Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 7/24/26 New

We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. Donald Trump engaging in a massive escalation of this catastrophic war in Iran. Iran is responding, striking US military bases in the region. The United States abandoning a lot of its military bases in the neighboring Arab nations to Iran, moving military equipment to Israel. Meanwhile, the Houthis, part of the Axis of Resistance with Iran, have been able to successfully and effectively effectively closed down the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi Arabian tankers. Two Saudi Arabian tankers were struck by the Houthis. About 7 to 8 others turned around after seeing what went down to those other two tankers. The Strait of Hormuz still remains effectively shut down by Iran despite CENTCOM claiming, uh, the contrary, that it's open and everybody's using it and things are amazing, uh, in the Strait of Hormuz. Donald Trump was in Dover, Delaware for the dignified transfer as former more service members who were killed in action return. Donald Trump put words in their mouth in one of the most disgraceful things I've ever seen, saying that they all said before they die they didn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Donald Trump giving multiple deranged, uh, speeches recently. We'll talk a little bit about that. But now he's doing that thing where he calls up his different preferred reporters saying how massive the escalation is going to be, trying to intimidate Iran by saying the attacks are going to be so devastating, so many bridges and power plants. Iran's going to be begging for a deal. If we bomb them more, they're going to be begging for a deal. We actually have top military officials who continue to leak to New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, Wall Street Journal, and others that the United States doesn't have the munitions. And that's pretty obvious if you see Iran being able to strike with impunity American bases in the region. Uh, meanwhile, you have the price of oil surging, crude over $100 a barrel, and that could be $150 a barrel in the blink of an eye. Gas prices here at home are going up significantly. Inflation is surging. The 10-year, 20, 30-year Treasury yields going up significantly, worse than really at any time during Trump's term so far, including his liquidation day or liberation day, whatever the hell they call it.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps putting tariffs on Canada and Brazil and other places saying, if we just put more tariffs on, that's It's going to make them want to do deals with us. They'll back down the more we tariff them. Iran will back down the more we bomb them. And the American people are the ones who are suffering. There have been a series of polls coming out, whether it's Washington Post, Politico, Pew, Fox, and others. I mean, Donald Trump's approval is the lowest in modern presidential history, worse than Nixon when Nixon resigned. Also, in terms of the war itself, record lows. There's never been a war less popular in the history of the United States than this right now. Wards. We've got a lot, uh, to discuss. Brett and Jordy, good to see you both. A busy, busy, busy day in the news, and, uh, you know, Trump inflicting catastrophic pain and suffering on the American people in the world.

But Ben, maybe if he just keeps doing the same thing but harder and over and over again, it will solve the issue. Of course I'm being sarcastic. It's good to be here with you, Ben. Good to be here with you, Jordy. Great to be here with you, Midas Mighty. You know, this is that reality deficit that we've talked about so much on the show right now, which is Trump makes these major proclamations. He comes up with these massive lies. And ultimately, in some cases, he runs into a brick wall of reality. And you can't avoid that reality. COVID was one such instance. And now we're seeing that with the Iran war, Trump threatening all these escalations, Trump threatening more bombings, more attacks. Meanwhile, we see the data, we see that American munitions are running low. We're seeing that bases are being evacuated. You can't escape that reality, no matter how much you want to try. So what happens? Donald Trump, cornered like the rat that he is, his back against the wall, which of course makes him even more dangerous and more erratic, trying to do more crazy things. Then he starts doing all the tariffs again on all the countries, again deploying strategies that have already failed and been rejected.

We're going to get into all of that. But, you know, first we got to check in with the Jordy man. What's up, Jay?

Brothers, my smiley. It's great to be here. I don't want to take it on such a dark turn to start the show, especially as you tossed to me in such a lovely cadence there, Brett. But the reality is, the longer this drags on, Donald Trump is going to get more and more of our troops killed. That, like, his incompetence is going to get more and more of our troops killed. And it should anger every single American that we are in this war of choice by Donald Trump without any clear reason. As to why we are there. And he can't even come up with— every time you ask him something different, we need to open the strait, we need the regime change, we need this, we need— we can't get a clear answer as our men and women in the military are dying, dying. So don't ever give me that BS crap again, that MAGA, that they love our troops. No, you don't. You don't love our troops. You can't defend what's happening right now and say you love our troops because you don't. Ben, sorry, where we started.

Well, look, go back to 2020. Uh, Donald Trump kills General Soleimani, general of Iran, IRGC, kills him in Iraq. Iran responds, hits an American military base nearby. Um, the Trump regime covers up— they said no injuries, no injuries. We later learned that there were over 100 very serious traumatic brain injuries, which then in the 2024 campaign Donald Trump said, nah, they were just very minor and minor. These are 100 traumatic brain injuries took place after Iran targeted the US in 2020 because Donald Trump killed Soleimani. I mean, remember that year, it began early January with Soleimani being killed by Trump and then COVID the next month. I mean, I remember, uh, that year very, very vividly, but Trump covered up the injuries to our service members over there. Then I want you to now fast forward a little bit but rewind from the present to May of 2025 when Donald Trump surrendered to the Houthis in Yemen. That was, remember, SignalGate, where people like Mike Waltz, who then got a promotion to become the United States ambassador to the United Nations, and Hegseth, all these people invited that guy, was named Jeff Goldberg or something, from The Atlantic onto their Signal group chat when they were talking about the different targets in Yemen that they were going to be hitting.

Do you all remember that there were all these mysterious F-15s that were like falling off the ships, like the supercarriers? Like, another helicopter fell off one of our aircraft carriers, another F-15 just kind of fell, rolled over. Remember, they were saying all that stuff back then, you know, another piece of military equipment spontaneously combusted. There was a lot of that happening at that time. And I felt like we were the only ones saying, yeah, that doesn't sound right. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't sound right. And then in May, Donald Trump surrenders to the Houthis and says they're brave, they're valiant, they're courageous. They're a great people, honor their word. They've given me their word and we're good with the Houthis right now. Well, when Donald Trump lives in a deficit reality, a fake reality, this fake dystopian world, guess what actually is is happening. Iran is studying that. The Houthis are studying that. China's studying that. The rest of the world, even our ally, you know, allies, everyone's studying that behavior and goes, got it, got it, got it. They're learning lessons. And Donald Trump goes deeper and deeper into derangement as corporate news bends the knee further and more MAGA bootlicking takes place.

