Transcript of Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 7/16/2026

Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Myselis. This is your breaking news. Moments ago, we learned that the United States is striking the bridges in Iran. We have visuals of the bridges on fire in Iran right now, and Iran state media is reporting that the United States has attacked the bridge connecting Bandar Abbas to Shiraz. Also, there are power outages currently affecting areas in Khorasan after the area was attacked by US strikes. US is certainly escalating the strikes on Iran under Donald Trump's directives. We've been reporting how Donald Trump was continuing to escalate and escalate. Uh, we reported, um, much earlier in this week that we thought there would be further escalation. The Wall Street Journal, uh, and Donald Trump's personal stenographer, Barak Ravid, over at Axios talked about a situation room meeting that was held earlier this week where the Trump regime discussed escalating, uh, this, uh, catastrophic war. And this comes at a time as well where we know that we've officially hit tank bottom of our strategic petroleum, uh, reserves. I've been talking now, um, at length about the issues with tank bottom. I've been talking about crack spreads, the difference between the price of crude and the price at the refinery, which is now approaching $70 per gallon.

Um, and notably you have the refinery prices continue to rise very quickly, but now also we similarly have the price of crude rising as well. And the crack spread continues to grow with crude rising as well. You have the, um, United States Energy, uh, Independent Energy Agency just, uh, released, uh, a report talking about the US hitting, uh, Tank bottom back in June, actually, the EIA, the Energy Information Agency, talking about how tank bottom was actually hit in June. And right now we are in a position where, you know, if you just take a look at the graph— do we have the schematic, Jeremy, of just what tank bottom actually looks like when you can visualize it here? You look at it right here, you see the sunken— the suction line at the bottom right there and where tank bottom is, where also it'll start getting very kind of sludgy and unworkable, you know, even if there is some, you know, remaining crude in the reserves right there. But we're like below that suction line. And as it implies, suction, you know, if you think about crude example. You know, if you're drinking a glass of whatever with a straw, you know, when it gets very low, there may be something there, but, you know, it makes it harder to sip and you have to kind of, you know, suction it differently.

That's kind of where we're at right now on these strategic reserves. And this comes at a time where Donald Trump is, you know, escalating and escalating and escalating. One of the things I've warned about as well is the natural move that Iran is going to make is they're going to work with the Houthis in Yemen, and they are going to work to shut down the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. So you have the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively shut down right now. It's not open. And then you're going to have the Bab el-Mandeb Strait closed.. And what Iran has been planning with the Houthis, who have also been working with allied groups in Somalia on the other side of the Red Sea, is a plan to just completely shut down the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. And so we're seeing that. It was obvious to me that that's where Iran was going because they were saying that. The Telegraph put out an exclusive and Reuters put out an exclusive today, a few days after the Midas Touch report. And I know when I was doing the report, I saw a lot— I would, I look at the comments sometimes and I saw no one else is reporting this.

You're being so hyperbolic about the Red Sea. Why are you saying all of these things? I said, nah, that's, that's what's happening. That's what is, that's what's clearly going to happen. And there's never been a time in history where you had both the Bab el-Mandeb close and the Strait of Hormuz close. At the same time. And it comes when the strategic petroleum reserves in the United States have hit, uh, tank bottom right now. And so I'm focused on what's going to happen there. Iran has also made it clear, and this was in the Reuters report, although I don't think we needed a report, we could have just seen what, uh, the Iranian leadership was saying, that if the Iranian infrastructure was targeted which now we're seeing bridges being hit by the United States. Iran made it clear that it would be striking the infrastructure of the nearby Arab nations. And so remember when, during the early days of the war, when Iran was striking the infrastructure there? That is, um, I think the next move from Iran. And the escalatory trap continues and continues. And Donald Trump and his despicable regime can say all they want and say, well, we— you know, this is what I think Caroline Levitt was saying this morning in a press conference.

You know, we've neutered them, we've neutered them, and they can't even talk to each other. And whoever's in charge there, they want to make a deal. We've neutered them. And it's like, no, we know who's in charge there. Just stop the bullshit. Stop it. Seriously, we know who's in charge there. We know what's going— stop with this freaking crap. And we need to, we need to have media literacy. We need to just be honest about the situation because like a miracle, it's not going to go away. All right. I know that was the COVID approach. And like a miracle, it did not go away. Speaking of which, I think Donald Trump's speech tonight, which nobody should cover live, I think he's going to try to say, you know, China created a bioweapon and then they worked with the— they worked to undermine our election. So the 2020 election was invalid. At the same time, Donald Trump is posting like love photos with himself and Xi Jinping. He keeps posting that on his various social media, his various social media accounts. But everything here is predictable. We know who the leadership in Iran is, okay? There's the civilian leadership.

They have a president. His name is Pahlavi. He's a former world-renowned cardiovascular surgeon. He's the president of Iran. They have a parliament. Their parliament leader is a guy named M.B. Ghalibaf, who's their lead negotiator. He was previously in the Iranian army. He fought in the Iraq-Iran War. He's a PhD. He's the lead negotiator, along with Foreign Minister Araghchi. Foreign Minister Araghchi actually wrote the preeminent book for negotiations and the art of negotiations, which is an ironic thing. So we know who Araghchi is. We know M.B. Ghalibaf. I know who the Deputy Foreign Minister is, Garbabadi. I know the statements coming out of there. I know their civilian leadership structure. Then on the military side, they have the IRGC and they have the army. Not the same thing, but they have an IRGC and an army. We hear the statements from the IRGC, the IRGC spokesperson. We've seen the Sepah Navy in action. We see the fast boats. We know that there have been around 7 tankers that have tried to get out of the Strait of Hormuz that the US said, you're free, you're safe, get out. And 7 of the tankers who listened to the US got destroyed by the Sepah Navy.

