Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 8/25/26

WTF, America! Things keep getting more outrageous, egregious, and despicable here in the United States under the Trump regime, and the entire world sees it. The entire world is standing up to this pathetic Trump regime right now. You have Donald Trump's trade war against Canada taking full effect as the Trump regime tried to alter the negotiation terms at the last minute when they were close to making a deal with Canada. Prime Minister Carney ordered his negotiators in Washington, D.C. to return to Ottawa. We've learned how horrific the Trump bad faith tactics were. We'll talk about that. But we are seeing a united Canada, all of the premiers working together with Prime Minister Carney, regardless of political party, standing up to the despicable Trump regime. You've got a disastrous economic D-Day. Announcement by Treasury Secretary Bessent, as one reporter asked Bessent today during a bizarre press conference. You know, usually on D-days you don't like announce we're doing a D-day. You kind of just do it. So why are you announcing it? And Bessent's like, well, if we do it, we'll blow up the entire world financial market. So we want to give countries the opportunity to maybe make a deal with us that'll make them all want to isolate Iran with us.

China immediately responded through its foreign ministry spokesperson saying basically, no, we are not supportive of this economic coercion. We do not support this tariff and sanction regime that the United States is engaged in throughout the world. And then you had Donald Trump saying, I can't wait for Xi Jinping to visit and see all the great work I've been doing on the ballroom when he visits in the next few weeks. I got a feeling that if the Trump regime is attacking China, that your friend Xi Jinping's not going to visit you, Donald. But we will talk about that this weekend. You had Donald Trump showing what he cares about, which is himself. He threw himself and Natalie and the other Trump regime officials an IndyCar race event and tried to say, this is what the American people want. The American people do not want our taxpayer dollars or D.C. to be turned into an IndyCar race. No offense to IndyCar. It's a cool event in general, you know, and we like, you know, you could like UFC, you could like sporting events, but not to be used as propaganda. Propaganda tools with quid pro quo corporate interests, you know, that look like bribes to Donald Trump.

And when the American people are like, you're ripping away our healthcare, you know, the gas prices and diesel prices are at record highs, people can't afford groceries, people can't afford homes, they can't pay their rent, you have bankruptcies up to like record highs, the lowest consumer confidence in history, and you're doing some weird IndyCar event. And by the way, Donald Trump just looked so addled. He looked so physically and cognitively out of it. People had to show him which side of the green flag to hold. He didn't even understand how to hold the flag. It was really just utterly humiliating to watch. Then you had the whole Natalie Harp being there behind Melania. Melania looked like she was yelling at Trump and she walked out. And, you know, look, what people do in their private life, I'm not— I'm not a judge. I'm not the morality police. But I am an American citizen who sees that Donald Trump is focused on Natalie and whatever this bizarre circus is and himself and enriching himself while the American people suffer. And that's why this matters. This is about priorities. It's about governance. It's about public service. And it's also about national security.

I mean, Natalie, Melania, who— like, who are these people?

All right.

What, what, what is going on? We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the Supreme Court ruling. which was just issued regarding Trump's executive order on elections. I'll break it down in a way that you all will be able to understand how it impacts the Postal Service, how it impacts the threats of prosecutions of states, and what the Trump regime is planning to do and what the Supreme Court ultimately— I'll break it down. I'll put on my law professor hat. I don't teach in the fall, I teach in the spring. So I'll bring you into my virtual lecture hall in this class and I'll break it down for you. And meanwhile, while all of this is going on, if you look in the Red Sea by the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, actually about 600 miles away from kind of the area where the Houthis control, but still in the Red Sea, we saw another Saudi tanker that was hit by the Houthis. And the Houthis continue to exert their influence there. If you look at the Strait of Hormuz, you got a few tankers getting out of the Strait of Hormuz, but the Trump regime lying and claiming that basically it's pre-war levels.

And that's what they leaked to Barak Ravid this weekend, and Barak Ravid posted. And then all the right-wing propaganda state regime media then cites Barak Ravid citing 3 U.S. officials to spread this propaganda that we're getting out more oil than ever, which is just utterly false, look no further than the gas prices that you're paying or the diesel prices that you're paying. I think we're 41 days away from totally running out of our strategic petroleum reserves. And so if we were bringing all this oil out, if it was all out there, we would see it. Just like if you claim you brought in $19.1 trillion, Donald, we would see the money. We wouldn't have the debt increasing past $40 trillion. We wouldn't have Treasury yield crises. We wouldn't have Bessent trying to manipulate the market with yen buyout schemes to prop it up and bond buyback schemes and tapping the general account of the Treasury. If we had all of this money, we wouldn't need that there, Donald. You are a loser, you are a liar, and world leaders are saying that as well. Brett and Jordy, great to see you as always. WTF America, it's also the name of our book, preorder it now.

WTF indeed. Good to see you, Ben. Good to see you, Jordy. Good to see you, Midas Mighty. Always great to be here. Remember, if you're watching us live on YouTube, remember go and add the Midas Touch Podcast anywhere you listen. And if you're listening, remember to go and subscribe to us over on YouTube. You know, I think one of the most disturbing things that I thought, you know, over the past weekend in a list of— we never have a quiet weekend anymore, but the way that Fox was presenting the IndyCar race, it felt very like North Korea to me. I don't know if you guys— did you guys see like the tape piece that they ran before?

The sports president.

Yeah, that's— yeah, that's what it said. It said the sports president. And it looked like the video could have been produced by the White House themselves and handed off to Fox, and it literally looked like something you'd see right out of North Korea, and it was just so incredibly disturbing. But we've been speaking about this, right? We've been speaking about Donald Trump's distractions by doing these big events, the kind of idea bread and circuses. But as I said on the last episode, it seems to be forgetting the bread part because people are having trouble eating, but certainly plenty of circuses to distract. And then last week, I, I was speaking about this concept of Scott Bessant and Trump and this entire regime constantly trying to put Band-Aids on bullet wounds and how that doesn't work and actually leads to more problems. And I think we're seeing that quickly come to fruition now as Bessent kind of starts to elaborate a little bit more on his so-called economic D-Day plan and his also plan to try to steady the bond markets, which also seems to be backfiring. We're going to get into all of it. Also, Jordy right now is on baby watch.

And when we say Jordy is on baby watch for baby number 2, it could happen during this episode. So you're not going to want to turn away because if that happens. I'm just gonna say it, it's gonna make for some good pod.

Listen, listen, listen, listen, brothers, Midas Mighty, it is great to be here. Brett is not being hyperbolic. Uh, just a quick, quick aside here, Ben, before I toss it over to you. So my wife is literally due any hour, any day. I could get the phone call right now. This is the only hour in the day her and I are not together, uh, where I'm recording. I'm at my in-laws right now. I can't record with a toddler because it just— that setup isn't made for that. So our other son, as much as we love him, he just doesn't fully understand the podcasting game just yet. So I have to go all the way to my in-laws to record right now. And I am just bracing. This is the one hour in the day that we have not been together that I'm going to get some call and just have to—

Let me ask you this. This is your one hour away right now. You got any haircuts on the horizon? Any other appointments?

Anything?

I have canceled all of my appointments. They have cleared out.

You know, you know, the second you step away, it's one.

Exactly. Exactly right.

Right here on the show.

With that, with that, Benji, let's get into it. All right.

Yeah, WTF. I would actually say, Brett, you mentioned Kim Jong-un of North Korea. I would say that the United States is actually behaving far weirder than North Korea. It at least seems that Kim Jong-un has plans about how he's going to do things that move in a direction, whether we think they're crazy or not crazy or whatever, but they at least appear to be rooted in a plan and a vision of of where he wants to move the country. I mean, you've got Donald Trump, I mean, actually behaving worse and weirder and more of a lunatic than, than Kim Jong-un. And it's a very strange thing to observe. It's very sad to observe this happen to our country. And but it's, it's the reality. And people who want to normalize this and act like these are, you know, normal political debates happening in the United States, I mean, you're missing the whole thing. Again, that's why we called it WTF, because this isn't normal. This isn't like Democrat, Republican, independent. I mean, we have a truly deranged lunatic predator out there who every day does things to harm the United States of, of, of America.

