Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 7/10/26 New

Donald Trump escalates his unlawful and catastrophic war against Iran at the same time the United States has almost fully depleted its strategic petroleum reserves. This happening at the same time that Donald Trump utterly humiliated the United States like never before at the NATO summit. This happening at the same time where tens of millions of people in Iran and Iraq showed up for the Ayatollah Khomeini's funeral procession over there, which has been a multiple-day event. We're going to talk about it all here on the Midas Touch podcast. I'm Ben Mycelis, joined by my brothers Brett and Jordy Mycelis. And yeah, the people over there, the mourners who were there at the Ayatollah's funeral, were absolutely livid. They were furious at the Trump regime during the procession. And this, as Donald Trump has escalated the war, and we're hearing a lot of MAGA Republicans talk about ground invasion and saying, yeah, everybody there in Iran and Iraq, they're all astroturfed, and they're actually begging Donald Trump and Netanyahu, can you please come in here and help us? That's what's actually going on there. I mean, when you look at this and hear this dangerous, idiotic, malicious, horrific rhetoric coming from Trump regime and MAGA and others here.

It's just like, really? Seriously? You're doing— you're doing that again? This is Donald Trump's like, Iran wants to make a deal. Yeah, I'm escalating it.

They want—

they're begging me. They're begging me, everybody, for a deal. Come on.

Come on.

This is just a dangerous idiocracy. And the American people and the people of the world are the victims. Brett Jordy, good to see you.

Good to see you too, Ben. Good to see you, Jordy. Good to see you, Midas Mighty. So great to be with everybody today and every day, as always. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we're in this ground Groundhog Day loop once again. Uh, it feels like we're back in March. It feels like the same story that we've been telling over and over again. We're back in this kind of, uh, market manipulation loop, this extreme escalation of the war. Probably by market close, um, uh, or by market open on Monday, you probably see, you know, where they want to make a deal again. It's just this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I think one of the things that Trump really has done here is he, he really has exposed in the clearest way, kind of the lies and propaganda that were being told about these wars, that were being told about these situations. Like, you know, during the Bush era when we were going into Iraq and Afghanistan and stuff, they spent a lot of time selling those wars and talking about weapons of mass destruction. And, you know, people soon found out that it was all BS.

Here Donald Trump is just so obvious with his lying about it that it really shows the whole thing as this very just transparent process to get people into war to try to further Donald Trump's own interests, the interests of people who work for Donald Trump like Steve Whitkopf and Jared Kushner, who are over there doing side deals for themselves. I mean, what we are seeing right now is completely sick. And make no mistake, this MOU is toast. Not that I ever thought it really had any teeth to begin with. I was hoping from the beginning, and, and I think we gave a very, very, very, uh, gave them a lot of latitude here and said that we really hope this thing works, uh, although we were, uh, very cautious about it and, and said that it likely would not. But just to see the way the United States has handled itself throughout this entire process, it, it really exposes just unfortunately the lies from our government and how they clearly do want this war to continue and want this war to escalate. Uh, excited to get into all the details because there's a whole lot going on.

First, you know, we got to check in with Jordy. Jordy, what's the latest?

Brothers, mighty, mighty, it's great to be here. Look, the worst person who could be in charge is in charge. You know, we've been talking about this for a while now. He is the most emotional president we've ever had. He is the most psychotic president we have ever had. There is no rational thinking that goes in behind any of his decisions. And here we are again. Here we are again. Like, I'm not here to do like, I told you so. But like, you know, we've been talking about this when the man is in his home under his covers, rage tweeting or rage posting from his social media app. How weird is that? At 2 a.m. in the morning, blowing up the MOU. You, you know, it's going to escalate further. We are nowhere near the end of this, it seemingly feels like. And if anything, it just honestly to me feels like it's going to get worse, unfortunately, because at this point Donald Trump again has no idea what he's doing. And he's surrounded himself by a bunch of yes-men around him that just want to talk about how great he is and how smart he is and everything he does is like the best thing to do.

But the issue with that is Donald Trump only cares about one one person, and that's himself. He doesn't care about getting out of this war. He doesn't care about our military. He doesn't care about the American people. All he wants to do is glaze himself, put people around him that will glaze him. And for us, what does that mean? It means we're in an endless war. We are in an endless, pointless war at this point. And I don't understand how we will ever get out of this under the Trump regime, under the Trump presidency.

Ben, take a look at what he was saying in NATO and what his regime was saying yesterday as they escalate and attack Iran, hitting coastal cities. They even hit A little bit more on the interior this time, hitting like an airport nearby. Iran responds and they attack Bahrain and Kuwait. Meanwhile, the strategic petroleum reserves in the US get depleted. But let me just read to you what Donald Trump says over here. He goes, I would say in one day we knock down every single bridge in Iran. There's not a thing they can do about it. Their electric plants where they make their electricity, we will. We will if we have to. We'll take them all out. They have desalinization plants. We'll take them all out too if we have to. I mean, you're threatening like taking out their clean water supply, their electricity grid, their bridges, and their civilian infrastructure. You're saying that in NATO. And then when the Trump regime began their escalation and their attacks against Iran, the Trump regime reaches out to Barack Ravid, their personal stenographer, and he—

this is—

this was the quote that they gave him. We're going to slap them a bit so they understand we're not fucking around. We're going to slap them. That's how the United States of America is talking. We're going to slap them. And from the disastrous, catastrophic consequences that have unfolded already in this war, the lesson that you've learned is let's just threaten them more. Let's strike their coastal cities. Let's use more air power. And then they're going to cry uncle. And by the way, isn't that something that Donald Trump previously used, that language? They're going to cry uncle.

They'll give up.

They'll say, Donald Netanyahu, please come in and take us. That air power, those bombs. What do we do? I mean, if that's the lesson that you've learned, from what's transpired already, which you should have known before engaging in this unlawful and catastrophic war with Netanyahu. I mean, it's truly, Jordy, to your point, an absolutely lost cause. And big ol' Abbas— it's been from the outset and forever. And big ol' Abbas, Iran's parliament leader, says America still hasn't learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free. Let me put it plainly. If you strike, you'll get hit. Don't flail around pointlessly or you'll sink even deeper. The Strait of Hormuz will only open with Iranian arrangements, not American threats. And then CENTCOM posts the following moments ago: Iranian state media claims that transit through the Strait of Hormuz is only permitted through routes designated by Iran.

False.

Truth.

Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. Since early May, US forces have helped facilitate and successfully transit more than 800 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil through the vital international trade corridor. Oh yes, we all know that since May it's been open, everybody. Don't you all know that things were so normal back in May? I mean, the ridiculous things that Donald Trump spews is one thing, and it should never be normalized. When you've got seemingly him controlling the CENTCOM account as well, posting these things, there, there's just no depths to this depravity and shame that this regime will not bring us to. I mean, it is, it is a sight to behold. So let's take a look what was going down. During this disastrous NATO summit. You have Donald Trump there referring to Zelensky as Putin, and then he doubles down on it after and then acts like he wants to role-play and pretends that he is Putin because he called Zelensky Putin. So then he had to say, all right, ask Putin another question, I'll be Putin. Okay, first let me show you Trump confused referring to Ukrainian President Zelensky as Putin.