Iran's Sepah Navy broadcasts over a channel where they say, Sepah Navy, turn around, turn around, or we'll shoot. And when they don't turn around, the Sepah Navy shoots. We see that take place. Then there is the kind of spiritual leadership, if you will. That's the Ayatollah level. Mojtaba is the— Mojtaba Khomeini is the current spiritual— the main leader of all of this structure. He's surrounded by a judicial body of other religious leaders. They need to approve everything that the civilian does. And this is how it all kind of works together. It's often referred to as kind of a mosaic structure when it comes to their, their defense and We've seen all of these people, we've seen their statements, we've seen the anti-aircraft fire coming up from Iran, which Trump said was all destroyed. We see the Iranian Shahed drones that are flying into, you know, Erbil in Iraq and Kuwait and Bahrain and the nearby Arab nations. Also recently in Oman,, there's been a, uh, Oman hotel. This is being covered up. An Oman hotel was hit by the Iranian Shahids in a targeted assassination attempt there. But also we've seen the Shahid strikes in Iraq, um, and they've shut down oil shipping out of Iraq.

So notably, as the new Iraqi Prime Minister was visiting Donald Trump after the same Iraqi Prime Minister was at Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral procession that was in Iraq, you had Iran successfully targeting some of these Iraqi ports, shutting them down as well. And so, what I just said right there, you know, we should have a kind of a comprehensive understanding about, and I don't need to have idiot press secretaries and idiot people in the White House, whether they're just truly idiotic or it's purely malicious or both, just doing the same thing of injecting ourselves with bleach as we hit tank bottom. And so many of these things that I've been warning about are just so damn obvious that they're going to happen. And we need media, we need media to report on everything that I just said so that the people can have an understanding of what the hell is happening here and what's going to, what's going to happen next. I mean, The title of this, of the show today is WTF. Yeah, I'm going to plug the book WTF America right here, which is a book that I just wrote with my brothers, The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy.

It's out in October. You could preorder it right now, though. I'll put a link in the description below. But like the whole, the whole kind of premise of it was the WTF moment. That was the WTF moment that I had in 2020 during COVID when I said, what is this? Which made me quit my job because I was like, I can't sit by and do nothing. And there's a massive WTF moment because Donald Trump said this catastrophic war with Netanyahu that he entered into was going to end in a few days. And it didn't. And here we are.

Here we are.

Mid to late July, not only is there no end in sight, but we're in a far worse position right now than we were in the beginning of the war. And the only saving grace was the memorandum of understanding, which it was a surrender document. But okay, so what? It's a surrender document. We lost the war, a war we should never have been involved in. Yes, it's a surrender document. But you know how you would win? By winning at home domestically. And I say this as someone who despises Trump and his despicable regime. But you know what? Why don't you try to pick up some Ws at home? And by the way, reducing inflation, not reducing it, reducing it, but from what the expectations of what it's supposed to be, that could be a W, that could be a win. I could wake up and see a better than expected inflation report. And just because I despise Donald Trump, Does it mean that I go, oh, another bad day? If it's a good— however, on the same day, because of the MOU, inflation was lower than expected, but still higher than Biden handed off to Donald Trump.

What happened? Trump escalates the war. Now, I'm sure you are paying more money for your gas than before. I've seen prices out here in California. It's back over $6, North Carolina over $6. The national average is about to be $4 again. And wait when the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait closes, because we're about to be at a level where this market manipulation of crude is about to break. All the whales that are probably working with Treasury Secretary Bessant to short the hell out of that market to try to bring it down. And by the way, study that crude market the way I study it. You can quite literally see the manipulation happen. Before your eyes that makes no sense. During some of the most serious escalatory situations, all of a sudden you see all of these people buying these contracts, and all of a sudden the market starts to decrease. You're like, you're telling me on the worst news imaginable, people are saying, I'm going to bet on now buying an options contract that it's going to be much cheaper soon. After the Iraqi oil, you know, shuts down.

Really?

That's, that's why we think it's going to all of a sudden magically, magically get better. So you see the manipulation of the crude market happen two ways. This is such basic stuff. Number one, our strategic reserves, which are now at tank bottom. You basically dump that into the world market. It ain't like those strategic reserves get pumped into you know, where you fill up your gas, it gets pumped into a world market because that's how you have to take down the price on a global level. Oh, by the way, where's all that Venezuela oil, right, that the Trump regime brags about from literally conquering a country? As Donald Trump reigns over a country suffering from two back-to-back earthquakes right there, and the people are struggling, and Delcy Rodriguez is giving medals medals to Americans. Congrats, America. By the way, we should look into that because we know also seismic activity is often triggered by other kind of geological trauma. And again, I'm not getting into conspiracy theories here, but we know that the search and rescue was slow. To me, that's undisputed. But I think we need to look into some of the fracking and some of the other activity that was taking place because a back-to-back earthquake like that is a very rare thing to— like, incredibly rare to happen, where you have a forequake and the afterquake bigger than the forequake.

And at the same time, we've all of a sudden, you know, started like drilling the shit out of the— I mean, just think about, you know, think about that. But we've been manipulating the broader crude market by our strategic reserves. And then there are these whales out there— who the hell even knows where this money's even coming from— who are shorting the market at levels that are— that, that move the market. But at some point, the market catches up. You can only do that for so long. And every night, if you watch the market— and it often happens at times where there's low trading volumes— and again, I study these graphs, study these graphs every freaking night. All of a sudden, you'll see massive whales come in, very people with a lot of capital, and they're buying these options contracts that it's going to go down. I'm like, on what basis do you believe the price is going to go down? And so now, though, those people seem like they're going to be squeezed. Surprise, surprise, everything Donald Trump touches turns to shit. So there's about to be a short squeeze on them. Because we're in take bottom.

And at some point, to me, all Iran has to say, all they have to say is, we're going to close down the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. They just say it. They said right now they're considering it, and they've been using pretty careful language because I think they know, okay, we say that, that will almost certainly trigger going up the escalatory ladder with likely ground invasion by the United States, which Iran is prepared for. Um, but what else is the going to do? I mean, at that point, because now they're trapped. Now, boom, we're going to see the crude hit $150 a barrel, $170 that I've been warning about. Now, the only reason it's down or was down was the manipulation and the MOU. It's going to go back up. Then we're at tank bottom. So all Iran has to do is kind of sit back and let us hit tank bottom as well. And I think that's the thinking of Iran. Iran's thoughts are You know what, let them hit tank bottom. We still want to frame ourselves kind of globally as responding. If we say we're shutting down Bab el-Mandab, then we may seem like aggressors.