I mean, just think about it this way. I mean, you don't think that if North Korea was able to have full access to all of the markets and to have, you know, military bases everywhere and to have all of the advantages and to have their currency be the currency that they'd be out there whining that they're the ones being taken advantage of and that they're the ones being bullied. I mean, the United States created the post-World War II architecture which benefited the United States. Whether you like that architecture or not, it benefited the United States. It's why the US was the richest country by GDP in the world. It's why the dollar was the world's reserve currency, the petrodollar, why the transactions in oil would happen in dollars, you know, why people look to the United States as a predictable, thriving market. And Donald Trump has like literally done a wrecking ball to that. And if you think about it this way, Justin Wolfers, the chief economist of the Midas Touch Network, I think, I think he put it perfectly. He's like, all right, so our plan in order to destroy Iran is to economically isolate them and that'll destroy them.

But then at the same time, Trump's plan to make America great is to economically isolate us from markets. So those are the 2 plans that he's doing. What he's actually done is he's allowed Iran to become a regional and global actor right now. The United States has become more and more isolated, and you just see a regime that's desperate and lashing out. And when I watched Treasury Secretary Bessent's press conference, when I even heard him say the world's gonna have to choose the United States or Iran. The fact that that's a choice and Iran is in the same level as him saying you have to make a choice, who are you going to go with, the United States and Iran? You're going to go with the superpower that has a $32 trillion a year GDP, um, that's supposed to have the biggest military in the world, or are you going to go with a power that before Donald Trump's unlawful and catastrophic war was kind of an outcast for a very long time. Not to say they didn't have alliances, but that were kind of an outcast. And the Trump regime called what they were doing Operation Economic Outcast against Iran.

And everything the Trump regime does, it's like textbook projection, right? Operation Economic Outcast is what the Trump regime did to itself. And so you take a look at what's happened. Now, let me be very clear. When I show you a Premier Doug Ford clip, he's a right-wing Ontario politician. And on most issues, I disagree with this guy. And most of our Canadian audience would disagree with this guy. Not to say all the Canadians, but most of them would say, we don't like this guy's policies. I mean, he's a right-wing conservative premier. Who, by the way, used to be during first— during the first Trump administration, a Maple MAGA guy. People would see the Ford kids in Canada wearing like MAGA hats. So I just want to— I want to frame it for you so you understand that these were— this was a Maple MAGA guy who Trump turned off. And in Canada now, you have perfect unity of all of the political parties. Now, To be fair and to be very specific, as we are in Alberta, they have Danielle Smith as their premier and she's both sidesing it, which is perhaps a little more progress in that she was full Maple MAGA before and she was full Mar-a-Lago club.

And, you know, so that's who she is. But by and large, at the premier level, whether the NDP premier of Manitoba, Wab Kinew, or British Columbia, David Eby, to the right-wing premier of Ontario, Doug Ford to the prime minister of the Liberal Party, all sides of the political spectrum, they're united. So here you have Doug Ford at a press conference earlier today saying, look, I can go back and forth with Trump, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to take the bait. This guy is a loser. Here, play this clip.

You know, I'm not going to— I'm just not going to take the bait. This guy's a loser. He's going to be a loser. And simple as that. We're going to fight with everything we have. And you know something, I have more courage, more brains in my baby toe than he has in his whole body. So there you go.

Then Donald Trump posted a deranged rant on social media against Ford actually before that press conference. And then Ford just said, look, I'm not gonna take any advice off of a guy that's the king of bankruptcies. Let's play this clip.

No, I don't respond to a dictator like President Trump, bully like President Trump. As I said before, he's the type of guy in school that would take your lunch money one day Take your toque off your, your head the next day and then steal your running shoes. But I'm not going to take any advice off a guy that's the king of bankruptcies. And he's actually tariffing his own people, taxing his own people. And I'm going to make sure I communicate through the U.S. media. I'm going to be reaching out to every single governor, every single senator, and every single congressperson. And when it comes to the midterms, I have a message to the Americans. Don't vote in a person that's going to kill your jobs. He ran on creating more jobs. Last time I checked, jobs went down in the U.S. and Ontario created more jobs. He ran on reducing the cost of living. Last time I checked, food's more expensive down there, homes are more expensive. And the reason homes are more expensive, because he has a tariff on our lumber, which 33% of all homes that are built in the U.S.

use Canadian lumber.

So I'm not going to take lessons off President Trump. He's the last guy that I would take any lessons off. And it's about Team Canada. Well, we'll see how, how this goes. But he wants to put pain on Canadians. We'll leverage every bit of pain we possibly can on America.

And just to give you some of the bare facts here, Canada is by far America's biggest foreign source of crude oil. The US imported about 3.9 million barrels of Canadian crude every day in 2025, accounting for roughly 60% of all US crude oil imports. A huge portion of what US refineries process is Canadian crude. Virtually all US pipeline natural gas imports come from Canada. Canada is America's number one foreign uranium source. Canada supplies electricity directly into the American grid. In 2024, the US imported 27.2 million megawatt-hours of electricity from Canada right there. Canada is also very important for American fertilizer. 90% of US net potash imports came from Canada. Canada's critical for aluminum, the leading source associated with U.S. aluminum imports. Um, and so when we have an energy crisis right now caused by Donald Trump's unlawful and catastrophic war, you're picking this fight with your closest ally.

Yeah, you would think you would, uh, want friends and want to lean on your friends and need to lean on your friends at a time like this when you're isolating yourself yourself from the rest of the world and when you're engaged in a physical war overseas in the Middle East. The thing that I see when I see people like Doug Ford and Charlie Hengis and all people of different affiliations in Canada coming together for this is you see what a country behaves like when a country is at war. That's because they are at war. It's a trade war and it is very much a war though. I think that hasn't really gotten through to a lot of folks that Canada now is in a war posture. I feel like they have been now for a while because they're dealing with a hostile power to the south in the United States, but now it's like the war is on. If you remember, Doug Ford was the one who also released that ad with Ronald Reagan's quotes. Remember, it was like a Ronald Reagan radio broadcast that he had broadcast, I think, during a sporting event, about like one ad, and it was Reagan speaking about the danger of tariffs.

Then Trump Trump freaked out. He stopped the trade talks. He threatened Canada. It was like a whole big thing. He said that Reagan actually loved tariffs and that the ad was AI and it was fake. He had one of his deranged meltdowns. And this is the guy that they've been dealing with now for the last few years, and they know that he's unhinged. And they know also that the United States is suffering due to its actions overseas. And so you're going to see right now the US become increasingly isolated. And to Ben's point, that the name of the operation against Iran is really like the name of the operation against the United States because he's turning the US into a pariah across the world. And the American people are already feeling it and they're going to continue to feel it. And you're also going to see people in a lot of these swing states, especially as the midterms approach, they're freaking out. And when I say those people, I mean like the Republicans who might be in states like Michigan or states like Wisconsin or Susan Collins in Maine, because all of this actually has a tremendous impact, an outsized impact in those states for reasons that Ben discussed and also just for like the tourism reasons.

Right. You don't have people from Canada now coming to the United States. You're having mass boycotts of American goods. This is really going to be incredibly detrimental to the U.S. economy. And it's united the same way that Trump united Iran against the U.S., the same way he's united—

Yeah.

all these other countries with different maybe political beliefs or views on their government against the US. Trump has managed to unite all the different factions within Canada against the US. We're seeing a pattern in that regard.

Absolutely. Look, and it goes down to the same things that we've talked about previously here. The way Donald Trump expresses this America First notion, you know, that his MAGA is America First, it just means America last. It just means America all alone. And all of a sudden you're going to be looking around, you're going to be like, hey, I wish I had some friends. Well, the problem is when you're a jagoff to all of your allies, sooner or later they're going to want to stop helping you. They're going to want to stop hanging out with you. I don't blame any of our former allies here, our allies, as they look at us and they're like, what is wrong with you? Like, they just like want to shake America right now because like, wake up. And the fact that Trump and the Trump regime can't see the writing on the wall that, yes, Donald, America first. Okay, I get that. It's a nice, cute Yeah. Cute little slogan that you like to roll out. But now you've just left us all alone. Now we're on this island. Now we're the stinky kid in class. We're the kid with whatever in his hair.