And so that's what happened back then. So now you kind of fast forward to right now and you take a look at what's happening in these bases right now. Their official number is 18 American service members killed in action on 447 injuries, which again, the Trump regime, Defense Department, CENTCOM and others— and CENTCOM, what a clown show CENTCOM has become. Horrifying that I have to even say that about CENTCOM. But they say most of these injuries are minor concussions. Those things are minor concussion. That's a traumatic brain injury. If a ballistic missile or Shahed drone is striking containerized barracks, it's not a minor concussion. Okay, that's a TBI that could destroy our service members' lives for the rest of their lives. If anybody knows what a traumatic brain injury or has had a traumatic brain injury in their, in their lives.

I got a concussion. It's not, it's not fun. It's not a good situation.

10 medevac flights taken place in the past 10 days. 10 medevac flights in the region. 150 emergency medical personnel have been rushed to the Germany hospital facility right now as we speak. And then there are also troops that are being surged in the area. When I say containerized barracks, I just want people to know that our service members are basically living in the equivalent of like the back of a truck, like they're containerized. They're like a container. And they live in these barracks that are kind of lined up like truck containers in a shipyard. And that's where they are. The American interceptors aren't working or they're ineffectively working or running out of munitions in these Arab nation bases. Israel has its Iron Dome. Which now we're learning more and more of these Arab nations were basically serving as the first layer of the Iron Dome for Israel, which that's why Iran's picking off these Arab nation radar and early detection systems first. The US is moving its planes to Israel. And meanwhile, you have our service members are basically sitting targets there. With all that happening, Donald Trump is holding a press conference today where he brags about 18 killed, as though that's a good thing.

Less than Vietnam, less than World War II. So we did two wars, Venezuela and Iran, and only 18 killed. So I don't get enough credit for that, basically, Trump said. Let's play that clip from earlier in the day.

That's 18 in two wars, and one is too many. But it's 18, whereas in Vietnam we lost 200,000. We lost thousands and thousands and Afghanistan, we lost thousands in every war, the Korean War, thousands. And these wars all lasted for years. And we want to get it over with and we want to do it right. But we have to— we have to do what we came to do. And that's— we can't let these people, very violent people, we can't let them have what they want, which is nuclear weapons.

First off, it wasn't 200,000. It was still a lot of people who died in Vietnam. It was 58,000. But numbers actually matter, right? I mean, you can't say that we lost 200— that you can't just make up a number. It's 58,220, I believe. You're the president of the United States. You have to be very specific. And then he gives nuclear material or nuclear capabilities to Saudi Arabia. Yesterday, that was the announcement. Saudi Arabia gets nuclear capabilities. And then today he said, it's okay though, because we're not going to allow them to enrich nuclear material. And Iran uses nuclear material also for non-military purposes. So it's just going to be like Iran's nuclear program for non-military purposes. And Saudi Arabia has to join the Abraham Accords and become an ally of Israel. Trump didn't say that yesterday, that Saudi Arabia would have to become an ally of Israel and join the Abraham Accords, but that was added today. And so I think this whole deal is corrupt to begin with and shouldn't happen, but From Saudi Arabia's perspective, what do you think happened there?

You think he got a call from like Bibi or somebody over there and they were like, you can't do that. Like, what the hell? Like, what's going on there? Like, I feel like something happened because Trump announced that because I think the subtext of all of this is that Trump has royally screwed over all of these other countries in the Middle East who would traditionally be our allies. So Trump is desperate to save face, right? Because Saudi Arabia is the country that gave billions of dollars to Jared Kushner. These are the countries that are giving Donald Trump private jets. These are the people who are like, listen, man, we did you a solid and then you came to our region and you screwed us over and you made us the military targets. So what do you got for me? Because I'm going to pull all that stuff out. I ain't helping you anymore. And so then Donald Trump goes on his Truth Social app and he goes, okay, Saudi, take the nuclear. It's all you. It's all you. Then he probably gets a call from Bibi and probably like, oh no, no, no, no.

Let me—

I see what you're doing there with Saudi Arabia. I see it. But let me give you a little bit of guidance right over there. They must join the Abraham Accords. Just add the Abraham Accords in there.

Okay, baby.

Okay, baby.

I'll fire off another Truth Social.

Caroline will handle it. Donald, Donald, you will be viewed in very historic terms if you do such a thing. That would be very much, you know, and it's like, hey, you know, Saudi Arabia ain't joining the Abraham Accords unless they want to topple the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. You know, their people know that there's a genocide going on in Gaza. And until Palestine is recognized as a country. Saudi Arabia has made it very clear. And by the way, you know how I sometimes go rewind to this, rewind to this? It's because Trump's deranged storylines repeat over and over and over again. Like, do you all remember that before the MOU was entered into about 3 months ago or so, what Donald Trump say when he was on the phone with Saudi Arabia and all these countries? He said Saudi Arabia— I'm not doing the Bibi voice— he said Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Turkey, that they need to join the Abraham Accords. And they were like, no, we're not joining the Abraham Abraham Accords. And remember, there was the reporting about like, that was that week that Donald Trump and the late Lindsey Graham and all of these people were like, you know, they're going to join the Abraham.

Like, they're not joining me. Big deal. Big deal.

They're going to do it.

You're just making this up. They're not joining the Abraham Accords. Okay, stop saying, you know, you know, just that. And in Donald Trump's social media post, he acknowledges that Iran uses it for non-military purposes. And so he seems to concede that the very basis of the war was fraudulent to begin with. And then he doesn't understand the way nuclear material works. But we will not allow them to enrich. And this is a major point because the issue regarding the first mediation in February, according to the Iranians and the mediator from Oman, is that the Trump people didn't even understand the way nuclear material works. Civilian nuclear non-military programs, you still enrich it. It's just downblended and diluted to non-weapons grade, which is a different type of percentage of the nuclear material. So you have to enrich to use it for non-weapons-grade purposes. The issue is downblend. So at the mediation in February, what Iran was like is, look, we had all our nuclear people there. We gave you the formula for how we were going to downblend, which was in the JCPOA. You were going to have independent people watching. And you kept on saying, no, enriching is a form of weapons-grade.

And Iran's like, stop it, you're so stupid. That's not what it is. It's, it's downblended so it can't be used for weapons-grade.. And that's the thing. And Trump's post was non-enriched uranium. It's like, dude, you don't even know what you're talking about. So that's a fundamental issue that we have somebody so dumb and ignorant around. This is what Trump says. There will be no enrichment of material. If you're going to give them for non-weapons grade, it's still going to be enriched. It's just the dumbest stuff imaginable. In any event, Donald Trump then says at the presser, the Iran war is going better than anybody expected. This is as good as it— this is great, he says. Everything's amazing right now. Let's play.

