Chapter 1: What major announcement is made by MeidasTouch?
welcome to this special edition of the midas touch podcast we are excited to make a major announcement here live with everybody as the midas touch network continues to expand continues to grow, continues to support the development of lots of people who are moving into this space of YouTube, new media, the way news is consumed in 2026.
It is with a great honor to introduce the newest addition to the Midas Touch Network and also someone who the Midas Touch Network will be working with and partnering with to build a media network, YouTube channel, sub stack, and everything that comes along with it. Everybody welcome Scott McFarlane. You all know him.
a legendary reporter now the midas touch network's chief washington correspondent and in addition to being the midas touch network's chief washington score correspondent scott mcfarland will also be launching his platform scott mcfarland reports You can subscribe to Scott McFarlane reports on his YouTube channel at Scott McFarlane News.
And then also a sub stack where you can search for Scott McFarlane and subscribe to his sub stack as well. Let's bring on Scott McFarland to talk about this incredible announcement and to also talk about the types of things we'll be doing together. And then let's talk about building Scott's platform. And then let's get into some of the news with this war in Iran.
Donald Trump here on the homeland attacking Robert Mueller posthumously. Then you have Treasury Secretary Scott Besant saying, look, it was Mueller who raided Mar-a-Lago. And then also just that reckless, reckless, malicious appearance by Scott Besant, the disinformation flooding the zone with this Trump regime. And frankly, why growing platforms like this?
Why you joining the Midas Touch Network? and why you launching your own platform as well is so important. So, Scott, let me hand it over to you to just talk about this announcement.
Hey, Ben, it's never been more important. to be a reporter than it is now. Let's just reflect on the significance of this moment. You have this distinctive, if not historic, moment of political toxicity, political violent threats, a challenge to the separation of powers, challenges to democracy. It's never been more important to be an enterprise investigating reporter.
And it's exciting to have this platform. People who watch, who listen, who I know care about these things. It's in their DNA. It's in their bones. They care about the future of this country and the future of democracy.
And we have now this limitless platform and this limitless opportunity, Ben, for unfiltered, unadulterated reporting, independent reporting where everybody has some skin in the game.
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Chapter 2: Who is Scott McFarlane and what is his new role?
I think that's where we have a similar approach. And what's more, One of the things that's always appealed to me about Midas Touch and the network is that it's no waste of time. There's no empty calories of nonsensical or useless production quirks or bells and whistles or sound effects or post-production that minimizes the time you can spend otherwise just declaratively sharing news.
Conversational, efficient, straight to the point.
And I think when you have that values and principle foundation, you don't have to even really worry about the voice and the lens through which you report. It's factual. It goes where the evidence is. It's in favor and supportive of democracy and the types of institutions that we once always valued as Americans that are under attack.
And one of those institutions that you've covered your entire career, and I think you've been covering this daily beat better than just about everyone. I know because I rely on your reporting to help inform my reporting is the Department of Justice and what's been going on in the Washington DC federal court and the DC circuit where we see a lot of the biggest cases just because of its proximity.
to being in washington dc but to see in the justice department building uh draped with a gigantic banner of donald trump's face like we're this authoritarian nation and then to see both the authoritarian tactics
kind of budding and coming into conflict with our judicial processes, the federal judges, the circuit courts, but then also the kind of sloppiness that we see that's intrinsic in this Trump regime as well, where sometimes or lots of times they miss the basic deadlines. They don't have the lawyers show up. The judge says, submit a declaration. They don't submit the declaration.
The affidavit that's signed by an ICE officer, turns out the ICE officer got a phone call the night before and said, hey, we need you to sign this. They show up and they don't know what they're even testifying to. And it's that kind of daily stuff, Scott, that
with the war in Iran, with people suffering here on a day-to-day basis on affordability, it's hard to keep track and know where to focus the lens, but it is critical that we focus what's happening kind of in the nexus of all of this in D.C. Talk to us about that, Scott.
Well, it's easy to look back at history and see Democrats criticize a Republican attorney general or Republicans criticize a Democrat attorney general. And that's not terribly interesting. But this is objectively different. I think you could stand back and no matter where you are in the political spectrum, see the differences.