Putin, so you can see for yourself. Let's play it.

Do you have a question for President Putin? Do you have a question for President Putin? Not so much.

Oh, good joke there, Donald. Oh yeah, that's a great joke. Very, very funny. Very funny time to do jokes like that. And obviously he's not—

you know, he—

it's okay.

I mean, you know, look, you can misspeak once or twice.

Like, I—

it's, it's all good. But then he doubles down on it and pretends that that's actually what he meant, which he thinks makes it look better to then pretend that he's role-playing as Putin. I'll get to that in a moment. But then a reporter asks him a very basic question. So, and, and it's a Ukrainian reporter, but the question is very clear. What is your assessment on Ukraine's strike on Russian oil refineries and military factories. Very basic question. Ukraine has been using its FP-1 long-range drones, its FP-5 Flamingo ballistic missiles with a much higher degree of success. Ukraine has been striking these Russian refineries. What's your perspective on this, Donald? You're sitting next to Zelensky. What do you think? Here, play this clip.

Mr. President, what is your assessment on Ukraine's strike on Russian oil refineries and military factories?

Where are you from? Ukraine? Phrase the question differently, please.

Ukraine deliver long strikes on the Russian military factories and on oil refineries, and they ran out of gas.

Marco, why don't you answer that? Because you're right in the middle of it.

Yeah, no, I think what you're discussing is the ability of Ukraine to reach deep inside of Russia, conduct strikes I think that's one of the dynamics that's changed in this, in this war over the last few months, and that is that the Russians are finding it more difficult to defend their own airspace. Okay, by the way, I, I say this not to mock but to actually ask the question, like, do you think Donald Trump is able to understand anything that Melania says? And I mean, I mean, it was pretty clear what the Ukrainian reporter was saying right there. I mean, her accent wasn't in any way preventing anyone from understanding that question, not that there would be anything wrong with it. I mean, I understood what she would say. She repeated the question very clearly. He seemed to really actually struggle to even know what she was talking about. It was very clear what the issue was, and so he just punted the question to Rubio because what he wanted to talk about was deranged things. And this is what he was saying at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, that he would make the greatest communist in history like Lenin.

He calls Lenin Lenin and he says it really weird. And then he said, I would just make promises like, I will give you a free home. I will cut your electricity prices in half. You will be so rich you don't know what— oh, wait a minute. That is exactly what you did in the 2024 campaign. Oh, interesting. You didn't deliver on any of those problems. Interesting. As compared to Mamdani in New York, who's already stabilized the rent for 2 years, who actually did deliver on his— oh, interesting. Here's what he says in NATO. Here, play this clip.

I mean, let me just say though, isn't this that what they're doing right now with the, uh, sorry, with the gas stations?

I was like, I was like, I was like, uh, well, all of a sudden Donald Trump talks like Brett.

This is what they're doing with the gas stations right now too. It's so funny that Donald Trump does everything that, you know, they try to get up all up in arms about. If you look at who Donald Trump's like best friends are, they're what, Xi, Putin, all of the— I guess people you consider communists, I'd say the people who he's constantly praising all the time, particularly in the case of Xi. Yet Donald Trump goes out there and he's like, I could be the best communist. I'll just give you free this, free that. Then he's like, will you go to my free gas stations? Or they're not free, but they're $3.47 47 for the 47th president of the United States, because we are actually subsidizing these gas stations to make the prices exactly what you want them to be. It's like Republicans just don't have any ideology anymore, right? I mean, we've established this. You go back to the— what's it called— the convention when they had their kind of playbook as to like what the Republican platform is. They just said everything that Donald Trump wants. That's it. We don't have any other beliefs. And that's really just been the case, you know, before then and ever since.

Now, at least I guess they're admitting it. But these people pretend to be for free markets. They pretend that they're for capitalism. They pretend that all this stuff, and it just all goes away. Donald Trump just takes a bulldozer to all of it. And they go, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That's exactly, that's exactly what I was looking for.

I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin. I'd be, I'd be as good as anybody. You've got free rent.

After that, the bunker scene, Donald Trump is now taking questions from reporters on Putin's behalf. And he's speaking as though he's Putin. Do we have that one?

Last year you called Russia a paper tiger, referring that they're not doing—

who did I call?

Uh, I'm from Telegraph UA, Ukrainian media.

Uh, no, give us a question, not for Zelensky. Give us a question for Putin.

Why is he not speaking to him today? Yeah, good hard question. When will he end this war?

That's a good question. I don't think I've ever answered that question. I've been asking that question.

Mr. President, what's the status of a— say it.

What's the status?

By the way, I will tell you though, he's going to tell you that he wants it ended as soon as he can end it. He wants it ended. He wants to end it soon. And I ask him, and we talk. I talk to him a lot. I talk to him a little bit less But the relationship is very good. But I talk to President Putin a lot. He wants to end the war. Mr. President, a lot of people don't believe that.

Doesn't he want the status quo deal between Ukraine?

What are President Putin's conditions for ending the war? Do you know what they are?

Well, they were certain conditions that were a little bit different. I think they're changing. I think they're probably getting a little bit better toward some And that's what he says right there.

Let's role play. He goes, ask a question of Putin. I'll answer and I'll play the role of Putin. I want to stop the war with Zelensky sitting there. I mean, do we all realize how utterly deranged that is?

Brett, it all comes from, you know, the Roy Cohn school that Donald Trump grew up in. Roy Cohn was Donald Trump's mentor back in the day. And what was his big thing? It was never apologize, never admit wrongdoing. No matter how big or small. You just— you can never admit that you're wrong. And so that's why you see Trump contort himself now, especially with his declining mental state at this point, as he forgets more and more things. When he catches himself, he can't say that was a mistake like any normal person would do, right? Oh, I meant Zelensky, right? You can make the mistake. I've made similar mistakes before, but I'll say it's a mistake. I realize that I'm making the mistake. I don't double down on it and then act like I meant to do it the whole time and then create these other scenarios around it. And so You know, you see Trump do it there and then you see him do it at the Reflecting Pool. Right. You can't admit wrongdoing there. He can't admit wrongdoing when it comes to any of these situations, no matter how big or small. It's very Roy Cohn aspect about him that he takes everywhere.

And I just don't think that's what you want in a leader, especially when you're dealing with issues of war and peace, when you're actually trying to get legitimate information out there. But this is what we are dealing with right now.

Well, and it's so obvious the cognitive collapse is just on such full display these days, Brett, where to your point, it's that he— it's not just that he doesn't answer the questions, it's actually that I get the sense that he can't. That when someone asks him something very directly and it's very clear what the question is, he either says he can't understand you, "Ah, I can't, the accent, I can't understand," and then just decides to speak nonsense. Or if he is actually able to hear the question, he physically and mentally, like, can't internalize. Like, I don't know how to respond to this. So you know what I'm going to do? You're such a great reporter. That's a good question. It's a really good question. And now let me spend 5 minutes talking about why I won the 2020 election like that. That's his whole playbook now, too. It's because his crutch are his lies. His crutch is his celebrity. And I don't mean like celebrity in like a cool way. I just mean it in the way that, like, I feel like so often reporters kind of get like awed by Trump because he's whatever the heck he is.