No one wants to be around us, man. You've made us so unappealing. And what worries me deeply with— we're talking about this, having a kid any moment, kind of waiting on that call. I have a 2-year-old here. We all have children here on the show. It's just like, What this means for the country going forward. Like, look, 2028 happens. Say, just say for the, for the sake of it, a Democrat becomes president. Okay. Just say those relationships that Donald Trump has so irreparably harmed here, like that doesn't get fixed overnight. The reputation of America is damaged, like very, very much so. And for me, I'm worried, like, how can we ever get back in the good graces of our allies here? And it's just frustrating to see it continue to play out.

The answer, sadly, is we won't. The break is forever. That isn't to say that America won't have a place in the world in the future. It'll just be a very different type of world in a post-Trump world where nobody's going to trust that any deal with the United States is something that can be relied on. And so what you're seeing develop right now is whereas the US-led international groups and the architecture and security umbrellas and things were US-based, we are now seeing a move away from that in every which way. And so you'll see Canada move closer to China, right? You'll see China move closer to South Korea. You will see a kind of trans-Pacific, transatlantic unity brokered by Canada. And you'll see the US wanting to be involved in these things, and the US just won't be a leader. And ultimately, when you think about— this is a deeper concern— the $40 trillion of debt that the United States has and the kind of Ponzi scheme with which we've dealt with the debt is made possible because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world and because the United States leads the overall post-World War II international architecture.

Even though the debt is crippling, the Ponzi scheme goes on, the confidence game goes on as long as the confidence As long as people have confidence in the US, the con can go on and on and on. But the issue is what happens when that breaks? What happens when the policies of Bessent degrade, debase, break down the dollar? And what happens when you have a BRICS alliance that looks more reliable than a NATO alliance? What happens then? And so that is, again, kind of deeply concerning, but I don't think we ever return, ever to what the world looked like before Trump. I just don't. And I think that's going to be worse off for the United States. I do think it creates lots of opportunities for mid-powers and a massive opportunity for China, which accelerated the direction where it was heading anyway. I just think that's where we're at. Let's take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, we've got a lot to discuss, including I'll break down that Supreme Court ruling in a way that everybody can understand what the executive order stated and what the Supreme Court ruled when it stayed lower court injunctions blocking the executive order.

All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. Reminder, preorder WTF America, the book I wrote with my brothers. It's available for preorder now. Yes, it comes out in October, but it is important to do the preorders. So, if you are able— if you were going to buy it in October and you are able to buy it now, do the preorder versus waiting until October. That's a big help. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back after this quick message.

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Shout out to our sponsors, links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the Thanks. Use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. I am still here. No call just yet. Benji, where to next, big bro?

Well, if you think about the reason though why Canada, at the instruction of Prime Minister Carney, had their negotiators leave Washington, D.C., it reveals a lot about the Trump regime. I mean, one of the main things right now is that Canada's making these incredible trade deals all over the world, and they're expanding their free trade relationships. You'll see Prime Minister Carney announce real deals when he attends the ASEAN conference. You'll see him make real deals in Europe. Remember, Prime Minister Carney was the first non-European leader invited to a major European Council meeting that actually took place in Armenia, representing Canada there. and he had a very prominent role there. And he's been cutting very beneficial deals for Canada, also cut an EV deal with China, which is limited in scope but has the ability to grow deeper as more trust is built there. But one of the things the Trump regime negotiated, or, you know, it was, it was Jameson Greer, but I hear that Howard Lutnick got more involved in it. And we haven't heard much about Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary lately. He's kind of kept a lower profile over the past month since his deposition in the House of Representatives— actually, it wasn't supposed to be a deposition, the non-under-oath, non-videotaped thing he did when he lied and claimed he wasn't on Epstein Island.

And we didn't really hear much about Lutnick, but he came back in the picture here. You read between the lines, it seems like a lot of this was coming from, you know, Trump and Lutnick, and that, you know, Jameson Greer is a bit of a dweeb, and, you know, he's a bit of a pushover, And he's a weird guy, Jameson Greer, um, and a pretty weak and pathetic guy, the trade representative who talks a big game, but like he can be easily outmaneuvered by like LeBlanc over in the main negotiator in Canada who's been around, you know, high-level deals for a long time. But it did seem that, you know, there was some progress being made. But then one of the things that the United States said at the last minute is Canada can't do trade deals with other countries without our approval. You need the United States approval. So obviously that infringed on Canadian sovereignty. And then an issue that if you know Canadian politics, you don't go there. And it just shows you how offensive and abrasive and how much the US just wants to attack Canadian sovereignty is going into Quebec, where the language they speak is French.

The Trump regime wanted serious limitations and to curtail the French language from labeling and, you know, other important things. And that's like a very important big deal to Canada as well, even within Canada itself, if you know the dynamics there of Quebec relative, you know, to, you know, the broader Canadian provincial situation. And so the US went right there at the end. And then, and then Kearney's like, we can't deal with these people. Like, like, let's get— like, let's just get out of here. And now you just have one after the other, all these Trump regime officials just whining, Canada's mean to us. Maybe if we're even more aggressive with Canada, that maybe they want to do a deal with us then. And Donald Trump was posting, I may do 50% tariffs on the Canadian auto industry, and that'll take effect January 1st, 2027. unless you do a deal with me. And again, what you have to realize is Trump is a bad human being. You can look at it. He's just a bad, putrid, horrible piece of trash thing. That's just the reality of what he is. And so as you heard Doug Ford, and we heard Wab Kinew, I mean, you can't get people on opposite aisles than NDP Kind of a far left or further left, although I don't love labels, as you know, like that.

But that's how NDP would be viewed. And then a kind of more far right in Ford. And they both just say the same thing. You can't do a deal with this guy. He's just going to come back and want more and more and more. And then he'll break his own deals like the CUSMA deal. Canadian-US-Mexico-Canada Agreement was the deal Trump did during his first term, which Trump threw apart and ripped apart. Like, that was Trump's deal. So if you can't do— if you can't abide by your own Kuzma, as Canada says, then you get no booze. You don't— we're not going to put your— why would we help you put your booze on our shelves? Like, why do we want to help you? Okay, you want to do 50% tariffs against Canadian auto? Okay, great. Remember all those things I listed that Canada does to actually provide critical stuff to the United States? Canada can just shut that off. Canada can charm charge surcharges on electricity. They can do a lot of things to cause pain. And the only reason why it appears that Canada has a surplus is because the U.S. relies on cheap, affordable energy from Canada, and that creates the surplus.

Without that, U.S. has a surplus. And so this whole thing is just so utterly deranged, but it's being run by deranged people. And then you think about Treasury Secretary, you know, Scott Bessent and what he's done over the weekend and what he did today in his press conference. You know, he goes to the Financial Times. By the way, it's an interesting place to put your op-ed in and declare like a major economic warfare against a— against an adversary. You go to the Financial Times. 2 days ago, the Financial Times had an article that talked about how Donald Trump's losing war in Iran is like Bessie's losing war against the bond market as he tries bond buybacks and all of these schemes. So the Financial Times op-ed editorial board, like, completely mocked Bessant 2 days ago. And then 2 days later, Bessant then puts his op-ed announcing the D-Day against Iran. And this is like one of the weirdest, most deranged things I've ever read. So this is what he writes in his op-ed when he announces The U.S. is going to go after Iran and we're going to go after any country that does business with Iran.

You will be a pariah. We will isolate you. We will destroy you. And so you read this op-ed and then a few paragraphs in, it's not all that long, where he announces the economic D-Day policy. Pull that back up, Brett. He goes, in the 17th century. And I'm thinking to myself, Okay, well, why? Why? We're in 2026.

What?

