Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 1/6/26

The aftermath of Donald Trump's invasion of Venezuela is now being felt here in the United States and across the world. Donald Trump does not want the Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Machado, to lead Venezuela. Instead, he wants Delce Rodriguez, who was the vice president, now the interim president, who Donald Trump views as his puppet to steal the oil of Venezuela. That's Donald Trump's own words, to have America's oil companies go in there and just take it over and to take over the other resources of Venezuela. So if the Venezuelan community thought that Donald Trump cared about democracy in Venezuela, it's the exact opposite. Also, Donald Trump admits that he notified the oil companies both before and after the invasion of Venezuela, where Maduro was kidnapped. Donald Trump says he also really likes the word kidnapped. That's what we did. We kidnapped him. And notably, he did not notify Congress, but the oil companies, they got notice. Also, there was an important emergency session in the National Security Council of the United Nations, where Mike Walt, Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, says, The goal here is American domination of the Western hemisphere. It's basically a direct quote.

He didn't talk about the UN charter or sovereignty. He says, It's about domination of the hemisphere Then you had countries like China and Russia and Cuba going out there and speaking out against America disrupting the world order. This is one of the consequences when you engage in this imperialistic behavior the way the Trump regime is doing. It has a number of additional consequences and dominoes that drop. We will talk about that as well. We've seen countries across the world come out in defense of Greenland as Donald Trump has threatened to invade Greenland. He said, not right away, he said, but in the next few months, we're going to take it over, just like we did Venezuela. He said, we need their resources. He says that Europe wants us to have Greenland, the Prime Minister of Denmark, the Prime Minister of Greenland. Basically, all European nations came out against Donald Trump, saying he wants to take over Greenland. And folks, let's face this as well. This is all an effort by Donald Trump, not just to take oil and resources for himself and for his rich right-wing oligarch friends, but he also wants to distract from the Epstein files.

I think Donald Trump says, Wow, if we just focus on more wars and just we're in war all of the time, then maybe people will stop asking me about the Epstein files and why Trump and the GOP continue to cover up this child sex trafficking ring. Nope, Donald. With independent media now leading the way, we are going to continue asking those questions. It's notable as well that over the past 48 hours, the Trump regime was also required by the Epstein transparency law for the DOJ to submit a report regarding their review of the Epstein files and why they made redactions. The DOJ just simply said, No, we're not doing the report. The law says we're required to, we're not turning over the records, and we're not doing the report. Just missed the deadline. Didn't even attempt to put forward anything at all. We will discuss yet another crime. Also, we should talk about how Trump's Department of Defense, which unlawfully calls itself a Department of War, is now censuring and trying to institute proceedings to demote Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a decorated veteran, a pilot, an astronaut, because Pete Hegset is a little weak, disgusting human being.

Also, Governor Walls of Minnesota has decided that he will not be seeking another term after the Trump regime has relentlessly defamed him. Walsh said, Look, I don't want to be a distraction right now, and I think it's better despite the defamation and the lies for me to not run again and give Democrats a chance to win in Minnesota. We'll talk about all of this on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Brett and Jordi, it's good to see you. Again, for I was wondering what background that was where I was doing these videos. Over the past few days, my wife and I decided to take our little girl, our little baby girl, Ximena, to Disneyland, where she got to see the princesses and the characters. She had a good time, and I just figured as we head into a chaotic world that's already chaotic, let me just show my daughter Disneyland for a day or two before we get back into the full zone that we're in It's great to see you, Brett and Jordie. Great to be with the Midas Mighty in this new year.

Great to see you, Ben. Great to see you, Jordie. See, guys, the reporting doesn't stop just because Ben's at Disney. He's going to do reports from Disney. He's going to do reports from inside a maintenance closet. He's going to do reports wherever Ben is because you can't skip a day. Great to see everybody. What a start to this new year. I think what we're witnessing right now is what happens when someone's back is up against the wall. I mean, everything else is going terribly for Donald Trump. He's driving the economy into the ground. Things are getting so much more expensive. The public has completely turned against all of his immigration efforts. It's just one failure after the next. And so what does he do? He does what he actually accused Barack Obama of doing. Back in the day, he goes, I'm going to start I'm going to start a war. I'm going to start a conflict. I want to be a wartime President. And so naturally, he decides that imperialism is going to be the thing that's going to try to uplift him, and it's going to distract people from the Epstein files and all of his other failures.

That's what we are witnessing right now. This is a result of Donald Trump's failure. But this is why for months and months and months of this Trump regime, we've been trying to warn everybody that Trump is deadly serious about his imperialistic threats. It's why we've taken his threats against Canada seriously. It's why we've expanded to doing Midas Canada with Charlie Angus, getting his perspective, making sure that he's alerting our Canadian followers as to what's going on. It's why I've been speaking so much about Greenland, about Donald Trump's pretext for going into Venezuela, which I think on the last episode, we were speaking about all the lies and how Trump was ramping up for an attack just like this. I think he's serious about all this stuff, and we need to take all these threats seriously. Now we have a cornered man, a cornered rat, whatever you want to call him, and he is going to try to inflict pain now and take all the backlash and try to now attack every other country, anybody who does not bow to his whim. This is certainly a very scary time. I think that his plans are quite not working out as as he intended, as people are seeing through what his actual aims and goals are in Venezuela.

The people already do not support these actions. I've never seen anything like this. Usually, when a president takes the country into war, takes the country into conflict, he does so by making the case to the American people. He builds up a massive approval, and they at least start the thing with a lot of approval, like Iraq started with actually people approving of it, and then the people lose their faith, lose their trust. They see it for what it is. Well, the people have already seen what this is. The people are speaking up. The people are speaking out. I'm excited to get into it all on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Jordie, what's the latest in your end?

What's up, brothers? What's up, Midas, Marty? I'm stoked for today's show. A couple of things, Ben, before I toss it to you. Just a reminder for the live audience right now. Tonight, we'll be holding the Midas Touch State of the Union immediately following this episode. That's going to be exclusively at Patreon. Com/ Midas Touch. It's a live Q&A. You guys could ask us anything. We'll go for as long as we get as many questions as we get. So that's Patreon. Com/midas Touch. Join the live Q&A immediately following this episode here. Benji, I remember in the early stages of this podcast, you actually got kicked out of a stairwell one time when you were actively litigating cases and there was something wrong with the room or you already checked out, but you were so dedicated to doing the show that you did it in the stairwell of the hotel. And apparently, security was a little iffy on that, and you got the boot. We caught that live on camera. Lastly, Benji, what was my niece's favorite princess? Who would she like the most?

It's a good question. I do think she liked Pocahontas the best, although Belle was a very close runner up. So it was Belle, Pocahontas, and the Small World ride was her favorite ride. By the way, it was my favorite ride as well. My wife was like, You are mesmerized by this ride. I'm like, The amount of Small World characters they had there. I appreciate the art. There must have been 10,000 little characters. It was unbelievable, any event. Let's get into still thinking about it right now. I'm like, How long did it take? Who are the artists behind this? There's a whole rabbit hole I could go down I'm going to do research there, but I know. Focus, Ben. Focus. I want to talk about the events in the past 48 hours and really contextualize what's happening. I mean, obviously, we all know that Trump did this unlawful invasion of Venezuela. It might as touch. I think it was network out there that was bringing you the live footage of what was happening in Caracas and some of the surrounding areas. We were so early with it that lots of people almost were like, How are you getting this footage?

