Why Flailing Trump Will Suffer Crushing Defeat

This is somebody who's, again, deeply disturbed, erratic, and, you know, should be nowhere near the Oval Office, and so it's no different than what he, again, what he says about Iran, yeah, there's that. I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna be there. I'm not doing it, I'm doing it, I'm doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm doing it, I'm not doing it. And it's just like enough of this freaking drama, enough of this BS, he's, he's coddled by this ecosystem with the whining and the, you know, don't be mean to him and don't be mean to him, it's like, you just shut up. I just think the American people are fed up. It's loser behavior. This is how losers behave. And it's precisely what we're seeing here in the final days of the campaign. I'm Joanna Coles, this is the Daily Beast podcast. Today we are talking to Ben Meizalis co-founder of the Midas Touch Network, the new media company that has stormed the beaches with content. And of course his new book, which has just sailed to number two at the top of the New York Times Specialist, which he's co-written with his brothers, Jordy and Brett. We get into Trump's health, Trump's erratic behavior and the international forces that Ben believes favor authoritarianism and are coming to squash democracy in America and as we all rise up and go to the polls by Tuesday. So before we get into it, quick reminder, please subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast. Like the Midas Touch, we are independent media and we really appreciate your support. So feel free to share this podcast with, well, with anybody that you want to start a conversation with. But now let's get into it with Ben Meizalis. Ben Meizalis is with us. I'm so excited. Ben, the highlight of my trip last week to Los Angeles was walking with you into your local book stop and picking up what the fuck America? WTF America, your book and getting you to sign it for me. Congratulations, you came straight in at number two on the New York Times Specialist. That's preposterous. We are going to come on to the book in the moment, we're going to come on to how you and your two brothers, Jordi and Brett built an incredible new media business out of what started as a family text chain. But first, nobody watches Donald Trump closer than you do. Nobody has poured over the hours of video better than you. How is Donald Trump doing in this final stretch to the midterms? Well, not too well. You see the, in the physical side, the rapid cognitive and physical deterioration. You see the focus is not focused at all unless you consider talking about men's asses and passing cognitive exams and talking about physicals and just spewing a bunch of nonsense and kind of incoherent thoughts. You consider that a closing message to the American people. That's where we're at and what shocks the conscious still is when corporate news shows these events in very small bits and acts like they're normal and we'll show very short statements that he makes and I watch these full speeches 'cause I got to report on them and it is just a lunatic ranting and raving and saying the most again, incoherent, offensive, abrasive, dangerous things and it speaks to this broader issue of WTF, which is the title of the book, but how we got here. And what I think makes this a very different election though than in the past is that we, you, independent media in general, have been able to build a robust vehicle to really highlight what's taking place and that people aren't really reliant on corporate news the way they were before and so people are seeing what's happening and they're able to make decisions for themselves if this is the type of character, if this is the type of demeanor, if this is the type of just individual who should be representing this country or representing anything at all. That's where we're at. - What do you make of Trump saying that he's gonna stop doing rallies and then suddenly he said, "No, no, I'm going back out "and doing rallies again in person." 'Cause at one point he said, "I'm closing down "the physical rallies and I'm just gonna do tally rallies "as if he's some old aging evangelist, tally evangelist." But then this morning he said, "Oh, he is going to Kansas "and he is going to Iowa and he is going to Florida." - Yeah, it's how he handles everything. It's frantic, it's disorganized, it's emotionally disturbed behavior and it's no different than the way he handles a catastrophic war. There's a deal, there's no deal, there's a deal, there's no deal, I'm gonna blow the hell out of him. They wanna make a deal and it's like, they're not even talking to you, like what are you even saying? There's no deal, you're just, you're making things up and so he is a, it's why we talk about character, why we talk about values and principles because to me, before you even get into an issue, okay, what's the Democrat, what's the Republican, what's the political platform, what's another political platform? We have to have some floor, some baseline of what type of people, what type of character, what type of emotional intelligence, what type of leadership do we want to represent this country? Then we can have debates about the differences of, okay, well you like this, so you like that, can we reach agreements here, can we debate this, and can we debate that? But this is somebody who's, again, deeply disturbed, erratic and should be nowhere near the Oval Office and so it's no different than what again, what he says about Iran, you know, there's that, I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna be there, I'm not doing it, I'm doing it, I'm doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm doing it, I'm not doing it, and it's just like enough of this freaking drama, enough of this BS, just, you wanna do it, do it, you don't wanna do it, don't do it, just, you know, just make a freaking decision, man, and go away, you know, and then, you know, and then he's, he's coddled by this ecosystem with the whining and the like, you know, don't be mean to him and don't be mean to him, it's like, dude, just shut up. I just think the American people are fed up, it's loser behavior, and that's what I talk about a lot in the podcast, this is how losers behave, and we have to, we have to speak out about this loser behavior because it's hurting the country, and it's precisely what we're seeing here in the final days of the campaign, that's what he does with the tariffs, tariffs on, tariffs off, tariffs on, tariffs off, this way that way, and this is not how you run a country, it's not how you run a business, it's not how you run a nonprofit, it's not how you run a local social club, it's not how you run your day, imagine if I was, you know, even just telling my wife and my family, hey, you want to go to breakfast, you don't want to go to breakfast, you want, it's just, it's not how people should behave, it's not how people should behave. - Nobody wants to wake up feeling like Scrooge, start your day on the right side of the bed with a great night's sleep on a Casper. 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One last time that's C-A-S-P-E-R.com and get a king mattress for the price of a queen, or a queen mattress for the price of a fool. [MUSIC PLAYING] In which case, what is your prediction for what's going to happen on Tuesday? You know, look, I'm not-- let me just say, I'm not in the prediction game. So I am in the reporting on objective facts, international landscape, how-- what's happening here fits into a broader global picture. That's my-- that's my link. I will say, my own belief, my own opinion. I'll throw out that disclaimer. That, again, I'm not a prognosticator. I think that it's going to be a massive wipeout for Trump and Maga. And I think people are actually underestimating what we're going to see in terms of democratic pick up in the the House and Democratic pickup in the Senate. And what I'm informed by most is that if you study the 25 to 30 special elections that have taken place, that's to me the biggest data point that I can rely on. There's been about 25 to 30 special elections from January 2025 to the present. In fact, I believe one in Iowa at the end of January, that was like a plus 18 Trump state Senate state or state house seat that flipped to a Democrat as early as January 2025. And I just remember reporting from then until the last special, you know, I think there was some in Florida several months back and there's been some in Nebraska. There's been some in Lancaster. It's like a Trump, it's like a Trump 40 district that swung 80 points to a Democrat that nobody ever I mean, the guy's a great guy, but I never heard of the guy before in a state Senate seat in Lancaster, like the first time since 1892, Joanna that had that had happened. And I tried to even find video of the Democrat that won. And I found like one zoom video with those strange backgrounds, you know, behind them, because I couldn't find any videos of them. But in each one of these, my reporting would be the Democrats overperformed by 16 or 15 or 20 or a shocker in Nebraska, shocker in Iowa. So when you aggregate those 25 to 30 specials and everyone was being reported as a shocker, it stops being a shocker anymore. And you realize something deeper and bigger is happening in this country that has really nothing to do with politics. And it goes back to where we started. It has to deal with leadership. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with core basic values as an American and as someone who just lives on planet earth, who wants to be treated with decency, treat others with decency. We don't want to be lied to all of the time. We want to keep our word. America's alliances are important. We know that, you know, Trump's tariffs against the world have been bad. There are things called objective facts. If Trump's tariffs against the world suddenly resulted in our deficit increasing, the debt decreasing, farmers getting rich, everybody's doing amazing. They can make that case, but that's not what happened. What happened is what everybody said was going to happen, which is inflation surge. Farmers are going bankrupt, manufacturing, cutting jobs. You know, they got data centers and people's backyards. Everybody's getting screwed. People are paying more money. And then you have people like the Mississippi candidate, you know, Cindy Hyde Smith or whatever name is, you know, she's like, you should change your protein. You know, if you don't, if you think the prices are too high, maybe to the good news is diversify your protein sources or Treasury Secretary Besson. I think that you should have, you know, maybe two erasers, one pencil, the Department of Agriculture Chief Brooke Rollins, have one piece of meat, two carrots and three. And Americans saying, what are you doing? We don't want any of this. We don't want the drama. We don't want the constant attacks on our country. We don't want the constant attacks of our allies. We don't want never ending wars. We don't want a regime that covers up child sex trafficking and then goes to war to cover up a child sex trafficking ring in the Epstein files. And then they, and you know, it's just, it's all of that. And people are saying enough, it's done. And if people want this, if people really want this, there's, you know, if you want all of that, go for it. But, you know, to me, this is a bipartisan, non-partisan