What are you going to say? Are you going to bring up some economic policy from the 17th century? How is that going to apply? But okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, even though I shouldn't. Let me read the next sentence. In the 17th century, French philosopher Blaise Pascal gave enduring expression to the dilemma beneath this temptation. He understood that uncertainty does not absolve men or nations of divine judgment. In fact, it demands a more exacting appraisal of risk and imposes a higher price of error. Pascal's eponymous wager now applies to Iran's lifelines. Nations that, in courting reprieve from Tehran, continue to replenish the very regime from which they seek protection and now exceed the limits of America's tolerance. So I finished reading this and I'm like, oh, you dumb dumb, you dumb dumb. I'm like, I did— well, let me look more into this guy Besant. And then I look at his background. Dude couldn't run his own fund in the private sector after having a lot of allies that supported him first. He went through a $5 billion fund with so much redemptions that within about a year, it went down to like a $500 million fund.

You know, dude was an utter failure. His MAGA arc was being a loser and being a contrarian who goes against what everybody says. And he's a loser. That's how he ended up finding Donald Trump. And I'm reading that and I'm like, what does Blaise Pascal and the Pascal wager Have to do with this, this trick? What the hell are you freaking talking about? And I understand the Pascal's wager is like, we should— Pascal said, and this was posthumous that this writing came out and it's attributed to him— we should have an infinite belief in God because you get infinite rewards. What's the downside? Basically, do you want to have infinite belief and infinite rewards? or not have infinite belief and then not get the rewards. So we might as well just go and believe there's a God, because if there isn't a God, then what's the downside to believing in one? And if there is one, you've just screwed yourself by not believing in God. It's a, it's a basic summary of what the pastor— And so is Bessett—

here's the thing I was thinking when I heard it— is he comparing the United States to God here? Is that, is that the—

it's that, that's what you would say then. You must trust us no matter what, even if you don't believe, you should, because you will get infinite reward versus not trusting us no matter what, I assume. But like, what a freaking weird— like, what are you even talking about? Pascal's wager, dude. The freaking price of oil is $4.11 a gallon nationwide and probably more expensive where you— where you live. The highest in our nation's history. Diesels up to $5.50.

Dude, I went by the gas I was at the gas station here yesterday in L.A. It was like $7.29.

That's what most places— the nationwide— I'm giving the nationwide— people can't afford anything. Trump's talking about importing mystery frozen meat from countries that we don't know to undercut our ranchers by 25%. Americans have their health care ripped away and you're out there, oh, the, the Blaise Pascal's dilemma. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? You are an idiot. Like, you're an idiot, dude.

Yeah, it'd be one thing— it's one thing if you're a contrarian, but like your record shows, like you zigged when they zagged and you were a success man. And that's why he got to where he is. But when you trace it, it's him losing money and losing more money and losing more money and failing upwards and ending up in the Trump regime and now doing the same thing with the United States economy. And, you know, I, I, I was thinking about this over the weekend as, as all the this was going on. And one of the things that I'd said online was, if you notice, there's a pattern that has formed right now as you look across the board, right? If it's Donald Trump dealing with Canada, if it's Donald Trump dealing with NATO, if it's Donald Trump dealing with Iran, the EU, uh, Greenland, any of our allies, you know, the Democrats, the media, whoever it is, everyone who Donald Trump deals with, they are always the problem. It's never Donald Trump. It's always their issue. They're the issue. They're the ones— they're taking advantage of me. They're taking advantage of America. They're acting in bad faith.

They're evil people. They're communists, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it reminded me of an old saying that if you run into a jerk in the morning, there's a good chance that that person's a jerk. But if you're running into jerks all day long, you're the jerk. And I think we've established now, uh, beyond a reasonable doubt who is the jerk in these scenarios, because if you're going to everybody and everyone's coming to the same conclusion and you're viewing everyone who you deal with as the bad guy, you may be the bad guy. There's, there's another version of the phrase is, uh, if you're constantly walking around all day and you keep smelling poop, then check your own shoe because it's probably coming from you. Or in this case—

Never heard these phrases. These are good phrases. I'm gonna add these to my arsenal. You're just like chock-full of like phrases. Yeah. Also, can I just state the obvious? Can I state the obvious too? And like, I I don't like coming after people's appearances for the sake— like, I think it's immature, I think it's low. But when I think it's like medically affecting their thinking— But, but a big— like, I think, I think the Botox has gone to Bessent's brain. Like, I think he, he was once a figure that, to your point, Brett, felt he was this contrarian where, okay, I could outsmart the room, even if that wasn't fully the case. I think he is so far gone. I mean, the Botox is like really like really out of control these days. And it's alarming, Ben. That's— I know you're making a face at me. I'm just saying it's—

Oh, no, no.

Look, we go to Brett for the phrases. Also, Jordy for the physical appearance critiques.

Yeah. Can I, can I get in just one more thing there?

He also—

he comes off as a guy that just loves sniffing his own farts. You guys remember that South Park episode where they were like farting in like the wine cups and they'd like sniff it? And I could totally see Bessent after— and Pascal in the 17th century. Come on, you know I do.

Let me break it down for a second though, because you got to think, okay, so Scott Besson, he wants to come after all of Iran's financial lifelines. Oh, who's it going to be? Is it going to be China? Because they're a pretty big financial lifeline. Uh, no, I don't think it's going to be China because Xi Jinping is coming to the United States next month and Donald Trump isn't going to want to piss him off. Okay, well, that's a big one. Who's that? India? Is Donald Trump going to want to piss off Modi and India? I'm going to say probably not. Is Donald Trump going to want to escalate things even further with Russia? I'm going to guess probably not. It's like there aren't really many options out there of folks for them to even unleash this so-called economic D-Day on.

Right.

If they did, if they were like, okay, we're going to now declare a trade war, uh, you know, escalate things on China now and treat them the way we're treating Iran, then you have World War III. So they've almost boxed themselves into the scenario that's a no-win scenario for them, which is also just like stupid strategically.

Look, you have the mediator who Donald Trump loves, who donated a lot of crypto money to World Liberty Financial— Pakistan Field Marshal Munir, the leader of Pakistan was in Iran. I mean, they are brotherly nations with each other. Remember when Donald Trump praised al-Zaidi, the prime minister of Iraq, about how good-looking he was and how attracted Donald Trump was? You're a very handsome man. You remember when Zaidi, uh, showed up? Well, you just had MB Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament leader, show up in Iraq, and Zaidi says, this is your country. Iraq and Iran are one of the same. We view us as indispensable and integral to each other. Yes, you have China. What about the other mediator who the Trump regime threw under the bus, who did a deal stronger than the JCPOA? And then that night, Trump and Netanyahu invaded Iran. Oman. Right. They're working out the deal right now over control over the Strait of Hormuz, which the deal— newsflash, everybody— Oman and Iran finished their deal.

Okay.

Iran just sees no benefit of announcing the deal because it's just going to be used by Trump to manipulate the market. So Iran's not going to, you know, do any type of, uh, formal deal with Oman yet until the United States complies with the terms of the memorandum of understanding, which the United States is never going to do. And you have, um, you know, the broader BRICS relationships, right, which is Brazil and Russia and India and China. and South Africa, and then the other groups who have joined, where we saw in the past 60 days Foreign Minister Arakchi being greeted as a hero in the BRICS summit, where he addressed everybody as like a kind of like a conquering hero, you know, within BRICS. And so, you know, you get Bessant, who's asked this question today about, you know, who you're going to go after, what are you going to do? Why are you saying economic D-Day and then announcing it, but you don't really take any steps today? And the reporter says, you describe this as an economic D-Day, but D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion. We didn't give Germany a timeline. Watch what Bessin says, though.

Let's play this clip. This is an economic D-Day, but D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion, and the U.S.

didn't give a timeline to Germany.

So why not impose the sanctions today?

Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system? We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very quickly and that we are serious. Secondary sanctions are a Very powerful tool.

