Transcript of Tuesday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 6/23/2026

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Allergie!

Park!

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Picknick!

Und so viele Pollen.

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Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Myselis and this is your breaking news. The most breaking news moments ago, the Senate voted to block Donald Trump from resuming the Iran war. The Senate joined with the House of Representatives to pass the first war powers resolution since the start of the conflict. It is a concurrent resolution. And under our very flawed system of laws, while this can't be vetoed, Donald Trump then just says, I'm not going to follow the concurrent resolution. And because it's a concurrent resolution and the Supreme Court, uh, gave Donald Trump absolute immunity, Donald Trump's just going to say, I'm gonna not follow the law and I'm just going to ignore this and I don't treat this as having any force and effect of law. Now, there is this memorandum of understanding that was signed by Donald Trump and Iran. Donald Trump, of course, is misrepresenting and lying about what the MOU says. You know, the thing about having a written document, a memorandum of understanding, and then the subsequent joint statement that came out of the Switzerland talks, is that we can read it, we can see it. And so when Donald Trump says Well, here's what's actually in the Memorandum of Understanding.

We can say, okay, well, show me in the MOU where it says that. If the parties agree to it, it should be in the MOU. And so far, everything that Iran has said is in the MOU. We can see in the MOU for ourselves to determine if that's a reality. And Iran is turning those words, the paper, into liquidity. Right? The Treasury Department revoked all of the sanctions that would otherwise block Iran from exporting oil, petrochemicals, and other resources that Iran has. This overturns 40 years of American foreign policy. Now, this general waiver, as it's called, extends to mid to late August. Um, But Iran was ready to go immediately with all of its tankers, its VLCCs, those massive tankers. They were ready to go. The blockade goes away, um, from the United States. Uh, the sanctions waiver, uh, is approved by the Treasury Department, and bang, dozens of tankers loaded with Iranian oil get out right away. Now, there are some other countries having their tankers get out as well from the Strait of Hormuz under the control and auspices of Iran and Oman. But Iran and Oman have declared after a joint meeting that was held in the past 12 hours that the Strait of Hormuz is part of their territorial sovereign rights, that they say, we control the Strait of Hormuz.

And Iran will of course prioritize the Iranian oil over the other ships. Um, I think it is a positive development that there are ships that are leaving the Strait of Hormuz other than the Iranian ships. Um, but this is under the control of Iran and Oman now, and if Iran wants to shut it down because there's non-compliance with other terms of the MOU, Iran has showed that it's ready, willing, and able, uh, to do so. Now, the Trump regime, in the ultimate projection They are saying, well, you know, Iran has to say certain things for their domestic audience because it's all complicated there in Iran. So Iran is making up things for their domestic audience and lying. But we know the reality is that Iran's going to use all of the money they're getting. Oh, by the way, in addition to the general waiver I just mentioned, $6 billion of Iranian funds have been unfrozen. Another $6 billion will be unfrozen shortly. Iran was able to extract that from the MOU and from the technical talks that took place in, uh, Switzerland. And so you have Donald Trump out there saying, look, you know, Iran, Iran is saying all of these things to their domestic audience because they need to, you know, maintain their power, and they don't really mean all these things.

Iran, of course, is going to use all of the funds to buy corn from the United States and agriculture and medical supplies. And really, this is going to benefit the American farmers, Donald Trump says, because our deal with Iran is that Iran's going to buy American produce. And Iran's like, yeah, that's not the deal. We're not, we're not doing that. Uh, if that was a requirement, then Where is it in writing? If that was a requirement, then wouldn't the Treasury Department put that in their written forms and their general waivers and conditions? That's the way contracts work in the world. So no, it's not written there. And then Donald Trump says, and Iran has agreed for infinity that they will never develop nuclear weapons. They will never enrich nuclear material, and they will allow in the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and they will start doing spot inspections, and that'll be great. By the way, that was the mechanism in the JCPOA, the Obama non-nuclear, uh, deal from Obama's term. Um, but that's not in the MOU. There's no requirement that Iran lets in the IAEA inspections. Iran has made it very clear, we're not going to do that.

And You may be saying, well, Ben, I hear this from the Trump regime, I hear this from the Iranian regime. Like, how, how do you decide who's telling the truth? Well, Trump lies about everything, so that's number one. But number two, where's the head of the IAEA, right? You would expect the IAEA to have had a representative at the technical talks in Switzerland if they were going to have an involvement there. If they were going to be involved, they would have a presence there. You would hear statements from the IAEA, this is our schedule, here's how we're going to do it, here's how we propose to make it happen, right? You haven't heard any statement at all from the IAEA because Trump's making it up. Otherwise you would have heard from them. It's not a, you know, these things aren't shrouded in mystery or secrecy. It's not in the MOU. The IAEA has not confirmed any of this.

Iran expressly denies that they are, uh, allowing it, and it's not in the MOU. Why, why, why would Iran allow it now?