And I do, though, have to give it up to these reporters here. Who have really done a phenomenal job, like really asking very pointed questions and then following up as well with questions that he doesn't answer. But at least they're on him to get the response that they're at least hoping for. I've noticed that throughout this whole sort of travel that they've done a really good job just at least pinning him to answer anything. And what show— what it shows me is that he is just incapable. He's incapable of giving rational thoughts and rational responses at this point. It's not an excuse. I'm not excusing his behavior, but I think the fact that he's the oldest president to ever be a president of this United States. People really need to start taking a look at what that looks like from Donald Trump, because his cognitive collapse is just beyond alarming at this point. It really is.

Yeah. Look at this next one where he says Islamic Republic of Japan. He goes, the Islamic Republic of Japan. Let's play that one.

We had 111 missiles shot By the Islamic Republic of Japan.

I mean, the Islamic Republic of Japan. And then when he goes in Air Force One, remember, he also— just think about the incredible waste, fraud, and abuse. So he made the old Air Force One travel to pick him up in Turkey, in Ankara, be— and then covered up the fact that the Qatari Air Force One really wasn't equipped with the necessary defense capabilities to fly back to, uh, where it needed to be refueled at the Royal Air Force Base in the UK. So then Trump claimed that the Royal Air Force Base was going to be used as like a museum showing for the Qatari Air Force One, because that's how he was going to honor the troops, by letting them see the Qatari Air Force One. Then took a photo of them in front of the Qatari Air Force One jet in the UK to be like, hey, look everybody, this is why they were really here. But the real reason is seems to be that the old Air Force One had the defensive capabilities that the Qatari one didn't, that everybody warned about. But in any event, when Donald Trump was flying back, he makes up that Iran, like the country, calls him.

And they said, they called me, we— they want to make a deal so badly because we destroy, we destroy their military. And they want to make a deal so badly. Or play this clip.

We have many ways we can win, but we've already won militarily. They have very little. They have very little left. And they want to make a deal so badly. They called a little while ago. They want to make a deal so badly. I just don't know if they're worthy of making a deal. I don't know that they're going to honor the deal. That's—

Oh, Donald Trump, the arbiter of who honors deals. Literally the guy who breaches every deal. His whole life, doesn't do deals, destroys, breaches, breach this MOU. You're going to tell me I'm going to see if they'll honor this guy who has no honor at all? Let me, let me just be very clear. I did a lot of videos of this, so I don't need to just continue to hit this point, but focus on these strategic petroleum reserves. We're about 19 million barrels away from not just hitting functional tank bottom, but really putting us in an emergency situation. The strategic reserves that we have in Cushing, Oklahoma are sold to a global market. And that's part of what the Trump regime is doing in addition to, in my opinion, engaging in a massive short selling scheme for the price of crude in order to bring down the prices of crude The issue is that that's not necessarily bringing down the prices that the refineries are selling at, which is a different marketplace where you ultimately need the, the, the actual— it's, it's not paper trades, it's the real refined product, which becomes your gasoline or diesel or other distillation.

It's why it's often called a 3-2-1 crack spread because The spread is measured as the delta between, or the difference between the price of the crude and the refinery price that they use for the 2 barrels of gas and the 1 barrel, which is either jet fuel or the diesel. And so that spread price right now, that crack spread is about $65 a barrel, which is at an all-time high, like a record high. And that's why you're not seeing relief at the pump. And when Donald Trump has escalated this right now and escalated this war, what that's going to put a huge amount of pressure on, uh, is the strategic reserves. And we're 10 days, 11 days now or so, um, from hitting the emergency area where the whole system may just like shut off. And that's a major, major issue that Iran is aware about. And so Iran's strategy basically is control the Strait of Hormuz as much as possible, don't allow any ships to go through that U.S. lane that U.S. is trying to open up by Oman, continued deterrence there. By striking the ships, which they did. Let the U.S., you know, it's going to attack you, you strike back, but keep your fast boat capabilities and kind of run out the clock.

Iran's been able to get out about 50 to 60 million barrels of oil since the U.S. blockade has gone away. Last night, Iran got out 10 million barrels. So if you're like, well, why isn't Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz yet?

They're—

they have a strategy. They need to get rid of about 50 million more barrels, and they have a buyer in China. And those teapot refineries in China buying them all up, and China's buying— they got a buyer, and China's involved in this strategy too, you know. And, and this is being heavily coordinated. Foreign Minister, they know what they're doing. And so they're pushing it out, which, let's be clear, in Iran, it's not like Iran's like making it, right, you know. It's not like they're like— their, their people are like thriving financially. And we'll talk about this, Brett and Jerry, when we come right back. But they have a strategy of, okay, we can now make it 18 to 24 more months now, um, with this strategy.

Think about this too, right? You have the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, they will very soon hit rock bottom, uh, tank bottom rather. Um, you have the Pentagon right now heading for bankruptcy. Like, the Pentagon has run through its nearly— remember that $1 trillion budget, the biggest budget in history? And now Trump and the Republicans are like, we need $1.5 trillion for next year. You're like, one and a half trillion? That's like double what it was last year. That's absurd. I thought we were going to rein in military spending, not get reckless with it. Well, we're almost now out of all the money. The Pentagon is almost out, totally broke. And so now there's a lot of panic about that. And there's debate about the funding over the money. There was right now a package that's been kind of in limbo right now to provide tens of billions more dollars to the Pentagon because people don't like the answers. There were politicians of Democrats don't like the answers that Donald Trump has been giving on this war because he continues to lie about it. So we have a Pentagon that is going broke. You have the oil reserves that are being depleted.

You have our munitions throughout the world being completely depleted. You have our bases being hit, key infrastructure being destroyed. And so you have Iran sitting there and they're like, all right, we're going to play chess. We're going to sit this one out. We're going to let this all happen. And Donald Trump, you say that we don't have the cards. Well, we know that you don't have the cards. We knew that you didn't have the cards before because we were also looking at the data. And we also know you don't have the cards because you admitted it live on television a few weeks ago. You confirmed what all the data said on live TV a few weeks back when you said that your advisers told you that you had about 4 weeks left to make it through in terms of oil supply or the economy was going to go into a catastrophic recession/depression. Those were Donald Trump's words just a few weeks back. And so they know this, they know this. And so Trump right now is at a stage where I think he thinks he needs to escalate and just really try to shock and awe right now and make a big show out of it and see if he could use firepower to scare them one last time in these final moments.

But Iran knows that all they have to do is sit back and chill. And so this entire strategy, the whole premise of the military effort by the United States from day one. Even if you agree with this war, and let me be clear, I don't, but even if you agree with this war, the entire military strategy was based on a completely false premise. It was based on a complete and total lie. I don't know if they were lying to themselves by thinking that the people in Iran would say, oh, Donald Trump, Bibi Netanyahu, yes. So you choose our next ayatollah. That's exactly what— remember that lie back in the day? Donald Trump said that they wanted him to choose the next ayatollah and he was going to— I mean, just think about it. It sounds stupid back then. It sounds even more stupid today. But this is the stuff they were telling themselves. They were going to go in there, be greeted as liberators. I've heard this my whole life from the United States government. It's not even just Trump. I heard this with George W. Bush going into Iraq. They're going to greet us like liberators.