What's the implication now for, you know, other countries in the world? Are they gonna now have to join the US because this will cut off oil to the entire world? So that's why Iran is being, I think, a little bit deliberate. Do we make that call now or, you know, or not? Um, but certainly I think we're— I think we're getting there. I think we're any— we're any day away. And then you know what's going to happen? It could be tomorrow morning, it could be tomorrow afternoon, it could be Saturday, it could be Sunday. There's going to be something that happens in Cushing, Oklahoma, where our strategic reserves are. And then everybody's going to start saying, Cushing, Cushing, Cushing! Then all them, Cushing, how did this happen? How did this happen? Cushing! And it's going to be like, it was right before our freaking eyes. I was telling Brett before I went live. I said, I feel like the Leonardo DiCaprio character in Don't Look Up right now, where I sound like a broken record saying, there it is, there it is, it's coming. And then people are like, Ben, you know, or the critics, you're being hyperbolic.

All hell isn't breaking loose. Stop it, stop it. It's not breaking loose. It's not just— this is just part of the cycle. And I'm like, no, I'm stop, stop. This is— don't you understand? This is how we got here. You know, it's like, it's again, it's the Leonardo DiCaprio character in Don't Look Up. There, although I don't want to follow the arc of the way the character did certain things, let me be clear. Um, but I'm like, hey, it's there, it's there right now, and it's coming, and it's coming. And then just like in that movie— I don't want to give a spoiler alert, although The Netflix stock is doing terrible today after reporting lower earnings than expected moments ago as well. I just saw, I saw that stock tank today. But all the Elon Musk characters like, how do we make money off of the meteor? Can we mine it and use it in our technology? You know, it's like, it's like, guys, guys, this— we've hit tank bottom. This is bad. This is a catastrophic war. It's only going to continue to escalate. Okay, Iran has prepared for this. They've used the MOU to get out enough crude for it to be able to continue this going now for, you know, another year.

And the question is going to be attrition. At what point is the pressure going to be more on them or more on the US? And the US is the invading country. Let's just step back. What are we do— what are we doing? What are we doing right now? My dogs don't know what we're doing right now. What are— seriously, what are we doing right now? Why are we there? What is the— what is the endgame? They told us regime change. They told us nuclear weapons. They told us, you know, what are— what are we doing there? To open up the Strait of Hormuz. All right, well, guess what, America? Guess what, Trump? You lost the war the first time. So when you lose, guess what happens? The other side gets things. That's the way it happens. But just think about it. Donald Trump's going to be giving a press conference tonight about the 2020 election. He's a sore loser. He still talks about Russia, Russia, Russia, 2016. He's a loser. He still talks about all of these things from the past that it's like, so you think that— no, for Donald Trump, the MOU was just like so-called deals he did his whole life, which are not deals at all.

It's the art of fraud. It's how do you lure people into good faith negotiations and then try to sucker punch them during, uh, the actual deal making or during the execution of the deal itself. And Iran was prepared. They did a psychological profile on it. As I said earlier in the episode, Foreign Minister Araghchi wrote the book on the art of negotiation, which is ironic that it's him versus Trump who wrote the book on the art of fraud, basically. I mean, literally, Araghchi is known as like the guy in all— whether you agree with him or don't agree with him or whatever, that's what he's known for in diplomatic circles. You know, being a master kind of chess player, negotiator, foreign policy, lifelong diplomat. That's his background versus, versus Trump. They saw what was happening. And then, you know, what's fascinating to me also, I mean, you saw JD Vance on Rogan. I did a video on this and JD Vance is out there saying things like, and I'll show you what Caroline Levitt said when she was asked this question earlier. But JD Vance, you know, was saying anybody who says we shouldn't negotiate with Iran They don't know what they're talking about and it angers me.

And these people, you know, are just trying to be warmongers.

Okay.

It was Donald Trump who said those things. It was Donald Trump who said they're kook. This, this, this— we went from former President Obama, you know, with these incredible oratory skills and, you know, very deliberate speeches. To Donald Trump saying, they're wacky, they cuckoo, they cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. That's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with cuckoo people. They lying, you know. So a reporter said Donald Trump said they're cuckoo and they're scum. That's, that's the level of presidency discourse right now, by the way, right? By the way, right? WTF. Dub— what the— I mean, as I say in the book, I don't care what political We cuckoo. He's a cuckoo guy. That's, that's how we talk at the presidential level right now for the United States of America.

Really? Really?

You know, now every day it seems that the Trump regime Defense Department, which calls itself the War Department, are doing these weird flyovers that are like 8 feet, 10 feet above, like, like little children. And like, that's how we improve morale. Flyovers. I mean, you first off, you realize that. There's a reason why when these aircrafts actually take off, the people who work on the carriers, they put stuff in their ears to protect against that. You're going to blow out these children's eardrums. And I'm not sure— oh, you're so woke, you care about the children's eardrums? What a woke thing for you to say. You care about the Apaches flying right down there? You care about those fighter jets, you know, flying? What are you doing? Why would That's now the culture war issue. It's America. It's just the— it's the stupid— it's the stupidest shit. WTF. And that's what— what else did he talk? Testosterone. I'm not gonna play the video of Hags that said we need more testosterone, more testosterone. We're gonna— we're a high-T military. High-T? Does that— you're a high-T military? The hell are you talking about? What does that even— what are you referring to?

Grow up, grow up. Now, here is the question that was asked of Caroline Levitt, reporter, on Iran. Trump recently said it's a waste of time to deal with them. They're crazy. They cuckoo. They scum. They sick. They vicious. They violent. But Vice President Pence said, I'm frustrated by Americans who say you can't negotiate with these people. Here, play this clip.

Go ahead.

Thank you so much. Welcome back.

Thank you.