Okay, so you are admitting that what you're doing will blow up the global financial system. You're the Treasury Secretary. Who uses words so recklessly, so maliciously, so callously? We will blow up the world financial— by the way, do you know what the global financial economic structure is? It's you, you idiot. It's the US architecture of it post-World War II, you frickin moron. But I will tell you who's been making a lot of money from a lot of this chaos and craziness over the past week. Hint, hint. It was a group of people who Donald Trump said that he was also very attracted to who were in the Oval Office, the crypto bros, the Winklevoss bros, and all of those people. Were there in the White House, that crypto crew was there. And I just find it interesting. I find it intriguing that right when that day, what happened thereafter, we saw the price of Bitcoin go up, up, up and not like a little bit, but like dramatically when they all were in the same room together in front of us. You know, I don't know. Call me cynical. But, you know, the guy who does 21,000 stock trades during his first year in office, who did 1,000 stock trades in June— and Brett, you did a great breakdown of all of Trump's stock buying, Boeing, buying Amazon, selling Vanguard ETF.

I mean, the guy is a rapacious, crazy trader, Donald Trump. I just wonder over there what could— what could be happening. And, you know, the example I give earlier, when I talked about, you know, Trump is like way crazier and the way the US is behaving is way less predictable than even North Korea. It's like North Korea doesn't like overtly be like, you know what, we're going to destroy North Korea, yo, we're going to destroy North Korea. It's like, okay, Bessan, you're literally writing a suicide note. We're good. Why would we blow— we want to give them warning before we blow up the world financial structure. Dude, we run the financial structure, you idiot. It's the US archetype. You want us to blow our building down? You want us to do it? You want us to— you dare me? You double dare me? I'm watching this. I'm like, this guy is a dummy.

Iran's gonna be like, okay, do it, do it, do it. Like, again, it's like we said last time, like, all they have to do is sit back and let Donald Trump and his merry band of goons destroy everything. That's why they don't even have to take action. They don't have to do bombings. They don't have to try to get Trump. They don't have to do do anything except let Trump be Trump and let these idiots around him be idiotic. And it's working incredibly successfully. Right. Doesn't it feel like every time they go out there too, whether it's Bessin or Howard Lutnick or Trump or Hegseth, it's like they're trying to be like a movie villain? It's like they're trying to be Dr. Evil or something, but it just comes off like even lamer and weirder. It's like, why, why are you threatening to blow up the global economy? Why are you threatening mass death and destruction. Like, all the things you're saying are freaking weird. They only play into, uh, what everybody else in the world is saying about us. And you're just painting a picture, because it's an accurate one, of the United States as an incredibly unstable nation with unserious leaders who are willing to damage itself.

For what? I don't even know for what.

Brett, Brett, I'm doing my best Bessin right now. I'm giving everyone time to course correct. Before I launch into epic plan D-Day economically. I mean, the guy— they're all buffoons. They're also egomaniacs that always think they're the smartest people in the room at all times. They think they're outsmarting everybody, but also they're deep, deep, deeply selfish people, all of them. You know, the issue with egomaniacs is often they attract other egomaniacs in their circles. And so this Trump regime is built solely upon egomaniacs with one goal in mind, and that is to benefit Donald Trump? Next goal, egomaniacs. How can we benefit me, myself, and I? And what Bessent's doing here, trying to make himself like a de facto star or whatever, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna scare— it's so deeply pathetic and infuriating, knowing like the real-world implications as Bessent cosplays Dr. Evil is going to have on our economy.

I mean, did you all get very worried about Janet Yellen? Were you like, uh, Janet Yellen? Whoa, did you even know Janet Yellen was a Treasury Secretary? I mean, did you know who our Treasury Secretaries were under Biden? The reality is, is that it is an important position, but it is actually— Jordy, to your point— it should be a deeply selfless position, not selfish position. You don't want to know all that much about the Treasury auctions You don't want to know that much about the plumbing and the pipes and what happens there. You know, it's very important. You want somebody who has profound macroeconomic prowess and knowledge, but you don't want to see the person that frequently because you know where you see the Treasury Secretary very frequently. They're not called the Treasury Secretary in a communist nation where they do central planning. And where there's intervention at every step to manipulate the markets and there aren't free markets. And that's what we have here. So again, the ultimate projection, the same way they call it economic outcast, we're going after the communists. Y'all are the communists. I mean, you have these bond buyback schemes to manipulate the market.

You're the worst communists because, as I— Jordy and Brett, when I talked about, you know, other communism, at least they're focused on their country. We're like communism to benefit other countries. Oh, you know what we're going to do, ranchers? You know how we're going to do this? We're going to bring it. We're going to do price controls, but not for you.

Okay?

We're going to screw you over. We're going to bring in frozen mystery beef from countries, won't tell you who they are. We're going to bring it in. Are they going to get checked for, you know, I don't know, all of the various diseases and health issues that we're seeing now spread and spawn throughout the United States? Not going to tell you. But we're gonna undercut our own farmers. Price control, 25%.

Why?

By fiat. Donald Trump says so. And we're gonna undercut you, our ranchers. And it's like, what, what are you gonna do? You know? And then Bessent, I may use $1 trillion from the— this was the new one today— from the Treasury General Fund in order to manipulate the long-term Treasury yields. All right. Well, there's $40 trillion in debt. There's $1 trillion in the Treasury general account, which is viewed as a liability on the Fed's balance sheet. So you're going to take the $1 trillion to try to do what? To service the $1.3 trillion in debt? Then what's going to happen with the general operating expense, you idiot? We're just going to deplete everything. Is that—

And by the way, Ben, to interrupt you for one second here, wasn't the last bond buyback or whatever the hell he's doing like $2 billion? So didn't he just jump from $2 billion to try to save this issue to $1 trillion?

Yes and no. Yes, but he's not saying that the $1 trillion will be used for it. What he's saying is it could be used for it. And what he was saying with the $4 billion to the $2 billion is that we are likely to use $4 billion to go into the market at the next time, I think, which is in September, to then start buying back the long-term yields bonds and then selling more short terms, but buying the long-term maturity bonds. And so he's now trying to signal again to the market, we will do central planning in order to suppress the market forces, which some people say that's a form of communism and whatever. So that's what it is. It's signaling, it's manipulation. It hasn't been done yet, but they're signaling that they're willing to do it. The same way, Brett, they do all these leaks about the Strait of Hormuz and say, we've got these tankers coming out and we've got this amount of oil. And they're telling that to Barack Ravid. He's saying, I've got $1 trillion. Here's what I'm going to do to try to manipulate the market. And the issue is, when you keep on doing that, it's like ignoring the disease that someone has inside.

The disease is still there. You're just a fake doctor who's telling the patient that they're going to be fine. And it's just getting worse and worse and worse. That's what's actually happening right now. And now the American people are seeing it more and more and more. And the rest of the world, using my doctor examples, are not the fake doctor. They're real doctors and they see what's happening and they're like, yeah, the patient is dying and the American doctor is out there pretending that they're perfectly healthy and that they've never been better and never been stronger. And that's just not what's happening.

All right.

We'll take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, I will break down the Supreme Court order so everybody understands what the order is. We'll do it in a diligent, professorial way. I'll show one more clip that I got to show of Besant. Perhaps we'll talk a little bit about J.D. Vance's presser in Maine that Susan Collins, the senator from Maine, did not want to be a part of at all. Last break.

Quickly.

Uh, reminder, buy WTF America, pre-order it right now. It's the book I wrote with my brothers. Gotta keep the momentum on those pre-order sales. So if you're gonna buy it in October and you are able to buy it now, buy it now. It helps a lot. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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Shout out to our sponsors, y'all. Links in the description of the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Sorry, I was giggling. Brett, you froze, but I wasn't sure if you froze. You're not frozen anymore, but it was like, like a really cheerful smile on your face as you were frozen. So no, I know you're faking it. I, I could tell when you're faking it. Benji, where to next, big bro?

I just want to show this other clip to show you what a fraudster Treasury Secretary Bessent is. So a reporter asks Bessent, so you said that Donald Trump is calling world leaders with specific asks regarding economic D-Day, as you call it. So who is he calling? Who is he speaking to? Right. The same way Trump was recently asked So you said you're bringing in this frozen mystery meat from foreign countries and they've agreed to somehow work with our retailers to undercut our ranchers by 25%?