And how is it possible that nobody else- They were like, Is this real?

Is this actually happening? I don't see this anywhere on TV.

I'm like, No, I'm not just going to go live with a fake war. What do you think is going on? Then a few hours later, all of the other news finally was able to catch up with But it was important for us right away also when we were live to discuss it with moral clarity. We never wavered in what happened. We called it an unlawful invasion, which is what I believe it is. There was no congressional authorisation for it. The way I described it at the time is I said, this must be what it feels like when you live in Russia and Putin says there's a special operation taking place and you're not supposed to question what the special operation is. That terminology The operation is actually what's been used by this Trump regime to claim, actually, it's not an invasion, it's not a war, we don't need to go to Congress. This is actually just a law enforcement operation to take a fugitive who's on the run. They go, Maduro is a fugitive. And so this was just the DOJ conducting an arrest. So before the United Nations, you had Mike Walt, the United States ambassador to the UN.

We'll show you those clips in a little bit. So this is just a law enforcement operation. But while he's saying that, Donald Trump's like, No, we're taking it all over. It belongs to us. They stole our oil. This is for the oil companies. We're going to make our oil company so rich on this. And Trump was asked, Well, what about Maria Machado? What about the main opposition leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize, who many believed would be the leader once the Maduro regime was out, either Machado or Edmundo González, who when Machado was banned from running in the July 2024 election, González was the person who ran, and she supported González. González, many believe, won that election by 70% of the vote. People believe there was some popular mandate for González. Would it be González? Would it be Machado? Would it be someone from that opposition? Donald Trump is like, No, no, no, no, no. They're like, Why? And Trump's like, Well, she doesn't have the respect of the people in Venezuela. Nobody likes her. She's a nice lady. She means well, but she doesn't have the respect. So people are like, Then who?

And ultimately, it became clear what Donald Trump's plan is to take Maduro's basically number two, Delce Rodriguez, because the American oil companies viewed that she was someone who would basically could work with the oil companies and give the oil of Venezuela to the United States oil companies and let the US take the resources from Venezuela and take the oil. They've at least identified her. Whether she's totally compliant with that plan is meant to be seen. But Trump just is like, Yeah, we're going to take Maduro and move him. We'll kidnap him. And Trump goes, That's the language. We definitely kidnapped him. But we'll take Delsy, someone Maduro's regime, and we'll continue with an authoritarian regime in there. But Trump's like, Why would I? He didn't say this publicly, but it's clear. He's like, well, if Machado is the leader, then she'll still probably want to do business with Europe. She won't go along with my plan when it comes to how we're going to divvy up this oil with Putin and Xi Jinping and what the sphere of influence plan is among the three authoritarians in the areas as Trump and Putin. And Xi Jinping see the world in theory, or as Trump sees the world.

And so Trump just wants his own puppet. He believes that's Delcey Rodriguez. Delcey Rodriguez was just sworn in today, and she looked perfectly happy. Venezuela National Assembly, inaugurated Rodriguez as the acting President on Monday. And this is how Trump wants to run it. And Trump humiliated and embarrassed Machado, Maria Karina Machado. All the reporting basically says the main thing that pissed Donald Trump off the most about Machado was that she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, even though she dedicated it in Trump's honor, even though she said the 2020 election was stolen and spewed all the MAGA lies and the MAGA talking points, it was just a bridge too far for Donald Trump that she would actually accept the Nobel Peace Prize because he wanted it. That was also one of the reasons. But I think the bigger reason, though, too, is that he wants his own authoritarian puppet there who he can control, and he actually views her or anybody. I mean, by the way, she's said and done a lot of things, notwithstanding the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado, that is, that has concerned me. I mean, the level of being a Trump bootlicker and a lot of other things she said has actually raised a lot of...

Has raised red flags, but there's no denying what took place in July 2024 when Maduro basically stole the election, that he lost that election, and that the Machado-Gonzales team was the team that won. Then Donald Trump also, Brett, I'll throw it to you. There's really no plan either for when Trump was asked, So is the plan, Delcey Rodriguez, short period of time, then you transition to elections, and then a Machado and a Gonzales or whoever, they get to No. Trump's like, No, that's not how I see things. We'll see how it goes. But he's like, Basically, Delcey's my person. The Maduro regime, just without Maduro. And apparently, it pissed Donald Trump off that Maduro was dancing, and that was also one of the reasons, too. Brett, what do you make of all of it? I'll show the clips, but I want to give the facts before the clips.

We should also mention that Delcie Rodriguez holds another interesting position other than, well, previously vice and now interim president. She's the oil minister of Venezuela. I think that's another reason why Trump wanted to elevate her in a total betrayal of Machado. I think even the Venezuelans who were watching Donald Trump make these statements who were initially celebrating and were happy about this, they all of a sudden heard Donald Trump say that, and they were like, Wait, what? What's going on here? I think we just got to step back here. This whole situation is insane. This whole situation is incredibly disturbing. Disturbing. The military action itself is clearly illegal, as we said. Maduro is obviously a brutal dictator who oppressed his people. But come on, the idea of kidnapping a head of state and prosecuting him under jurisdiction doesn't really add up. The charges itself are weird if you read the indictment. By the way, zero mentions of fentanyl, despite Donald Trump saying, Fentanyl, fentanyl, fentanyl, for the past few months about Maduro, about Venezuela, because no fentanyl actually comes from Venezuela. In the Court of Law, you actually to present evidence. Then there's obviously the hypocrisy behind it where you have Trump who is pardoning figures like Juan Orlando Hernández just about 30 days ago.

That's the former Honduran President who was prosecuted under drug crimes similar to what they're charging Maduro with. It's like, yes, Maduro, very bad guy. He silenced dissent. He's brutalized his own people. When I see the videos of Venezuelans celebrating, I genuinely empathize with them. I could imagine at home here, if Trump takes power, he refuses to leave, he refuses to hold free and fair elections, he's in power for decades and decades and decades, and then some other country plucks him out, takes him away. I think we'd be celebrating, too. But I think we also have to urge extreme caution because we have to be honest about what's happening, and we have to make decisions based on what's lawful and what's actually in our interest, then what's to come because I want to be clear, Trump does not have the best interests of the Venezuelan people of mind. I could assure you of that. He supported already. We've seen him support the continuation of the Maduro regime. He threw Machado under the bus. He's elevated Rodriguez. Going back to before, imagine if Trump was ousted and everyone was celebrating, and then a Stephen Miller took power or a Vans took power, or something like that.