You just see, I've been lied to into these wars as a country now for decades and decades and decades. Trump may be the most just brazen about it. But many presidents before him have done the same exact thing. And it's a flawed premise when you don't actually understand who you're going up against, what their goals are, what the people actually believe. And that is a huge fatal flaw right now for the United States military and their very kind of macho, we need to blow it all up kind of Team America kind of strategy, which just is not applicable to this kind of warfare.

Exactly. And look, this goes back to something you said earlier, Brett, too, about just Republicans standing for absolutely nothing anymore. Like, as the Pentagon goes broke with the out-of-control spending that we're seeing, like, you lose me, Republican voter, MAGA voter who votes for Trump, Republican voter who votes for Trump. When you're like, you know, I'm socially liberal, I'm a socially liberal guy, but, you know, my policies— I'm fiscally conservative, though. And so that's why I'm voting for Donald Trump, because he's going to He's going to do good things, man. He's going to do good things with that. No, no, they're all like, no, you're a liar. You wanted to vote for Trump because you want the ICE raids, right? That's why you don't like the Mexicans. Get out, get out of the country. That's why you voted for him. Just be man enough and stand up and say that's why. I wouldn't respect you for saying that. I think it's a horrendous thing, but at least you're being honest at that point. Don't give me the, oh, you know, fiscally conservative. So no, you're not. No, you're not. Because time after time, the Republican Party has showed us exactly who they are.

They are warmongers. They are just imploding budgets left and right. They have no fiscal conservative financial bone in their body. They've exposed themselves. They've exposed themselves to their own con. And it's absolutely infuriating and ridiculous that generations of future Americans now have to live through the trauma that is the Republican Party.

Let's take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, we have a lot more to discuss on the Midas Touch podcast. A reminder, subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio. Even if you don't listen to audio podcasts, start right now. And if you do listen to audio podcasts, please make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch audio podcast. Also, there's a QR code that may make it easier. If you just click that, boom, you can subscribe right away to the audio podcast.

All right, in the other direction. Ben's finger. There it is.

Really? For me, it's—

it's like, Ben, it's like, like weathermen and like weather people. Like on TV, it's always the opposite.

I'm not a weatherman, Jordy. I'm a YouTube newscaster. Let's take our first quick break. Have a good one.

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Yeah, I mean, I just think that this is why it's important to have competence, to be transparent with the American people, to reflect what the strategy is it's why we're supposed to have a system of checks and balances. And it's appalling that Congress just doesn't work. Like, and, and it's a concerted effort too, and I believe with Trump and MAGA Mike, to basically just keep the House out of session for as long as possible and not do its job.

There should—

we should be talking every day about war powers resolutions. Congress should be zealously guarding its Article 1 authority in order to stop this unlawful and catastrophic war, uh, right now. And they're not even showing up. Not even showing up.

And you mean that in the literal sense? Like, they, they don't, they don't work. Congress doesn't work. They don't show up to work. You know, I, I don't know this stat to be exactly 100% correct, but if you're looking at it side by side, days that they've taken off versus days that they've been off, been office, I'd bet that they've not worked more than they've worked this year.

That's why it's so offensive, Jordy, when like— so, you know, I got to give a hat tip to Pablo Monriquez, our D.C. bureau reporter who, you know, is on the ground getting the Capitol Hill interviews. And he got that wild clip of Representative Troy Nails from Texas, Republican congressman who's retiring. Apparently he's got like an evil twin brother who's going to run for the same seat. And so there's going to be a guy who looks exactly like him. They're both wacky.

With the gun in hand and everything, like the whole—

I think the whole thing.

Yeah.

Cartoon villains, man.

Yeah. Cartoon villains. And, you know, and Pablo, you know, asked him a question like, you know, what's your message to people or Americans struggling about affordability? And I know this clip got like, like, I don't know, 5+ million views or something. And Nell said something like, you know, 4th of July, I'm going to be having some lobster. I'm going to have some steak. It's going to be great. It's going to be— I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm doing amazing. I'm going to be with my friends. We're going to have all this lobster tail. And like, they are okay with being so brazen about it also. Like, where if any sort of Democrat said anything like that, it would be a story for weeks. And like, they would chase the people out of Washington, D.C. And then Julian, a reporter from Dropsite who does a— Julian does a great job. He was on the Capitol. He asked asked the follow-up question, um, wait, like, don't you think that's a little out of touch that you're going to be having a lobster? Like, what do you think that says to your constituents? Like, that you're bragging about this excess that you're having?

Not that you can't have lobster, but that you're bragging about it when asked a question about affordability for your constituents? And Nels goes, uh, Nels, Nels's comment was like, oh yeah, I just probably work harder than them. I work harder than them. So, you know, if they, if they wanted to work as hard as me And it's like, dude, you're a member of Congress. Do you know how much respect people have for your profession? Let me give you a hint. It's below zero. Okay. No, people do not like Congress as a whole, and they certainly do not like seeing Congress leave D.C. all the time. Now, there are certain functions sometimes for Congresspeople to leave D.C., right, to hold town halls, to meet with their constituents, to do work back home. And that's completely acceptable. But most of these people are going back home and they're taking vacations. They're chilling. They're like Troy Nells having their lobster dinners, their steak dinners, and not only having it, which is fine again, but rubbing it in the faces of their constituents who are struggling and who can't.

Also, because, because of this, to just understand that when Congress isn't in session, you still get paid. Troy still gets to collect his paychecks. He doesn't have to work and get paid. Now, name me other professions where you don't have to show up to work to get paid, to get a paycheck. That's why Troy's like, man, those lobster dinners. I just love these lobsters. I could come to the office, don't have to come to the office. I'm going to have a great holiday. I don't need to do anything because I don't care about you, American person. That's the Republican Party, man.

That—

like, I know I keep singling them out, but when they are the single party that continues to disappoint you in ways where it's so obvious that they don't want to help the American people, knowing how great this country could be if everyone just worked for it, if the people who represented us actually gave a damn. Ah, and you see the Troy Nelses coming down from his steps talking about his lobster dinners when you can't afford gas, when you can't afford groceries, man. It really, it just, it boils my blood. It just, it really, really does, Ben. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

When I was watching Mike Flood, the Nebraska Congress member's town hall, and I saw, you know, there were so many compelling images that I saw. You know, I saw a father with his severely disabled son woman saying to Mike Flood, you know, the so-called big beautiful bill is really hurting us. It's preventing my son from getting the access to the care that he needs. And we're the type of people that you're accusing of like defrauding the healthcare system. You know, when I saw a woman from his district who said, I have a lot of family members and friends who are severely sick right now, and I know people who have died because they haven't been able to get healthcare services because you took away their healthcare, and they're not able to get screenings, they're not able to go to checkups, and they're dead now. When you then see how cavalierly— I mean, look, at least the guy showed up to a town hall. I mean, I mean, whereas no other MAGA Republicans are. But when he's there and he acts like the one big beautiful bill, as they call it, which is the disastrous bill, is helping people.