issue. Interesting. So Ben, you have created Midas. Midas touch has become this phenomenal engine in the last few years. It came out of a group text that you and your brothers, Jordy and Brett, started during COVID. And you seem most surprised of all that it's turned into a juggernaut that you have this huge community called the Midas mighty, which actually came from the community itself, right? I mean, there's a, there's a moment in the book when you say you're looking at the comments to some of your very early videos and people are describing themselves as a member of the Midas mighty, which, which came from commentators. It didn't come from you. Yeah. Well, you know, we, we, it was a 2020. We were all at home during COVID. Donald Trump was doing these press conferences. And we were all very scared. And we all had this WTF moment. I didn't have a political background. I was a litigator. I probably were, I never knew what my clients were. Democrats are Republicans. I probably should have thought more about politics. And I regret that I didn't before. I mean, I voted, but I never thought about it in terms of the existential nature of it until being there during COVID. And I was terrified about what was happening. And so were my brothers. And they were scared. And we were sharing on a group chat, what do we do? What, what, what if we just put out one video? What if we, you know, should we tell the public what we think about it? My background was a litigator, Brett, who's about five years younger than me. He was a video editor and Jordy, who's eight years younger than me. He was in marketing. And so we kind of put our minds together. And we just started, you know, we, the front of the first videos, we put out is called Trump the snake. And it was a speech that Trump gives about letting the snake in. And it's a very anti-immigrant speech about a woman who lets the snake in, nurses the snake to health. And then the snake kills her. And that's Trump's, you know, he tells the story as why you shouldn't have any immigrants. And you should be, you know, doing all the horrific, nasty, portation stuff. But it became clear to us that he was the snake that the country led in and he was killing us. And so we put out videos like that. Trump the snake and others. And it started to resonate. And then as this developed, we started to see, you know, we're making videos is what we're doing ads. Like what are we even do? Like, you know, is this an ad? If we do an ad, we place an ad on a TV network. But then if you place an ad on a TV network, you get drowned out by the both sides in whatever the messaging is from the TV network. And so it became clear to us as we were doing these videos. And it was having a connection to the people out there that what was really missing was a news network and a media network that really met the people where they were. And because we were with them, we were scared and asking these questions, you know, we learned that, you know, the most important skill is just to listen to what people are experiencing and feeling and to fight for them. And we found that corporate news was imposing on them from a top down kind of hierarchical way. What they thought the people should know. And here and people were getting frustrated by how things were being distributed and disseminated. And we were listening to people. We built this media network and realized, let's meet people where they are. You know, and at first, that was on Twitter. And Elon Musk took over, you know, took it over and turned it into pretty much a hellscape. We're still on there because I don't want to see the territory. But then we moved into YouTube. And we said, why don't we build a news network that kind of lives on YouTube and whatever the other platforms, you know, are that are out there. And so we started building a news network that was digital first. Whereas you have a lot of traditional news networks, which is dumb stuff, you know, they're kind of leftovers onto YouTube or whatever. Let's meet people that, you know, where they're watching other videos and have this, you know, relationship where it's community. And as you talk about the Midas Mighty, it's built and rooted in a sense of community. And that's what, you know, that's that's who we fight for. It's who we listen to. It's who spreads the message and we grew this network. It's decentralized in the sense of, you know, we have a lot of anchors who then have their own platform. So whether it's Katie Fang, who leaves a corporate news network, starts a YouTube channel. And she's affiliated with the Midas Touch Network. And she has her own channel will help build her channel. She'll appear on our channel. And then she does the incredible work that she's doing. And whereas supportive as she wants us to be, as she does incredible things like fights to get the Epstein files released under the Epstein Transparency Actors. She's been amazing. Scott McFarland, when he leaves CBS, you know, you know, he's doing incredible reporting even on Friday from the courthouse of Judge Reyes in that case where Trump wants to destroy the East Potomac Golf Course. And Judge Reyes asked, how much money is this going to cost? And they're like, we're not going to tell you, and he asked them, we're not going to tell you, well, what about the sea wall? How's that going to cost? 400 million dollars, 150 to 400 million dollars just for the sea wall, you know, and and Scott's in court, you know, reporting and getting the message out, you know, in a way that's uniquely Scott McFarland. Then we help develop talent that's out there, the Aaron Parnas', the Adam Mocklers, you know, the Jack Kucharellas and people like that. And so, and they're all out there doing their own thing entrepreneurially and we're here to help whenever they need us. 