We'd be like, Oh, maybe that wasn't such a good thing after all. Now we got some really bad people in charge still, and things are going to continue to get worse. We've seen this play out so long. Throughout my entire life, we've seen what situations like this look like. We've seen it We've seen it happen in Iraq. We've seen it happen in Libya. We've seen it happen in Afghanistan. There are countless examples of us doing this and us seeing those videos of the statues coming down and people celebrating. And next thing we know, things are way worse for that country, for the world, for the United States of America. These things just never, ever, ever work out. And Trump has made his plan abundantly clear here that he is in this to extract the wealth and resources of the country. He's in it to colonize these countries. He's in it to take whatever he from Venezuela, and take whatever he can from Greenland, and take whatever he can from Canada, and Cuba, and all of these countries. And he has made it clear that he wants to build this American empire on the West that controls the entire Western hemisphere.

It's why we He'd been so set on telling everybody about Rubio's statements, which went so under the radar around the time Trump took office, where Rubio described the New World Order under the Trump regime as a multipolar world, whereby by which the United States operates the Western hemisphere, you have Vladimir Putin and Russia running Europe, and then you have China running Asia. That was their vision from day one. That's like the Project 2025 vision. When you see Donald Trump now doing this, and when you see them making the posts on their social media that say things like, We own the West, we control the West, the Don Rohe doctrine, all of these things, it's not by accident. It's not a flippant thing. It's something that they actually believe. It's that they said that they would want to do right when they took office, and it's a plan that they're trying to carry out right now. That's why I'm saying you got to urge extreme caution. I'm telling the Venezuelan people, be careful with this, and I'm telling the entire world, everybody who Donald Trump is threatening right now, be extremely careful and take this guy seriously.

He is a maniac, and you've seen that he will do it, and I'm assure you that he will do it again.

Well said. I think you both cover that perfectly. I just wanted to answer this. Donald Trump, his ego is so fragile, you can crack it just by looking at it, or I guess in this case, dancing. The Trump regime, man, they don't give a damn about the people of Venezuela. They don't give a damn about giving them a voice. Trump isn't liberating the Venezuelan people to install a pro-democracy government. He doesn't care. He's liberating them, Brett, to your point, from their assets and from their resources to enrich himself. Because, again, ultimately, it all comes down to this. Donald Trump only cares about one person and one person only, and that is Donald Trump. Benjie.

Take a look at the emergency United Nations Security Council meeting that took place. It was such an odd thing to see, though, because usually it's America leading a coalition. We could say what America is leading in the past are good things or bad things. But America has always been part of the rallying call of coalitions and it at least pretending to be the good guy and saying, We stand for democracy, we stand for freedom, we stand for sovereignty. Now, you have every right to question if those words were congruent with the underlying conduct, sure. But to see the United States at the National Security Council all alone talking about domination, dominating the Western hemisphere, and then using this Orwellian language of, We conducted a special special legal operation, and it wasn't actually a war, while at the same time talking about dominating the Western hemisphere and then having China as a voice of reason, condemning the United States to uphold the UN charter, and then you had Russia basically rubbing it in and saying, Oh, so this is the global order that the United States has always been talking about. I got it. This is what you've meant for all of these decades.

This is part of the consequences here that if the US says that it dominates the Western hemisphere, then Russia says it dominates Europe, which, by the way, Trump has basically rolled out the red carpet, quite literally, for Putin to do that. If Donald Trump says, I'm running a special operation and a law enforcement operation against Maduro, or I'm going to kidnap him, what stops China for saying, I'm going to do that with the President of Taiwan? Heck, China called up Donald Trump a few months back, remember, and said, Don't let the President of Taiwan even land for refueling in the United States. When he was on his way either to Central or South America. Donald Trump complied with Xi Jinping, what's stopping Putin to kidnap Zelenskyy and say, This is just what we do now. We kidnap. This is what you do. The United States is doing it. Then what? The United States goes to the Security Council, You can't kidnap. When Donald Trump said, I love the word kidnap, I love the word kidnap. When the order, the global order of America as a leader promoting democracy ends and you have the United States engaging in this behavior, it has a lot of consequences that need to be thought out.

I mean, you don't think that if Obama or Biden wanted to take over Venezuela, you don't think they couldn't do I mean, obviously, you see the disparity in military power. But the question is, when you use that power in certain ways, what are the consequences a day, a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line? And smart leaders have to think about that. But for Donald Trump, it's just oil, oil. I'm taking their oil. So first, let me just show you in the National Security Council. This is Mike Walsh, the guy who was previously a national security adviser, who was part of the leaking of the signal chats with the attacks in Yemen. Then he either got promoted or laterally transferred to become the ambassador to the United Nations. Here's what he said today about this is about controlling the Western hemisphere. It was shocking, but nothing should shock me. But when I heard this, it just put a pit in my stomach. Here, playing this clip. As Secretary Rubio stated just yesterday, this is the Western hemisphere.

This is where we live, and we're not going to allow the Western hemisphere to be used as a base of operation for our nation's adversaries and competitors and rivals of the United States.

You can't turn Venezuela into the operating hub for Iran, for Hezbollah, for gangs, for human intelligence agents, and other malign actors that control that country. You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States, under the control of illegitimate leaders, and not benefiting the people of Venezuela, and stolen by a handful of oligarchs inside of Venezuela.

That's just a completely brazen and shocking thing for Walsh to say, and it sums up exactly what we were talking about, their views. They're setting the pretext right there, what Mike Walsh is doing, in order to justify any action anywhere, at least in the Western hemisphere for now. He's saying, If you have resources and you are an adversary of the United States, they should be our resources. If you have resources and you're a competitor of the United States, they should be our resources. The United States, under this new doctrine that we've come up with under the Trump administration, reserves all rights in order to just take it on over. That's what they're saying, and they're not even really hiding it.

Let's show the other clip above walls where he said, This is not a war. He goes, This was just a legal operation. This is just a law enforcement. This is basically how you arrest people. Everybody knows that that's what we do here. Let's play back. Colleagues, the United States successfully carried out a surgical law enforcement operation facilitated by the US military against two indicted fugitives of American justice, narco-terrorist, Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores. Colleagues, Nicolas Maduro is responsible for attacks on the people of the United States for destabilizing the Western hemisphere and illegitimately repressing the people of Venezuela. As Secretary Rubio has said, there is no war against Venezuela or its people. We are not occupying a country.

This was a law enforcement operation.

As all law enforcement operations, about 880 people die. There are bombs dropped by the military. There are troops on the ground, as with all regular law enforcement acts, just like arresting a drug dealer on the side of the street, right, Ben?

That's at the same time that Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former leader of Honduras, who was right-hand or buddies, whatever you want to call it, with El Chapo. In Trump pardoned a guy that during his federal trial, there was evidence. You could see the guy's transcript in his conversation with the cartels. The guy said, We need to get those drugs up the gringo's nose, and we need to kill him. The guy was sentenced to 45 plus years. He's responsible for actually bringing into the United States massive quantities of drugs that killed people. And Trump pardoned the guy, and then Trump was asked, But you pardon that guy. And then Trump was like, Yeah, but what do you expect me to do? My people told me it was a good move, so I'm going to do that. All this is about is what Walt said in the first part, which is dominating the Western hemisphere. And Trump has Bukele in El Salvador, now in Honduras, where Trump interfered with the elections there. He's got a puppet leader who will do what Donald Trump says there. Donald Trump believes he has a puppet in Delce Rodriguez, although we'll ultimately see how that dynamic plays out.