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Chapter 3: What platforms will Scott McFarlane be launching?
more than there are the many who've been fired because they were part of the trump cases or part of the january 6 prosecutions and they were let go and you can objectively watch ben as there are typos misspellings and issues in the court filings by perhaps an overstretched and under resourced office here and there we know for example in dc and minneapolis they lost so many people
were some staffing complaints or staffing issues that is an objective problem for the department no matter how you look at it then you also you mentioned the january 6th cases uh people who were convicted of seditious conspiracy you were in the courtroom for all of those proud boy and oath keeper cases in january 6 cases and i remember you reported because as i said
I didn't have somebody in the courtrooms. Now we do at the Midas Touch Network, it's you. And it's a great thing that we have you because you were kind of my lifeline during a lot of it into what was happening there, what the judges were saying. And look, while there were some Trump appointed judges on some nuanced legal issues,
that may have made decisions that perhaps upset the DOJ and prosecutors and others who said, I disagree with that interpretation. Overall, whether you were a Trump appointed judge based on my memory of all of these cases, Biden appointed judge and Obama, a Bush, a Reagan, whoever, these judges took these cases very seriously. Thousands of them came before them that the judges oversaw.
Lots of these cases went to juries. I mean, there was an occasional bench trial where on a specific issue, maybe a defendant won a specific, but overwhelmingly these cases brought in front of judges and jury, conviction after conviction.
then the proud boy oath keeper seditious conspiracy cases where you had these judges on a bipartisan basis calling out the horrific conduct that they observed during these trials so then to see donald trump's mass pardons of everybody and frankly the pardon with such a broad brush I saw your reporting on this.
It even covered potentially conduct that wasn't even on January 6th itself, based on the language. And then this weekend, Scott, we see Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, partying it up in Mar-a-Lago after his pardon as well. There are the photos of him this weekend. You covered this so extensively.
I just wonder your take right now, because that right there has secondary and third and fourth level implications about law and order generally when people can get off for doing what they did.
Common misconception about January 6th is that it is a piece of history. It was, but it's also a current kinetic evolving story. It is still relevant because not only did you have this mass issue of clemency, all these pardons and all these people released from prison, including those who beat Maine police officers, but you have this.
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Chapter 4: How will Scott's reporting impact the Midas Touch Network?
undercurrent of people who are unapologetic, if not celebratory, of the violence that occurred that day. And this whitewashing of history is an absolute cancer on American democracy. So this is a current threat. Without accountability, the victims still feel victimized A lot of victims were re-traumatized by the pardons.
Chapter 5: What recent news regarding the war in Iran is discussed?
And I tell you, from being in the courtroom every day, Ben, you could see the unapologetic people, even there at sentencing, when it was worth their self-interest to try to express some remorse and still wouldn't. How about the seditious conspiracy defendant who raised a fist and yelled, Trump won, as he was walking out of the courtroom after sentencing? This...
new pattern of january 6 pardoned rioters and defendants being out there being celeb celebrities being politically active trying to get close to trump none of that's surprising and that's why i'm so grateful for anybody who takes a moment to subscribe to my pages and my platforms because i'm going to be in the courtrooms moving forward for all these critical legal challenges about the threat to democracy people who are suing to try to counteract
some of these executive orders and policies being in the courtroom tells you a lot then because as you know better than anybody there are no cameras in these courts there's no audio feeds in most of these courts the only way to get the actual nuggets of news as they happen is from the reporters who are in there and we are now positioned to be in all the courtrooms as often as we need to be or in my case also banging around capitol hill looking for news that otherwise can't service
Just a reminder, everybody, subscribe to Scott McFarlane's Substack right now. Also, subscribe to his YouTube. It's at Scott McFarlane News. That's what you search on YouTube, at Scott McFarlane News. I got to ask you before we go.
just your reaction to Donald Trump's post about the death of Robert Mueller, former FBI director, also decorated veteran, somebody who selflessly made the biggest sacrifices for our country. And Donald Trump's post is Robert Mueller just died. Good. I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. President Donald J. Trump and then
throughout the day where Donald Trump was giving 48-hour ultimatums that we would commit, let's just call it what it is, a war crime. Civilian infrastructure being a target in a war, my view, constitutes a war crime. He's just posting saying that we're gonna do that. And then he goes out and posts photos of himself
from like, I don't know if these are from the 80s or 90s when he was close friends with Epstein. He posts these photos in the early days of Mar-a-Lago. There are lots of people, Scott, who say Trump makes crazy posts. And if you chase the crazy posts all the time, you'll be missing things and that's what he wants you to do.
now my view is you can walk and chew gum at the same time every post doesn't require you to be like oh my god donald trump made a post about himself in front of mar-a-lago or donald trump posted a video of himself dumping feces on protesters you know like he did during one of the no kings protests but i think that there's a connective tissue here while there are deeply serious issues confronting
The American people, while people are suffering and struggling and can't afford things, and now they can't afford gas, and they're wondering, am I going to be able to pay rent the next month? I don't know what the hell is happening. Family members who have members of their family in the military, not clear what's this mission, what's even going on, what are we doing there?
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