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It's been a very interesting process watching you, especially as we've been working here at the Daily Beast and one of the things that you did so effectively from the beginning was simply take Trump's words and run them. I mean the video clips that you use, the supercuts that you do are incredible and you are really one of the first people to realize how impactful that could be. Can you just talk a bit more about that and also I think you've highlighted how legacy and corporate news always feels like it's the same, almost from day to day and they have a certain number of stories they do and there's a certain amount, you know, and there's weather in there and there's animals and you went full tilt at reporting on what was happening politically and you just brought a ton of people with you who shared your concerns. I mean, where did you sort of see the white space in the media market? That they weren't reporting on what was happening and so that's kind of what you're supposed to report on, right, like if you did a safari and you were traveling around, you know, in South Africa and you were, you know, a safari trip and you started to see an elephant and you started to see a giraffe and you saw a lion and you saw zebras and then the lion killing the zebras, you know, you wouldn't say, you know, in my opinion, let's have a debate about the giraffes and the elephants and let's bring on somebody else, you know, my opinion about the elephants and the giraffe, first you have to establish what's there, what are you watching and you have to call out this environment for what it is and describe it and see it. And so very little of actually what I do is leading with opinion, you may hear my opinion because I get angry when I am showing it which to me shows I'm human and I share the frustration that people do when I show a clip and he says something that's a total lie and I'm fact checking it right after I may get angry and go that's such a freaking despicable thing, only a freaking lunatic sex predator who's been found civilly liable for sexual assault would say such a disgusting thing because that's what comes to my mind but I don't lead with that, I lead with the clip and say here's what he said, here is what this person said, here's what that person said. So my, you know, the line that I say sometimes is just play the clip, play the clip and I don't, I don't clip it out of context, I don't take it and you know, these mega-republic and clippers sometimes will clip like three words and then go, oh, you see, I give you the full context, I will clip what they said and then I will comment on it and I just want to show what's happening in the hearings, what's happening in the courtroom, what's happening outside of the courtroom, what are these people saying on the podcast, what are they saying in, you know, what are they saying in the speeches? I mean, to me, it's shocking to this day, even right now, October, we're heading into November, you know, 2026 that Trump can do these rallies and say the things that are so utterly disqualifying, after one after another, one after another and it doesn't even make corporate news. It's not even something they even discuss because they're like, yeah, that's Trump being Trump and so, you know, we had Dr. Bandy Lee, I know you do great work also having a lot of, you know, psychiatrist and psychologist and Bandy Lee is a social psychiatrist and clinical psychiatrist that, yeah, and she talks about this concept that really resonated with me, battered nation syndrome, which she calls battered nation syndrome. And so, when you in your own home, normalize the trauma or normalize the behavior, rather, of a family member who is suffering from something who's either deeply mentally ill or psychotic or something, you start to kind of take on this trauma, you start to take on the qualities because you're normalizing, oh, that's just my uncle, that's just how he behaves, that's just what he is. And so, when the nation makes excuses that its leader is out there behaving in a psychotic way and it's just him being Trump and you actually become Trump or a version of it, like you become psychotic, you become crazy and it infects your mind and that's kind of what he wants to do. When he's out there talking about the asses and the this and that and the cognitive exams and all of that, yes, a major part of it is he wants to distract from how bad things are in the country, 100%, because he doesn't want to talk about what's actually happening with his disastrous policies. But the moment you embrace this fake reality, this bent reality, you start to go along, even if you're opposed to him by simply not standing up and not giving yourself the medicine and fortifying your mind that this is wrong, it starts to seep into you and you start to live in this alternative reality that isn't the actual real world. So, that's why in my videos, I start off oftentimes though, you know, when people say, well, sometimes the titles are over the top or there's that, I go, they're really not. I wish there were stronger words to actually refer to this, you know, to this behavior because we have to be aware, this isn't normal, this isn't how human beings should treat each other. It's not a democratic message, this is a humanity message, we shouldn't behave in this manner towards each other. And that needs to be said. And we as leaders need to also show as an example, what, you know, how to mentor people, how should we treat people, we should never bully people, we should talk about these things and it just isn't talked about enough. Okay, so Ben, let me