You did have the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations speaking out forcefully against the United States. But a lot of that could be a virtue signaling for people at home based upon a preconceived imperialistic plan that may have been hatched before. But I don't want to fully rule out what could develop there. As Donald Trump makes clear, he's not hiding it. He goes, I want to use Delsy to give me the oil. So how that ultimately plays out, I think it can have a very destabilizing effect right there. Then Donald Trump threaten Colombia, Greenland, Cuba, Mexico with invasion, with war. I mean, that flight back from Florida, back to We'll play you some clips and we get back from our first break. But it's Donald Trump having this bloodlust. I think in Trump's mind, he goes, I just keep doing this. I'll make this next year about invasion and invading all of these places. Then maybe they won't talk about the Epstein files, and people will just cover the invasion and the war. As Trump was describing, and I won't show the press conference from over the weekend because we've covered it in detail, but that press conference Donald Trump had over the weekend after the invasion where Donald Trump was like, it was like watching a TV show.

It was like riveting to watch. I think Donald Trump gets off like watching this stuff as well. He set up the room so it looked like and it was like a worse version, like a C-list version of the Obama room getting bin Laden.

Did you see behind them on the screens? You would think in one of these situation room type settings, you'd have the best intel on the planet. You're getting the best information possible. They quite literally had Twitter open. They had multiple browsers of Twitter. They had a bunch of different tabs open. If you zoomed in on the high-quality images, pages. Each of those tabs were different random Twitter accounts, and this is how they were following their operation.

But by the way, also, what we know from this Trump regime, they are very just... They need to know what the Twitter sentiment is at all times. That's how they are dictating their policy, and that's how they know if things are successful in their minds or not is what Twitter X is telling them.

Well, we'll talk about that and more when we come back from our first break of the show, A Reminder, The Midas Touch State of the Union address follows this live. So for those watching here, go to patreon. Com/ Midas Touch, where we'll hold that State of the Union. We'll open it up to questions as well. So we look forward to doing that. A reminder, you may think you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, but double check and make sure you're actually subscribed. And subscribe to the Midas Touch podcast on audio as well. We're really making a big push for the audio podcast this year, so just double check. Even if you don't think you're going to listen to it on audio, still subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio because you really never know, and it also helps with the algorithm, and you probably will end up listening to it on audio. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. Thanks, everybody. We will be right back.

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That's going to be on the top of all of our audience's mind as they saw the ad, so I'm glad you addressed that.

Yeah, exactly. I'm going to propose in the future that when you do your bets, maybe the consequences can be off the air. They don't have to actually influence production. But let's see, you and Salty are top editor. High stakes.

Or they could be even higher stake punishments. I mean, that's easy. That's an easy one. Let's face it. Jersey?

All right, ready? Let's talk about... I just want to talk about just over the past 12, 24 hours. While all of this is going on, I mean, Donald Trump's posting like an absolute maniac, right? I mean, there's posts like this one from moments ago. Pregnant women, don't use Tylenol unless absolutely necessary. Don't give Tylenol to your young children for virtually any reason. Break up the MMR shot into three totally... It's like, I could keep going on. But why are you giving false medical advice to women pregnant woman. It's creepy, it's odd. And this is the guy who takes... What was the medication that he takes over and over again? Aspirin, 325.

He's guzzling Aspirin.

He's guzzling Aspirin because he says that it makes his blood thin, and he doesn't want thick blood. A guy who last week talked about, actually, he doesn't know the difference between an MRI and a CT scan. He says someone wax his hand, and that's why his hand is You guys are being a little too harsh on the guy.

If he doesn't want to listen to those woke doctors and he wants to keep guzzling that aspirin, just keep guzzling that aspirin. You don't have to listen to those woke doctors, Donald.

It's fine. He's posting messages like this or reposting messages. I like that Trump is circling back to voter fraud from 2020, just in time for the 2026 elections. Trump forgets nothing, especially the hell the Democrats put our country through. So he's been doing hundreds of posts in the past 24 to 48 hours, lying yet again about the 2020 election. An IT expert, after gaining access to a forensic image of Dominion, shows that Dominion rigged the systems, including the United States, on November 2020, and most recently, Brazil. Trump votes were switched to Joe Biden in seconds by slimply changing the index number. Again, totally false, completely a lie. And he just posted over and over again, Testimony from multiple 2020 election workers find that all these deceased people voted. All lies. Every one of these things lies. The lawyers who lied about them refused to put forward evidence before federal courts. Lots of those lawyers were sanctioned and disbarred or faced other serious consequences. But this is what this maniac is posting over and over again. Also, I know a lot of people focused on Katie Miller, Steven Miller's wife's post, where she did an image with the American flag, and she says, Coming soon.

The one to me that was more alarming was Trump's official rapid response account, the Trump war room account, where it was an old photo that was made, but they We did the photo with Donald Trump holding a bat or a club that says Don Roe doctrine on it. It's like a political cartoon, and it's Donald Trump stomping on the entire Western hemisphere. His feet are on South America and America, right around Canada and Alaska area, and he just straddles over with the Western hemisphere. This is what the Trump regime talks about over and over again. They call it the Don Roe doctrine that they should seize and take the resources from the Western hemisphere, that if you're in the West, if you're not a vassal state of the United States, that Trump reserves the right to invade you. That's what's going on. Let me share with you just what Donald Trump said on Air Force One. A reporter asked Donald Trump, Are you going to demand that Delce Rodriguez, now the interim President, allow opposition figures to return or free any political prisoners? It's one of the important issues. Watch what Donald Trump says in response here.

Play this clip.

Go ahead. No. Are you going to demand that Delce Rodriguez let opposition figures return or free any political prisoners? We haven't gotten to that yet. Right now, what we want to do is fix up the oil, fix up the country, bring the country back, and then have elections. No. Is it fair- We better bring the country back. Otherwise, you're just going to have a mess that's so bad. It was really bad. It's going to get a lot worse unless we go in and fix it.

So then he's asked, Well, what do you need from Delce Rodriguez? And he goes, Access to their oil. Here, let's play this clip. The other one. In your short term, next two weeks, what do you need from Delce Rodriguez?

You You've threatened Delce. Total access. We need total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country. What other things? A lot of things. Rodes that aren't built, bridges that are falling down. You have bridges that are falling down. Nobody can go anywhere.

So did you speak with the oil companies before the operation? Because you didn't speak with Congress. Did you speak with the oil companies? Here, play this clip.

You spoke with them before the operation took place. Yes. You maybe tipped them off. Before and after, and they want to go in, and they're going to do a great job for the people of Venezuela, and they're going to represent us well.

