MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 8/21/26

The MeidasTouch Podcast - MeidasTouch Network

The MeidasTouch Podcast episode from August 21, 2026, delivers a scathing critique of the Trump administration's economic and foreign policy failures, highlighting record-high gas prices, a crumbling

Key takeaways

• The Trump administration's economic policies have led to record-high gas prices and destabilized financial markets.
• Trump's foreign policy is described as chaotic and ineffective, with failed strategies against Iran and a deteriorating global security presence.

Main topics

• Trump administration's economic failures
• Foreign policy collapse in the Middle East

Notable quotes

"The U.S. lost this catastrophic war. It's evident for all to see the U.S. security architecture... has utterly crumbled."

"Donald Trump is undisputedly a sexual predator. And with it, oh, that's not happened. He was, he had happened in a jury, a federal jury."

Conclusion

The episode concludes that the Trump regime is unraveling under its own contradictions—economic

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:04) The Speaker 6 (0:05) city moves fast, but your vibe, that's different. Sharper, smoother, more alive. The new Honda City isn't just made to drive, it's made to feel. The new Honda City, all new vibe. Speaker 7 (0:28) The Trump White House in full panic mode, so much so they had to rush out Melania Trump. The Ponzi scheme that is the Trump regime, that is Besant and Lutnik. By the way, where is Lutnik? In this entire cast of despicable characters, the Ponzi scheme is now obvious for all to see. And you've got Treasury Secretary Besant saying, I'm not really even sure why the gas prices are so high right now. You're not sure why the prices are so high? Let me explain it to you. Donald Trump launched a trade war against the world, then launched a catastrophic and unlawful war against Iran. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, despite Donald Trump posting deranged AI memes of hot dogs running around the White House or himself. controlling ships like a pirate in the Strait of Hormuz. The fact remains the U.S. lost this catastrophic war. It's evident for all to see the U.S. security architecture and umbrella in the Middle East and Asia and throughout the world has utterly crumbled. America has never been weaker. That's why the treasury yields are reaching record highs and your schemes to try to manipulate the market on a day-to-day basis are now utterly smoked out, though they should have been a while ago. and we are in dire times. So let's just bring out Melania. Let's just bring out Melania. We'll talk about that and more. As noted, the catastrophic war continues. Earlier this week, Donald Trump said that his strategy was going to be to do nothing. kind of disengage and that iran was going to just crash on its own didn't we hear that before from the trump regime although didn't you claim you won Speaker 5 (2:07) and that they wanted to make a deal or whatever and now he's saying economic d-day we're gonna launch the most brutal economic campaign on iran ever Okay, so what does that mean? We're going to go after anyone who does business with Iran. Okay, so what are you going to do about China? I don't know. What are you going to do about North Korea? You mean my friend Kim Jong-un? I like that guy. What are you going to do about Russia? I don't know. What are you going to do about anyone who actually does business with Speaker 3 (2:35) Iran? I don't know. I'm just going to post in all caps and that'll be my solution. Talk about that. Speaker 3 (2:42) big election week. People need to pay attention to what's going on in another special election. This time, Jordy, your home state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in their House State District 12. Democratic candidate there outperforming by plus 19 in Speaker 5 (2:57) a plus 18 Trump district. We saw yet another 19-point swing. We've been seeing this in special election after special elections. Republicans have not won, get this, a single Speaker 3 (3:10) special election like this for the entire last 18 months or so, Speaker 5 (3:14) and Democrats overperforming consistently. Speaker 3 (3:18) And also Trump endorsed candidates in Florida and elsewhere not winning. Talk about that and more in this episode. Brett and Jordy, great to see you, brothers. Speaker 8 (3:26) Great to see you too. You know who doesn't want to talk about all that and more? Donald Trump, who always tries to deny that he actually endorsed the person after they lose, like with Corey Mills. Donald Trump, who enthusiastically had endorsed Corey Mills recently, went all in for Corey Mills with his endorsement. All of a sudden, Corey Mills loses his primary. What does Donald Trump say? Oh, I actually told him that he should get out of the race. That's what I was actually telling him the whole time. So it actually doesn't count towards my endorsement. record. So fricking pathetic. And man, oh man, did John Ossoff get in Donald Trump's head that they had to wheel out Melania today in the public after she was not seen for more than 30 days. This whole story comes into focus. All of a sudden, Melania Trump, hello everybody. Remember me? I'm back. Okay. Interesting timing is all I'm going to say. Very interesting timing. Curious. one might say. Anyway, good to see