ask you something which you address in the book and I want you to take us through. How did we get here? You say it started with Roger Ailes, but one of the things that I, I often think as I'm cycling to work in the morning and preparing for our podcasts here is how did America vote for Donald Trump again? No one could say that we weren't warned. No one could say the project 2025 wasn't out there. No one couldn't see the group of loyalists he was gathering around him. So give us your thesis for how America got to this place where sometimes it feels like the only thing you can say is WTF America. Well, you even have to rewind and I mean, like we literally got here, you know, whether, you know, the Big Bang and cavemen and Homo sapien, I mean, go back to the beginning of time and think about history general is history generally the story of democracy and deliberative process and people engaging in a system of checks and balances or is history more often a story of psychotic authoritarian, deranged megalomaniacs, repressing people and killing them. All right, all right. You've made your point. That's a very good point. So, but but the point is is that that tells us something psychically. It tells us something about the human mind that we have to have a hard reckoning with that there is a program that we are programmed sometimes in very complicated and complex times and authoritarians come out of the woodwork and they feast on distress and they feast on people being scared and they say, I'm going to fix it and that has had an attraction throughout all of history and it's led to devastation and destruction and often very, very bad outcomes. So then liberal democracies and the light and thought is actually in the swing of history, a blip, a blip of a blip of a blip, like quite literally, if you were to see it, it would resemble like a speck of sand in an entire beach, basically. And so that experiment, though, was very threatening to authoritarians and the authoritarians were always there and they had their authoritarian global network and they wanted to fight back against this growth of liberal democracies and you saw was our liberal democracy, was what was going on here in the United States and abroad a perfect system, absolutely not. But I think we viewed at least with the ebbs and flows, the starts and the stops, at least heading in the right direction from a historical perspective and the arc we would say is at least bending towards and we would at least feel we're heading in the right direction. We could fast forward to more modern times. If you look in actually middle ages, for example, one of the big issues that have always allowed the authoritarians to rise is the disparity of education and information and kind of the the Lord versus, you know, peasant however they want or if I did that. feudal lord versus surf dynamic however you want to describe it was often rooted in an information disparity that all of the information the knowledge was basically kept by the elites by the kings and the royal families and you had the people were kind of left just working the lands and you know doing the toiling and you know and and not educated and so as you go to kind of modern times you know you start to have people thinking through and these authoritarians of how do they basically get back into power and how do you fight back against some of these systems and structures that have been created you know in a post enlightened world in a post enlightened thinking to hoist up authoritarians or to push through a dark and kind of grim vision of a strong man and the oligarchs together at the expense of the people you know and so I trace a lot of that to a you know you can trace it to a lot of different areas but you know a Roger Al's memo to Richard Nixon and then in 1970 of we need to have a right wing propaganda network we need to have right wing propaganda to avoid what was happening to Nixon for future Nixon's or for future situations like this and so I trace that to then what happened in the 80s with talk radio where there was a kind of propaganda network there to control the information to then have these you know radio networks controlled by big monies and the you know and an oligarchical class kind of pushing a message onto people in 90s Fox News and then we trace that to the internet we trace that to the growth of Fox News and what we point out is that while people living in liberal democracies were thinking in terms of elections and who's up who's down in an election but we're always going to have elections and here are the rules of the game and let's have a debate and I feel this way and you feel that way the authoritarian forces were actually global in nature and they were thinking about how to create systems and structures that actually tear down elections so when you cast doubt on elections when you attack the very purpose of elections and when you at a global level pour in all of this disinformation not just at a national level but when you have these global authoritarian and oligarchical forces working together pushing all this disinformation on the same side that is very hard for people to overcome that type of disinformation campaign that's being worked on them and then you have this disinformation that even with all the knowledge out there from the internet and with AI and with all of these things you know paradoxically that creates information disparities because the information can be poisoned and the information set out there is not being filtered through credible reporters and voices anymore that are actually sorting through these issues which you and I are trying to do now for you know to get out accurate information and so you have this polluted information