Who? Who?

Who? Who?

We'd like to know. From maybe health reasons, transparency reasons, I don't know. A little thing called laws. We want to know what the hell is going into our food supply.

Who?

Oh, lots of people. I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to speak about it. I can't tell you who it is. You can't tell us? That's now classified material?

Okay.

Okay. Now, Bessent, talk to us. Tell us which leaders has Donald Trump had high-level discussions with? Because the way the world works, even when it comes to countries that we disagree with, They do readouts where they post so-and-so spoke with so-and-so, especially if it's with the president of the United States. Now, they don't have to give meticulous notes of everything that went down on the call, but they will describe what the discussion was in broad strokes. So, Bessent, who were these discussions with? Let's, let's tell us, because that's always been information, always. Democratic administrations, Republican administrations. If the president of the United States speaks with another president, there's always been a readout. So we have some understanding. We have the right to this knowledge. Okay. They work for us. We don't work for them. This isn't super crazy classified information. Who'd you speak to? Listen to what he said.

Let's play it. Thank you, sir. Thank you. You said the president is calling world leaders with specific asks and, and that there is a defined timeline. Who is he calling and what are the asks?

We're not going to name names. That we've already seen some results and that I am confident the president, as you all know, is quite persuasive. And we are following his calls up with calls from visits and calls from the State Department and from the US Treasury expecting them— or telling the leaders in the countries and the entities exactly what we expect and the timelines. And I would expect that very quickly, if they do not respond, then you will see the ramifications of their actions.

Can you say how far the timelines are?

Again, I'm not going to set timelines. But we do not have infinite patience here.

Okay.

I mean, what a loser. What are you talking about? You're not going to tell us. We know that Donald Trump is persuasive. I'm not going to name names. He's not persuasive. He's a predator, a sexual predator. He's also a felon. He's a liar. He's a fraud. We're not going to give you timelines like what? But just trust me, it's happening and it's good. What the hell is that? Again, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. or you don't like politics, what we just saw there is offensive to people who should care about information and knowledge and the country and our standing in the world and our families and other people in the country. Like, what— truthfully, what the hell even was that?

And by the way, he's the guy when he speaks, uh, doesn't exactly instill confidence. Like, I You hear the guy speak, he's like, uh, I don't know. You're like, I don't know that I could trust this guy or that he even feels confident in what he's saying.

Think about it, Brett. You know, like you go on an airplane and you ask your pilot, or, you know, you know, your pilot, where are we going? Um, not gonna tell you. What do you mean you're not gonna tell me? Yeah, well, you want to tell me anything?

No.

Uh, just, you know, I'm a good pilot. I don't, I don't know you. I don't actually know that you're a bad pilot.

We're not going to set any parameters for this flight. Just so you know.

I don't want to be held to any parameters.

Uh, yeah, he gives off— he gives off Elon when he speaks. I'll just leave it as that. He gives off Elon.

I'm surprised Trump likes him speaking, honestly. You know, Trump's whole thing is like, you know, this guy is made for TV. He's, you know, he's—

Trump like likes the guy's hair. He thinks he's tall. I don't freaking know. It's weird.

He's got more— I don't like taking it. because I don't want to be immature, but he's got Mar-a-Lago face. Mar-a-Lago face. Like, he— like, that's, that's the whole— that's the whole 0.001%. Trump likes to be around people that make him feel better about himself. So of course he likes this guy. This guy's a freak. All of these MAGA are all—

I mean, Jordy, did you see— I mean, so Hegseth, right? We know that even a guy like Dan Driscoll, who's allied with J.D. Vance, he's like a Yale friend of Vance. And like, Driscoll's not a good dude, but in the Trump regime, he's like one of the more normal people. He came in hating Ukraine, but then he actually forged an interesting bond with Zelensky and the Ukrainian army and was like, whoa, I'm the Secretary of the Army. It looks like Ukraine knows what they're doing with like army stuff. Like they know how to do drones and interceptors and stuff that we probably need, and they want to give it to us. So Driscoll ended up liking Ukraine, which was like kind of an interesting story. So obviously Driscoll had to be pushed out by Hegseth and had to be pushed out. And so he's leaked to the Wall Street Journal and others that, that he's out. But he was allied with Randy George and General George, Army Chief of Staff, uh, General Donahue, the last soldier in Afghanistan. These are beloved Army figures who are out there modernizing our Army to improve drone capabilities, anti-drone capabilities, the way modern warfare is fought.

Lots of learning from Ukraine. So the Trump regime purged those people and brought in somebody who Hegseth liked. Their words are, back to the basics. We need the warrior ethos of World War II in 2026. Back to the basics. So they cut the cutting-edge drone program. And then you had Hegseth today talking about, um, you know, uh, what does he say? He says no— he goes no—

I just—

I don't even want to say the words, but you know the one I'm about to play, Brett. Just— he says no more trannies, just training. Here, play this clip. Every dollar squandered on redundancy or bureaucracy or waste, it's an insult to you, the taxpayer, and it's a theft. from warfighters. This is a new department with a new focus on our core mission, where we're restoring the warrior ethos. And that means a focus, an unrelenting, uncompromising focus on lethality. It means no more DEI. It means no more trannies, just training. It means colorblind, Gender-neutral, merit-based, back to basics across the board, no matter if you're carrying a rifle or you're working on the plant floor. Jordy, as you said, I mean, these guys are absolute sickos. I mean, and he thought he was going to get what, like a laugh line or an applause line on that? You know, he's— which is horrific. And he's somebody who has refused to promote Black people, women, wouldn't allow anyone who's a Black person or a woman to become a one-star and to rise through the ranks. He pushed out C.Q. Brown Jr., the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, because he's Black.

And so the Trump regime has made it their mission to purge the top military ranks of Black people and women who have achieved the highest level of of military valor and accomplishments, um, because Hegseth wanted to give a waiver to a guy named Raisin— Dan Raisin Cain. We like his nickname, Raisin.

Like his nickname?

Who was a 3-star. Not to take away from a 3-star, I mean, that's a pretty significant accomplishment to be a 3-star, uh, general, um, but he wasn't qualified to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You want to talk about meritocracy and qualifications. The guy—

I was going to say, irony of waiver. The irony that of everything that Hegseth and Trump say about things like this when they speak about merit and when they speak about DEI is that they're— of course, it's projection. They're doing what they say that was happening beforehand because they also misrepresent what DEI even is and what it's all about. What it's about is actually finding the best people and not limiting yourself to one kind of caricature of a person or another, but to make sure that you're reaching out to all different groups so that you could find the best talent, not so that you could meet specific quotas, but so you're making sure that you are finding the very best talent that is out there. We're seeing a reversal of that. We're actually seeing the opposite of a meritocracy with Trump, with Hegseth, where the kind of dumbest people are the ones who get elevated, or not necessarily even the dumbest, the people who are just most loyal to Donald Trump and are going to carry out his orders. And the people who are actual experts in the fields, the people who are doing this out of love of country, the people who are doing this out of service to our country with their extensive backgrounds, they are the ones getting pushed out most of the time for superficial reasons.

And the superficial reasons could be anything from the color of their skin to their gender identity, to their allegiance to Donald Trump, all this other crap. And that is actually what's making us, uh, not ready militarily. And we're seeing the lack of military readiness right now across the entire world under this regime as we move ships out of Asia, uh, because we're running, uh, low on, uh, help in the Middle East and we need to get the ships there. We see it as we cancel these training exercises in South Korea, uh, which we just canceled another one And this one is different than the one that Trump was speaking about the other day, this exercise, this military exercise they ended. And explicitly, the reasoning behind it is that the United States is unfortunately right now stretched too thin being in the Iran war, which is what I was kind of surmising last week when I said, I think a lot of this, honestly, Donald Trump's bravado about we're not going to help South Korea, we're not going to do this. To me, it felt a little bit like a cover for, we don't have enough troops right now to even help us fight our wars here.