And you see the people saying, no, no, it isn't. He's like, yeah, the real issue here is we're just— we're targeting, you know, all these fraudsters on Medicaid and you got to work and you got to work. And Jordy, to your point, you know, y'all aren't working. Congress isn't working. And you're accusing people of of taking, what, Medicaid healthcare services. Like, that's how you're accusing them of getting rich off of Medicaid healthcare-related services. Where the waste, fraud, and abuse takes place is not at the patient level. It's at the Rick Scott level, the MAGA Republican senator from Florida, who would operate this company that would do double billing and false billing. It's the right wing. It's the people who Donald Trump pardonings, that that's the— that's where the waste, fraud, and abuse is occurring, not at the people. And constantly this Trump regime is attacking the people over and over and over again. We're speaking about Republican Congress members right here while they're not working. You have, you know, this guy, this guy who I'm going to show you, he's the Intelligence Committee chair for the— it's not just I'm showing you any MAGA Republican Congress member, right?

I'm showing you the guy, the person, who's supposed to have access to the most intelligence, right? He's the chair of the intelligence community of these United States of America right now. He goes on the various state regime networks, and here's what he said this morning. Here, play this clip.

You see these, um, astroturf crowds supporting the regime in Tehran, but I don't believe that propaganda. I think the Iranian people Iranian people are supportive of the United States coming in and helping them to achieve liberty, and I think that's the direction we need to go.

Oh, for sure.

The Iranian people are thanking President Trump.

It's all over social media.

I think, I think to myself, I'm so blessed and lucky to have started this Midas Touch Network with you all so that we can just have an outlet that's bigger than what you just saw to tell the truth. For those on audio, what we're sharing with you is the most recent images coming out of Iran for one of the final days of this funeral procession. These are from today, correct? Um, and this is in Iran from today. Yesterday and the day before was Iraq, and then 2 days before that it was Tehran and Qom in Iran. So it was Iran 2 days, Iraq 2 days, and Iran today. And today was in Mashhad. And you had objectively tens of millions of people. And so Rick Crawford will tell you Iran is bankrupt, they're broke. Then he'll also tell you they're paid actors, it's astroturf. So what they paid with their bankrupt country, they've managed to figure out how they were going to pay 10 million people, not just in Iran but Iraq, to coordinate this astroturfed, uh, event in multiple countries that, that are— that have huge Shiite populations. Or perhaps, or perhaps the Ayatollah is the basically like the equivalent of the pope for the Shiite community, a political and spiritual leader for the Shiite community.

And even if you say the Iranian regime does not have the support of the majority of the people in Iran, so be it. And I think you can make a reasonable argument to that extent. The support and the strong support of a substantial portion of the population, and this is, I think, an undisputed fact, is very evident. And if anything, the behavior by people like Rick Crawford, Trump Magazine have brought people closer to the regime, to the ayatollah, to the IRGC, to the leadership structure in not the Islamic Republic of Japan but the Islamic Republic of Iran, um, than ever before. And so when you have the head of the intelligence community say that that, after all of the data that this was some astroturf thing, right now you go, wow, wow, these people are either— and it's probably both— the most malicious and heinous liars or the biggest idiots. And regardless, you get the same outcome, which is catastrophic for us, because these people are saying, we'll be— they're still to this day July, we'll be greeted like heroes if we just show up. They, they want Trump. They want Netanyahu. They don't. They really don't.

They really, really don't in the biggest possible way. Yet that guy is the number one guy in Congress, in the intelligence community, saying that.

And then you have him saying it to a Fox host who then parrots it as if it's just the truth. Yes, that's what everyone in Iran wants. Everyone in Iran wants the United States. Yes, that's what they're all asking for. And, uh, you know, and we covered the pro-democracy protests in Iran back in February. Um, you know, it was, uh, there was a short window there where it seemed like, uh, you know, there, there may be something happening. You see the crowds here, you know, these are massive, massive, massive crowds, uh, in Iran. What do you— why are you guys doing that?

Oh, because I mean, there's the scale and scope and size and everything I mean, it's my— I mean, you know, I certainly think that there was large crowds, but then Jordy were like nodding their heads at me.

And like, oh, I mean, look, that's what I was getting to, right? Yeah, that's, that's literally what I was ramping up to was before you guys were making funny faces at me.

I wasn't making funny faces.

You look at the scale and scope of what we see right now. And it's, you know, it's, it's vast. And you look at these pictures, and it's as far as the eye can see. And not only is this just a reality, they're not paying all of these people to be there. But in addition to that, one of the things that you see is this rally around the flag effect. And I think oftentimes, you know, it helps to look at the perspective of what's happening in other countries if you thought about it as if it were your country, because for some reason we treat countries in the Middle East and countries that aren't European oftentimes as if they're like barbaric, like alien. Or like aliens or something. We'd like think they have like zero motives for the way they feel about the United States. We think that everything just happens in a vacuum. I mean, think about all, you know, all the things that they say right now. Think about all the things that Bush used to say. They hate us for our freedom. They hate us. That's it. They hate us for our freedom. That's what they hate us for.

I think they hate us because we blew up maybe a commercial airline jet in the country in the '80s. I think they hate us because of all the invasions and instability we've created in the region because of all the massacres, the millions blowing up.

A little girl school doesn't help.

Stealing, stealing their oil. I mean, they hate— they have a lot of reasons to hate us, right? Like, we have to understand these things don't happen in a vacuum here. And so when we go into a country with shock and awe the way we did, when we bomb it, to Jordy's point, when we blow up a girls' school, when you have Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth going on TV every single day and saying things like, we will rain down fire and fury on Iran, when you have Donald Trump tweeting things like, tonight we will annihilate an entire civilization, we will destroy Iranian civilization for good. I think even the people who may be even against the regime may take that a little bit personally still that you want to wipe out their civilization and may think, okay, I got to buckle down right now and now I need to defend And it's not just about this regime even, it's about thousands of years.

And can I say one thing, Brett, to add to that? Even the way the Trump— and I'll pass it to Jordy— even the way the Trump regime treated the FIFA team of Iran and mocked them and treated them like crap in sports, you have to remember even secular Iranians watching the behavior of how you treated their football team, which regardless of their views in Iran, they feel a great degree inside Iran of pride in their football team. The way you treated them like absolute trash, like cockroaches and the worst, would rally people around, you know, would rally. And, and, and it's— and this is what we went back to before in the episode, which is, you know, it is malicious, it is malicious, evil, idiotic, all combined into one. And the outcome ultimately is also very harmful to people here in the United States and the rest of the world and in Iran.

And let me just say this too. Iran, of course, the Iranian regime is propaganda. Every country has propaganda, right? And they're going to pump out their propaganda as best they can to try to win people over. I, of course, I'm not, not going to argue with that as well. You know who else has propaganda? Like I said, every other country in the world. The United States has propaganda as well. But I got to say, we've been really frickin bad at it, like as bad as could be with the propaganda. Because if from the beginning of this war, if we truly wanted to win over the hearts and minds of the Iranian Iranian people, you would not have Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth going out there threatening to blow up entire civilizations. You would not have them out there threatening to kill people. They would actually be saying opposite things. They would be saying things to appeal to the Iranian people, to appeal to people who might oppose the regime, to try to actually build a movement that could overthrow the regime. But I— and I like to, you know, I know when people say, when we give these other perspectives, you occasionally get a comment like, how could you— are you doing pro-Iran regime.