What, what's the, what's the benefit for Iran? Donald Trump has revealed that the United States and the world is on the cusp of a global depression, that we are hitting tank bottom of our strategic petroleum reserves. You know, there's that area in Oklahoma where we keep a lot of this Reserve Petroleum, which is at basically functional tank bottom. Internationally, we're at a tank bottom posture as well. And Donald Trump admitted if we didn't make this deal, there would be global economic depression. Um, we would run out of oil in the next few weeks is what Trump said. So we had to do this deal. Iran knows that. Iran understands that the U.S. is negotiating from a not just a position of weakness, but from a position of surrender. You know, and, you know, there's, there's a lot about this that frustrates me, and that's an understatement. But I would just appreciate, you know, even, even if things were bad, I still—

call me old-fashioned—

I want to hear the truth. I, I can understand if you explain things to me rational, uh, deals or rational moves, even if that means we lost.

We don't always win. We don't always win.

This was clearly a loss. It was a catastrophic and unlawful war we should never have been involved in, that the United States and Netanyahu, at Netanyahu's demand, we rushed into this. The Trump regime did. America lost. America surrendered. That's just the reality of it. And I'm not saying this— we shouldn't go back to war. There needs to be a deal. Of all of the options, the MOU is probably, uh, the most viable option that there is. I understand when you break things you have to fix it. I'm not sure where the $300 billion is going to come from in terms of this fund for Iran, but it is possible that one of the ways you can deal with that is all the money that Iran is making already. I mean, again, this general waiver that Iran was given to export its oil and to receive US dollars. I mean, Iran may become one of the wealthiest nations in the world right now. And so that may be a path, you know, I'm not sure if that's considered how you get to the $300 billion, but you'll be able to get $300 billion pretty soon based on all of the, uh, oil and petrochemicals that Iran is now going to be able to, uh, export.

Um, you know, I, I want to go through the MOU and explain to me why this is, um, you know, the best option. And, and it's— I understand the the US lost. The US lost, and this is the natural consequence. That's the reality of it. And if that's not what Donald Trump does— instead, he sends messages like this, which the likely outcome is going to be a return to war, a return to the Strait of Hormuz being closed, a return, you know, where, where we are. I, I computed it yesterday on the show I do with my brothers. So view this as a good thing or a bad thing, it sounds like a long time, but there are 15 60-day cycles left of the Trump regime. Technically there's like 15 and a half, like 15 plus 42 days at this point. So what I expect is going to happen is like with Trump's healthcare plan, right? That every 60 days there's, uh, going to be an incident where Iran says we're going to close down the Strait of Hormuz, and then Donald Trump's like, we're going to invade you, we're going to invade you, ah, you know, we're gonna, you know, the Hegesiv talks, you know, we're gonna destroy the civilization, you know, you think that, that all the Strait of Hormuz gets closed, the markets tank, there's all of this instability then there are some emergency talks that take place in Switzerland or Pakistan or whatever.

Iran gets another $10 billion, like, like, in the $5 billion here, $10 billion there. And I think that for the remainder of Donald Trump's term, this is what the outcome of Iran looks like— 60 days, 60 days, 60 days, 60 days, 60 days— because You know, Donald Trump is going to, as he, uh, says, you know, trying to posture for the domestic audience when in reality everything he's saying to the American people are false. Here's what Trump writes: despite their protestations and false statements to the contrary, coupled with the drumbeat of the fake news, which is doing everything to make the U.S. victory as small and insignificant as possible, Iran has fully and completely agreed to the highest level nuclear inspections long into the future.

Infinity.

I mean, that's just stupid.

Infinity.

This will ensure nuclear honesty. If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations. Based on this and other major concessions being made by Iran, I have agreed to allow Hormuz Strait to remain open with no further naval blockade. However, all ships are remaining in place. Should it be necessary to reinstitute the blockade, which seems at this point highly unlikely, the money and/or sanctions with the US Treasury is releasing goes into escrow controlled by the USA and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies exclusively from the United States, including corn, wheat, and soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed. This is a humanitarian crisis, and I feel it is necessary to help now before it is too late. And so even the way he frames it is how Donald Trump and his family have dealt with charities before as well. Like, there's a reason why they were banned from charitable endeavors in New York after all of the findings against them. I mean, for him to act like, oh, this is— I mean, and this is like just a real sick, demented fraudster mind, right?

He's like, he knows that the American farmers and American workers and people here are suffering. So, you know, he's a con artist, right? I mean, he's manipulating the markets. He'll buy the dips, you know, he'll sell when it's peak. You know, he did 3,700 stock trades. Trump's making a killing right now. I mean, the guy is literally making billions and billions and billions of dollars. And the deal that he cut with himself in that settlement agreement with the Treasury Department and the IRS waives all tax liability and tax evasion charges and, and audits. And my view of it is, is that the way you could construe that language, it would include all of these stock trades and things that he's doing as well. People don't talk about that a lot, but I believe that, you know, look, if you factor in that he's made a few billion dollars already, $3, $4 billion Um, think about, you know, capital gains tax. What is it, like 25% capital gains? So Trump, you know, would owe about a billion dollars in taxes, you know, based on the super pardon he negotiated with himself. If he's not getting audited and if he— and if the IRS waives any claims of tax evasion, why would he— wouldn't he just construe all of the money that he's made as being non-taxable in general?