environment you have trillion dollar globalist authoritarian networks propagandizing people you have people who were just trying to get on with their lives and just live and get through the day and there's massive trauma being inflicted on people from global dynamics that are taking place and grappling with all this revolutionary technology and feeling like they're being left behind and one of the tactics of these authoritarians is that they are the arsonists that destroy the structures and then they blame the other side when everybody's panicking and people are at their most vulnerable state that's when they kind of feast and they do all the blaming and it's this person they did it to you they did it to you and then you have the forces of kind of liberal democracy who are saying well let's try to get together let's let's focus on our higher ideals and let's focus on you know reaching compromises and forging deals and and the other side the authoritarian forces are out there saying they're killing you these people are ruining your lives these people are letting the immigrants in and that's what's to blame and they're to blame and these people are to blame and they're the reasons why you're paying more money and this is what's happening you know it's Dr. Fauci's fault it's Biden's fault it's this person's fault you know and then you'll give you an example you have Biden trying to do a bipartisan immigration deal that treats immigrants with decency and respect and dignity and also has a strong border Donald Trump comes in destroy it why because he's able to then say I'm the one who's gonna fix it let me be the one to fix it and they do that on everything they rip the deals apart they rip the social fabric apart people are scared people are nervous then you have a highly propagandized environment with a deeply sick media network and it's a recipe for disaster for all of this it's a very complicated answer but there's there are people need to know that there are there is an authoritarian globalist network that is out there and they are linked they are linked everywhere you look and they are pushing messages on people who are you know who are just trying to get by in the day and so we have to fight the firehose of lies and disinformation with the firehose of truth we have to come up with our decentralized structures and systems to take on systems that are being built to cause an inflict pain and suffering on the people and if we who care about pro-democracy if we who care about truth and honesty and empathy and love and bringing people together and stopping wars we have to get smarter in our organizing internationally we have to get smarter in developing independent media and developing it the way we are in this decentralized way to get out all of this information you know to people and we need to build our structures in our systems I'll give one more just quick data point them to us back to you one example that I have just in the past week and I have two weeks is look what president lula was able to recognize in brazil you had all of the oligarchs they were manipulating the algorithms and they were preventing him from getting at lula to get ads on facebook flavio bolsonaro was part of this authoritarian globalist network he's trumps mega guy quite literally in brazil who we've seen flea brazilis now in Miami under under trump state department of course he is of course he's in Miami you know and you've got though what bolsonaro said what what bolsonaro was doing with all of the manipulation lula countered and said we're going to arrange a WhatsApp group of 10 million people and we're going to overcome manipulated algorithms by creating the biggest group chat on WhatsApp imaginable and then we're going to get out the message with 10 million people and people powered to do certain things like they would you know all shout from the windows at certain events and bang the pots and pans when this was happening and get out onto the streets to do this so we have to think in terms of system structures international to fight back against oligarchical algorithmic and other forms of manipulation that's taking place okay so at some point Ben I want you to come back and I want us to dive deep into this international effort to squash democracy and and what I think are all all the misinformation and disinformation coming in from russia and china but we're limited for time right now so I just want to ask you a sort of quick final question although I know there is actually no quick answer to it but let's fast forward from the election to the following Tuesday we wake up on november the 10th the celebrating assuming you're right and there's a blue soon army is now done it's it's a new world what do you want to see happen in the near future what would help get america back on the path that are of better values and of of squeezing as you say this this figure of donald trump of of making him much less powerful yeah I think that's the most important day also like right around november 7th 8th 9th 10th you know what's going on in December what's going on in january before new congresses sworn in for me for what I do that to me is even more important than the political machinations that are happening right now because to me thought that elections are one or lost in these months and years before an election it's just people's ability to take agency for themself is what's one or lost the election at the very end the pace that gets set is what has happened in the years leading up to an election because nobody really wants to be told right before an election I want you to vote for this like from somebody coming from the outside and telling you you should vote this person or you should