No, I'm not. I'm just telling you what's going on here, okay? And this is just what's happening. If the United States actually wanted to do something here, they could have done something more intelligent. You know, I don't— I obviously don't support this war at all. We shouldn't be there. But if they were going to go through with this, maybe like, I don't know, consult somebody who knows a modicum about the country, about the region, somebody who knows what actually appeals to the Iranian people, something that you think could actually get get through to the Iranian people and inspire people. And let me tell you, I assure you, it is not Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump showing up on their television saying, I'm here to help you, and then blowing up a girls' school the next day, firing missiles into their neighborhoods. What the hell was the plan? What is the plan? There is no plan. And it's just the dumbest people running things that are doing it in the most malicious ways. And it just goes to show you, like, Like, if that's the guy, Ben, who you just played, who is like the top position in our intelligence community, those are the people that are making decisions about this still.

And then you wonder why we're losing the war. You wonder why we're getting totally outmaneuvered when it comes to either warfare or information warfare propaganda. It's because we have these idiots who refuse to acknowledge just basic facts because they want to pump their chest and say, go America. America, USA, USA, when it's a lot deeper and more complex than that.

My genuine worry with where we are right now in this war with Donald Trump and his just full-on dementia-addled brain that we see continue to take shape here is we're going to get to a point very soon, uh, that there's no coming back from. I think Donald Trump is getting frustrated with where where we're at in this war, that he is losing and he knows he's losing, no matter how many times he wants to say that he's winning. And my fear is, knowing the malignant narcissist that is Donald Trump, that knowing that he wants to put his fingerprints on literally everything— think Golden Arch, think reflecting pool, think anything that Donald Trump has ever done with his life, putting his name on everything— he likes to see his stamp on there. My genuine fear is that he's surrounded himself by all of these yes people that are either playing dumb. They're like smart people playing dumb or dumb people trying to play smart here that will just do exactly what Donald Trump tells them to do. And my real concern is that he does something in a bombing war capacity that there's just no, absolutely no going back from at this point that could genuinely escalate to like a World War III level., type of, type of situation.

And I know that might sound like I'm being hyperbolic in the situation, but I'm not ruling anything off the table at, at this point. He is so erratic with his decisions, and the people surrounding him just want his approval. And also, to a certain degree, he's kind of running out of time, right? Like, he's running out of time to put that finger— those fingerprints on. I think where most people see see Congress moving in these next couple of weeks, months, with the midterms coming up, is a blue wave to a certain degree that may impede Trump's ability to do that. And so within these next few months— I'm not making predictions, that's a disgusting thing to do in something like this— I'm just simply expressing my fear and concern with how quickly we could really start to see escalation now that we've seen a continuation of the war. Not that it was ever stopped, really, but now that he's already doing what he's doing and we're seeing these new bombings come through, I think anything's on the table, Ben.

Right.

And the—

again, you go back to how could you possibly have these exact— since this is a great point that Brett made— how could you have the exact same déjà vu talking points from March, I mean, to now? We should never have had those talking points at all. Um, but how could you not see the lesson that was so obvious? The lesson— and the lesson couldn't be more in your face right now as you see the Shiite Shiite community showing up and others, not just Shiite community, I saw a bunch of other people as well, you know, in Iraq and Iran for the Ayatollah's funeral and other countries showing up there. And how could your conclusion be after seeing that, just objectively, not rooting for them, just how could your objective conclusion be actually all those people there actually love Donald Trump and Netanyahu and they're actually just astroturfing this entire thing and all their signs and all of their presence and all of the things that this is all actually part of their plan to want. I mean, how could that truly be your conclusion? And if these are the people coming up with that conclusion on that, think about the conclusion that they draw on every single issue, on everything that they do.

You know, it's one thing when you say, I'm gonna paint the reflecting pool blue, in order to get rid of the algae problem and the algae comes back. It's obviously disgraceful and gross, but fortunately the repercussions are just this kind of grotesque thing, although Trump makes it worse by like arresting people and turning it into, you know, part of a fascist agenda. But in theory, the consequences are light. But what happens when you lie about your beef exports? Totally. And it turned— a Reuters report says, actually, we just exposed that the Department of Agriculture overstated their beef export number, their sales, by 90% and just made up all of these countries, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to revise its late June U.S. beef export numbers down 90%. Quite the error, as we say on the Midas Touch Network. Okay, you have things like that. What happens when these people say, actually, no vaccines, and then you say no vaccines to your military, then everybody gets, you know, illnesses and actually there's a reason why we actually did that. Or worse, when you have massive deaths and measles outbreaks and all of these things taking place, or you cut USAID aid and there's millions of deaths and hundreds of thousands and millions of deaths across the globe, or you get into catastrophic and unlawful awful wars, and then your conclusion is not, hmm, recalibrate, change decisions.

No, it's double down. Yeah, what we did, let's just keep on doing that over and let's do more of that. That's a real fatal process or lack thereof that keeps repeating itself. Let's take our last quick break of the show. We, when we come back, we still got a lot to say. I want to talk about what some of these people were doing on the international stage, what we saw all over there. Also a reminder, subscribe to Midas Touch on audio wherever you get your audio podcast. Subscribe on audio and we appreciate you. You can click that.

Can't click it.

Good job.

Thanks, Brett. On my side, it's right there.

For the audio listeners, there's a QR code on the screen.

There's a QR code, audio listeners.

Scan to check it out.

And I understand what you're going for, by the way. Brett is on that side to me. And you're on that side.

So sometimes I'm looking your way.

What's on this side to me? Yeah, I know. I get it. I get why it's confusing.

This whole thing's been a whole big revelation.

Wow.

All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

We'll be right back.

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Just think about it this way. When Donald Trump was at the NATO summit, he continued to threaten to invade a NATO member. I mean, just think about what I just said. He was there, he kept on talking about the reason he hates— he's at a NATO summit and he says the reason that he hates NATO or is angry at NATO is because they wouldn't give him Greenland.

Here you go, Donald.

Here's Greenland. He also talked about how he wants to embargo Spain, another NATO member, and that he said to Mark Rutte, the kind of feckless Secretary General of NATO, uh, can you kick them out, Mark? Can you kick out Spain? We don't want Spain in NATO. They're mean to me. It's like, Spain's met its commitments.

They're good.

