MLB insiders. Like, in the NFL, they had the NFL Network, right? And the NFL insiders at the NFL Network would act like, oh no, no, no, but we make sure we don't, like, collude with the NFL. Okay, got it. You know, the NHL insiders, or, or the NBA, you know, whatever you have. And, you know, the teams and ownership and management and the agents, right? They have their relationship directly with the insider, and they call up the insider, hey, here's What's going on? Ooh, they're getting close to a deal. Or the— and the insider often, you know, is like a stenographer and breaks the news, and it's like a symbiotic relationship. And then they get the information out, and, you know, and that's like— but it's sports. And I was always kind of— when I was handling cases that have often litigation issues, you know, I was always surprised that, you know, the way this kind of ecosystem functions But the fourth estate, our media, is not supposed to be like the NFL or the MLB or the NBA insider, right, who just gets the call and then writes it.

Like, you should get the data and then go, okay, I realize now that I have a platform, and before I publish it, I need to check if this is truthful or if it— or if I'm being used as a pawn in order to manipulate the market it. And, you know, Ravid says, I haven't— I'm not manipulating the market. Let me be clear, he totally denies all of that. And he says even making the accusation is a defamatory accusation. He strictly denies it. So as I said at the outset, then if you're doing it unknowingly and it keeps on happening, I don't— is that worse? I think it may be worse if you actually truly think you don't recognize that when everybody else is seeing that that's continuously what happens, you know. But Brett, when I think about what happened today also with President Lula of Brazil showing up, I also think about like the— and just another example of the media rot, right? You had Fox, ooh, it looks like the press conference is happening, looks like it's about to happen. Ooh, we're told Donald Trump's gonna happen. Ooh, it looks like it's not happening, but that's because Lula and Donald Trump have such tension.

So clearly Donald Trump didn't want to be seen this guy. Do we have the montage that you created of like what went down when the press was waiting for 3 hours for Trump and Lula to have a joint press conference and then it never happened? Here, play this clip.

Meanwhile, we have a live look at the White House as we await President Trump to speak.

He is meeting in the Oval Office with Brazil's president. We do await President Trump any moment now. Fox News alert here, we are waiting at President Trump. He is set to speak any moment now from the White House. President Trump set to speak live from the White House any moment now. We've got our eye on it. Trump, meanwhile, is set to speak. We promise, we just haven't gotten word when that's happening. We were hoping, John, that we were going to get to see the two of them, as it was sort of— we were led to believe that, but we did not. But it sounds like the meeting went well.

Sounds like the meeting went well. Why would it sound like the meeting— because Trump posted it went well? I don't know. Maybe the fact that they were supposed to come out together and then didn't means that the meeting did not go well. And maybe be a journalist and say, I wonder what's actually happening here. Well, you have Lula, who has stood up to Donald Trump as Donald Trump has projected fascism in the Western Hemisphere and all hemispheres. Donald Trump's blockade on Cuba and Donald Trump's threat to invade Cuba and Cuba responding recently through their leadership that a bloody war may be days away from happening in Cuba. Maybe it's because Donald Trump is trying to free Jair Bolsonaro, the MAGA extremist puppet president who's in jail basically 20+ years in Brazil for leading an insurrection there, and that Trump keeps trying to come up with ways to like get Jair Bolsonaro tomorrow free. Maybe it has something to do with that. Maybe it's because Lula has been calling out Trump and Israel's genocide and calling out the catastrophic war in Iran and also both genocide in Gaza and Lebanon and calling out the behavior that maybe we act as reporters and we go, they didn't meet.

Maybe that's the thing, you know, which leads me to one of the last points. There's so many points that I could be making here. I could talk about how state regime media— they had Lara Trump, Donald Trump's daughter-in-law. I mean, just think about like the layers of this regime media stuff, like would make North Korea or Russia, you know, like kind of jealous of like this. So wait a minute, your daughter-in-law is like the host of the regime? Yeah, Lara Trump is the host. And so I did a segment on this earlier where she had Dana White, the head of UFC, and she's like, so Dana, the hottest ticket in town, the UFC fight, where can you get tickets? And Dana was, well, actually, we're not going to be selling tickets anymore, uh, we're just going to be giving tickets out, we're comping them. Oh, that sounds so hot. Yeah, it's really, really hot. Um, and we're going to be bringing, uh, 4,300 members of the military because Donald Trump loves the military. Amazing. So it's going to be our military there.

Yeah.

So hot. I mean, I'm like, what are we doing? We're doing a UFC fight on Donald Trump's birthday at the White House. And he said there was going to be a major stadium of 20,000 people and now he's going to use our military during a catastrophic war as props. And that's what's going to be the fight.

And I mean, speaking of— speaking of the Iranian Broadcasting Network, if we were seeing footage come from the Iranian broadcasting network that was like Mojtaba Khomeini's daughter or son, we'd be like, this is insane. Like this.

Imagine this. You could just flesh out the best, you know. So imagine we're watching Iranian TV and it's Mojtaba Khomeini's freaking daughter or daughter-in-law, and they're doing a cricket match. And in the middle of the war, all they're talking about is, and it's going to be so hot, there's going to be a cricket match right in front of the clerical shrine, and there's— everybody's gonna show up. You'd be like, dude, what are you doing? What are you saying?