you, Ben. Good to see you, Jordy. Good to see you, Midas Mighty. Jordy, what's the latest on your end? Speaker 4 (4:30) Brothers, Midas Mighty, it's great to be here. First thing I want to say first is Melania. Ben, if I remember correctly, you've done a couple of stories about her disappearance, like where the heck has she been? So those have gone quite viral. those videos as well that you've made, if I'm not mistaken. So just putting that out, I'm not saying the two are connected, that now she's starting to resurface, but I'm just saying that that's the cadence of events here. The other thing I want to say, folks, is yes, for those who don't know, I am your resident Pennsylvanian, proud Yinzer over here in Pittsburgh, abso-friggin-lutely. The energy here has shifted. And I'm not just saying that to... provide hopium. I'm just telling you what I'm sensing here on the ground from my own personal day-to-day interacting with the people out here. The energy out here has shifted in a great positive way. I'm excited to see what that leads to. When Speaker 8 (5:27) we want to know what's going on in the country, we go, Jordy, what's going on? Jordy puts his finger in his mouth, sticks it up, sees which way. Oh, I see what's going on in Pennsylvania. Energy Speaker 4 (5:34) shift. I Speaker 8 (5:35) see. Vibe Speaker 4 (5:36) shift. Speaker 8 (5:37) Vibe shift alert. Speaker 4 (5:38) Exactly. But all kidding aside, I'm being very sincere. I'm excited to see what this means as we go forward. Benji, where do we want to start today, big bro? Speaker 7 (5:48) You see, look, the Natalie Harp story isn't interesting because she's always around him and it's weird and people have suspicions of what's really going on. And she's referred to as a human printer and she writes the letters to him. That's not the issue. This is not a story of... punching down or sideways. It's exactly the way Senator Ossoff delivered this, which is Donald Trump doesn't care about governing. Donald Trump doesn't care about the American people. While the American people are suffering, while the American people are paying record high prices right now for regular gas, for diesel, as the crack spread on diesel is $102 a barrel. price of diesels approaching $200 a barrel over $5.50 a gallon for diesel over $4 a gallon for regular gas, much higher than that in a lot of states like in California. As the American people have their health care ripped away, as the American people are struggling to get a job, to afford rent, certainly can't afford to buy a home right now for most Americans. As Americans with kids or grandkids or just in general look at future generations having very little hope, what is Donald Trump doing? That's the story. you're running around in catering containers that you're hiding in with natalie harp and you're out there in bedminster throwing yourself golf tournaments where you're awarding yourself the senior trophy and the regular club trophy when we know you didn't win but it's just this bizarre behavior focused on golden ball rooms and signing your name on helipads and Speaker 5 (7:27) putting your face on money and taking statues that are bronze and painting them gold Speaker 7 (7:34) and then focusing on all of that and Natalie, while the American people are like, you're the guy who promised you were going to make electricity. 50 less than it was before you took office and you were going to do that on day one you promised gas would be two dollars a gallon right away and it's at record highs right now you promised that you were going to make things more affordable and make things not as expensive and right now you claim you don't even know what affordability is and that it's a made-up word and so that's the story it's the juxtaposition it's the contrast and that's why it resonates And it's just fascinating as I watch corporate news go, oh Speaker 3 (8:14) my God, they're talking about Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. First off, she has a government position. I know that according to some of the recent Speaker 7 (8:22) reporting, she didn't want to get a security clearance for at least the first year. She just declined to apparently. But regardless of the threats and the dangers that may or may not exist. I mean, she's someone Speaker 5 (8:34) who's around him while he's destroying the country. And she's a gatekeeper. She has an important role, like it or not. Not Speaker 7 (8:42) is the way I view it. A lot not. But these are people who are in positions of power who are Speaker 5 (8:50) punching down at the American people. So to me, it's actually punching up. to criticize the power structure that's abusing their power, and she's included in that. It's like the way Donald Trump refers to his children, Don Jr. and Eric, as though they're little kids, and Ivanka, my daughter, my kids. These are grown-ass humans who are out there engaged in horrible, horrible behavior. And the moment you call these MAGAs out, they go right into this victimhood cocoon, and they're like, oh, you can't talk about us like that. You can't say things. like that. And then they go out there and engage in the most egregious and disgusting behavior. I mean, Speaker 7 (9:29) Donald Trump is literally a sexual predator. He's been found civilly liable for sexual assault. And you've got people in the Trump regime like, oh, you can't mention Natalie's name