vote that person and then they get. It bombarded with all of these text messages all the time. Most people, can you stop text messaging me about vote for this person or vote? Who are you? Why are you sending me messages? That's not where trust is built. It's not built in the 30 or 60 days before. It is built in the years before. That's why to me, what needs to happen and why we released WTF America before the election, but it's not an election book. It is a book to remind people that if we simply think in terms of an election cycle, you're always going to lose the election because these more global authoritarian forces are thinking in terms of generational ways to wipe out the very idea of an election. So I want people to know that the stakes are bigger than even this political party versus that political party and who wins or loses. The stakes are whether you win, whether you are future generations of you and what's going to be the state of this planet and that's not hyperbolic. And so when people are like, oh, you're being hyperbolic, quite the contrary, the stakes are life or death right now, but we have to understand the origins and the systems and the structures to truly appreciate how this attack is actually happening because it is befuddling Joanna when people go, well, how did Trump, how could that possibly have happened? You know, in 2024, it's because people think in terms of elections. So you're like, if you think in terms of an election and who's up or down, you've missed the bigger part that there's a actual globalist authoritarian network out there that's propping each other up, that's pushing these messages that are attacking elections, that are attacking the foundations of society and injecting more chaos, more war, more horrible things so that they can come along and say, we're the people who can fix it and then push out any forces that actually want to fight for and champion the people. And so I hope people have seen over the past two years this mask off the good news and the great news. I feel deeply optimistic right now because I think people can now see because Trump's also grossly incompetent and a bankrupt in addition to being a malicious evil, vile piece of trash. So he's actually helped expose the playbook. He's there's a real mask off moment of who these oligarchs are. You literally see him and Trump's basically, here's my crew, here are their people. We see them in the White House. We see what they're doing. We see how they manipulate the markets. We see how they cover up the Epstein files. We see Bolsonaro travel over there. We see Trump cutting, seems like he's cutting Russian deals in Alaska and the Russian oil deal we know is happening. It's very, we're able to take a look at it and it's our job at the Midas Touch Network and yours at the Daily Beast and with the great platform that you have and other independent media to make sure that every damn day we're relentless, we're the firehose of truth and we keep on getting out this information and I want to WTF America out now to let people know the stakes so they don't feel, they probably felt in the back of their mind. I feel like there's some deeper forces. I feel like there's these things and there are these strings being pulled and sometimes when you say these things, you feel like am I going down a deeply conspiratorial and you're not. This is happening and we lay out very specifically what's really happening behind this thing. You really do. And if that doesn't get people to the polls, Ben Mice Ellis. I do not know what will. Very good to talk to you. I thoroughly enjoyed WTF America. I don't know how and this is for another conversation, I don't know how you and your brothers wrote it together, it's very impressive. I kind of tell you, so I would come up with the general, I would come up with the general con and then we would talk together about what needed to be in the chapter. I would write the general concept, Brett's the kind of detailed guy and Jordy's the empathy guy. So I'd get the thoughts out, Brett would come in, this is how we work together in the network. And then Jordy would come in and make sure that it was true to form and that we had full visibility on how we interacted with our audience and our community. And then it would go back to me, Brett, Jordy and then one more time to me and that was basically the process. All right. So I've got two more podcasts. I definitely want to do with you in the near future. One is the impact of Russia and China on the information that we see in America and how it gets targeted to us specifically. And then I want to do another podcast on how you work with your family members and make it work. Ben Misellis, thank you so much, congrats on being number two in the New York Times bestseller list. And we beat, and we beat, and we beat, New King Rich's book and they were pushing that on Fox. And Brian. Well done. And, and, and on occasion, you've also beaten Joe Rogan to be the number one podcast. So it's an incredible feat for a company that started during COVID from a family group chat. Many congrats. Thanks, Durin. Appreciate all you do. I always love talking to Ben Misellis. He's just full of ideas and he comes at you like a fire hose and he's just got so much knowledge packed, packed into one brain. I find it, I find it remarkable. Anyway, if you haven't watched The Mide's Touch, you really should check it out. They do fantastic supercuts of Trump and what he's talking about at the rallies. Anyway, if you have been, thank you for joining us. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Paso, Heather Pasaro and Neil Rosenhouse. So the good news is we have so many bee-beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.