Subjects. One is the Iran war. Well, again, we're doing very well, very, very well. I would say better than anybody expected could be done. We've knocked out their Navy, their Air Force.

Oh yeah, sure, that's happening. And then Donald Trump goes on to say that they really want to make a deal really badly. They really want to make a deal. Yeah, let's play it.

We're doing very well. Against the Islamic Republic of Iran. We're doing extremely well. They would like to do something, but I say they're not ready yet. They need more of the same. They're not ready yet. They got some evil intentions. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon.

I'll toss it to you, Bretton. Jordy, the Islamic Republic. Dude, just be normal, man. What are you saying?

What are you doing?

Before we toss toss it to Brett. Ben, do you ever fall into your impressions, like, in your, in your just regular life? Like, when you're ordering coffee at your Starbucks or your local coffee shop, wherever you go, are you just like— do you just like fall into a BB?

You're like, no, the reality is, is that this— the material is so tough, and, and, and it's a coping mechanism sometimes for me to try to be able to articulate the level of devastation and destruction, but also make it accessible even to me. Because the idea that— that's because I want to be serious though too, because the fact that you have genocidal maniacs like Netanyahu and Trump who have caused such devastation in the world, and how human beings like that can just fuck— excuse my language— just screw up the world for so many people, you know, who just want to get by, it is so deeply painful. So it is kind of a coping mechanism for how I try to ground.

So the answer is maybe. Maybe. It sounds like you fall into it during your lifetime. Brett, where you going?

I think the key thing is, though, like through all this, when you're dealing with such heavy topics, is you have to retain your kind of joy. You have to retain your— because otherwise, like, this stuff's going to destroy you, right? It is very heavy stuff that you're dealing with every day. So I think people do need a little laugh and a little impression, no matter how bad they are. Ben, no offense. I'm just kidding. They're great impressions. They're great oppressions. Everyone loves them. But yeah, but, you know, and this is, you know, to believe Donald Trump, you have to either be an idiot or a willful idiot or just, I don't know, have a very low self-esteem. I don't know. But Trump says one thing one day, one thing the next day. I don't know how these people who follow him just continue to go along with it. I mean, wasn't it just like 2 weeks ago, these are the reasonable people, these people are good to work with, it's a whole new regime, they're amazing, we could be partners, let's be friends, let's be friends, IRGC, let's hang out. And now it's, these are maniacs, these are vile people, they're crazy, they can't be negotiated with.

Again, like, you're talking about yourself, man, because we're watching all the sides. And, you know, Iran, for all of its many faults, they've been wildly consistent over their asks over the past few weeks, few months. Donald Trump keeps having this very shifting perspective on anything that he wants, that it's hard to even figure out what the hell he wants. And you just know now Donald Trump's strategy seems to be back against the wall. Let's just fire away, right? Let's unload the clip, so to speak, right? Every fuck, every munition, you know, let it, let it loose. Any sort of missile, let it go. Do whatever we can right now. If we just bomb them hard enough, we could get out of this. But that's not the case. And they also are well aware of our munition supply and they're well aware of our oil supply. And they could kind of just wait it out here. You don't, you don't need access to special intelligence to see that. I mean, we don't have access to the intelligence of the United States government or the CIA or any foreign entity. We just have the access that's out there in the open source, that's out there from reporting, that's out there from people.

And we know what's going on, and Donald Trump has said it out loud. So you could be damn sure that Iran knows what's going on, which puts Donald Trump— whenever, every time he lies, it puts us at a very weak point to negotiate, and it puts us at a very weak position in this war because they know what they have to do. And all they have to do really is just wait it out. And the more devastation that Donald Trump causes, the more people he kills, the more he just emboldens that country, the more the people dig in and the more they want to get revenge on Donald Trump for the heinous actions that he is committing in the war. So he's really in this escalation trap right now that anybody with kind of two brain cells should be able to put together. He's got these sycophants around him like Marco Rubio. They need to go to bat for him and say the most absurd, ridiculous things that they know is not true. And this cycle will just never end with Donald Trump as president because he can't admit that he's wrong. You know, it seems like it's the perfect storm, though, heading into the midterms.

I don't mean that in a good thing. The perfect storm heading into the midterms of all the things that Republicans don't want to happen right now, Donald Trump is doing. And so what I'm curious is, as we approach the midterms more, does Trump start to feel the pressure at all from these Republicans? Does Mike Johnson start getting antsy? Does John Thune— do they stop saying, dude, do something? You're doing more tariffs right now when people already can't afford anything. You're going to expand the war right now when the whole country is against this thing. It's like he's doing everything imaginable right now to drive voters as far and far away from him and from the Republican Party. And I think that's why we're seeing this in all that latest polling as well.

Can I give you my theory of where that's going to go for the Congress and for Republicans in general? It's pretty obvious to me that Mike Johnson doesn't care about doesn't care about doing anything for the American people. And so I almost think to a certain degree they're going to welcome it. They'd love essentially to be the party not in charge because it's another excuse for them. Blame the Democrats. Oh, if only we were back in charge, we would have fixed this. Then the Democrats, they took us in the midterms and now, and now we can't do anything. Like the blame game from congressional Republicans, from just Republicans right now in general is insane. They control all three branches of government and yet they haven't moved a meaningful piece of legislation for the American people in these 2.5 years Trump has been president. It's ridiculous to me. Also, another thing to note, one of the grossest things that Donald Trump is doing and has been doing— we played the clip here earlier— is how he's comparing the deaths of these military members and our servicemen and women to the deaths of other previous wars. First off, Donald Trump and the Trump regime are only acknowledging these 18 deaths, which is so damn tragic.

And everything that we know about the Trump regime is that they lie. I'm not fully convinced— this is my personal belief here— that the number is actually 18. I actually think that number is probably 3 to 4 times higher than 18, just based off of the amount of attacks and our bases getting hit day in and day out at this point. So that's one thing right there. But the way Donald Trump, like, tries to delegitimize the deaths of our servicemen by comparing the numbers from other wars is deeply disturbing and honestly should make everyone's stomach turn. He's basically saying, oh, the death— these 18 deaths. Again, the ones that I'm willing to acknowledge is Donald Trump. It's only 18, guys. Guys, it's only 18. Look at all these other wars. Hundreds of thousands. Like, he puts hundreds of thousands. He just like makes up numbers when he references the other wars now too. It's beyond the pale. It is really disgusting. And you would think, you would think more people, especially in the Republican Party, if they had any sort of backbone, would want to stand up to and correct that behavior because it is so disgusting.