I don't like Spain. And by the way, the Prime Minister of Spain at NATO Said, yeah, I talked to Donald Trump. They're like, was he aggressive to you? Did he threaten you? And the Prime Minister of Spain was like, no, it's normal conversation. We talked about the World Cup, exchanged pleasantries. Was that before or after he said all of those things at the NATO summit? After. So after Trump said all of these things— embargo, we hate Spain, Spain's the the worst, the worst people. When he was in front of your face, all you did was talk about the— yeah, he didn't say anything, didn't, didn't say a word. It was just a normal conversation, you know. And that's the thing too, you know, when Donald Trump with Giorgia Meloni, keyboard warrior, posts a restraining order regarding the leader of Italy, the prime minister of Italy. And then remember, he was asked about it and he was like, yeah, no, I mean, I was just upset that you wouldn't let us use the bases to invade Iran, but you know, otherwise we've gotten along. And it's like, oh God, but you said restraining order. You accused the Prime Minister of Italy of basically stalking you and being obsessed with you.

And now when you're there and you're asked the question in person, you, you don't want to, you don't want to stand on business and say why you did that. You, when you see the Spanish Prime Minister, Spain's Prime Minister, you don't want to, you know, confronted by this. By the way, it's something that Obama said recently on a podcast more broadly about the culture. And frankly, it's a culture that also is very kind of Trumpy. And it's a big problem for lots of future generations who have all they've known is kind of Trump, sadly. You know, you think about this for when I spoke to Governor Shapiro, this is what he said about his son, not only his son too, other people, that all they've kind of grown up with is Trump. And they see that as someone in the Oval Office and in a leadership position. But what Obama said is, you know, whenever I'm with Trump, we're at an event and he's in front of me, he'll never say it to my face. He'll never go there. He'll never confront me. There's no Obama. It's always normal. And he always, you know, acts like he doesn't post these things.

And Obama's like, because he's afraid, he's scared. And that's a real— you know, it's not— this isn't a Democrat, Republican, independent thing. This is a real issue. Character. Character really matters. And to see the lack of character, the—

the—

people talk about slop, right? It's like AI slop and slop. It's like Trump's like walking slop. And to see that represent the United States at the NATO summit, was, is, is deeply disturbing. Like, there's no one who should be proud of what they observed. I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, or independent. That wasn't strength. That wasn't respect. That wasn't competence. That wasn't anything. It was, it was really— and, and the world leaders look at him not scared they just look at him as like this walking blob, this walking slop, this, this thing, you know, and you saw there with some of those other clips that we showed you of Zelensky, go back and watch them, don't have to play them again. Zelensky was there. He had to get the licenses in order to do Patriot intercept, to get Patriot interceptors. Zelensky wants to make it himself. Trump has depleted not just our strategic petroleum reserves but our munitions. So it's also one of the reasons why we can't even sell some Patriot interceptors to Europe for Europe to give to Ukraine. And Ukraine needs them because Ukraine can stop the Russian Shaheds, which are Iranian-made drones.

Uh, they can stop the drone swarms from Russia, but they can't stop the ballistic missiles unless they have Patriot interceptors. Interceptors. And the Trump regime says they've run out. It's also, I think, a maliciousness of withholding the interceptors. But I do think that we've depleted our munitions for Patriot interceptors that were, that were given to Netanyahu and that were given to Middle East countries and moved all over the place, and that we've used in the region as well, in the Middle East with the catastrophic war. But so like Zelensky is like, all right, just get through this, get through this, get the license. You need the license. You need the license. 'Just say license. I'm doing this for my pe—' You know, and, and it's, it's that, you know, it's that, you know, I despise— I despise— I mean, that despise maybe is the strong word— the, the behavior of Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, and how he treats Trump. And it's, you know, 'Yes, sir. Oh, you were very good. You're a very strong man. Yes, you are, Donald. Yes. Oh, everybody loves Yes, yes, yes. Oh, do you want—

we call it the Trump trillions.

Yes, Donald. Yes. Like, it truly makes me want to puke to watch that behavior. But I bet you, I bet you if you were to— and I'm not trying to be a Marc Rutte apologist, but I bet you if you were to ask him behind the scenes, he would say, yeah, I know what I'm doing. I'm— I am going so— he's doing it so over the top also. That it almost feels like a parody when you watch it because it's so embarrassing. Oh, yes, Donald. And they'll be like, oh, like they'll say in front of like while Trump's there, like, well, what do you make of him, you know, saying this, that, and the other? But it's good. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, look, I know the level of strength of this man. Have you seen how strong he is? This is a specimen to behold. And we've never— we've never had someone— and you watch it and you're like, like, oh my God, this Rutte guy's like deranged. I bet you if you speak to him very, very privately, he goes, look, Zelensky's getting the license, you know, Ukraine hasn't fallen yet, and everybody was expecting that it would.

We've got to drag this on 2 more years. I literally treat the guy like a toddler. Isn't it obvious how I treat the guy? You know, you know, with the charts and the this and that. And again, I do not want to apologize for it because when I want, I actually think if you stood up to Trump with strength, you'd get a better outcome and you would stand on business. And frankly, I think it's a— but I bet you that that's— but so you watch that and then Trump's like, "Oh, I like you, Mark, but I don't like Spain. They're mean to me. They're mean to me." And then you have Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, And here's what she says when she was asked kind of a tough question. But Trump's threatening to, like, invade one of the territories that are part of the kingdom. Like, are you going to— you're ready to go to war? Like, what's— what's going on there? Like, that's happening at NATO. Here, play this clip.

Denmark ready to militarily defend Greenland. An extraordinary premise, but is it ready to militarily defend Greenland if there is an attack from any party.

We are ready to defend every inch of NATO, including our own territory. But one of the reasons why we have built NATO many, many years ago is if anything happens to one of us, then everybody should stand up for each other. I mean, Article 5 is our insurance. It goes for the eastern flank. Right now with the hybrid war coming in from Russia. It goes for US when they were attacked 9/11, and the same goes for Greenland if anything happens in our direction.

Now I'll just say this and I'll toss it to you, Brett and Jordy. Like, when I, when I see her speak, when I see Prime Minister Carney speak, when I see Friedrich Merz speak, when I see Starmer I see Macron speak, when I see the Australian Prime Minister speak, when I see, you know, a lot of these world leaders, you know, when I see a lot of these world leaders speak, I, you know, even when I see Giorgia Meloni speak, you know, who's a far-right politician, whether it's, you know, Albanese You know, in Australia, left wing, left center, or whether it's Georgia Meloni, who I probably disagree with a lot of our views, you know, or whether it's Mette Fredriksen or whether it is Ulf Kristofsson or whether it, you know, I at least see, you know, I at least see adults, grownups dignified Spanish prime minister, you know, speaking. And then I see, you know, then I see the United States. I don't like him, Mark. I don't like him. I don't like him. I don't like you. Affordability, that's a hoax. It's a hoax. It's a hoax. Lenin, Lenin, Lenin. And I'm just like, gross.

Just gross.

Right?

It's such a— they're so confident in their stupidity as well, which I think is like the overall overriding trait. They go around not only just in the United States but around the world making utter buffoons of themselves, even when they are just objectively wrong, which is most of the time. And they've trained the kind of MAGA people also to just be so confidently wrong. And then they like spike the football when they like— they don't understand anything about American history, simple facts, anything. This is the Dunning-Kruger effect, as they call it. On steroids. And this made its way to Midas Touch, actually, when the White House yesterday tried to attack Midas Touch. The ultimate display of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which, like, you know, it was just genuinely, like, very funny to our entire, like, Midas Touch team because we're like, what are they even talking about? What are these people doing? Like, they didn't make any sense. It backfired so badly at them. They made such utter fools of themselves. And now there are articles clowning the White House for trying to come at Midas Touch. And the comments in their comments section now are all people basically making fun of them.