I mean, you think—

I'm—

that's, that's my opinion of of, of what's happening here. But just think about it. He knows farmers are struggling, and so he goes, don't worry, help is on the way, help is on the way. Um, Iran is now your guardian angel, and Iran's going to buy your corn, and Iran's going to buy, you know, all, all of your produce. And so you're going to get rich because we're giving the money to Iran, and Iran's going to buy it. And then he frames this deal as, and this is a humanitarian crisis for Iran, so I have to help the Iranian people who he killed by giving them, um, you know, this, this money. But you have to buy the American medical supplies, which that's not what the money's going for. And there's no escrow account.

I mean, it's the—

these things, if there was an escrow account, it wouldn't exist. There would be an account. You know, he relies on the fact that a lot of Americans don't even know what that even means. Like, an escrow account, what is that? What are you referring to? Um, if there was an account where the money goes into and it's frozen, and then it has to be used for a specific person, that would exist. So we would say, ah, got it, the Treasury Department just released $12 billion into this account. That's where there are drawdowns by Iran, and we can see the purchases happen. It's not happening because the whole thing is, is a lie. None of it is, uh, none of it's true. Um, and then he says it's being used for medical supplies and all, all 100% completely false, um, right there. So then you heard from Iran's spokesperson. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson says, yeah, it's not true. We have no plans for IAEA inspectors into Iran's nuclear facilities. Um, we are under no obligation to use these funds to buy American corn. Like, what the hell are you talking about? There are no restrictions in this regard.

How do we know there are no restrictions? Because if there were restrictions, it would be in an agreement.

This is not a state secret. It would be in an agreement that there would be restrictions, just like everything has been in an MOU or been in a joint statement. So Iran did not agree. To that. There are statements from Iran and the Sultanate of Oman talking about how they are controlling the Strait of Hormuz jointly. We can see that the Iranian ships were prioritized in leaving the Strait of Hormuz now that they can sell all of this oil onto the open market. You know, also, I mean, Trump posted earlier today that yesterday we set a record, 19 million barrels out of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a record. First off, it's not a record. Last year, the average was 20 million barrels. And this is like one of the loser qualities that he always does. You know, he'll be like, we got record soybean purchases from China, 13 million metric tons of soybeans. Like, okay, under Biden, it was 26 million metric tons. Yeah, I understand that the word million and metric and tons, like those words sound like there's a lot of things. But it's half of what the Biden soybean purchase was.

And Biden didn't have to talk about soybean purchase. It just happened. We didn't worry about, oh, is the Strait of Hormuz going to be closed under Biden? We didn't have to worry about, oh, you know, is this, this guy going to start, you know, talking about reflecting pools and doing weird speeches where he makes bizarre noises all day?

You know what I mean?

This, this Trump speech in Pennsylvania today was one of the strangest things, you know, I've, I've ever seen. But It just compounds every day with the chaos. And ultimately, what he doesn't want us all to focus on is he's caused grievous injury in our economy, and it's getting worse. It's getting, getting worse at this point. Inflation is surging right now, and I would not be shocked. You know, the Fed's gonna have to step in. They'll probably, as Bank of America says, have to raise interest rates 2, 3 times, maybe more. Um, at this point when they were supposed to do interest rate cuts, you know. And now Trump's guy is going to be— going to be there while the interest rates are raised to try to rein in the inflation. Because without doing that— I'm not exaggerating— inflation will probably hit by the end of Trump's term 10 to 12%, maybe more. I'm not being hyperbolic. I mean, just look at the month-over-month increases in inflation. Look where the PPI is, the Producer Price Index. Look where the CPI is right now, right? That's, as I predicted, would steadily climb by the end of this year into the 5s, uh, on the CPI range, into the 7s on the, uh, PPI range.

And that's, that, that, that's, that's the reality. And he doesn't want people to know that, you know, he's the one getting, you know, rich buying individual stocks, 3,700 stock trades. I mean, that's in and of itself should be, um, you know, should be disqualifying. And you see the MAGA Republicans right now turning on the switch with all the culture war stuff. They see the midterms approaching, and what do they do? It's all about dividing us. It's all about attacking trans people and attacking gay people. It's all about, um, You know, Antifa, this, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a replay of the culture wars, you know, rather than address the fact that MAGA has caused lots of harm to states, to red states too, like Texas. Where do they go? Tale of Rico, he's a vegan, because they don't even know how to say vegan. He's a vegan, he's a freak, he's a this, he's a that, and You know, we have to uplift and augment our, um, you know, our, our ability to discern these, you know, what's, what's happening out there. Because, you know, you do see that when you have a trillion-dollar media network like Fox, state regime media, and Newsmax, and, you know, all of this right-wing media that constantly is a fire hose of, of, of propaganda every day, it impacts people.

You know, people— there, there isn't trusted gatekeepers the way there was. We try our best here on the Midas Touch Network to be that way and to give people the accurate information. So we're combating it and fighting it every day. But you know, they'll keep going, Telefriko this, and you know, and he's low testosterone, and all of these things. Trying to get people to vote against what their ultimate interests are. Show you what went down moments ago as Donald Trump was heading to Pennsylvania. Donald Trump was asked, so, uh, when will the IAEA inspectors be on the ground in Iran? You say that there are IAEA inspectors, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, that are going to be there. Okay, so what's the plan? We see the Iranian ships leaving the Strait of Hormuz. We see unfrozen funds to Iran. We see Iran meeting with Oman and this down. We see their moves. I can see it. I can— I know I can see accounts unfrozen. I can see ships leaving. So you're saying IAEA inspectors— you've said that. You don't have to lie about it.