Two questions for you. If I can read two comments, one made by President Trump and one made by the Vice President on Iran. President Trump recently said, as far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars. There's something wrong with them. They are cuckoo. They are scum, sick people, vicious, violent people. And then Vice President Pence went on Joe Rogan last night and he said, I'm very frustrated by the Americans and, frankly, by people in other countries who say you cannot negotiate with the Iranians. So, your response to these contradictions? Because I think you can understand how that's confusing for Americans with this mixed messaging. And then, second question for you: At least 6 Americans are still detained in Iran. Will President Trump make this conditional— a point of condition in continuing these conversations with the country as well as political prisoners? Sure. And also, uh, people that are still being executed in Iran to this day?

Sure. To your second question, I'll never create a red line or a condition on behalf of the president without his blessing. I haven't heard him say that, but obviously ensuring the return of Americans wrongfully detained or held hostage, uh, all over this world remains a priority for him, and he has done so, uh, in a tremendous way over the course of the last year and a half. Americans from all over the world have returned home thanks to this President and the efforts of his national security team. To your first question about the comments between the President and the Vice President, respectfully, I do think you're taking comments from different times throughout this conflict and kind of asking me if these are contradictory of each other. I can tell you the President, Vice President are on the exact same page about where we are right now in this conflict. Um, and the fact that you do see to see elements of what's remaining in the Iranian regime that are more willing to make a deal and then other elements who are not so maybe willing to make a deal shows that Operation Epic Fury was incredibly effective because we neutered their ability to communicate with one another.

And they are a fragmented system. They are not the once very strong, powerful terrorist state that they were before this operation, which was one of the ultimate goals. We'll continue to work through the process. And as I said, the president will hold them accountable when they turn their back on the words that they state to the United States. But he is always open to diplomacy at the very same time.

When they turn their back to the words that they state to the United States, they're fragmented. They don't talk to each other. It's just the stupidest. That's not true. There's nothing— there is nothing in that statement that bears a resemblance to the truth. And whether it's malice, being an idiot, being a malicious idiot, that is just so damn dangerous that that is your— that that is your assessment. When you— did you not even see the funeral processions that were taking place? Did you not see it? I mean, the Iranian leaders tweet, they post on X. I, I can see their messages and their photos and their video. I mean, what are you, what are you talking about? What world do you live in? That's why I say, that's why I say, that's why I say WTF, America. W— I don't know how else to describe it. WTF. All right, let's take our first break of the show. When we come back, I've got some video footage also of the bridge on fire that was just attacked by the United States. In Iran. Obviously escalation right there. I've got some videos of the Iranian Shahid strikes in Kuwait.

We'll talk more about, uh, other developments throughout the day. Talk about, uh, some of the hearing yesterday with Blanche. All right, let's take our first break of the show.

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A—

Welcome back. It's been on breaking news. I'm Ben Myselis. This is your breaking news. I just saw even before we took a break the Acting Secretary of the Navy posting regarding those flyovers. Flight debrief complete. No reprimands, no firings, no problem. That's the sound of freedom. Semper Fi! Hoo-yah!

Hoo-yah! Hoo-yah!

What are we doing? What are you talking about? Even if there wasn't, why are you bragging about that? I mean, did you see the Do we have the video, Jeremy, of it going, um, at all? Not sure if we have the video of it, but I mean, do you see the children afterwards? Like, why, why is that something to celebrate? I, I mean, I mean, and again, I like flyo. I mean, as you know, it's like You know, I, I really don't like the UFC. It just doesn't— I like boxing, you know. You know, the UFC doesn't appeal to me, but I, I'm not like— I don't hate the idea of UFC. If you like watching UFC fights, watch it. I don't know, just not my thing. I like other sports. I like flyovers. I mean, I like cars, you know. You know, it's, it's not like, you know, I just— I, I also, you know, don't think it's ultra woke, you know, when you've got, you know, a baby in the back seat, that you have a car seat and you do a seat belt and you do all the, you know, I don't do that.

I don't brag about, yeah, you know, my, my 20-month-old, no seat belt freedom. Woo-hoo! Yeah, right. Like, okay, I mean, you know, we, we, we, what are we doing? You know, they obviously started with the Apaches with Kid Rock, and they flew the Apache right to Kid Rock's home. Then they did the Apache in South Carolina, you know. Then they did this flyover over here. Okay, does it look cool? Sure, it looks cool, you know. But what happens when they do that and somebody gets killed or there's injuries? And then it's like, well, how did this happen? How did it— you know, how did this happen? And it's like you're encouraging a very corrosive culture. And they're also firing people who were our top generals and top admirals and people who led with moral clarity. Those people have all been pushed out by Hegseth. And if you look at this Admiral Cooper guy who leads CENTCOM, I mean, this guy's like a MAGA guy now. It's quite— it's, it's, it's really sad to see. I mean, you know, I mean, I saw that guy at a hearing Cooper, you know, when he was being cross-examined by Congressmember Crowe and Moulton and other people.

And, you know, the guy looked like Baghdad Bob up there. It was, it was humiliating to watch the head of CENTCOM, Cooper. And I'm thinking to myself, you're supposed to be CENTCOM, man. What do you, what are you doing? And you know what, you have, you have CENTCOM putting out statements right now The southern corridor of the Strait of Hormuz is open. Tankers, be free to leave. We've got you. And there have been 7 tankers that followed that advice and were destroyed by Iran. And so today over the radio, Wall Street Journal reported about this. One of the captains said, go fuck yourself. Excuse my language. That's what they said. They said, go fuck yourself.

We're not—

we're not— what are you doing? Shut up. That's to CENTCOM. A captain of a tanker went to CENTCOM, went to the military, and said, F off. Just think about that, especially when you know maritime law. The idea And for those, for those who have a background in shipping or, you know, and, and the, uh, the dynamics that play out where it's very carefully choreographed laws of the sea protocols for it, for a cargo, for one of these very large container ships to go and tell CENTCOM you know, uh, the George H.W. Bush, or, uh, you know, or, or the other, the other ships that were there. Uh, go fuck yourself, fuck off is bigger than just even the headline because that's what— no, we're not doing it, shut up, stop saying you, you don't control the Strait of Hormuz. And we see with the shipping traffic, it ain't happening. And by the way, when there was the MOU It was happening. It was happening. And what'd the US say? The US said, aha, we got you, Iran. Yes, paragraph 5 of the MOU says that you are the administrator, but we got a loophole. We got a loophole.