The oil companies. Of course, I told them. Not Congress, the oil companies. Just want you to think about how dangerous that is. Then Donald Trump refers to the sick neighbors of the United States, and he says Venezuela and Colombia, and that he would like to do an operation in Colombia, he says. Here, play this clip.

And successful, and where the oil is allowed to freely come out because that's good. It gets the prices down. That's good for our country. Now, we have a very sick neighbor. It's not a neighbor, but it's close to a neighbor, and that's Venezuela. It's very sick. Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.

What does that mean?

He's not going to be doing it very long.

He's not doing it very long. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing it very long.

So there will be an operation by the US.

It sounds good to me. What is your review mention? You know why? Because they kill a lot of people.

Actually, the leader of Columbia, Gustavo Petro, has done a lot to actually fight against the cartels in Colombia. Trump wants to bring back the dictators who actually supported the narco-terrorists. That's who Trump wants to see come back into power in Columbia, the same way that's who Donald Trump wanted and now has in power in Honduras. That's what Donald Trump has with Bukele in El Salvador. That's what he's looking for. I mean, that's his end game here. Trump has asked about Greenland, and Trump says, We need Greenland right now. Then he lies and says that it's covered with Russian and Chinese ships. It should also just be noted that the United States basically has full access to Greenland military militarily based on prior treaties between the United States, Greenland, Denmark. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and Europe to control the area as part of a military alliance. So there is a treaty that's been in place for a very long time that gives the US a ton of authority with a military base there. But Trump wants to control it. He wants it on the map to say America. Here, play this clip.

Let's talk about Greenland in days. On Venezuela, we talk so much about- By the way, I will say this about Greenland. We need Greenland from a national security situation. It's so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russia and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you. You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland? They added one more dog sled. It's true. They thought that was a great move.

That's not true. They did beef up security in the area. He mocks Denmark. Let I read for you a statement from the Danish Prime Minister, Metta Fredrickson. I believe one should take the American President seriously when he says that he wants Greenland. But I want to make it clear that if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO, and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War. She's saying, You do that, there's no more NATO. Nato is over right there. The Prime Minister, Premier of Greenland, put out the following statement, We have been a close and loyal friend of the United States for generations. We've stood shoulder to shoulder in difficult times. We have taken responsibility for security in the and not least for North America. That is what true friends do. Precisely for that reason, the current and repeated rhetoric coming from the United States is entirely unacceptable. When the President of the United States speaks of needing Greenland and links us to Venezuela in military operation. It is not only wrong, it is disrespectful. Our country is not an object in great power rhetoric.

We are a people, a country, a democracy that must be respected, especially by close and loyal friends. We are part of NATO, and we We are fully aware of our country's strategic location. We also understand that our security depends on good friends and strong alliances. In that context, a respectful and loyal relationship with the United States is very important. That has been the case for decades. But alliances are built on trust, and trust requires respect. Threats, pressure, and talks of annexation have no place between friends. That is not how one speaks to people who have repeatedly demonstrated responsibility, stability, and loyalty. Enough is enough. No more no more insinuations, no more fantasies of annexation. We are open to dialog. We are open to conversations, but they take place, they must take place through the proper channels and in full respect of international law. And the proper channels are not random and disrespectful posts on social media. Greenland is our home and our territory, and it will remain so. Also, most European leaders put out statements in support as well of Greenland and Denmark and spoke out against Donald Trump's very dangerous rhetoric right there. I'll just show you this other clip right here.

This is Lindsay Graham saying, Cuba, you're next. Watch out, Cuba, we're coming for you. Let's play this clip. You just wait for Cuba. Cuba is a communist dictatorship that's killed priest and nuns. They've prey on their own people.

Their days are numbered.

We're going to wake up one day, I hope in '26, in our backyard, we're going to have an ally in these countries doing business with America, not narco-terrorists, dictators Americans. I think, Brett, let me call you back in, too. But it's also linking Greenland with Cuba and Venezuela, and Canada, and Mexico, all in the same bucket. The narco-terrorist label is like a denazification label. There are legitimate and strong ones that you could level at a Maduro, you could level at a Cuba. And there are legitimate ways to go about applying pressure, developing international coalitions, working through international channels like the United Nations. If ultimately you think that there should be a war, you get Congressional authorisation so that the will of the people can be heard. When people oppose such imperialistic adventurism, we could level our opposition through our elected leaders. But what this is all about and what Lindsay Graham and people see the video I did this morning, Lindsay Graham is like, whatever he's hiding about himself personally and whatever his own inability to deal with his own feelings about himself, that he has to think that he's this, Oh, this tough guy.

I'm a real alpha. I'm a in the face and the foaming at the mouth. What a weird human being he is. There's also, can I show you the... Do the Howard Lutnik clip as well. It was like Trump and Lutnik. Lutnik is like, And we're going to do deals. This is about business deals. We're putting companies to do this deal and that deal, and we're going to do this deal. I'm watching this. And Lutnik is this weird character as well. So let's play that clip if we got that one, bro. Are there any other companies that you talk to about dealing with Venezuela?

Maybe Mr..

Lutnik is talking about that. Are there any other corporations entities outside the oil business. Many outside of the oil business. Well, the oil business, yes, but outside, yes. Howard, do you want to talk about it?

Yeah, steel, you have minerals, right?

All the critical minerals.

They have a great mining history that's gone rustling So steel, aluminum, minerals, I mean, this is all. It's a rich.

It was once upon a time, one of the great economies and cultures of the world, and it was destroyed. And now President Trump is going to fix it and bring it back for the Venezuela.

We're going to take it. We're going to take the steel and their minerals, and we're going to take it all.

Let me just say this, Brett. I'll kick it to you in one second. I don't mean to make light of this, but when you see Lutnik and Graham and Trump there, they look like children that are at some sleepover who are trying to pitch to their parents why they should stay up later. The way Lutnik is creepily behind the door, like sneaking out with his nose, poking through. The whole situation is just It's just so strange. They are so deeply unserious doing very serious things where it's just infuriating. Sorry, Brett, go ahead.

No, I've never seen somebody get as horny for war as Lindsay Graham does. I mean, like Ben said, it takes over him. It's a bizarre thing to watch. If you are listening to this, I do advise, watch it on our YouTube channel because it is freaking weird when you see the passion that fills his face when he talks about bombing and killing people and taking over countries. It is quite disturbing. I'll say this, the pretext that they've said, as we said throughout this episode and other times, as Ben was saying before, the narco-terrorism thing, the drugs, the this, the that, it's obviously bullshit. We all know that's a fake. We all know it's a complete lie. We know it because there's so many examples of the hypocrisy, like Ben said, with Orlando Hernandez, with the guy who... Trump freed the guy who did the Silk Road. Trump freed a lot of other drug dealers. This ain't about the drugs. When you read the indictment, you also see, like I said, Trump Fentanyl, Fentanyl, Venezuela, Fentanyl, Fentanyl. Not even mentioned once in the indictment, as Fentanyl mentioned. Not a single time in the 25-page indictment against Maduro and the others.