I mean, there's no IAEA inspectors.

If you have another mechanism, just tell the freaking truth. But Donald Trump goes, um, no rush, at the appropriate time, no rush. Here's what he says. Play this clip. When will those inspectors actually be on the ground?

At the appropriate time. At the appropriate time. There's no rush. But they'll be on the ground at the appropriate time.

I mean, how do you not realize that that's a— that's a con artist right there? What does that mean, at the appropriate time? You did a deal and you didn't build in that mechanism while you unfroze funds and then gave a general waiver? You didn't— the reality is, is that the U.S., though, couldn't have got that in the negotiation. Why? Because we lost the war. That's why. It's, it's a very easy, it's a very easy explanation for why the deal looks this way is because the US should never have gotten into this war that Netanyahu dragged us into, and we lost, and we lost big time. Our standing in the international community has been destroyed. The American economy is suffering.

We lost.

And so the agreement is a document that makes perfect sense for submission and surrender. That's, uh, that There's no other option though. So I understand why, you know, I don't like JD Vance, but I understand that the alternative was either war with hundreds of thousands of people dying and war crimes being committed and a destruction of the economy, or what, what was the, what, what, what else is, is the alternative? Um, there, there's no other deal that could be made. America lost.

That's it.

And so these terms reflect that. Here's what Donald Trump said about the Iran deal. Anyone who's critical needs to be educated, he says. Anyone who's critical needs to be educated. Let's play it.

Well, I think anybody that's been critical of it, uh, has to be educated, even if they're friends of mine, because we have Iran in a position that nobody's ever had. This should have been done for 47 years by other presidents, and we have Iran in a position where their military has been totally wiped out.

Their military has not been totally wiped out. Their military is stronger. That's just the fact. It's just a fact.

And when he—

it's when he spews such deranged things like that— your job as the commander-in-chief, in addition to behaving responsibly and not getting us into catastrophic wars and taking care that the Constitution is faithfully executed. When you said they need to be educated, that's kind of your job. You should be meeting with Congress or having Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State who doesn't do his job because Rubio doesn't want to be associated with the MOU, so he's fine having JD Vance be the one who does it, which, you know You're the Secretary of State.

That's literally your job, is to be the guy who's there.

I, I—

you may not like this MOU, Rubio, and you may not— you may think it's not politically advantageous, or, you know, you want Ruby— you want JD Vance to feel the consequences of, of, you know, of backlash or whatever it is.

You're the secretary. What else? What are you doing?

What, what are you doing? And we have a clip of Rubio from, uh, today. I'll show you what he's doing. He is not doing the negotiations with Iran, but where he's meeting is with Bahrain and UAE and Kuwait, the countries that thought they were getting protection from the United States of America and, and did not. And he's asked a pretty basic question about the Strait of Hormuz. Let me show you what Rubio was asked. I think we've got this clip of her view.

Let me ask you about Hormuz, if possible.

Can the US and allies, can they guarantee navigation, freedom of navigation in the strait?

Well, that's the law. These are— it's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls.

Okay, that didn't answer the question. You're the Secretary of State. What is your message to American tankers and cargo ships and affiliated tankers and cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz? Can you navigate freely right now? It's a very basic question. And his answer is, well, the law says you can't do it. The law says that Iran and Oman aren't allowed to control it. It's international waters. Well, Iran and Oman say no, that based on the distance of our land to the Strait of Hormuz, that it is within the, the way the international maritime law works and international boundaries work, that they consider that, uh, area under the joint control of Oman and Iran, that it's territorial waters of the respective countries. And the question was, can our ships leave right now? Because there's a lot of confusion right now. Do they take the Iran route? Do they take, uh, the route that's closer to Oman? Which lanes are open? What kind of guidance are you giving them? And that's obviously not an answer. And here's the thing, again, the global economy relies upon predictability and reliability and stability. And the United States is being run like a Trump meme coin or Trump media stock, or— and, and the United States looks and acts so incredibly foolish on the world stage.

And, you know, Trump's obsession with the reflecting pool, reflecting pool, reflecting pool, you know, over and over again. The vandals, the vandals are the ones doing the reflecting pool, and now we have to fix it. And they, they set up this like AI detection software by the reflecting pool to say we're going to catch the vandals. I'm going to catch the vandals. What are you talking— yeah, Antifa. They're throwing, uh, they're, they're throwing fertilizer in, and that's what's happening. I mean, this is— these MAGA influencers are posting these satirical, uh, images of algae production saying, see, Antifa's, Antifa's turning the reflecting pool green, and they took a knife and they swam in there and they did a 350-foot gash right in the middle of it, and that's what destroyed it.

And now we have to shut down the reflecting pool because of Antifa.

It's the most deranged— it's, it's, it's, it's the sickest thing in the world that this stuff comes from the president of the United States, you know. And it's fascinating, right, because, you know, you see all these books coming out right now, right, for the midterms, uh, you know, Regime Change, right, Maggie Haberman. And, uh, it was a Jonathan Swan, um, you know, whatever, you know, all these, all these books based on we've done a thousand interviews and here's what we've uncovered. And I mean, it's fine, you know, I'm, I, I'm always for investigative research, but a lot of this is kind of happening right in front of our face, you know, and we should probably just call out this malignant, narcissistic, psychotic, and dangerous behavior that's happening in plain view, that's having real-world consequences on the American people who are suffering, psychologically tortured, living paycheck to paycheck if they're lucky enough to have a paycheck, having their healthcare ripped away from them, unable to afford a home right now, can't pay rent right now, can't afford groceries or gas right now. Gas prices went up today.