He's like, guys, it's only 18, it's only 18 seconds.

Here's the thing, past that—

but here's the thing too, you know, those other wars lasted a long time, and this 5 months is a very long time, even though Trump said it was going to end in a few days, then 4 to 6 weeks. But Donald Trump is beginning the escalation now. I don't know What type of leader or world leader starts spiking the football about the death count right before you're about to escalate and potentially surge troops into the region, maybe put special forces, maybe do a ground invasion? And now you're saying this is like—

we should remember, by the way, we're seeing right now this buildup in the Middle East. Like, all things— when you look at the kind of just structure of how our troops are kind of positioned right now in the Middle Middle East.

It—

at least they want the appearance that there's an imminent kind of ground invasion or massive attack. And that's why I think you also see Donald Trump going to the press, like the Israeli press, and telling Israel's Channel 12 that he's considering a massive attack larger than anything before, and says he's close to making a decision. Oftentimes he's already made his decision about these things before he then goes and, and does those things. But everything right now is kind of lining up as this— could be today, could be tomorrow, could be the next day, who knows, right? Tomorrow's Friday. Trump likes to bomb things on Fridays, right? Extra hard. Um, and so this thing could escalate to such a point where we do have troops on the ground. In that case, yeah, the casualties could be absolutely massive. And, and so you're right, he is spiking the football before, you know, this kind of major escalation even happens. It's absolutely appalling. And we're already, to Jordy's point, point still getting data in about the previous attacks. Now, I remember after the attack on the Jordan base— um, not you Jordan, the country Jordan— um, that, um, that we had heard from sources who knew people on those bases that those attacks were incredibly deadly.

We got reports from people who knew folks on the ground who said that it was— the scenes were apocalyptic on those bases, the images that people saw and were reporting back. And so when we heard the initial reports and CENTCOM was writing on X and things like that saying nobody was injured, nobody was killed, everybody's okay. And then we were getting those reports from people who had firsthand, firsthand knowledge of what happened on that base. And then we were seeing the satellite imagery that showed the bases completely devastated, the barracks destroyed, the containers destroyed. We knew they were lying to us at that point. You know, we didn't have the information to say these were the amount of people who were killed or injured to that end, but we knew that they were lying to us at that that point. And we shouldn't have to worry that CENTCOM is going to lie to us about these types of things. It's absolutely heinous. It's an affront to our troops. And kind of— and every kind of patriotic American who really does support this country and support our troops should be livid at the way that this commander-in-chief and his regime is handling all this.

Yeah.

And all those other wars involved ground invasions also. Troops were on the ground. And So the lesson should not be spike the football at 18 and let's celebrate the amount, which is sick and disgusting, while reflecting on the deaths of these other wars where there were ground invasion, we had troops on the ground and in the cities. It's to perhaps learn from history, but Trump doesn't want to learn from anything. After this episode, as soon as this episode ends, and we still have a lot of show left, we're going to be on our Patreon. Go to patreon.com/midastouch and I'll tell tell you what we're going to do on our Patreon. We're going to talk about WTF America, our new book that's coming out in October, but you can preorder it right now. WTF America, uh, you can scan the QR code. The preorders really help a lot, so don't wait until October. If you're able to buy it now, buy it now and preorder it right now. But we're going to answer all of your questions about the book on the Patreon as soon as the show ends. So Patreon—

and then I've got a lot of questions about this, so I'll just say it right Yes, you could preorder the audiobook, you could preorder the ebook if you have like a Kindle or something like that. And it's all— and there's a hardcover for preorder and multiple retailers at the link. And it's also available in all of North America for those wondering. And we're looking into the other internationals. We've got a lot of requests for the other internationals. That'll probably be closer to release date, but we're on it. We're on the case.

Don't worry.

And thank you to everybody who's preordered already.

Let's take our first quick break.

Actually, give me one second. Let's talk a little bit more about this for one second.

All right. Let's not take our first quick break of the show. Let's chat more about— You mentioned Marco Rubio, Brett. Why don't I show you though what Rubio had to say? Because you mentioned how Rubio was being kind of clownish. Rubio was whining about the Lego videos and talking about how Iran makes mean Lego videos about the United States.

He's upset about a meme.

Rubio is—

there'd be—

it's more than a meme, it's, it's Lego, it's musical Lego videos, to be fair. Um, and Rubio's at the ASEAN conference, the South Asian conference, um, where the U.S. is participating on the sidelines. He's met with Wang Yi of China, the Chinese foreign minister, but of course didn't answer the question about what Donald Trump did a national address about. So did you ask Wang Yi, do we have this I sent this clip to Brett where it's like, did you ask Wang Yi of China, the foreign minister, about Donald Trump saying that China interfered with the 2020 election? Seems like a question that might want to come up if the president of the United States does, I don't know, an entire national address. So Rubio, surely when you were there with China, you said, hey, we should talk about this, right? Did it even come up? Was it a topic? Here, let's play this clip.

Was there an agreement on election interference?

We didn't discuss that topic. Topic.

All right, we'll talk about the legging when we come back from our first quick break of the show.

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Benji, where to next, big What I teased before the break, Marco Rubio, our horrific Secretary of State, talking about stupid Iranian Lego videos. This is what Secretary of State Rubio was saying at a major international conference. Let's play it.

Because the price they're paying is very high despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out. I've never seen them, but they put these things out on social media. Despite all that bravado They are suffering tremendously and they're going to suffer more until they come to their senses. They're not there yet, unfortunately.

Which country is—

I can't tell you who the worst liar ever. He's of course seen them. He's seen them. He's never seen every night before bed.

Also, though, the language, though, you know, with Donald Trump, we're going to open the gates of hell and he's posting memes of himself with that stupid face of his. You know, it's the face of like, like that. Open the gates of hell. And then you have Rubio saying, we're going to make them suffer until they do a deal. I mean, if you look at the language of even how these American leaders speak, they speak like terrorists. Everything that we've said that the bad guys speak like and behave is exactly how the Trump regime sounds and talks. And what you— and what you do is you galvanize populations and resistance against you also.

Yeah, it doesn't require a lot of editing, right? All they have to do is play that clip of Marco Rubio to their citizens and say, look what they're saying about you, right? All they have to do is show a Donald Trump Truth Social post that says we want to annihilate your civilization. And what do you think the Iranian people are going to think? They're going to think, well, screw this guy. This guy's an evil monster, evil genocidal monster. We need to get together and we need to fight this evil. You know, this thing, this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I feel like, you know, when the Western media speaks about these issues and speaks about countries like Iran, it's often as if they like are you even like the same species? Like the people, they— it's like a National Geographic kind of analysis of these are human beings we're talking about. And they're, they're not making their decisions. They're not taking actions just based on randomness. Like there's a reason for it. And the stuff that Rubio is doing, and he's a Secretary of State who should be engaged in diplomacy, the stuff that Donald Trump is doing, it's, it's only, it's only having the opposite effect of what you actually want to do.