We didn't say we can't send ships out through the southern route that will open up with Oman. We never wrote that into the contract. So gotcha, gotcha. To which Iran said, no, look, we will charge a fee around 1%, maybe less. Use the IRGC route. We believe we won the war. You're the one who asked for the deal. We didn't ask for the deal.

They—

who asked for the deal? Who declared the unilateral ceasefire? Was it Iran? Or was it Trump? Go back. Remember the last time Trump said we're going to destroy your bridges and infrastructure? Who was the one who declared ceasefire many months ago?

Trump.

So from Iran's perspective, you wanted the ceasefire, you wanted the deal, you came to us. And look, to be fair, could one have a— I get some listeners and viewers who go, Ben, But pro— but paragraph 5 doesn't specifically say that the US can't open up that route. So how come you keep saying that your interpretation is that it doesn't expressly say Iran controls the entire Strait of Hormuz? I— that's a fair point, but it says Iran is to administer it in consultation with Oman and the other Arab nations. So when they're the ones administering it, If the US wanted to open up the southern route, you would imagine that then you would go to the person administering it to say, we'd like to do that. But that's not how, you know, the Trump wanted the loophole. And they— but this is what Trump's done with contracts his whole life, where he rips them. That's what he does with the Constitution. And so he goes, haha, that's my way out. To which Iran said, no, no, no, no, no, we'll do warning shots. We want it this way. And then Trump said, OK, well, then we're going back to war.

We're going back to war. And then Trump started attacking Iran and escalating and escalating and escalating. And here we are where they are destroying the bridges right now. And let me just show you— let me show you some of the, some of the latest right here. This is video out of Iran from their state-owned Mehr News showing the aftermath of a U.S. airstrike in Bandar Abbas right now. In the Kherson province.

Let's play it.

Okay. Here is a missile hitting the middle of the bridge. A fuel tanker was destroyed as well. It's believed the driver was killed in this also. Part of the bridge is gone right here, and this is a bridge connecting Bandar Abbas to Shiraz that civilians use. Now, the Trump regime and CENTCOM, I'm sure they'll say, um, I'm sure they'll say, um, I'm sure they'll say, well, this is, uh, also used by the military as well. But that's also the logic that had the Trump regime kill the little girls in Manob, in the elementary school, which Trump acts like, you know, that didn't happen at all. And so this one right here, let's just play the clip, Jeremy. I'll describe what it is after. Great. And play the other one now, Jeremy, also. So the last clip you saw was the Iranian strike in Kuwait. Notably, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, all these other countries, they always go, um, The— we shot all of the drones, there was no damage done. That's what Iraq said after Iran targeted Erbil, and that's what the United Arab Emirates says about Fujairah. That Oman tries to deny that one of its hotels was attacked by Iran as well.

Um, they did nothing. None of it happened, none of it happened, everybody. And it's like, okay, well, we, we've got videos of what's actually happening.

Here.

And then let me show you what Caroline Levitt said when, um, she was asked more about this, uh, catastrophic war in Iran today that she returned. Um, and here she was asked— even the, the way this question was asked is ridiculous. And it says, can you explain why the American people should think a deal with Iran would be worth it? Considering they broke it already. No, I, I— look, as a patriotic American, I, I— let me be— I love, I still love what this country can be. I, I love being born in this country. I, I consider it a patriotic duty to use whatever limited skill set I've been given in order to try to, you know, call this out, to call out stuff that I view as anti-American. This, the Baghdad Bob stuff that, you know, the— what's the guy's name, uh, Ali G? What, what, what's the— Borat or the Emperor? What, what, what was the— what was the show? The dictator stuff, right? That we would kind of, we would kind of, we would kind of mock that behavior, you know. We would mock the way, you know, South Park would make movies of, uh, Kim Jong-un's dad.

Remember that?

You know, remember that? You know, we, we would, we would as a country go, oh my God, can you believe like what that looked like? And you know, and that's what we would say. And so to me, when that's happening here right now in the United States, when I hear stories about— what was it that, um, I mean, we knew this already, but that after Trump would invest in these companies, what was the latest story? That he would immediately start to, you know, trade within 2 or 3 days after he posts about it on his social media platform, which, I mean, I think obviously we all, we all knew that that's, that, you know, that, that's what they were doing. And he would start talking about that, these companies, and talk them up when we wouldn't know that he was doing these 21,000 trades. But anyway, the, the question here: can you explain why the American people should think a deal with Iran would be worth it considering they broke it already? The moment Donald Trump held it up in Versailles Trump went to Versailles. Trump held it up. Then the US started breaching the MOU.

And I, you know, I, you know, perhaps, perhaps you could say, well, Ben, if the US was breaching, do you think though that it was right for Iran to strike those tankers? And I would agree with you and say no, I probably shouldn't hit the tankers. But didn't JD Vance say that there was a de-escalation cell that would address and avoid these things? At some point when you have Marco Rubio go to the Middle East right after Trump holds it up and Marco Rubio starts to say things like, we're never going to give him the $300 billion, we're not talking about it. When you then do an MOU, uh, with Lebanon and Netanyahu and basically say that Netanyahu can stay in Lebanon indefinitely in so-called security zones, which is southern Lebanon. Not a security, it's territory that belongs to Lebanon and create some concept. Well, we're going to do pilot zones, then security zones. And then when Netanyahu keeps on striking inside Lebanon, by the way, in residential areas, there's a residential strike today as well. You know, in Lebanon, you know, there have been more murders in Gaza right now when Article 1 or paragraph 1 of the MOU says that a true ceasefire in Lebanon needs to happen.