Did you see that?

Because we're still drawing down the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve by another 9 million barrels. Prices have gone up, which you would say that's counterintuitive with— we see the futures price dropping. Yeah, that's the futures price. And hopefully the prices of gas will come down. But in the past 24 hours, if you looked at Florida, Michigan, Ohio, actually the prices have gone up. And had we not done this deal, there would have been global economic depression. That's what I've been warning about. And, you know, Treasury Secretary Bessant and everybody in the Trump regime, like, no, that's not happening, you know, look, you know, and all the right-wing people, Midas is lying, they're not telling the truth, none of this is real, none of this is happening, it's all false, it's all fabricated. No, it's, it's, it's, it's absolutely true, and it's deeply problematic. And we were on the cusp of, of of disaster. Um, let's take our last— let's take our first and only quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to talk more about what Trump was saying in Pennsylvania, what was going on in that speech. We'll talk about, um, how Fox state regime media is dealing with all of this.

You know, Trump's approval rating hit a new low, 30%. It'll be in the 20s very soon. I think the American people are just absolutely sick of this stuff. Sick, sick, sick. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back after this quick break.

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Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Myselis. This is your breaking news. Donald Trump's obsession with the reflecting pool continues. And, you know, I think there's— I, I've seen a lot of the lines from some of these MAGA Republican senators and Congress members today when we've asked them about it, and they go, we've got much more important things to talk about than the reflecting pool and the algae. And by the way, I agree with that, but question to these MAGA Republicans in Congress is, what the hell are you doing then? Because you've been on vacations, or you've been shutting down the House of Representatives essentially the whole year. I'll go back and look at the calendar. What would they work, a total of 20 days this year, or 25 days of actually working this year? You've completely given up your Article I function. Our Congress functionally looks like the Russian Duma at this point, and no real impact at all. And this is what MAGA has done. The checks and balances that our founders envisioned are not working, and you have this, you know, psychotic mad king, um, authoritarian wannabe, you know, who's out there.

And he's been the one saying, reflecting pool this, reflecting pool that. And so what we can be talking— I know y'all don't want to talk about that, but what we should be talking about is why the hell is the psychotic commander-in-chief talking about this all the damn time and now lying about Antifa vandals destroying it, um, when in fact he should be focused on making things more affordable for the American people and actually addressing what American people are, uh, feeling right now and how the American people are suffering. I spoke to— you may have seen the interview I did with Governor Wes Moore, Maryland, earlier in the day, and he said, you know, The idea of government isn't supposed to be a tool to inflict pain and torture and to harm people. The purpose of government is trying to make people's lives better, to protect people, but to make their lives better and easier, and to try to build in efficiencies and to, and to help. I mean, I'm not— why would I want to be paying taxes to a regime that uses it to send ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo to terrorize and torture people?

I mean, I'm sending, you know, all this tax money to a regime that's out there using it to buy bombs to attack elementary schools and kill little girls in— I mean, absolutely not. I mean, this is not what our government's supposed to be doing, you know. And now they want $1.5 trillion more for their defense budget, and they urgently need $80 billion. Think about this. The Defense Department needs $80 billion immediately, or they're not going to be able to pay their contractors, and they're not going to be able to pay their bills. So they've rushed to the MAGA Republicans in the House and in the Senate saying, we need, we need you to pass this $80 billion supplemental in order to cover the cost of the Iran war.

Huh.

So it's $80 billion to cover the cost of the Iran war. But when you all testified during one of the few days that Congress was open, you said the entire war cost $20 billion, and then someone revised it up to $29 billion. But now you need $80 billion to cover the costs. So it's just more lies, a fountain hose of lies over and over and over again. And, you know, while that's happening, you have Trump saying things like you know, I sent people over to the reflecting pool. It looks beautiful right now. It looks beautiful. We're going to fix it. We're going to put the water back in here. Listen to what he said when he was on the tarmac. Let's play it.

Including the thing that, you know, where the vandals hit the, the reflecting pool, but we'll get that back very quickly. In fact, I will say this morning I sent people over. They say it looks absolutely beautiful, but we're gonna have to let a little water out and fix it, and then we'll put the water back. But just so you understand, so our country is doing really well and we're going to keep it that way.

And just so you understand, our country is doing real well, real so, so well. Everybody's thriving right now. Just repeat the lie over and over again and rely on regime media to carry the message. I mean, this is a version of authoritarian regimes that the United States used to look down upon. I mean, this is what is going on in the United States right now. You can see what it looks like right now, the Reflecting Pool. It doesn't look beautiful. It has algae infested all over it. They're putting fencing up everywhere, um, to, to block it so that people, you know, won't be able to even see it anymore. You know, they're, they're putting fencing around the reflecting pool in the United States of America. And I'm sure you've seen the photos of what the Ellipse looks like right now, which is completely trashed. Um, the White House looks like a junkyard. You know, the reflecting pool is sludge. There's a UFC ring still, you know, by the White House. I mean, it just, it just, it looks grotesque. I can never have fathomed that this is what Washington, D.C. looks like.