So we actually have to pull people back because we're getting desperate. And it definitely feels like there's an element of that. And all of this makes us less safe. And it's such a slap in the face to all the people who have served us, right? To any Black Americans who have served this country, to transgender Americans who have bravely served this country, to women who serve this country. It's absolutely atrocious. It's a slap in the face to all of our veterans and all those still serving today?

0.2%. 0.2%. That's per the Pentagon and official data. 0.2% active trans military personnel right now. Hegseth feels that he needs to go out of his way to attack people who are trying their damnedest to serve this country, to serve a country where their leaders, quote unquote leaders, the Hegseths, the Trumps, are constantly attacking them. Makes up 0.2% of our active military force. Hegseth, just— I'm going after him. I'm going to make this the thing that's most important right now, not this war of choice that Donald Trump has gotten us into, this endless war, this forever war that we will always be in because of this incompetent leadership. This is what— this is where they plant their flag in the ground. Go back to this warrior ethos. I can't begin to describe how deeply upsetting it is. me, just from like a human standpoint, how someone could just attack a community like this just at the highest levels of government. Look, it would be awful if this was some Bob on the street making these types of comments. This is Pete Hegseth. This is Donald Trump. It's the entire Trump regime. It's all of MAGA. It's absolutely filth.

And again, all these folks want to do is protect this damn country, a country that won't even love them back right now. It is despicable to me, man, when we play that stuff and we see that stuff with Hegseth It's so frustrating because again, too, at the root of it, Brett, too, he's playing a character. He's cosplaying the same way Trump does his cosplay thing. Like, that's what Hegseth is going— we've talked about this. He's like an '80s, like, movie general right now up there.

Like, that's what he's trying to be in a very bad guy in the Karate Kid dojo.

Well, I'm just— in a very serious time where troops are dying, like American soldiers are dying actively in this war, and you have Hegseth out there just Behaving like an absolute clown, just embarrassing us left and right.

No, he's the corny bad guy. I think of The Karate Kid, like the bad coach with the bad dojo. Do you remember? Like with the corny dialogue, you know? And it's like this, to your point, Jordy, there's real-world ramifications for this. And America's getting weaker and weaker, and the damage is irreparable at this, uh, point. I'll give you another number, Jordy. 0%. That's the number of of transgender WNBA players in the WNBA. Yet if you watched Fox state regime media, you would think the biggest issue facing the country right now is transgender players in the WNBA because 2 deranged former NBA players who had really bad careers for, you know, personal issues or whatever was going on with them but didn't end up making it, um, they were playing, you know, saying that they— they were saying that they wanted to be in the WNBA draft. And so you got to draft us, you know, now because you don't support women. And then they— one person showed up to like a game and then started like taunting the women athletes and then, and then, and then got thrown out and then said, why would you do this to me?

And then Fox then played the guy getting thrown. It's like, what do we— what do we—

I, by the way, I can't stand this. And I don't want to say these players' names because they are just so clownish. And I don't want to give them the limelight here because they are the danger to women's sports. Like, I want to be very like, what that NBA player, former NBA player did like, like that, that is making women's sports less safe. That's not creating a safer environment. That's making everything less safe. You're bringing all this weird negative attention to a league that's just trying to exist. They're just trying to ball. They're just trying to play ball. And you have this absolute buffoon out there trying to make it all about him. Again, it's deeply upsetting to me because on a human level, they're just attacking like our fellow human, like our fellow person. I might— I know that might sound sappy or whatever, but that's what's happening and just so gross. And then you know what MAGA does? They reward that behavior. They give that NBA player the limelight on Fox News to go and talk. Oh, well, I declare I could, you know, I could do this. This is my right. Yeah, dude, it is.

But at a certain point, you're just a douchebag. You're just an a-hole, man. And that's, that's it. You're not alpha. You're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, oh, bro, you fucking crushed that, man. I love seeing you up there. Oh, dude, you're gonna wear the wig on, you're gonna do the hit with the wig. Oh, bro. No, you're just a jagoff.

Because here's the thing, whether it's the IndyCar race, and I don't want to spend so much time talking about it. But the issue with the Natalie Hart, Melania, all that stuff, you know, in addition to national security issues, too, in my view of like, who are these people?

Like, what do we know about them?

What don't we know about them? What's really happening here with someone like a Natalie Harp? You know, but the issue is also an issue of priorities. And you're doing that while, as I said, there are all these real catastrophic issues— and that's not hyperbolic— catastrophic issues facing the American people. And don't be like, oh, Ben, catastrophic? Yeah, consumer confidence is at a historic low in the history of the United States. So yes, I would call that catastrophic. And gas prices and diesel prices are at the historic high, which is not good. So I would call that catastrophic.

Okay.

And, and, and so you have, you have that going on. You have state regime media wanting to talk about those issues, you know, on TV versus talking about what the American people are going through to try to divide people and to try to separate people, you know. And then I, I want to, I want to end with this though, because A Trump— we talk about this in WTF America, you know, Trump is a vessel. And our system— he's a vessel of fascism. And our very sick system allows that vessel to be the manifestation of authoritarianism here. Because if we had a healthy system, you would purge it out. You would be able to resist it and fight it and not allow these losers to take control. And so when you look at the systems, and we devote a lot of the book to talk about this, you see a sick and broken judiciary system at the top with the United States Supreme Court. And this right-wing fascist Supreme Court, which was the project of a Federalist Society dating back many decades, has destroyed the rule of law on very basic issues. On an issue like the ballroom, It's illegal.

It's unlawful. It's not a hard question.

Okay.

Congress needs to fund it. If Congress agrees to this crazy thing, then it happens. That's the way our system works. You can't just go and demolish the White House.

Okay.

And then not consult Congress. I don't need to go consult law books or the— any American should know you can't demolish the White House. You can't go, well, Obama did it. Obama didn't demolish the White House. Shut the F No president demolished the White House. And if they made a material repair, guess what they got? Congressional authorization via a law, because that's the way our system works. And that's the way our system is supposed to work and everything. And the president's supposed to take care that the law is faithfully executed. So when you see the Supreme Court grant a stay that permits the Golden Ballroom to continue to be built when the law is so obvious that it's unlawful, You just know viscerally that this Supreme Court's a piece of shit and you're like, what are you doing? Who are you? What is this fascist crap? The law is very clear, OK? You can't do gold. You can't build golden ballrooms without Congress. It's called the legislative branch. And if Congress does it, I might not like it and you might not like it. But that's the system. We can, in the midterms or in another election period, vote out these people in Congress.

and then get them to pass laws that we want. That's our system. You don't like the system, then do another system. That's our system right here. So there's that ruling by the Supreme Court. And then you had Donald Trump about 5 months ago with this election executive order that would tamper with the way states' rights— remember when the right wing would talk about states' rights? The way states' rights deal with their own elections, because elections are a function of states' rights. Remember, all the right-wing were states' rights. Don't tread on me. Don't tread on me. This executive order is the biggest tread on states' rights. So let me tell you what the Supreme Court did about 2 hours ago in staying or pausing district court and court of appeal orders that blocked Donald Trump's executive order. So by staying the district court and the circuit court block of Donald Trump's executive order, it allows Donald Trump's executive order to remain in place pending a final resolution. So it allows these— the executive order to stay in effect. And how the Supreme Court justified it is they said, well, the executive order just set out a process by which certain things can happen, but the injury has not been inflicted on the states yet.

So even though we know know that the Trump regime intends to inflict the injury. Right. Imagine the example of someone says, I've got a gun, I'm going to shoot you in the face. And the states go, hey, Supreme Court, they got a gun and they said they're going to shoot me in the face. The Supreme Court's ruling basically boils down to you don't have standing because you haven't been shot in the face yet. So you haven't been injured. And the states are Yeah, but we're not going to wait until we're shot in the face. You can't shoot people in the face and they're threatening to shoot me in the face. You're the Supreme Court. Tell them not to shoot me in the face because we know that the way this is lined up, that's the only outcome. And the Supreme Court cloaks their ruling in judiciability and standing. They tried to act like technical procedural issues and says, well, until the injury happens, There's no relief that the Supreme Court can give you at this point. So you may be saying, well, what are the issues at play right now? Let me just go through the 3 things from Trump's executive order.