When Iranian funds were supposed to be unfrozen, which weren't. The $300 billion were supposed to happen. So at some point, it wasn't like Iran struck the ships right away, you know, it was, oh, it was over time. And so this idea, this idea of why would Iran, why would we trust them if they breached, it's like No, we— the U.S. breached. The U.S. breached right away, and the U.S. never had any intention of actually doing the MOU. The U.S. has no intention of doing the MOU. The U.S. invaded. We know from people inside the Trump regime that Iran didn't have an imminent ability to get nuclear weapons. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, and he consistently lies about it. Trump invaded, you know, and his whole promise was, I'm not going to do this stuff. And Trump has said that the Iranian leadership is reasonable. They're good. Now they're scum. They're reasonable. They're scum. That is— don't we realize that, that, that, you know, it's, it's— look, Iran is also engaged in propaganda. Let's not be naive. We're not going to be like, oh, everything Iran says is true. Everything you hear on Mehr and Tasnim We should just talk.

Absolutely not. But I'm in a quest with you for the videos, for the data. Is the Strait of Hormuz opened? Is it closed? What's actually happening? What do the satellite images show? Oh, they actually show that these bases in the US were hit. Are those real? Are those AI? Oh, wait, they're real. We learned about them. We know that that's the case. The US troops have abandoned those bases. Got it. Where are our assets going? Where are the American troops? Oh, wait a minute. There were 3 medevac planes recently that the US put in Saudi Arabia and near— what are those medevac planes doing? Oh, they're going to Germany. Are they bringing Americans with it? What's good? We have to assess it and we can pull apart the noise and we can see what happens. But I'll show you, you know, when— well, first let me show you what Caroline Levitt says here. Can you explain why the American people should think a deal with Iran would be worth Here, play this clip.

He essentially seemed fed up with these negotiations.

And can you explain why the American people should think that a deal with Iran would even be worthwhile at this point, given the fact that they broke it already?

Well, look at how bad they are behaving. It just proves the president's initial point for launching Operation Epic Fury in the first place. Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. That's why he launched Operation Epic Fury. They have suffered devastating blows to their military and their economy as a result. The president is always open and willing to diplomacy. He is the peace through strength president, after all. After Operation Epic Fury, the conclusion of it, we did move forward into a diplomatic phase, if you will. But unfortunately, Iran has since violated that. They have expressed they still want to make a deal to the president. We're talking to them. But again, the president is not going to allow them to fire on ships in the strait. Without paying a consequence for that. And I think just one more point, I think throughout this entire endeavor, the President has proved not just to Iran, but to the entire world that we can hit Iran anytime, anywhere, anyplace. And their ability to defend themselves has been essentially wiped out because of this President and Operation Epic Fury in the first place. Sure. Alina, go ahead.

Thank you so much. Welcome back.

Thank you.

Okay, the person's welcome back. No, don't welcome back. Why would we welcome back a liar? Okay, well, welcome back. That's why the press corps is so broke. Welcome back. Please, please tell us more lies that we can broadcast. Please, welcome, welcome, welcome back. And again, so I have to now assess, and you have to assess, okay, on the one hand I have the Trump regime saying Iran's ability to defend itself is completely destroyed. Okay, on the other hand, I see Iran saying, here's how we've responded, here are the satellite image of where we've hit, here I have videos of what's going on in Iraq and Kuwait and Bahrain and, uh, in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and I see what's happening in Yemen. I also see Saudi Arabia attacking, uh, the airport, the Sana'a airport in Yemen. I see things escalating there. Um, okay, if you say Iran's ability to defend itself is completely destroyed, that's a bold statement. That's a bold— and, and it carries with it, uh, meaning, right? So I'm assessing Is what this Trump regime told me true? And I go, no, that's, that's an absolutely false statement that she's making.

Now, if you wanted to say we are hitting Iran hard, um, be— and then try to explain to me the plan. Why, why are we hitting— why are we hitting them? What's the plan? Is anybody going to try to explain this? No, I don't even know why we're there, um, right now, but okay. Um, even when Trump, you know, tries to speak about the nuclear stuff, he's like, no one can reach it, nobody can get it, it's impossible, we obliterated in 2025. Okay, but if you want to say, hey, we've, we've hit here, here, and here, and that's part of a plan, I'll, I'll want to listen. I still think that this is a Trump regime of war criminals. Um, I, I then see Iran's responses, and they still seem to have a pretty significant ballistic missile arsenal. They seem to have a Shahed drone arsenal. They keep on responding on a daily basis. And so also, if Iran doesn't have any capabilities, why do you need to strike their civilian infrastructure? That seems to be a pretty desperate move if that's where you're going. And then you get something like this. A Sky News reporter said, what's the latest on Manab right now?

Where the US killed, slaughtered 168 people, mostly little girls. Let's listen to what is responded, how Caroline Levitt responds.

Let's play it.

120 children dead, 26 of their teachers. A Sky News investigation released today points to all this being a tragic mistake by America, by the US military. So could you explain please why The president is repeatedly saying it wasn't America when he hasn't actually— he says also that he hasn't even seen the report.

I can't speak to the Sky News investigation respectfully because I have not read it. All I can speak to is what the president has said.

Okay, so where are we? So what, what, what's, what's the, what's the answer? Well, you know, and then she goes on to say, ah, you know, it was actually nothing. And, uh, It, uh, you know, we, we're still investigating it. You know, the only thing that I would say when Sky News says, you know, it's a— it was a tragic mistake, you know, um, uh, you know, someone in my family has said, you know, mistakes often just don't happen, mistakes are made. And when the Trump regime invades a country with Netanyahu without planning and you are focused on the quantity of targets, it's not just like, oh, mere negligence, oopsies, oopsies. No, no, no. I mean, to me, it is an intentional war crime that was committed. Um, you know, if I was applying criminal law standards, it would be a recklessness that would rise to the level of intentionality. There was an invasion. And, you know, if, if, if you think about it in terms of, um, you know, criminal law, if you will, right? If you punch somebody and you intend to punch them but you don't intend to kill them and they, and they die, you can say, oh, that wasn't murder.