They want to say this looks so beautiful, this looks amazing.

I mean, it looks like a demolition site. It looks like a grotesque demolition site. Donald Trump posted, 6 people have been arrested and 7 people have been cited for the damage they did to our country's now beautiful reflecting pool. The 350-foot gash made by a very sharp knife or razors is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350-foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done. I mean, what a deranged lie to make up. I mean, again, it's not an exaggeration to say that we are dealing with a literal psychopath. Who make— have you seen though, you know, this, this, this like, uh, MAGA army of people too though? Last night, and they were going on the various, um, shows, and they were trying to basically, you know, they were pushing this, that these are vandals. And this is why, like I say, God bless Adam Moakler for going on these, like, like the CNN fight show and then and debating these people. And, and Moakler does an incredible job. There's no, there's no one out there as good as Moakler in debating, you know, in debating these people. I just, I don't think I could ever do it.

I don't think I could like literally even have conversations with these people. I, I truly don't. You see this guy, um, Rantz, um, you know, and he's like a typical MAGA guy. I don't even understand how this is like a real human being. And he's like, and he parrots those Trump talking points. He goes on the CNN show, and the way the show is framed, like you're supposed to debate this guy. So he says his crazy shit, then you're supposed to say the truth, and then you yell at each other, and then we go to commercial break. And my view is, like, who are these human beings? What, what are you talking about? Well, just, just watch it. I mean, like, we're like quite literally dealing with the most sociopathic human beings. Here, play this clip.

Unless we're supposed to— you think somebody cut a 300-foot gash? I think it's likely. I think it's likely that someone might have committed vandalism, given we just covered a story.

Yeah, seriously. And, and while that conversation is happening, what's going on in, say, North Korea? North Korea's Kim Jong-un says the country will exercise its position as a nuclear state. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said exercising the country's position as a nuclear state is the only way to cope with an unpredictable and complicated global security situation. Imaginable, astonishing incidents and events are occurring because of the gangster-like greed of hegemonic forces, making confrontations around the world more violent, Kim said, blaming the U.S. for worsening bloodshed in Europe and the Middle East. Like, do you all remember when former President Obama was in office and Kim Jong-un would do those missile tests, but he didn't have a nuclear weapon? When Obama rolled out the JCPOA as a non-nuclear template to not just get Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, but the plan was then to bring that to North Korea. And there was no nuclear weapons while Kim Jong-un, um, while Obama was in office. And then Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un sent love letters to each other. I mean, think about in terms of the message that that sent, you know. Kim Jong-un saw that Donald Trump Tore to pieces the JCPOA.

Kim Jong-un knew what an easy mark Donald Trump is. All you got to do is say you love him, right? And Trump has an infatuation with authoritarians. So Kim Jong-un would send them like letters, like love letters, and Trump would brag, he sent me love letters. And meanwhile, Kim Jong-un worked behind the scenes to build nuclear weapons. No one even talks about on the news right now Kim Jong-un taunting Donald Trump Trump is graded on a scale that he's not even graded on a scale at all. I mean, you have other presidents having to adhere to the highest standards, and such that Obama wearing a suit color that was, you know, the tan suit was a major story. Oh my God, now think about that. How could you, how could you do that? Oh, Obama's playing basketball.

You know, that would be a major story on state regime media Fox.

Like right now, it won't even be a story other than on the Midas Touch Network, on any corporate TV network, that Kim Jong-un is just taunting Donald Trump about, you know, the nuclear capabilities of North Korea. By the way, I don't know if you saw this either, but Vladimir Putin said we would actually welcome an Islamabad style deal, and maybe that's how we could deal with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Let's do one of those.

Apparently, when the US does one of these deals, you just, you know, Russia's mocking the weakness of the deal and basically saying, yeah, we want what Iran has. Let's get us that deal. We'll take the Iran deal also.

Remove the sanctions against us, you know, we'll, you know, and ultimately you'll put the United States and NATO in weaker positions.

We want to do that.

That's what's going on there.

And then you have, uh, Sean Hannity and Fox.

What were they doing all last night? And again, this is the behavior of sociopaths right here. After all they talked about was reflecting pool this, reflecting pool that, their whole thing now is why are the Democrats so obsessed with the reflecting pool? Why are you guys talking?

You guys are so weird. You're— you keep talking about this.

We have much more important things to— but we don't want to focus on that. No, it's that y'all have been talking about this every day, 10 times a day, and everybody pointed out that it was just going to result in exactly what's happening right now. And you have a maniac president saying that it's vandals, and then you're like, oh, the Democrats shouldn't even be bringing the— guys, stop Stop bringing up— here's what Hannity says, that Democrats are obsessed with the poll.

Here, play it.

All right, Christina Coleman, thank you for that report. Now, amid the challenges and triumphs across the country, Democrats— All right, Christina Coleman, thank you for that report. Now, amid the challenges and triumphs across the country, Democrats, they are obsessed with a poll that actually reflects a lot more than the Washington Monument tonight. It serves as a reflection into the lack of a soul of a party, the Democratic Party.

You know, and this is what I want everyone to pay attention to, because this trillion-dollar propaganda arm is just an extension of the right-wing oligarchy of the Trump regime.