And if you're trying to actually approach a party, as Ben knows in litigation from his attorney days, uh, in good faith to actually do a deal. You want to do a deal, you don't threaten to kill the other person. You try to find areas of agreement, you try to come together, you try to beat out an agreement. The— by the way, the way they did with the MOU, which was a very bad deal for the United States, but as we said at the time, I thought it was good in general that we were signing an MOU so that we could hopefully get the hell out of this war. But Donald Trump doesn't want to do deals, he wants to string the other party up along so that he could continue to escalate and he could be in this just quagmire forever. And, you know, just going back quickly to that other Rubio clip too we played before break, like, how stupid do you gotta feel if you're— I guess they don't have this level of self-reflection, but if you're one of the people who Donald Trump holds this big press conference and he says China has been hacking our elections and they're like, Marco, you gonna do anything?

You bring it up with the, with the Chinese when you were in the room with him? He's like, nah, Why would— nah, why would I do that? Donald, so Donald, you gonna do anything about China? There's pretty serious accusations. Nah, that was them then.

We do it too.

Who cares? You held the primetime press conference. What do you mean, who cares? How do you go to bat for somebody who behaves in this way?

It's pretty evident to me that Marco Rubio suffers from some sort of Pinocchio of the years. Ears where every time he shills for Donald Trump, his ears get a little bit bigger. He really— a little bit bigger. Marco Rubio. Ben loves when I talk about Marco's ears. Marco Rubio. I did that real soon. You know where I was going with that. But Marco Rubio, what a disappointment this guy was. What a disappointment this guy has been. And like, I didn't expect much out of him at all. But I do think like at large, like if there was one person put in a position like Marco had been put in that I don't know, people could maybe try to lie to themselves, convince themselves, like, he's a, he's a real person. He'll try and do, try and do the right thing.

Nope.

Total shill. Total absolute shill and clown. And that writing has been on the wall for Marco for a very long time now. You know, it was interesting. I often bring this up. We were speaking to, I forget who, but someone that was deep ties to the Republican Party who then came over and now is like a pro-democracy person. And his whole thing was how disappointed he has been in Marco Rubio. And this was back in 2020. I, I can't imagine what they think of him now, looking at all the shilling this and just, um, you know, day by day, every time he shows the ears get a little bit bigger.

You kind of remember these storylines and these through lines. Remember when Rubio, after the MOU was signed, went to the Middle East and people said, so did you talk to these countries about the $300 billion fund for Iran? Because that's one of the main provisions before you get to even talk about Iran's nuclear file. Surely you brought that up because you've all been saying that the Arab nations need to chip into that $300 billion fund that the American taxpayers are— so surely when you did this meeting, wasn't that what you were here to talk about? No, we didn't talk about that at all. And it was like, yeah, Pinocchio of the years right there, Jordan. It's a good— I, I don't remember his ears ever.

It's a good assessment.

Look, I, I, I, I, his ears are definitely growing several centimeters.

There wasn't— wasn't there a character on, um, All That? Wasn't there a character on All That?

Yeah, there, there was a lot of things on All That that I think need—

were deep.

Maybe you haven't aged as well. Okay, maybe we'll just leave it there.

No, I mean, I've seen the— I've seen All That. You're referring to Ear Boy. Ear Boy.

Ear Boy.

Bring up a photo, Brett.

There was, there was randomly Ross Perot. There was Pizza Face.

Yeah, Ross Perot was quite the choice for a kid show. What What about Repairman? Man, man, man, man, man.

There was a lot in that show. I was having a conversation about Earboy.

This is so millennial coded right now.

I was having a conversation about Earboy the other day and I wanted to show—

I was just having a casual conversation about Earboy the other day.

Was it in the context of Rubio?

No, it was in a conver— it was in the context of shows that I watched growing up. And I just wanted to show my nephews who were of the age when I watched Earboy. I'm like, "Y'all know Earboy?" And they're like, "No, we don't know." And I'm like, "What about Pizza Face? And what about—" I go, "Let me show you what I watched growing up." And then I was showing them. I'm like, "This is wildly inappropriate. This show is offensive on so many levels." And so it's funny that, you know, Earboy— Two Earboy references. Ears are really big. Yeah, that was the theme song.

That was the theme song.

And then— And the story of— Just so you remember, story of Ear Boy. We're showing a picture of Ear Boy right now. He wanted— and it's a sad show because he wanted a girlfriend, and like, and like the cool jocks would be there, and he'd go up and go, hey everybody, this good to see you. They'd be like, yeah, your ears are really big. And then he'd always go to Ross Perot, and Ross Perot would say— okay, I'm sorry, let me— I'll, I'll stop. I, I, I, I went to a deep Ear Boy dive the other day. Marco Rubio, though, as part of this press conference when he was at the ASEAN conference would say, every day Iran is calling, begging for a deal. They're begging, they're begging. Here, let's play this clip.

Okay, these people who are calling us every day begging, let's do a deal. They send us messages through other countries, third countries. I mean, they're running out of countries to send. Even I had countries here coming up to me, oh, I just spoke to the Iranians, they want to do a deal. The problem is every time these people do a deal, they either break it, or after they make it, they want to change the deal. So they're probably not ready to do a deal yet.

Yet, but they will be. They're not ready to make a deal yet. They're gonna make a deal.

What does the statement even mean?

We're running out of countries? I don't even— like, what, what, what word does he even say? We're running words. We're running out of countries? That— what is that even referring to? How do you run out of countries? You know, the— if you look at the foreign minister of countries and how they behave versus how Rubio behaves. You know, it is like night and day. You know, he doesn't even understand. I think he wants to be the, you know, he behaves like he's the defense secretary and talks about, you know, all this. But, but you know who's also been very silent lately as well? J.D. Vance. Like, we haven't heard anything from J.D. Like, J.D. has gone notably silent. That was his MOU. But, but, but let me say this about J.D. Because I think he's a shapeshifter. I think he's a weird dude. I think he's a bad guy. Like, I think he's a horrible human. And, you know, you could potentially say his wife did give birth soon. So perhaps, you know, that, you know, that there's an aspect of that. Although I believe they mocked Pete Buttigieg and other people, you know, for taking any time off to be with kids.