You know, if you go into a war and you intend to kill people, which is what the U.S. intended to do, and then you kill and slaughter children, you don't get to say, ah, that was an accident. In, in my view. And then Donald Trump refuses to take accountability. We'll never know who did it. We'll never know what happens. We'll never know how it happened. And it's like, no, I mean, so if that's your positioning on that, if you still claim that the reflecting pool was destroyed by vandals, if you're going to go and do a presser tonight and you're going to say the 2020 election was stolen by the Chinese, um, while you're like a Xi Jinping bootlicker, if that's what you're gonna do, then, you know, I don't, I don't trust you. I have zero trust. It's all lies coming from the United States, and it's a sick and sad thing. That's what I talk about in WTF America. Pre-order it right now. Um, let's take our last— let's say, for those who— I hope you can hear it in the background. So my, my baby girl's in the background, and she's got the, you know, the You know that bunny that like, uh, you wind up and it goes, and she wants my attention, so she's got the bunny right there and she keeps— she's playing the bunny right there while I'm, while I'm doing the show.

All right, let's take our, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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Welcome back. Learning that some networks, NBC, ABC, saying that they are not going to be airing Trump's address, uh, tonight, which I think is the smart, uh, decision where Trump's going to lie about the 2020 election. I think that there can be coverage of it, like afterwards, to make sure you fact-check the lies. We're gonna have to fact-check the lies, but I certainly would never, um, ever want to play any of that live, you know. And it's the same thing, you know, uh, when you go to these, you know, pressers over here, um, by Caroline Levitt. I mean, the question is, you know, we, we're used to spin, which is not good, but we, but we know spin But then there's just outright lies, and that's what Caroline Levitt, you know, does. So during her presser as well, um, she talked about Tuesday's Consumer Price Index report, and she says it confirmed what Trump predicted. Let's play this clip.

Turning now to the economy. Tuesday's CPI report confirmed what President Trump predicted— prices Prices are falling and this administration's economic policies are working. Inflation dropped 0.4% last month, beating expectations and marking the largest monthly decline in more than 6 years. Prices fell, including for gasoline, electricity, non-prescription drugs, car insurance, medical care services, and hotels, delivering relief for American working families.

Okay, let me ask you, everybody who's here, and I mean this objectively, do you feel relief right now? Yeah, but you know, objectively, do you feel relief? Do you feel that you're in a better position this month than you were last month? I mean, just an honest question. I'll, I'll, I'll look, I'll look at your comments right now, and, and if you do, that's, that's, we'll tell the truth. Do you feel better right now, honestly? And it's not— and, you know, whether you hate Trump, despise him, like him— I mean, I don't know why you would like him, but, you know, are you in a better position? I'll tell you my view, and maybe you get mad at me for it or whatever. I hate to— I was never hopeful because with Trump, you know, he's always going to make the wrong decision. And I root for the country even if you have a disgusting regime in charge. So with the memorandum of understanding, with the hope of, you know, maybe this guy who's horrible, because he is focused on the midterm so much, just maybe at least from now until November Maybe he just, you know, focuses.

You knew after the midterms, especially if and when Democrats take control of the House and maybe the Senate, you know, we'd go—

we—

I knew we'd be back to war then. But, and I wasn't naive because I saw the MOU was doomed for failure from the outset. But there's always a 2% of me that would hope because I want everybody to do better. Come on, let's bring these gas prices— like, come on. And, you know, if the MOU was working for a few days, which it really never did at all, you know, is that relief good? You know, and, and when you see a lower-than-expected inflation report but still inflation is up, right? The report said year over year inflation is now at 3.5%, so it's 3.5% higher than last year's inflation. And that's— what was last year's inflation? Close to 2.8, 2.9, 3, you know, 3. So 3, 3.5, you add them up basically and you go, okay, so Biden— they would always attack. So we're 6.5% if you add up both Trump years so far over Biden, Trump over Biden, by about increase when Trump said he was going to decrease the prices. 3.5% means inflation is rising. But if it's a good— a cooler than expected reading, great. But what we all know is that Trump escalates the war.

We all knew that it was going to be just part of a market manipulation scheme, which it was. And right now, I'm sure you are feeling what I'm feeling, which is The price of gas has gone up to right now. It's right around where it was during some of the worst moments of the war. Ain't no sign of it coming down anytime soon, especially when I'm a broken record talking about crack prices, strategic reserves, right? What's going on there? And so stop selling us shit. Stop the lying. And the Trump regime They do the fraud in a lot of ways that I want to— I talk about that. You go, okay, Ben, stop talking about Imperio, stop talking about the book, stop talking about the book. I'm proud of the book. That's why I talk about it. And so, and it's inspired by you. So that's because I wanted to get these ideas out there. And I hear you, if you're like, Ben, stop promoting it all the time. It's, it's, it's, it's honestly when, when I don't mean to be morbid, but it's part of what I want to be a legacy, not just for me but for what we've all built together.

That's why I'm proud of it. We just announced it, so you'll have to deal with me talking about it a little longer because I'm proud— because I'm proud of it. But I talk about the schemes and the scams, okay? And let me highlight some of them for you right now. As my— as my daughter, you know, the She's got the bunny like right there wound up as I'm, you know, as I'm doing all of this. And so imagine doing a newscast and in the background all you hear is the bunny jumping right there. Um, okay, a few things. Um, Trump will go out and say, I brought in $19.1 trillion. $19.1 trillion, right? Okay, well, if you brought in $19.1 trillion then why do you have to do Reconciliation 3.0, right? That's what they're talking about, where they want to take away more of your taxpayer dollars or increase our debt even more than it is right now, right? This past year we've added about $3.5 trillion in debt. Just think about that. The debt is going to hit $40 trillion soon, and that's being caused by the fact that Donald Trump hasn't brought in $19.2 trillion.