But the thing that they are telling the truth about and the thing that we need to listen to are the things that Howard Lutnik said there and the things that Donald Trump has been saying, and that's that this is about one thing, and it's about the resources. That's what connects all of those countries, as Ben was saying. It's not that Greenland is a narco-terrorist state and Canada is a narco-terrorist state. Although you remember, what What was Donald Trump saying about Canada? He was also saying, There's a fentanyl problem. It's all coming in from the country. I think the statistic was that there are 40 pounds of fentanyl that managed to come through the border into the United States from Canada. Insignificant, just none, virtually zero. But Donald Trump was trying to accuse Canada of being this major drug trafficker sending fentanyl to the United States. Why? Because that's the fake reasoning. That's the pretext. That's the BS. The The real thing, though, is that they want to extract the resources and they want to make these deals with their oligarch friends to make them richer, to make themselves richer. There's a lot of sketchy things also going on in the background with people with insider information over these things, making deals in the background.

I think you have to monitor the whole situation, not to mention, what does this tell China? What does this tell Russia? China, who's looking at us, who's eyeing Taiwan and seeing that we're coming up with all these BS pretexts for doing these actions in the Western hemisphere, Russia looking at Ukraine, they've already made their BS pretext for taking over Ukraine. What moral authority does it give the United States to say, You can't do that? We have none. We have none. Donald Trump has blown up all the rules. I'm not saying we had a perfect record before this. Far from it. We've engaged in regime chains as I went through the list, both parties numerous times. But this is just something on another level that we have not seen. This is like very mafia-like, very mob-like, very like extorting you. Trump's philosophy seems to be, We're the United States of America. We have power. While other presidents recently have viewed that power as a responsibility to create a stable world order. Donald Trump views that power as something that you use to dominate over other countries and other people. You, country, need to bend to my whim and do exactly Exactly what I say, or we will take you over.

Same with this country, and same with that country. It doesn't matter if the reason is something actually very important to national security or if it's something incredibly petty like Maduro danced on TV and Donald Trump didn't like it. Gustavo Petro, he spoke out about Donald Trump's strike on boats and called Trump out, basically said that Trump was committing murder, said that he had heard from his own people, that there were people on those boats, fishermen on those boats, who were killed by Donald Trump. I'm sure Trump did not like that. I'm sure that's factoring in to Trump's opinions about Columbia and what he wants to do with Columbia while past presidents have had great relationships with Petro and other Colombian leaders. This is where we find ourselves right now. I think we just need to be completely clear as to what's happening, what Donald Trump is doing right now, and what he plans to do from here.

Well said. I just want to get into this. You bring up such a good point, too. It's very Mafia-esque. It's very wise guy-esque. I mean, you even look at them in their suits and their long ties. I try not to make this comparison much because I think there's been a romanticization about Mafia and mob life in this country, and it might make them look cool, but that's what it is. He's going around and he's like, Hey, if we can't agree to this or if you rub me the wrong, if you rub the Dawn the wrong way, I'm going to go break your kneecaps. I'm going to steal your oil. And that's that. I'm going to blow up your boats. I'm going to blow up your fish. That's what I'm going to do. So what? What are you going to do about it? And it's such a pathetic mentality. Really, it's a weak, weak mentality. And then I just want to touch on the oil companies here, too, because if we heard Trump correctly there, it seemed like he consulted with the heads of the oil companies before talking to Congress. That's what I heard. So let me just oversimplify this.

Mondoro, bad guy. Yet it doesn't give the United States and the Trump regime carte blanche to just drop bombs on Venezuela and kidnap him and forcibly remove him and his wife to the US without first going through the proper channels and procedures. You can't just unilaterally skip over branches of government in these ways You know who does things like that? Dictators. Did Trump speak to Congress? No. But he spoke to the heads of the oil companies? This tells you everything you need to know. It's so banana land, this country that we're living in right now.

Here's the thing, too. Did he really speak to the oil companies, or is he so delusional and narcissistic in his mind that he, in his own mind, is doing it for the... He knows he's going to shake down the oil companies at some point in time. So yes, maybe he talked to a person in the oil or Kutner spoke to some person, but did he even have the conversation? Or is that ultimately what his goal and objective is? Because I think if you spoke to someone actually thoughtful in the oil industry right now, I think that they would tell you, is that it probably costs on the low end, 25 to 50 billion in CapEx capital expenditures. If you were going to start to revitalize the Venezuelan oil industry and the type of investments that need to be made there, if you were a oil company and you had shareholders, you also want to determine if there's going to be a stable democratic future, what would be stopping somebody like Delcie or a future Maduro or a future authoritarian from renationalizing it if you were to make billions of dollars of investments right there. Just a question is, you need fundamental stability and plans.

The same reason why you actually don't see a lot of or why you've seen a manufacturing decline in the US, construction declining in the US. A lot of the uncertainty in the business community caused by Donald Trump waking up in his arbitrary capricious and maliciousness prevents businesses from doing the right type of planning. So the reality is what oil company, though, yes, there may be this allure for a greedy oil company of additional oil to be used, then has to be refined, by the way. But ultimately, who's going to make those investments without understanding what an actual plan is. So I just want to flag that aspect as well.

Do you think the oil companies really want to flood the market with so much more oil where it's going to then decrease the prices significantly and hurt their bottom line. That's going to be a factor as well. And like you were saying, the Venezuelan oil is a very particular oil, too, which is very difficult to refine. And it takes a lot more processing. You have all of these things that are actually working against it. We've even seen, remember, as the more oil leases, as there was more drilling under the Biden administration and throughout the past few years, a lot of these oil companies didn't want to drill on the lands that they already had permitted. It wasn't an issue of, Why isn't Biden doing more permits? The oil drilling was at its all time high under Biden, but the oil companies did not want to expand their oil drilling because they knew that prices would get too low and it would end up screwing them at the end of the day. I'm not even sure this makes sense from that business stance, but I do think there are going to be a lot of people like Trump and in Trump's orbit who are going to make a lot of money off this by extracting resources and in various ways.

I think they want to, and they're going to create the conditions for a speculative stock market for them to make a lot of paper wealth and then to cash out on the expense of investors and the greater expense of the American people, because that's what we've seen them actually do. But I think the question becomes, what is the plan? In these types of things, you expect there to be a plan articulated. And for Trump, it's just seizing their oil, running it, we're going to run it, and then appointing a puppet right now. What happens in the future, we're going to be reporting on in every step of the way here. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. A quick reminder, as soon as the show ends, head over to patreon. Com/mitistouch, where we will be holding our Mitistouch State of the Union, and we will be opening it up to questions for us. I'm excited to do that. I'm excited to see all of you there. Make Make sure you subscribe to this YouTube channel. You may think you're subscribed, but you may not actually be subscribed. When we come back, let's talk about the Trump regime covering up the Epstein files, which a lot of what's happening here is part of that.

Let's talk about Governor Walls in Minnesota, him announcing he's not running for another term. Let's talk about the censure by the Department of Defense, unlawfully calling themselves the Department of War against Senator Kelly. We'll talk about that in more. Let's take a last quick break of the 2025 is finally over.