There's—

there is no values. There's no principles. There's no facts. There's no caring about anything other than raw power and taking your money and stealing from you and ripping away your future and your children's future so they can get more bloated with more billions of dollars because they can never satiate their thirst for sucking up all of the resources that are out there. It's never enough.

$10 billion.

They need $50 billion. They need $100 billion. Not only that, but then Elon Musk needs to take his SpaceX and infect your mutual funds and infect the NASDAQ 100 and infect all of, you know, the, this, the, the little bit of stability that we try to create planning ahead in the future.

You try to throw SpaceX into our funds.

I mean, you know what's going on with SpaceX, right? Because Elon Musk got NASDAQ to waive the rules and regulations regarding its entry into the NASDAQ 100, your 401 that Trump wants to talk about and all of these things, you may be forced to buy SpaceX.

Without even wanting to buy SpaceX. And you may be forced to buy these Trump oligarch companies without even knowing because your 401k plan, whether it buys with Vanguard or whether it pulls from these other funds, whatever it is, they buy based upon, um, the way the funds are structured.

So they buy a little bit of this stock, a little bit of that stock.

And so when they put SpaceX onto the NASDAQ 100. Sometimes there's forced buying and you're like, I don't want to buy it. Like, it's not enough for them to just have, you know, be worth a trillion dollars or hundreds of billions. They then want to bring us down with them. They, they then want to make our lives miserable. We— they want to force themselves upon us like the predators, like the predators that they are. And then they go out there like Hannity, and then they say, oh, you guys are—

I mean, I'm sure you all have, like, you know, a sociopath in your life who's like that.

Why are you bringing this up?

It's those tactics over and over and over again, relentlessly. And meanwhile, you have the emperor with no clothes or with an algae-infested reflecting pool speaking in front of truckers. Moments ago in Pennsylvania. Again, this is the type of speech that we should never have to hear. I don't care what political party you're from, any commander-in-chief, any president of the United States.

It just has reduced our country to this laughingstock of the world, the laughingstock that Trump always—

they're laughing at us, they're laughing at us.

The world is not even laughing, they're horrified at what they see here.

They are horrified of what they see here. And here's Donald Trump at this speech that he's giving, and he just starts doing the weird noises, and he starts going— have you seen this? Here, let's play this clip. And he just keeps on doing that over and over again. And he starts talking about the fat drug. He goes, have all of you heard about the fat drug? Here's what he says.

Let's play it. We paid the highest drug price in the world by far. As an example, for the fat drug, which Bo and Tony don't need to take, but a lot of people are taking. Who takes the fat drug? So in New York, think of it, it was costing a fortune.

Then he talks about winning 3 elections when he didn't. I mean, just think about the debasement of our country. Let's play this clip.

You ever hear the fake news? They say that's an 80/20 issue. No, it's not. It's 99/1. You know, I've been doing politics now for 10 years. Not that long considering I've been— I've won 3 elections, you know. So we got— but we did great in the second one. It was a rigged deal, you know.

And so he has those truckers stand behind him, or the people who work at the trucking plant, has them all dress up. The propaganda piece gets assembled. I mean, I'll show you the first clip where he asked people, um, who here did not vote for Trump? And you'll see people raise their hands. I'll show you this, you know, but these are propaganda set pieces using workers whose lives he's destroying. They become the props. This then gets pushed out on local media across the country that normalize this, as though this is like a normal speech given by the president, when there's nothing normal about this. And then state regime media just continues to, you know, play it over and over again. Here, here's where he goes: who here voted for Trump? Who didn't vote for Trump?

Let's play. Problem, then don't blame me for causing problems. Who did not vote for Trump? Young man, he wants to be— he's a young man. He thinks he's being cute as he gets pounded on. Now, he just said, no, I did. I was the first. He said, I'm the first. But the Democrats voted in favor of Iran having a—

I think he's going to say, and the Democrats voted in favor of Iran having a nuclear— no, no, they didn't. The Obama JCPOA, the non-nuclear deal, was a real deal with inspections that didn't have to, uh, remove a 40-year sanction regime. It put the United States as the kind of main guarantor of the deal terms, where the U.S. was in the strong position, which if Iran complied with this or that, then the U.S. would release things.

Now it's the opposite.

Now Iran gets everything, and if the US continues to comply, then Iran is— Iran just flipped the whole script on the United States. I mean, the United States clearly, indisputably is the weaker party in this negotiation.

It's not even close.

It's not even close. But that's the consequence of the dynamic where we went into an unlawful and catastrophic war and lost. And so you break it, you fix it. That's, that's, that's the consequence of it. Donald Trump rails about Obama in the speech. Obama gave Iran $1.7 billion in green cash, everybody.

You, you gave him— for you, when all said and done, you probably gave him a trillion dollars. It's the reality.

Here, play this clip.

For this, we had to make this detour. We had to go to Iran. You can't let them blow up the Middle East and then us if I don't think that's possible. We would have gotten them before, but they would have blown up Israel. They would have blown up the entire Middle East. Can't let that. You want to see a bad economy? That's a bad economy. So, but remember that our oil in the middle of this conflict was less than it was for Sleepy Joe Biden. And we're putting out a fire. Biden, Clinton, Bush, all of them. Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? Have you heard of Barack Hussein Obama. None of them did anything. Obama gave them $1.7 billion in green cash, remember, on a 747. They flew over piles of cash, $1.7 billion, gave them hundreds of billions of dollars and thought they could bribe them into peace. No, the only thing they understand is what these guys in the front row understand, is the hammer. Because if you look at If you look at what we did to their nuclear capacity with those beautiful B-2 bombers, that was truly a hammer.