So one of the scams is I've brought in all of this money. I brought in all of this money. And that's like a Ponzi scheme, right? Bernie Madoff, record returns. You've never been better. You've never been richer. You come up with a big number and just keep on repeating it all over and all over again. And what's it also to cover for? Well, y'all told us there were MAGA Republicans. The big, beautiful bill was going to cover everything, right? But they've ran out of money on the big, beautiful bill despite looting from all of us and taking away our health care and taking away Medicaid and taking away all of these things. Right. So then they did reconciliation 2.0 and now they need reconciliation 3.0. What is that? Classic Ponzi scheme behavior. I used to litigate against Ponzi schemes. I would be appointed by the SEC when it used to function They would appoint a receiver, and the receiver would appoint people like me, and I would bring cases and litigate cases in California. Billion-dollar Ponzi schemes. What would they do? Special Purpose Vehicle 1, Special Purpose Vehicle 2, Special Purpose Vehicle 3, 4, and so on.

And then 2 would pay 1, 3 would pay 2, and then the, um, the people who were involved in the scheme would take the vig. They take it for themselves as they would go from Special Purpose Vehicle 1, 2, 3, 4, you know, and, and so on, right? And so Reconciliation 3.0, it's a very familiar thing for me in Ponzi scheme language that I used to litigate against, because it's just Special Purpose Vehicle 3. They ran out of money on 1, they ran out of money on 2, this is 3, and then they throw up $19.1 trillion and say, aha, look how rich we are, $19.1 trillion. But they're looting from you Also, where's a lot of this money going to? The military-industrial complex, which is Trump, Trump kids, Trump friends, the right-wing oligarchs, the data centers, which Trump says he loves the data centers. They're the greatest. You know, all— well, we all know how wrong he is. He goes, the data centers create energy. Now they take up the energy. He hates the windmills but loves the data centers, right? The windmills, they're hurting our energy. The data centers, liquid gold. That's what's helping.

No, the opposite. So what other scams are they pulling while they're looting from you? Well, then they'll say, okay, okay, Walmart has a sale, 10%, 15% off ground beef, right?

Or whatever it is.

And then they'll try to act like, look, we've brought down ground beef prices. Because Walmart did a sale. Okay, that's like saying like Cyber Monday sales are reflective of decreasing inflation. At the same time, did you catch what they did late last night? They tariffed Brazil 25% after the Supreme Court declared Trump's tariff authority illegal. Trump did something called a 301 investigation. And then imposed 25% tariffs on most Brazilian imports. What's going on there? Well, Trump is working with Jair Bolsonaro's kid, Flávio Bolsonaro, and Flávio Bolsonaro is running for president against President Lula in Brazil, who's currently in charge of Brazil. This is part of the Trump regime's dominance over the Western Hemisphere. And regime change. So what they're trying to do, in my opinion, is basically shake down Brazil and say, if you vote for Flávio Bolsonaro and then get Jair to be pardoned and removed from prison because he's their insurrectionist president, I will remove the tariffs and Brazil's economy can do better. Because even though we pay the tariffs here, it is a trade barrier to stop Brazilian goods from coming in. So it ends up still hurting Brazil. It hurts us as the consumers for things like coffee and all these other— and all this other stuff.

But it hurts us as well. And by the way, we have a $400 million trade surplus with Brazil. But that's what Trump's doing, you know, harming us even more with more tariffs against Brazil in order to do a regime change there, basically. Basically, um, and help the Bolsonaro family. In my opinion, that's easily what's going on. By the way, are you hearing this covered anywhere? Pretty big deal, huh? You know, I mean, maybe other people, I don't know, but it's, it's a pretty big deal. And then Trump will say, look, I've got Freedom Gas Centers, the Freedom Centers, and they're charging $3.47 a gallon. Well, it's these like right-wing friends of Donald Trump who are doing this gimmick, losing money likely, on the gas at these 15 Freedom Centers. There's 150 gas stations— 150,000 gas stations in the United States. So he points to 15 and says, look, $3.47 there, 10% discounts in Walmart, $19 trillion. Shoop, here I go, here I go. Reconciliation 3.0. Let me snatch your money. Comes from the taxpayers. Saddle us with more debt. The debt goes up to $40 trillion. Typical Ponzi scheme behavior while the Strategic Petroleum Reserves decrease, while Iran's about to shut down Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, while we're in a never-ending war, while Donald Trump engages in 21,000 stock trades every— last year, while Donald Trump's A teleprompter guy was betting on Kalschi, on what words Donald Trump would say because he saw the speech.

He was placing bets on freaking Kalschi while Don Jr. is on the board of Kalschi and a Kazakhstan mining company that the US has been giving a lot of money to while the American people are suffering. So that's what's good. That's what's, that's what's going on. That's what's going on right now. All right, um, now of course the bunny— the bunny stops. The episode ends, the bunny stops. I'm gonna plug the book one more time. I saw that the person was like, I'll buy the book if you stop promoting it. Okay, but that's kind of mean. It's a— it's a passion project for me, um, and it's something I poured my— my soul into. And I talk mostly about the Midas Mighty community in the book being the inspiration for everything, you know, that's out there. And there's a lot of shitty books out there and there's some good books out there, but I want it to do well, you know, just like I want, you know, I want everything to do well. So you'll have to, you'll have to listen to me say it one more time. The person says, Ben, push the book, my man, plug away.

I'm grabbing, I'm grabbing my— you never heard the bunny. I heard the bunny the whole show. Go, you know, the bunnies that jump when you go to the mall.

It was one of those.

It was right, and she put it there, and then she walked away like she knew exactly what she, she was doing. She's like, come on, Papa. Hey, her new thing though was, um, we play doctor. Could we play doctor? Doctor, play doctor, play doctor. Anyway, here's the, here's the book right here, WTF America, um, in the, in the description below. You can get a link to it, check it out, pre-order it. We haven't— we have a message. Um, someone says, ignore them, you promote, you promote it, be passionate, be proud of it. Awesome book. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not immune to comments. I'm not impervious to criticism, you know. Anyway, thanks everybody. Thanks everybody for watching. Appreciate you. Watch the brother show tonight. Watch the— there's going to be a lot of updates on the show. Thank you all so much. Love you. Shout out Midas Mighty.

Have a good one.

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