Yeah, yeah, we'd be like, this is the most overt, most insane propaganda that you've ever seen in your life. But sometimes you need to separate yourself from like our kind of insular view of actually being here in the United States. And I know like it's probably how our international audience feels, and you can tell us in the You know, all of you internationally, I see, you know, people here from Canada and Australia and other places. Like, it's got to seem like freaking crazy because it is absolutely crazy. But what's honestly a very serious thing is this international network of authoritarians that has continued to build. And this is deadly serious. And I do want to highlight some really good reporting that we've seen recently. And this was from El País, which is a Spanish-language publication. Which, uh, let me pull this up quickly because it was just absolutely, uh, stunning, stunning, stunning. Uh, basically it says that there was a, uh, a plot between, uh, uh, Javier Milei, uh, Donald Trump, and other kind of right-wing leaders to like infiltrate and spread propaganda, uh, into more left-wing governments. So to try to kind of, uh, ruin what, uh, Claudia Sheinbaum is doing in Mexico and, and to infiltrate them.

This reporting is absolutely shocking. I haven't actually seen it reported, uh, in the United States yet, um, but they're calling it Hondurasgate, and they're saying that leaked recordings tie Trump, uh, Malay, and the Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez to this alleged effort to create this fake news operation to destabilize the governments of Mexico and Colombia, which, you know, Donald Trump has not been a fan of. You remember Juan Orlando Hernandez? That's the guy who Donald Trump pardoned or commuted a sentence, whatever he did, like the guy who was like a drug trafficker. Well, one of the reasons they're saying he did that is allegedly so that they could build these right-wing networks together. And according to El País, they discussed setting up this digital media cell in the United States funded with a ton of money to push all this disinformation, specifically targeting Mexican President Sheinbaum, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and political opponents in Honduras spreading this propaganda machine. And by the way, you know that they're doing this in the United States right now for the Trump regime, right? They are spending all this money doing all this stuff to spread MAGA propaganda here at home.

Now they're taking that operation and I think they have been already, but we're seeing apparently they have recorded proof that they're doing this internationally. They have these recordings from WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram chats, and they analyze them using forensic tools by the intelligence agencies. To confirm that the people on the calls were the people who I was naming before, like Trump, Millais, and Juan Orlando Hernandez. Mexican President Sheinbaum claims that she actually has heard these recordings, and she's warning about this network of fake news campaigns that, that Trump and these people are allegedly operating. And we've already seen in the past few weeks, remember, there was that kind of CIA operation gone wrong in Mexico that we covered here, where there were two CIA agents who died allegedly in a car accident. And when it happened, you know, they didn't say it was CIA at first. But the first thing I thought when I saw that there was a story of two United States officials who died in a car accident near a drug facility in Mexico was, that's got to be CIA. And ultimately, they did actually admit that those were CIA agents. So there's a lot of really shady stuff right now going on.

And believe me, Donald Trump is not the first person to do shady things abroad with the CIA, far from it. But I think it's important to see the way that this is being directed right now and specifically being directed at governments around the world who run counter to this MAGA worldview, who are against the authoritarians, people who are actually standing up for democracy, people who are actually pushing more progressive values, more pro-freedom values. That's who the Trump regime is going after. And you also see it in this national security report that just came out, this, this anti-terrorism report. And this is also absolutely crazy. Um, this is the Counterterrorism Strategy Document, which was released, uh, yesterday by the Trump administration. I haven't seen— I've seen barely any coverage about this, but this document, uh, specifically names— I'll pull it up, uh, some of the beats that I pulled out. So it lists— these are the biggest threats to the United States of America, says left-wing extremists, people with radically pro-transgender ideologies, anti-fascists. That's, that's who they view as terrorists. And they equate those groups to ISIS and other actual terrorist groups, saying that they're all the same.

And they're saying that the United States government is building a map, uh, counter— they're using their counterterrorism powers to map all of these people, map people who are against fascism, uh, who what they consider left-wing extremists, um, in order to track, uh, people who have these sorts of points of view. So we see it happening here domestically, we see it happening abroad. This is something that needs to be talked about a whole lot more. I think it often gets buried in the day-to-day chaos of what's happening, um, but this stuff to me is as bad as it gets, uh, from a government, especially a government, uh, that pretends to be for freedom and democracy and liberty like here in the United States.

Covered a lot on this episode, and don't worry, we'll be covering a lot more on the YouTube channel throughout the evening and of course throughout the day. Share the Midas Touch Network with people you know. Become a member by joining this YouTube channel. Subscribe to this YouTube channel as well. Help us hit 7 million subscribers. Subscribe on audio to the Midas Touch Podcast. Leave a 5-star review there. Go to store.midas midastouch.com and, uh, check out the Midas Touch gear. We're thankful for all of you. We're grateful for all of you. We hear you. We're listening to you. And you better believe every damn day we're fighting for you on this network. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Let's stay in this together. We got this, everybody. Jordy, take it away.

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