In fact, we named it a hammer.

Operation Hammer is Operation Midnight Hammer, by the way. And you did not destroy their nuclear facilities. And as I watch that, though, and I reflect upon it, you know, I just think to myself, how dangerous it is that there are people there who believe that when the objective reality that the rest of the world understands is that everything he's saying is false. And America has never been weaker. America lost. Everything he's accusing Obama of is what he just did. We've never looked this weak as a nation. We've caused global economic catastrophe right now.

That's the real— the rest, you know, and that's where I always wondered. I always like thought to myself, I'm like, like in North Korea, right?

I was always thinking to myself, you know, do they not see what's going on in the rest of the world? And do they really believe these things? And it's like the United States has become— and not, not all of us. I mean, I still believe there's probably 60, 65% of the United States who doesn't believe this crap. But I'll make a point about that in a second. But where there's still a large portion of the country that just loves being lied to, that loves that, like, loves being treated like shit.

It just isn't, you know, that no matter what you do, no matter how terrible you behave, no matter how terrible you treat them, all you got to do is call Barack Obama Barack Hussein or call Tallarico Tallafrico.

And just pump it out.

And these people, yeah, you know, America, it's like, dude, you're— they're screwing your life. Like, you don't see that? Like, you don't see that you're the mark, that you're the target, that Iran's not buying your produce, that Iran's not buying supplies from you? You don't see that inflation is high? You don't see the pain that they're causing you? And when— with respect to the rest of the United States, yeah, Trump's approval's at all-time low, But what they depend upon, what they rely upon, is that the 60% or more doesn't go out to vote and that the 60% fights it, fights itself over process, over not doing it perfectly. Oh, you need to do it this way or else I'm not going to help you out. And so the 25% and 30% that all care just about power and domination and and taken from you. They don't care about anything other than winning the election. And I, and I think it's important that we have values and principles and that we rooted in that. But you have to understand the existential threat that exists right now. And what we have to make sure we do amongst the majority of the American people is we just have to get out there and be loud and proud about core values and principles to stand up to this crap.

Because like you, every day when I watch this and I see this behavior, there'll be algae-infested pool he'll destroy. Now, the vandals, Antifa, you know, and then his cult goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Antifa. Why did— why Democrats care so much about the reflecting pool? He'll lose the war to Iran, sign a surrender document, and say, but Barack Hussein Obama did this. And then his base will be, you know, not all of them, there's a lot of people leaving them, but Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Barack Hussein.

Yeah.

Oh, this is— we won. Iran doesn't have a navy. They don't have a military. They don't have people. They live in caves. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not what's happening. That's not what— that's not what's happening at all. America lost horribly in this horrific and catastrophic war. And now Iran has the United States trapped in this MOU where if Iran wants to shut down the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, because Trump breaches, which they know Trump's going to breach. Iran's got its 50 tankers out. All of the whatever damage that the US believed it was doing with the blockade, that's out the window. Iran got all of its tankers out. They were lined up, ready to go. Iran's got $12 billion. You want to talk about— you want to talk about green cash? Iran's got $12 billion of it right now. And every day they're going to be making $3 to $5 billion and become one of the wealthiest nations in the world. That's just the reality. And by the way, as we reflect upon that, be honest about that. That's the reality. And perhaps the outcome is if we can restructure foreign relations in the right way, that we could stop getting involved in never-ending wars in the Middle East.

Maybe that there is a, you know, a path and a way out of this and a rethinking about the Middle East, you know, so that the US isn't constantly getting into these never-ending wars. But I'll tell you, there's no path to peace. There's no path to diplomacy. There's no path to any of it when you have a psycho like Trump continuing to lie about the most basic terms on the agreement and claim things are happening that aren't in the written text. Read the damn thing. Read the joint statement. None of what Trump says is in there. Everything that Iran says is in there because it's in there. I see it. We can read it. And it's the same thing with Donald Trump painting the reflecting pool blue and telling us it was all going to be great. By painting it blue, you're not going to address the algae. And then what happens when the algae comes back? You then blame the enemy, just like the 2020 election, just like you go Russia, Russia. It's the same damn playbook over and over. And it's what led to Donald Trump going bankrupt his whole damn life. Before The Apprentice allowed him to defraud the American people and play the part of a successful businessman when he bankrupted most of the things he touched his whole damn life.

That's the reality of where this is going. That's the reality of where this is headed. He took an economy that was recovering under former President Biden, where you had inflation heading to 2%, where you had a manufacturing boom that was underway. And he managed in under 2 years— it's impressive how bad he's been— in under 2 years to just wreck it and to destroy it. But for him, he's getting richer and he'll just blame Obama and Biden and tell you up is down and down is up and the sky isn't blue and the reflecting pool isn't green. And we need to stand up to it each and every day.

And that's what we're going to do here at the Midas Touch Network. Thank you all so much for watching.

We appreciate you.

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