But setting that aside for a moment, all of my criticism about J.D. Vance, notice I did not criticize him on the MOU because I often get asked, well, you want to see anything? You can never say anything nice about anybody there. I guess not true. If they cured cancer, you would be against it? No, no, no, no, no. The problem is that they're pro-cancer and they cut cancer research. So if they cured cancer, I would say they cured cancer. That's great. We can reflect on the fact that this war has been catastrophic and unlawful and caused grievous harm. But we can also say the MOU, of all the bad solutions, was the best one that exists. It was the right decision if it was fully implemented, if we complied with it. Iran won the war. They get the Strait of Hormuz. They administer it. There is probably a way, if the US wanted to open up the southern route by Oman, to do it in a way where the US could have said, hey, you're administering it. We want this route. Out, let's work out a solution over the next 60 days to do that.

But that's not what the US did. The US immediately, from not having access to the Strait of Hormuz, tried to use the absence of any contractual language in the MOU. There's nothing that banned the US, but it said Iran is the administrator. So Trump, the way he's always dealt with agreements, which is just to break them, goes, aha, it doesn't say that we can then administer it too. It just says Iran administers it, but there's nothing that says we can't do it also in the southern route. And Iran's like, well, it says admit we're the administrator, that would not— you are the administrator also, so coordinate through us because it says everything, you know. But, but anyway, I can go on the MOU breach by Trump forever, but my point is, is that of all the bad solutions, the MOU was actually the right solution for the time, and I was supportive of the MOU.. And I complimented, not to say, well, great work, you're the arsonist putting out your own fire, you deserve like lots of applause. But when JD Vance was in Switzerland and it was obvious that Kushner and Whitkopf, in my opinion, were just proxies of Netanyahu there and were there for their own self-interest and were the worst people possible.

I'm like, JD Vance, he's got a laptop. He looked like me when I was a second-year associate working at a law firm. He's like typing things. I'm like, you know, he's the vice the president of the United States. It's weird to see him with a laptop on his lap, you know, just given the structure of the United States. But I'm glad the guy's— I was seriously, I was like, the guy's working. I like, you know, of all the bad solutions, I like that he's at least trying to—

not gonna knock him for working. What'd you say? I said not gonna knock the guy for working.

Not gonna work. It's weird that, like, I'm, I'm like, I, I was like, that looks like me, my— as a first-year law associate, you know, I've got like a partner by my left. I've got like the people not doing the work, Jared Kushner and Whitcoff, like the day before the papers due, be there with my laptop typing away the settlement agreement. You know, I've got mediator Tony Piazza on my left. You know, they've got the— you know, I had like very vivid memories of like my litigation days. Is that a real person? Tony Piazza? Yeah. Yeah, Tony Piazza was— so I would do lots of mediations in front of Tony Piazza. Piazza. He was— he is— he was the king of mediations. And honestly, a lot of my knowledge of mediations come— he's the guy who mediated the Winklevoss brothers, Facebook. He's like known as the godfather of all mediations in the United States. And early on, I was lucky to do dozens of mediations with this guy who's been a mentor to me. And so anyway, that's my Tony Piazza.

I wasn't sure if you're talking about like Pizza Face.

No, no, that's why the show is awfully offensive, you know. And then Pizza Face and Ear Boy walk around, and then they get made fun of. And because of the way they—

and that's the joke, by the way.

The joke is the joke is that they're ugly and that they have pizza face and ear boy.

And then the people— can I just say, can I, in defense of this, like, of all the things that the show—

you can't defend the show.

It is indefensible. There are more offensive offenses from the shows that we always— more offensive offenses from the shows that we watched growing up. They're—

I'm not going to go into it, but I'm saying When I was—

hashtag cancel Jordy.

All right, let's take our last quick break. Okay, reminder, WTF— what, what the F are we even talking about right now? WTF America.

I regret to inform you there's no Ear Boy or Pizza Boy talk in the WTF America, but there's a lot of other really great stuff in the book.

We'll leave the QR codes over there, but if you are gonna get the book, pre-order now. It helps with every— helps with our planning and what we need to do. Pre-order the book now if you can. Pre-order multiple copies if you, if you want to. It's dedicated to the Midas Mighty. We poured our heart and souls. It's one of the reasons why we haven't even been able to do all that much Patreon, but I've just been nonstop working on this thing. So patreon.com/midastouch. We'll see you there after the show. We've got, we've got one more segment left. I promise you we won't talk about Earboy, Pizza Face, or any— I'm not a party.

I'm not a party to this memorandum of understanding. I cannot promise that we'll talk or not talk about Pizza Boy and your boy.

All right, that's good.

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Benji, where to next? Did you ever feel like something is moving fast forward and in slow motion at both the same time. That's how I feel this escalation and this catastrophic war that Donald Trump is doing in Iran is going. Slow motion in the sense that it just feels each move so obviously moving in the direction, so easy to pinpoint the escalation trap, the lies, the mistakes, the fatal errors that are happening. That are leading our country into perhaps one of the most catastrophic moments, if not the most catastrophic moment, in our nation's history. I, I, I can literally— you can see it happening every moment, every moment, how the buildup is happening, how this vile piece of trash in the Oval Office this goes deeper into this escalation trap, how just, you know, how history is often viewed with all of these complexities, but at the most basic raw form, we have someone so unfit, so unqualified, so deranged, so psychotic, so personally caught up, so everything that it's just moving us in this direction. You have MAGAs in the Senate who are apparently okay with this. Yes, let's do it. No War Powers Resolution Act.

You've got such a compliant Congress that's like, all right, let's just let it, let's just let it happen. And we all know better. We all know this moment that we're in right now. We know where this is going, but we move closer and closer. And I say we fast forward because it's also happening at this speed where all of a sudden you're right there. And here we are making this recording where it appears that right now, in any moment, there's going to be this escalation. It's like we went from MOU mode to Fox doing its Iraq 2003 coverage, but on steroids, talking about, "We're going to pinpoint—" You know, they got their generals on doing the strategy. We're going to knock out this facility and this facility and this facility and this facility and that facility. You look at the radar right now, you can pull up the B-roll just so you see the plane activity that's taking place right now in Europe and in the Middle East. I mean, you see an unprecedented amount of, uh, military aircraft that's going around right now. I mean, it's obvious to Iran, it's obvious to anybody that this full-scale U.S. invasion that will make the initial stages of epic fury look small is happening any moment, is happening any moment right now.