like that. Really? I mean, Donald Trump's an actual sexual predator. He's been found civilly liable by a federal jury, and his own Supreme Court rejected his petition for Sir Shirari. He's on audio tape bragging that he grabs women by their genitals because he's rich and you get away with it. He's bragging about sexual assault on tape. And we have, of course, all of the footage of him attacking women reporters and calling women reporters piggy and all of these things. But let's state the obvious. Let's state the undisputed fact, as we would say. Speaker 5 (10:10) in a summary judgment motion when I was a lawyer. Trump is undisputedly a sexual predator. And with it, oh, that's not happened. He was, he had happened in a jury, a federal jury. Okay. So let's just be real. Oh, the victimhood, the victimhood, you know, and then as you have our economy suffering right now and all of the schemes that they've been running, right. You know, what was it a week and a half ago, you had Pessence. Japanese yen scheme, right? This is ridiculous schemes. And so we swapped euros for Japanese yen so we wouldn't have to use dollars in the swap, kind of screwed over the European Central Bank because we didn't give them any notice of it. It temporarily propped up the yen, but then the yen started to crash again. As we've said before on the Midas Touch Network, using the reflecting pool as the metaphor here, you can paint it blue for a little, but the algae always comes back. The algae always comes back. What's the scheme this week? the bond buyback scheme and when you read the language of what besant was doing i mean the whole thing sounded like a complete sham so i had justin wolfers our chief economist go over with us and the scheme was they were going to buy back the long-term 30-year bonds and they were going to sell more short-term bonds to buy the long bonds and they would try to then take out some of the longer bonds out of the supply to decrease the price but you would only do 4 billion of it so you would signal to the market that besant got you back and then hopefully the market would then say got it we feel better about this if we know that four billion's just the appetizer and he's going to protect us but what happened 24 hours later those treasury yields went up even higher than they were the day before nobody was buying quite literally nobody was buying what besant was selling the bonds quite literally and so you see this and this looks like and i and i think that there was a meme of it today of all of the schemes that he's engaged in like which manipulation is he going to do today is it going to be the treasury notes is it going to be the japanese yen is it going to be the energy market and the meme has them kind of swatting all of these things and what we look like is a kind of corrupt developing nation right now where you would have these authoritarians engage in all of this behavior and this is the type of stuff that we as the united states used to look down upon and we used to be the beacon of predictability and reliability and Speaker 3 (12:42) that's been completely shattered right now so let me pause there because i want to show different clips we'll go through all of this but i think that's the perfect intro brent and jordy that kind of situates where we are and then when Speaker 5 (12:55) these trump bootlicking cabinet members like how did we get here i don't even know that's what best i don't even know It's like, yeah, I could tell you it's very easy when you declare a trade war against the world and then lose a catastrophic war and pretend that we won it, even though we lost it and every day gets worse. And then you have all of Donald Trump's other horrific policies. It's a very obvious thing that has happened. Brett and Jordi. Speaker 8 (13:21) i mean what do they call it uh putting Speaker 2 (13:22) band-aids on a bullet wound i mean that's what it feels like right here right we have this a massive gash right now that's self-inflicted caused by donald trump and every single day he seems to do more and more things uh to put more stress on the economy, on geopolitics. Like you name it, you look at a sector of literally anything, Donald Trump has screwed it up. And so then people need to get in there and they need to try to surgically fix the problem. But we don't exactly have the best surgeons right now who are there to fix the Speaker 8 (13:52) problem. We get people like Scott Besson. And so they do a patch here, but that patch here, I think it was Justin Wolfers, who the Midas chief economist, who did an incredible segment with Ben. It's on our sub stack, MidasPlus.com. You should check it out. Incredible segment breaking this down. I think the phrase he used was that there's no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to this stuff. So when Besson does one thing, that then causes a problem in another sector, in another way. And then he then has to fix that problem. And so what the Trump administration, the Trump regime right now has been kind of devolved to is fixing all of these little problems of their own creation. And then they create new problems and then they have to fix those problems. And then when they're asked about it, when they're actually, you know, given a little little heat by the media about it. They have no actual real answers to the people, which is why they then fall back to, oh, it was all Biden's fault. Oh, it was the media's fault. It was this person's fault. It was that person's fault. Or the new one that Scott Besson deployed today, which is the one Ben just said was, I don't know, how did oil get like this? This is bizarre. How did this happen? I don't know. You got to tell me. What are you fucking talking about? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? These people, the gas. sliding is just so unbelievable. But this is how they get through the day. You know, I had somebody ask, you know, me earlier, they were like, how long are they going to be blaming Biden for this stuff? I was like, forever. It could be 2027, you know, and then they'll still be blaming Biden for this stuff. They're not going to stop. This is what they do. The debt just passed $40 trillion. $40 trillion. And Donald Trump himself. is personally responsible for about 25 % of that, all the debt, all of it, going back to the beginning of the United States of America, yet he takes 0 % of the responsibility. Speaker 4 (15:38) Well, the reality is, and well said, B, is that incompetence is encouraged. under the trump regime there's no other way to to talk about that i mean when you see best now how could this happen you know it's like that meme and people are gonna get mad at me because i know this is like a cult following show but i don't know it it's the one with the uh the guy in the the hot dog suit how could this happen that's it because of you dude because of your sheer incompetence because of the entire trump's regime's sheer incompetence day after day after day and don't play like you did this intention like this was intentional you know that all the decisions that have led up to this moment have led to that absolutely can we just pause for a second too and just talk about how utterly weird like the trump regime is like brothers mighty smitey do you guys remember uh biden's version of a natalie hart oh no don't because it didn't exist what about obama's though obama's natalie harp you guys know remember her right no what okay george w bush's no it's never ex like the the reality is is this regime the trump regime is made up of the strangest cartoon reality star characters and i use star very loosely there obviously characters that have ever existed now they just exist within our government and not not the phone again benji over to you i Speaker 1 (17:02) know Speaker 4 (17:02) what's happening for the sketch Speaker 8 (17:03) comedy fans out there i gotta say i think you should leave with uh tim robinson was the show george was referencing i only Speaker 7 (17:09) mildly judge the trump and natalie relationship on the terms of the trump natalie relationship i purely view the issue as uh this is what they're doing while the american people are suffering and i think that's uh how we how you know how how we need to take the the perspective of it you know what's interesting too though is to see how world leaders are responding to donald trump's threats and i think president lee of south korea typifies what's happening right now, which we've seen in Canada and elsewhere, where Donald Trump will threaten now, I'll threaten, I'll threaten, I'll threaten. We're going to remove our troops. We're not going to help you. Speaker 3 (17:50) And the response is, okay, good. Do it. We actually don't want you. So we appreciate it. And we'll see you later. And if you want to be a peacemaker, good luck. So as you now know, Donald Trump has been on a Speaker 5 (18:07) tear in his own mind, threatening South Korea and praising Kim Jong-un and saying it's so hostile that the United States would do joint military exercises with South Korea. While North Korea has been such a model international citizen, they've been so great. I mean, meanwhile, you Speaker 7 (18:25) have like North Korea, number one, helping Iran against Donald Trump. If Donald Trump is. trying to go after iran i mean you may want to understand some of the connections here north korea helping russia north korea helping china north korea um as part of a broader alliance that's at least what our commanders have actually uh have actually said but you have north korea launching all of these ballistic missile tests bragging about their nuclear weapons overtly threatening the united states if you listen to what kim jong-un's saying and then donald trump again makes up in his own mind and he's having conversations with Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un's sister came out with a public statement. She's like one of the top officials there in South Korea, which is kind of like the way Trump runs things, like Ivanka and Jared Kushner. So that's the way these authoritarian dictatorships Speaker 3 (19:15) are but in any event kim jong-un's sister's like yeah we're not talking to Speaker 7 (19:18) him we have no clue what he's even saying like Speaker 3 (19:19) it's humiliating Speaker 8 (19:21) can i quote what she said because i feel like the exact words of what she said were even more humiliating than that she said that donald trump's comments were quote not even worth commenting on and she said quote they were completely uninteresting and that she's completely unaware of any contact between kim jong-un and donald trump i mean how freaking pathetic and And, you know, like you're saying, in the one breath, you have Donald Trump, again, tweeting all caps, you know,