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I think something I want to flag as well is a top Trump DOJ official reposted the following. So Ed Martin, who's Donald Trump's pardon attorney, who's also on Trump's weaponization committee as well, reposted the following. It's going to be wild when Maduro tries to bleed to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, as Anne Bauer writes. Hours before Maduro's first court appearance on federal criminal charges, a senior justice department official amplified a post speculating that the Venezuelan dictator would try to plea to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. Remember, a lot of Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election was that Hugo Chávez of Venezuela created a technology that beamed something into outer space that changed the boat tabulations and that this is being operated by Venezuela. I just want to put this on your radar. I mean, Maduro pled not guilty and said he's a political prisoner and that he's the leader of a country. That's basically what he said. That was all the statements that he made. But would it shock you if one of Donald Trump's other plans is to work something out with Putin to eventually send Maduro to Putin or to Turkey or somewhere else as was offered before in exchange for Maduro saying the 2020 election was stolen?

I flag that not to be conspiratorial myself, but when you have Ed Martin, the top DOJ official, reposting those things, and in theory, the DOJ is prosecuting Maduro, the charges against Maduro for having machine guns, a conspiracy to commit narco drug trafficking. It's going to be an interesting case, and they actually try to put this on against someone who is the leader of a nation and what that trial actually looks like. But anyway, I wanted to flag that piece of it right there for you. Just as they thought, we could come back to that part in a few weeks or months when inevitably, our predictions tend to be right on these types of things, Brett.

I mean, Trump is transactional, and he's crazy, and he's conspiratorial, and he wants to be right. I mean, one of his big phrases that he always says, even though he's wrong about about everything, as Trump is always right about everything. We know that this 2020 election that he keeps going back to, we showed the post from earlier today, we know that this is on his mind. It's not a coincidence that it's on his mind as he kidnaps, abducks the leader of Venezuela. It's all tied together. If Donald Trump can extract that from him, I think he's a transactional guy who could possibly let him off the hook. I don't think it's even conspiratorial to think that. I think that's how Donald Trump thinks, and nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. We're dealing with a psychotic man. We're dealing with a We're dealing with somebody who does not have any boundaries, and so anything could happen here. Honestly, just from a gut feeling, the whole scene with Maduro has just been so bizarre. The entire travel to the United States has been weird. Him with the DEA agents has been weird. He's got the thumbs up next to the agents.

I feel like every picture with the DEA agents or with the federal agents, they're all taking pictures with him like he's a celebrity. It's like you'd think the guy was like Timothée Chalame or something, watching him walk around these facilities. You see even the way he's behaving. There was that clip of him walking through the DEA facility in handcuffs. They did a little perp walk, and he was just like, Hello. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody. Actually, I have that clip. I'll play it quickly in case people haven't seen this one.

Good night. Good night.

Happy New Year.

Good Happy New Year. Thumbs up. A million pictures with D. H. Is this Nicolas Maduro or is this Justin Bieber? It's truly just bizarre, and it defies all logic. I think it's very possible that there's a lot more happening behind the scenes that we don't know that stuff that Ben was hinting at just before, that could be a reason for all the strange behavior because something is not quite clicking into focus for me, at least.

I don't want to make light of that clip that you just showed, but nothing else comes to my mind when you look at Maduro walking walking down saying what's up to the camera folks and people flashing. He looks like an athlete doing a walk into the game.

He's got dope outfits on. He's got Nike sweatsuits. I agree. I agree.

I have your hunch. I really do think your gut is 100% right, Brad. I'm a big believer in trust in Brett's gut on these things. And it's just the whole thing has just been bizarre. The photos that doesn't sound right. It's stankier than Trump right now. It stanks.

Something to point out to Charlie Angus has I've been saying on the Midas Touch Network for a long time. He started, and he's the leader right now of Midas Canada. He leads the Midas Canada Resistance Tour. By the way, he's going to be in Edmonton pretty soon. So go check out the Charlie Angus tour dates if you happen to be in the area. But he's been saying, We need to prepare for a potential invasion by the United States of Canada. It's like, The US is serious about this. And now the Globe and Mail Editorial Board, which is It's like the New York Times there in Canada, if you will. Their editorial board says, Venezuela's fate is a warning for Canada. Angus writes, When the Globe and Mail Editorial Board is warning that the Venezuela invasion represents a threat to Canada, you know how serious the menace is from the gangster fascist regime. I'll share this with you as well. I just want to mention this. The Japanese Prime Minister, Takeishi, says, That challenges to the international order are now gaining momentum in the Indio-Pacific, where we're seeing further military buildups by China and North Korea, as well as the strengthening cooperation between China and Russia and Russia and North Korea.

You had a missile test recently by North Korea, which under the Obama administration, when Kim Jong Un would test these missiles, people would go, Oh, he's so weak, Obama. How you're letting him test these missiles? That's just happening regularly right now under the Trump regime. It barely gets a passing mention, though, so I want to bring it here. Let's just round out this topic right here as I'll show you what the ambassador from China to the United Nations had to say during the United Nations meeting about strongly condemning the unilateral acts by the United States. Then there's another clip where he says, We urge the US to abide by international law. First, China is deeply shocked. Here, let's play the first clip.

On January the third, the United States blatantly launched large-scale military strikes against Venezuela, forcibly seized Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro and his wife and took them out of the country. It claimed that it will run Venezuela and even didn't rule out launching a second round of military operations on an even larger scale. China is deeply shocked by and strongly condams the unilateral, illegal, and bullying acts of the US. For some time now, the international community has repeatedly expressed grave concern over the US sanctions, blockade, and threats of force against Venezuela. The Council convened two emergency meetings during which Secretary General Guteresh, many Council members and countries in the region and beyond, unanimously called for abiding by the UN Charter and the international law.

Now I'll show you this one where that same Deputy Ambassador urges the United States to abide by international law and cease infringing upon the sovereignty of other countries. Here, play this clip.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, and indeed, internationally. China firmly opposes this, and the international International Community has also expressed widespread grave concern and strong condemnation. We urge the US to heed the overwhelming voice of the international community, abide by international law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, cease infringing upon the sovereignty and security of other countries, stop toppling the government of Venezuela, and return to the path of political solutions through dialog and negotiations. We call on the US to ensure the personal safety of President Maduro and his wife, and to release them at once. We support the Council in fulfilling its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security. We support all efforts by the Secretary General, regional countries, and organizations that contribute to promoting dialog and de-escalating the situation.

Okay. When I was watching that, I'm like, Why does China sound like the United States would normally sound at something like that? The United States ambassador is all alone. All of the countries are like, You know, like, condemning the United States action. The US isn't even talking about UN charter or sovereignty. We dominate the Western hemisphere. It's honestly one of the most shameful things I've ever watched, and I think this will be studied a lot in the future, what took place at that United Nations Security Council meeting. A few other things I just want to mention quickly. Governor Tim Walls in Minnesota announced that he will not be seeking re-election. He says that as he considered running again, he said that he decided not to run again. He said that, I won't mince words, Donald Trump and his allies in Washington and Saint Paul want to make our state a colder, meaner place. They want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors. And ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in America to raise a family. They've already begun that by taking our tax dollars that were meant to help families afford childcare.