And I'll show you what they're showing on state regime media, which calls itself Fox. Here's what, here's, here's what they're doing. Here's their war propaganda trying to rally their zombified base into blowing up into war, into more war crimes. Into, you know, like, I mean, I mean this seriously. It almost feels like this is the propaganda of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. And, you know, like right before they were gonna go into Poland or right before they were going to, you know, go into France and, you know, right before, you know, that they would, you know, that, you know, it would be a version in the, you know, in the 1940, you know, in the 1940 version of it, you know, it'd be like, and then here we're gonna— it's always that weird voice, right, that they did back then. I forget what that, what that voice is, you know, called with the inflections. But like, to me, this is a variation of that with this, with the regime media out there. So because— so here we're gonna go here, we're gonna go here, you know, this, this, this is, this is it. Let me show you.

Let's play it.

All right, so let's take a look at the power plants and places that we might be able to hit. Lucas, as you see these as targets, what do you think we might hit first?

Well, I don't know if we'll hit it first, but the Damavand plant supplies 40% of Tehran's electricity. The, uh, Bashir nuclear power plant, probably not likely a target. This is— the Russians built this, they still supply Iran with low-enriched uranium.

Because, Lucas, we should say there's a risk to blowing up a nuclear plant. There's no question.

Now, the South Pars gas field, this sits on the largest natural biggest natural gas field in the world. Israeli forces hit this on March 18th in the beginning of the war. Iran responded by hitting the Qatari side of this natural gas field. In terms of targets—

but let me ask you here, this is the Strait. Yeah. So we want to send a message in the Strait where they're hitting ships in the Strait. Wouldn't that be a place we go? It would.

The only question is what would be Iran's response? We've seen Iran hit back. Tars oil field, natural gas oil fields in the UAE. That's the big thing.

You mean they'll have a like response if we hit a power plant?

That's been this tit for tat the whole time. That's what's notable about the Israelis. They use disproportionate responses. Probably one of the reasons that Israel hasn't reentered the war. Iran has not attacked Israel since early June.

And your assessment of how we're doing it now, do you think we're doing disproportionate or do you think we could be doing Not doing disproportionate—

is notable that the US forces hit an Iranian barracks after an American barracks was hit, of course, in Jordan. That's what killed, uh, those three, uh, US Army soldiers.

So this is the power plants that we could be— this is really sick.

I mean, it's, it's, it's— those are— they're talking about war crimes so cavalierly. They're talking about— it's like a football play or something. Yeah, so maybe we're gonna take that power. These are civilian— we'll cut off the electricity to Tehran. Seriously, I mean, it, the, the, this is, these are war crimes. This is sick. They're talking about the idea of, if we want to send a message to the Strait of Hormuz, we could blow up the Bushehr power nuclear plant, but it does come with risk. That you're going to blow up a nuke. Do you, do you know about Chernobyl? You're gonna blow up a nuclear power plant? Do you know your fucking history, you idiots? Excuse my language. Do you know your fucking history? You're gonna do a Chernobyl over there? You're gonna blow up a nuclear power plant to send a message in these Strait of Hormuz? Have all these people lost their fucking damn minds? And again, excuse me, are these people crazy? I mean, are these people lunatic? That's why I say it's like we're slow walking into like nuclear annihilation, also at like a warp speed at the same time.

What are we doing here? And again, I hate to curse. Excuse my language. But as I watch that, I, I, I say, I say to myself, if they're saying it on regime media, that's the advice that Donald Trump is getting. He gets his advice. He's watching that right now. He's watching.

Let me take it one further. You might— may say these are TV hosts, they call themselves an entertainment network, and of course Fox News did it. Well, let me remind you, where did Donald Trump pull his defense secretary from? Fox News. He's the guy from that network. That's the guy who is making these decisions. These are the people that guy hung around with. And those are the conversations they have. And this is why Donald Trump picked that individual to lead this department. It ain't just TV, this is real life. And Donald Trump has merged the two together in the most heinous fashion imaginable.

The Pentagon removed the names of the four service members who died in Jordan from their official list of casualties. They explain that this is because their deaths after President Trump declared a ceasefire in the war in April. How sick. How sick. I mean, honestly, how sick.

I—

these are not normal times.

So he's, he's now saying, Ben, just to be clear, it's not 18, it's 14. That's what we're acknowledging here is the Trump regime.

But then think about this, Jordy, to your point, what about— what do they count, special forces? Exactly. I mean, I, I, I think the issue is because we all— because service members have families back at home home. It's not easy to fully cover up all of these casualties, you know, when you have, when you have family at home, right? Because people are going to say, hey, you know, what's going on if you don't hear from somebody? Or, you know, not necessarily, but we know that Iran has attacked multiple CIA sites that they believed were dark sites, that Iran very much knows these were CIA sites, right? And We also know that Iran attacked— like, the area Iran attacked in the al-Sanf area, Syria, uh, Jordan, uh, border area, was, uh, special forces barrack. And, you know, I think it's easier to cover up special forces casualties. So, I mean, I, I, I don't believe—

here's the thing too, Here's the thing too, real quick, is, I mean, it could take months to hear back from folks over there fighting. Yeah, we know, we, we, my wife has family serving right now, and there we go long stretches of time without hearing, you know, an update on, on how they're doing. Um, and so with the Trump regime, again, you just have to be skeptical about every single number that gets put in front of you. I mean, I'm reacting to that news live. I've just learned out and learned about that along with everyone here. Trump is essentially taking a mulligan like he's cheating in golf because he's trying to correct his scorecard to be better in his favor. I'm using terms that like how the pathological lunatic that is Donald Trump, how he's viewing this, the deaths of our servicemen and women that don't count those for— yeah, Donald, tell that to their families. Tell that to their families.

You know, I try not to be all that self-referential, you know, self-referential. Self-referential is a term when I'm just like, you know, when I say, well, this is what I said then, this is what I said then. And the only reason why I say that though sometimes is because the force sometimes, Jordy, of which the criticisms take place against the platform, you know, of like— I mean, I did a video a few days ago, Trump cracks over war and tries to hide the casualties. And, you know, I got a lot of criticism for that. And, you know, and ultimately I think it was proven to be— yeah, it was stuck on Jordy. It was like, I was looking at Jordy, Jordy was channeling my, my narrative there. But that way, you know, and then sometimes the criticism is you're making this up or like you're whatever. It's like, no, like that's like, that's happened. They're hiding the casualties. That's in the numbers. And, and, you know, New York Times is 2 or 3 days late and they report it. And I'm glad when they report it. A general says, you know, maybe they need to, you know, to get the source here or the source there.