Number one, it directs the Postal Service to initiate a proposed rulemaking that includes several proposed provisions. One such provision is that outbound ballot envelopes must contain a unique barcode to facilitate tracking. The order does not demand that any proposed provision appear in the final rule, but does say that the federal government will outline how the states do their barcode if the mail— if the U.S. Postal Service will deliver their mail. Otherwise, the U.S. Postal Service won't return your mail, won't deliver your mail, To the election facilities, that, that's how the Trump regime will weaponize the Postal Service. Second, the executive order requires the attorney general to prioritize the investigation and, as appropriate, the prosecution of state and local officials or any others who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters. And then it orders the secretary of Homeland Security to take appropriate action to create and send state citizenship lists to each state. These lists will catalog the residents of each state who are United States citizens and who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming federal election. And then, then the Supreme Court says, but states are not required to use the list, and the secretary may compile and transmit them only to the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law.

And so the feds are saying, we have our list, we want you to use our list, not your state list. And the state is saying, we don't want your federal list because you are Trump and you do fraud all of the time. And so then you have that next provision, second, which says we're going to prosecute you basically if we think that you're not complying. So do you see how those 2 things go together? If you're not using our lists, that may be grounds for the DOJ to prosecute state officials for using the real list. And remember, Donald Trump lies about the state election lists all of the time. And he's like, there's all these illegals who vote, which we know— all these illegal immigrants who vote. I hate that term, but that's how he says it, you know, which is not the case. So what the Supreme Court said, all of those things haven't kicked in yet. They're just proposed rules. So So once the Postal Service actually announces its rule, because right now it's initiating a proposed rulemaking that includes these provisions, once the rule becomes official and then they want to impose it on the states, then the state can file the lawsuit and say states' rights, it's illegal.

The states argue that's going to cause chaos in our system. You want us to wait? until we know— the states are saying anything that's done in this arena is illegal because this is a states' rights issue. So whatever rule it is, it will be illegal. So you want us to wait, get injured, then sue, and then be confused over what the actual obligations are versus deal with it right now and say this is a states' rights issue? And so to be clear, this doesn't say the federal government wins, it says we're in a— the Supreme Court saying we at this point don't know what the federal government's going to do yet. And once they issue their final rule on the mail, then the states can sue. The states' concern is once the rule is implemented and then they sue, what are they supposed to do? The federal— the Postal Service is going to be told, here's our barcode, here's how we're doing it. Don't take the state voting, don't take the state ballots if they don't have the barcode. And then the states are saying, then what? Then we're going to fight. Then you're going to have the Postal Service not take our ballots.

That's going to create a massive amount of confusion. So that's where we are right now. And if you're saying, well, what's the outcome? I mean, right now where the concern is, is the level of confusion. confusion, because, as I note, what happens when we all know what the rule is going to be that the federal government implements and then the states are going to sue and then the states will probably win? But then is Trump going to say, well, now I can't deliver the mail because we're still litigating this issue and it's— we're litigating it. So we need to see what happens. But then I'll just read you this beginning, because this is how the right-wing Supreme Court frames the issue. The president recently issued an executive order regarding election integrity. 5 months ago, Trump issued an executive order designed to maintain public confidence in federal elections. That's how they start off this order.

That's what—

how do you even buy that premise? Trump is the arsonist who created the lack of public confidence in our system. He's the liar. He's the arsonist, the idiot fascist, sexual predator, deviant, sicko, bankruptor that you all gave absolute immunity to, you psycho Supreme Court pieces of crap. That's what the issue is here. You gave him absolute immunity. He eroded confidence in the public elections, and now he's trying to say, I'm going to restore it.

No, he's not.

He's going to create more chaos in it. Is the underlying issue. And the American people see it. They see that this Supreme Court is a right-wing fascist Supreme Court enabling this type of behavior. And that's why people are absolutely livid at this entire system. And this system is what we talk about in WTF America as well, because you can't just go back to a pre-Trump status quo. You can't, because What led to a Trump was the pre-Trump status quo, and that enabled, that empowered. We have to be ensuring that we focus on a people-powered, pro-democracy, listen to the people, deliver for the people, fight for the people, be uncompromising in fighting for the people approach here. And because you read an order like this and you're like, what the hell are they doing?

What?

That's what our Supreme Court's doing. And you see, it's, it's sick. It's a diseased, sick Supreme Court that that's how they treat it after everything we've been through. Some, some sickos over there. Then that's my professorial argument.

Brett and Jordy. Good, good, good professorial argument and, and good breakdown. And, uh, you know, but I think aside from the confusion, it doesn't seem like this is some sort of seismic decision that's going to alter the election. Would that be an accurate kind of thing to say at this moment in time? Not that it's a good thing, but—

The order doesn't say, Trump, you're correct, you win the case. It's an issue about standing and judiciability right now is how it's framed. So it doesn't have that, like, outcome dispositive. But if you're a state, you're saying to yourself, why would the Supreme Court inject this level of confusion. You want us to wait now and then sue once we're— once we suffer the injury? We've suffered the injury. The threat, I'm going to shoot you, is the injury. That, that's a threat to us. That's, that's enough. And, and the Supreme Court's saying, nope, got to be shot in the face first.

And it seems like they always find their legalese reason to, you know, do whatever they plan on doing anyway. That's, you know, 9 times out of 10 to benefit Donald Trump. Justice Jackson was very strong in her dissent, talking about Donald Trump's efforts to foment chaos ahead of the November elections and said that the decision was masked as a quibble over justiciability, which I thought was interesting. And this was along partisan lines or along ideological lines. 6-3 decision. The people who you think are of that 6 are the 6. The people you think are the 3 are the 3. That's why elections are important. That's why every election's important. That's why voting's important, because the people at the top decide who are on those seats. And Donald Trump has had far too much power in that regard and in judicial seats across the country. But I think voters now heading into the midterms, they have a chance now to begin to change the tide. Like Ben said, it's a very Very important, I think, that this country quickly changes its trajectory and not only reverts back to some sort of nostalgic time in the past, because as Ben said, that's not going to be good for anybody, but actually develops a future that actually has institutions that work for the people and has a country that works for everybody and makes it so that these bad actors are held accountable.

level and that people could actually succeed in this country, not the people at the very top. And I think that's what we're fighting for. I know that's what you all are pushing for. It's a big thing we speak about in the book WTF America. And thank you to everybody who has pre-ordered and continued to pre-order and, uh, and who just shares this stuff every single day. Um, it's so important, you know, as a community that we stay together, that we stay enthusiastic, that we don't let them beat us down, and that we keep fighting, we keep forging ahead. Because frankly, that is the one way that we win. And we've seen it now in these special elections. We've seen the massive shift, by the way. Have you guys seen in these school boards? You're seeing the kind of Moms for Liberty faction that had so entrenched themselves in Florida politics losing their majorities on these school boards. Why? Because the people are showing up. Because for far too long, for decades and decades and decades, this predates Trump Trump by a whole lot, you had these right-wing billionaires and think tanks working and figuring out how can we dissect the American system of government from the inside.

And they realize that a lot of this is local as well, not just at the top, not just at the Donald Trumps, but down to the people who are running for school boards and county commissioners and city council. And they invested a lot in that, in getting people to run for those positions to push their beliefs from top to bottom and from bottom to top. And I think people are seeing what's happening, and I think people now are taking it upon themselves. They're standing up, they're saying, I don't want this crap anymore. I'm not going to live like this. I'm not going to let these people, uh, do this to me. I'm going to take control of my own life. I'm going to take control of my country. And so thank you, uh, to everybody for watching and listening and for doing just that.

Thanks everybody, we appreciate you. Jordy, take it away.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty!

The Midas Mighty standing strong.

Against the fascists, we sing our song.

We will get it right whenever.

Hey, before you go, our book WTF America is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To preorder, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.