And he goes, Look, we're deeply concerned about fraud. A lot of these cases were prosecuted under former President Biden. Governor Walls requested more authority to deal with fraud, which was rejected by the state legislature there. Bad guys need to go to prison. The Trump regime is misrepresenting the nature and extent of the fraud that takes place. But let's be clear, fraud is fraud is fraud, and it's bad. But he said that, I don't want to be a distraction right now to the state. And so he's going to step aside, not run for re-election. Many people believe that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is going to run. We'll keep you posted there. I think you debate whether Governor Wall's being bullied by MAGA and attacked relentlessly every day through their billion-dollar propaganda machine and him saying he's not running, if that's bowing down to the pressure of the MAGA propaganda machine, or if at some point you appreciate that it's like, look, the bottom line is that that propaganda machine is so strong and it's created all this taint and distraction and noise that you don't run, and then you put somebody else in, and then you don't have to deal with.

Then to think about what else Walsh was dealing with. You had Trump posting just the most horrific conspiracy theories from the darkest areas of the internet, accusing Tim Walsh of being responsible for the murder of Melissa Hortman and her family and the other Minnesota lawmakers. There is no low that is too low for this MAGA movement and for Donald Trump. You know that Walls and his family have just been facing so much harassment on a day-to-day basis. They have people driving past his house every day, calling him the R-word because Trump called him that. They are not really safe, like their family is being harassed. I could only imagine how he feels being the main target of this horrific Trump machine. I think it's very sad that he felt like he had to step down to probably protect himself and his family. But if If Klobuchar goes in, that'll be a great thing for Democrats there. It should be an incredibly strong candidate. But I just find the whole situation sad and just a representative of just the moral rot that we've seen come from this country and from MAA.

You have Senator Kelly, Arizona Senator, decorated pilot, astronaut, someone who's been in combat. He was censured by the Department of Defense, which calls itself the Department of War. Pete Hegset didn't want a court martial anymore. He'd have to go and get due process. Instead, Pete Hegset used something else, which was a censure and a demotion to do a reduction in the retired pay of Kelly. Kelly can still challenge that. Kelly put out a state... And then in the letter about the censure, you have Hegsith threatening Kelly. If you continue to engage in conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline, you may subject yourself to criminal prosecution or further administrative action. I mean, you have someone like Hegsith who's incompetent, not qualified, been pathetic in every job that he's held, going against a decorated veteran like this. It's despicable. Senator Mar Kelly responded, Look, over 25 years in the US Navy, 39 combat missions and four missions to space. I risk my life for this country. And he basically says, I've earned my rank, I've earned my retirement. If you think that I'm going to be afraid of you, you've got something else coming. So something to follow, I want to flag it here.

And finally, I guess Trump thinks this isn't getting attention, and this is why he wants to continue to try to distract. But as Senator Chris Van Holland talked about today, he said in a statement that in the bipartisan funding agreement, as reported by Nathaniel Reid, Republicans removed his amendment, which was passed in the committee unanimously, to require the Department of Justice to retain, preserve, and compile any records or evidence related to Jeffrey Epstein. Van Holland said the following about the Republicans scrapping the Epstein Amendment. Given the GOP's previous support of this amendment on the floor and in the committee, their backtracking is particularly egregious. It's clear they're still opposed to providing the victims and the American people the answers they deserve. If you're confused and saying, Well, how is this different than the Epstein Transparency Act? It basically reconfirms what's in the Epstein Transparency Act, but orders a preservation of evidence request as well, not just a production request. The Republicans refuse to agree to the most basic thing, which is just a restatement of what your obligations are. Don't delete and destroy the evidence. Sentence about Epstein. And the Republicans in the Senate said, No, we don't support that.

And this also comes at the same day where there was a deadline that really wasn't on lots of people's radar. But the Epstein Transparency Act did two things. On December 19th, all the records had to be produced, and the DOJ was allowed to do redactions just of the victim's names and the victim's faces. That's it. The DOJ violated the law. They turned over, what, 4 to 5% of the records. Now they claim there's 5 million or 10 million missing records. After the MITUS touch, we found that there was at least an additional 1. 2 million. They fessed up that there was millions of records that were missing. Got it. But there was also another obligation. Basically, I forget if it was 10 or 15 days after that, whatever the date was for yesterday, the DOJ had to prepare a report that explained its review of the files what it did, what it searched, and the redaction choices it made, and why it redacted the things that it did, that it prepared the report to Congress. Doj just said, No, we're not doing it. Just ignored it, just ignored the deadline. As though it didn't exist, which again is another criminal violation.

You have Pam Bondi clearly engaged in high crimes, not just misdemeanors, felony. I mean, felon, covering up a child sex trafficking ring in violation of the Epstein Transparency Act. To me, the whole command structure and anybody who has been involved in the DOJ in doing this, I believe, could be criminally prosecuted in a future RICO case, a racketeering case for being involved in covering up a child sex trafficking ring. I get it, they're saying, Okay, no, we're not doing it. There's a deadline. Who cares about the deadline? You know what they're going to say? We were at war, though. You expect us to give you the redactions? We were involved a special legal operation in Venezuela. That's what they're calling the war and the unlawful invasion in Venezuela. This is what they're doing. They're thugs, they're criminals, but it's consistent with Donald Trump's behavior. If you were wondering, what would it be like if you put a sexual abuser, a sexual predator, if you put someone who was a banqueter, if you put someone who destroyed a lot of his businesses, if you put someone who's a felon, if you put somebody who is a fraud, if you put someone whose entire life has been involved in shady and abhorrent and disgusting behavior.

In the position, how do they behave? This. Trump's entire life has been one of the most vile and shameful cancerous things to the world, even before he was in office. He's a predator. He's a bad guy. He's an evil person, and he attracts other evil people who run an evil regime, who are involved in making the world worse. They get off on your pain. They don't want to see people happy. They don't want to see people in situations where people work together and build things together. That's what you're dealing with right now. But we're going to keep building the Midas Touch Network. We're going to talk about in the State of the Union address coming up right now on Patreon. Com/ Midas Touch, what we're doing to build, building out a DC bureau, building out DC staff and DC employees so that we can bring you exclusives. You've already seen them today. If you're on the Midas Touch social media account, we're breaking news. We've got reporters there getting exclusive statements from reporters. But for our reporters asking, you wouldn't have heard this anywhere else. And getting people on the record, I think it's going to be a game changer what we're building over there.

So we'll talk about that in more. Reminder, Patreon. Com/mitustouch, for the State of the Union of Midas Touch address. That's all I got, Brett and Jordi. We've covered a lot. Covered a lot. I'm back from Disney. I'm ready to work. Ready to work. And so thank you, everybody. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Have a great one, everybody.

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