To me, the source is— I see it, I see it in the region. I don't need the general to tell me or the admiral to tell me or the whoever. I, I can vis— I can see what's happening, you know, over there. And so then I report it based on satellite footage and the like and the medevacs and the num— you know, the numbers that I see.

Um, then I actually have, uh, I, I have the clip of you from a few days ago, uh, you reporting that they had changed the casualty count quietly from 18 to 14 This is reporting now being confirmed by the New York Times that they were reclassifying these deaths because they don't view them as war deaths because Donald Trump technically said we were in a ceasefire at the time, so they don't count, right? If you don't get— if you don't test, they don't count.

Here has been a few days ago, this is, you know, the military website that, that reports out U.S. military casualties, um, official website. Um, and at first on the website, the casualty total for Operation Epic Fury was updated added in the Defense Casualty Analysis System. So if you looked at KIA, KIA, killed in action, there were 4 soldiers added who were killed in action because that's what was reported in the past 24 to 48 hours. And then the wounded in action increased by 20 to 447 from 427. But then At around 11 PM last night, that changed, and the Defense Casualty Analysis System removed the 4 killed in action and the 20 wounded in action. Again, just look at the website.

Yeah, that reporting now being confirmed in a news story by the New York Times. You heard it here first on Midas Touch. And you know, it's— you know, like something like that comes was directly from Donald Trump. Like, that's the only— somebody as sick as Donald Trump would think of doing something like that. And we know because every time he goes out now, to what Jordy was saying earlier, he's constantly comparing deaths. This is just a scorecard to him. These people aren't people with lives and families and friends. These are numbers on a chart. And he thinks that the higher the numbers go, the worse he looks. And, you know, we've been— for months now, since the beginning of this war, uh, we have been speaking about, uh, the, uh, comparisons to COVID of this. And this is also just a spot-on comparison between the war and COVID, because what did Donald Trump constantly say? In addition to saying if we don't test, there won't be many cases, which is the logic that he is applying to here, Trump also said that he wanted to change the classifications for the way deaths were calculated during COVID So if somebody had a pre-existing condition, even if they died due to COVID, that shouldn't count because they actually had these other pre-existing conditions.

And so the COVID might have killed them, but it shouldn't count towards his numbers because they had something else going on. This is the sick pathology of Donald Trump. And so you see it now directly infecting our military and the data reporting, which is why I don't honestly trust like any of the data reporting coming out of the White House, because he's doing this everywhere.

Well, remember, what if Dr. Fauci, rather than saying what Dr. Fauci believed was the scientific information at the time, uh, ultimately did, like, Admiral Cooper, right? You've got Admiral Cooper, the CENTCOM guy, you know, is out there behaving, you know, basically, you know, if this was a health space, like RFK Jr. but in the military. Like, the head of CENTCOM is out there saying the craziest stuff also and posting the— and, and is complicit in this. And all the top generals and admirals were purged. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs— I did a video on it this morning. CQ Brown was purged back in February of 2025 and replaced with a 3-star general. And this guy, Dan Cain, who had to get a waiver because he wasn't qualified to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs— he didn't have the positions, he didn't have the qualifications— is currently the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. We got rid of the most qualified guy because he's Black. I mean, that's why Pete Hegseth and Trump got rid of CQ Brown Jr., and they got rid of other top people either because they were Black or because they're women or because they were supportive of promotions of Black people in the military and women.

That's why, that's why other top generals and admirals were purged out. Hegseth didn't like that. Hegseth wants his gender-affirming, uh, Hegseth wants his gender-affirming testosterone injections, and he thinks that helps lethality. I mean, did you see what a sweaty guess he was. I mean, when he was testifying, when he was testifying, uh, before—

that did not go well for him at all. I mean, he was so unsure of himself, and they used all of his words against him, right? All the, all the things that he's been saying throughout the entire war. Because, yeah, all of a sudden you have to answer questions under oath, and you were saying the war was over 3 months ago, and now you got to explain, okay, why not? And he tries to be competitive, but you can even see during that moment. It was like he was like in his like shell. It was like he was actually— didn't quite know what to say because he didn't want to perjure himself, yet he still wanted to try to put on this macho persona. And I got to give it up to the Democrats in that hearing. I thought they did a great job, uh, questioning him, of grilling him, of, of, uh, you know, ensuring that, uh, you know, they're getting the, uh, information, or at least having him confront the reality of the situation. I thought they did a really effective job during that hearing.

I agree. Look, covered a lot. I want to go and do the Patreon, uh, talk about the book a little bit over there. Um, I want to thank everybody for watching. Obviously, we'll continue to give you the breaking news as it develops throughout the day. We're really grateful for you. Hang in there. We're going to keep on fighting with you, for you, together. And in WTF America, it's dedicated to the Midas community. And the north star of this book is you. And one of the big conclusions we make in the book is that authentic communities that form can become the difference maker. And we talk about how this is a generational project also. We have to respond day to day, but we also have to think generational. Fox was basically created with the Roger Ailes memorandum and manifesto in the 1970s, and it didn't come out of nowhere. It's kind of what I was saying before, how things could happen in slow motion and fast all at once. And so we're 6 years since Midas Touch was created as compared to almost 60 years since this idea— Fox became right-wing radio, which became Fox, which, you know, you now see there is encouraging nuclear annihilation on the planet, basically.

I don't know how else to describe what it is that we just saw right there. I want to give a shout out to all the hard-working team members, which is every hard-working— which is everybody who works at the Midas Touch Network, for their great— for their great work. And I want to thank all of you, um, even watching this. I know it's enjoyable to spend time together, but I know sticking with this information, it's heavy, it's hard, heavy, uh, but it's— but it's life.

And shout out to all the mods who work in the live chat here and do such an incredible job at moderating moderating the live chat. We love you, mods, and everybody watching.

All right, pre-order WTF America now. If you want to ask us questions about what to expect in the book, we'll see you at the Patreon. Um, if you're thinking about should I pre-order it or should I wait until October, do the pre-order now. Click the QR code. It helps a lot for us to focus on how we better promote, or promote more, or promote less, or promote here, or promote there, but we can see what the pre-orders look like. So pre-order it right now.

Cities we may go in the future if we had to do some events. Perhaps.

That does help give us the data too of where the books are being purchased. Um, and, and, uh, okay, thanks everybody for watching. We appreciate you. We'll see you soon. Patreon.com/MidasTouchdown. I'm so excited to talk to everybody.

It's gonna be fun.

You're gonna join that. Jordy, take it away.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

The Midas Mighty standing strong. It's the fascist, we sing our song, we will get it right.

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