And I'll just guide you through this quickly because I found it, you know, entertaining, and I want to show you some of the attention, uh, you know, that we're getting from this regime. And so what happened was the, uh, our editor Asin, uh, who many of you know probably from posting clips on various social media platforms— Asin does a great job, and, and he does things like, you know, Asin will just post things like like, not inflammatory, not putting his own spin on it. He just posts what happens or what people say. Okay. And so he posted this, uh, video of JD Vance. Uh, he was, uh, somehow unironically holding an event on, on fraud, getting the fraudsters, even though all the fraudsters are in the White House and are people pardoned by Trump. And, uh, Asin wrote, Vance pointing to a picture obscured by light, and Vance says, Look at this woman. And so what Vance was doing is he was trying to show one of the fraudsters the Trump regime got, and he was pointing to a sign that was just totally— there was a glare on the sign from the light. There was a reflection, a glare on the sign.

And so people watching it on the stream were unable to see what Vance was showing. Now, instead of being normal human beings and, I don't know, not commenting at all or understanding how glare works and how light works. The White House decided to attack Asin for this post. This is how big of snowflakes this White House is. And so the White House writes the following, and just think about how deranged this is. For— if I wrote this, I'd be like, check me into a mental institution because this is a weird thing to say. The White House responds to Asin's very innocuous post just explaining what's going on from the Rapid Response account, official taxpayer funded account. And they say, your dumb ass is shielding a criminal who stole $2.4 million in taxpayer-funded benefits meant to help at-risk pregnant women and women with young kids. She's spending the next decade in federal prison thanks to this administration's relentless work to end the fraud. You dumbass. You dumbass. They say to Asa, the nicest guy ever, they say to Asa, who simply posted a video of what JD Vance was doing. So in effect, they thought that Aysen, I guess, blurred the photo, not that JD Vance put the photo down, put the poster board down with a light glare.

And I'll show you this clip right now. I got B-roll of it over here of JD Vance putting it so we could debunk the White House together in real time. He puts the photo down and it's in the light glare, unable to see it. JD Vance points to it. The White House decides to call Mightest Touch and Asin dumbasses and not the guy who did it himself. So in effect, the White House called themselves and they called JD Vance dumbasses. Well played, White House. Well played. Another genius, genius work by the White House comes.

Did you ever— I'll ask this to Jordy and I'll toss it to Jordy. Did you ever think that the White House— I remember my trip to the White House when I went with Dad when I was 5 or 6 years took my first trip to Washington, D.C. I still remember it. It was right around the time I may have been a little— it was right around Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1992. So I would have been 7 years old actually.

And I remember— majority visit, wow.

I remember the awe of seeing the White House and they were getting ready for the inauguration. And I remember we bought a White House salt shaker that I always had in my room room. It was this little White House salt shaker. Dad got it for me at like the one of those stores right there. And I don't know if that's what led me to end up going to Georgetown or have this, you know, always have this soft spot for DC. But the White House, you know, the show The West Wing, you know, all of— and now the White House in— is saying, you dumbass Midas touch. You dumbass. That's how, how, how, how is that where we are?

You used to, uh, used to binge The West Wing, Ben, before binging TV shows was like common. I remember the, the cassette was— no, not like VHSs in your, uh, in your—

before Jordy's time. It may have been DVDs.

It may have been—

maybe they were DVDs. They were— I was trying to age you up a little bit. Uh, that's my biggest fear too, um, for the future generations. Like, we all have kids kids, as the brothers, we all have kids. I have another child on the way, super excited about that. Spoiler alert. Our standing as a country, it used to mean something. At least it used to feel like it meant something. It used to feel like we had respectable leaders that wouldn't make fools of us on a world global stage. Honestly, it did. You know, say what you want about any single president that has led up to this moment. Everyone has had their fair share of gaffes and things like that. But at the end of the day, what really it felt like was, for the most part, the presidents that we've had in this country tried to put the people first, or at least try to better the standing of the United States in a world view. Donald Trump and the Trump regime, they don't— they could care less. They, they do not care about this country, in my opinion. They hate this country, actually.

They are the most anti-American administration that we've quite frankly ever had. And now we're in this sort of like bizarro world where we're going to have future generations grow up into that are going to have a White House responding to them as, "You dumbasses. You dumbasses." Like the White House and their branches and their offices, it used to mean something. Like it just used to be dignified. At least they tried to pretend it was dignified. And now what we see here is just an utter embarrassment day in and day out. The United States is in embarrassment right now under the Trump regime because they act like children. I'll say this, though.

I, I believe in— I believe in people and not leaders. And I think that countries are the sum of their people and not the leadership of those countries. And I think that could apply to countries who are our adversaries. I think that applies to the United States. I think we have listeners right now that are in all over the world. We have listeners right in the UK and Australia and Ireland, Canada, all— I can keep going through countries all over the place, right? And I think they understand that there is a lot of good in this country. And I think even as I was saying in the last episode, seeing folks come here for the World Cup, as horribly as a lot of people were treated by the Trump regime, them getting to see the people people in this country and them getting to see quirky, funny things about the United States of America. You know, I think that's what, what really makes America special. But here's the thing, I think that makes the country— that's what makes the country special. And that's what I think people would take away from, right? And as we go through this world and, and work towards a, a kind of world without this virulent strain, which will, I think, always exist in some form, you know, I think that, I think that people will see that and that the good of this country will show, just like, you know, we see the good in, in so many countries around the world.

And that we'll be able to, uh, you know, maybe not get back to this, the stature that America maybe once was, uh, viewed at, but I think that, uh, you know, I, I think that people understand that we're not our leaders the same way we understand that they are their leaders.

Absolutely. But, but, and we can't get complacent, right? We can't just expect that our world standing is going to just be fixed once Trump is out of office, once there's a new administration that takes over. Like, there's a lot of legwork that's going to have to be done in order to rebuild our standing in the world and really, you know, try and just get this stank that is MAGA off of this country once and for all.

Benji, I want to thank everybody for watching this episode. We covered a lot of ground. We'll continue our breaking news coverage throughout the day, so make sure you keep on checking back on our YouTube channel. Also, we post those breaking news on our podcast feed as well, our audio feed. So make sure you subscribe to the Midas Touch audio feed. It really helps the growth of this network, and I often get asked, what can we do to help the Midas Touch network? Well, it's free to subscribe to the Midas Touch audio podcast. Even if you don't think you're gonna listen on audio, you never know. And I think you will like the audio experience also. So please subscribe there, leave a 5-star review on the audio. That helps the network grow a lot and it's free to do it. Thank you everybody, uh, for watching. Of course, I'll be with you throughout the next days and weekend. Um, but on behalf of the Midas Touch Podcast, we want to wish you all a great weekend. Uh, we're gonna keep on fighting for you every step of the way. We appreciate you, and we'll see you next time.

Jordy, take it away.

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