Transcript of Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 4/2/26

This has been on breaking news. I'm Ben Myselis and this is your breaking news. Moments before we went live, we learned that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, forcing him into immediate retirement. That's the posture that they are framing this as, as Donald Trump's disastrous and unlawful war filled with war crimes continues to escalate in Iran. Donald Trump is now blowing up bridges in Iran. What you're observing right there, and for those on audio, what I'm showing on the screen right now, it's the B1 bridge on the Karaj Northern Bypass in western Tehran, one of the biggest bridges, uh, that, uh, exists in Iran. The biggest bridge, as Donald Trump says. And Trump brags about his war crime Donald Trump posted on social media, the biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again. Much more to follow. It is time for Iran to make a deal before it is too late and there is nothing left, uh, and there is nothing left of what still could become a great country. Donald J. Trump. And again, what he's saying in those posts. I mean, that's a war crime, blowing up a bridge like this, civilian infrastructure.

It is a per se war crime, and it really sickens me to see him posting on social media that he took down the biggest bridge and he's going to be attacking more bridges. And, uh, the response from Iran is as follows: You have their foreign minister, Araghchi. He posts, striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender. It only conveys the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in disarray. Every bridge and building will be built back stronger. We will never recover. What will never recover? Is damage to America's standing. That's what we'll never recover, you know. And when I, you know, read something like that, when I see something like that, you know, what pains me is, you know, in a war between the United States and Iran, when I'm seeing the Iranian foreign minister say that— and I, I try to get everything, as you know, from watching this from multiple perspectives. I mean, what the Iranian foreign minister is saying there is like objectively correct. Like, it does not show strength that you're blowing up civilian bridges. That's a war crime. That shows weakness, if anything. Donald Trump told Time magazine regarding Iran, why wouldn't they call?

We just blew up their 3 big bridges last night. And he also said, uh, this is what Trump says: they say Trump is not negotiating with Iran. I mean, it's sort of an easy negotiation. And again, just talking about himself. They say Trump is not negotiating. Oh, Trump is negotiating. No, you're not. No, you're not. I mean, you're engaged in these war crimes. It's pathetic. Donald Trump's chief of staff, Suzy Wiles, expressing concern that Trump's aides are giving him a, quote, rose-colored view of how the war was being perceived domestically, telling Trump what he wanted to hear, and urged them to be more forthright with the boss about the political and economic risks, also the military risks. You know, they're going on and pretending like we're, like, we're winning this war and we're not. Like, we are objectively or not, because objectively the objectives that were set out were regime change, making sure Iran's ballistic missile capabilities were completely destroyed, and then ensuring that Iran can't rebuild any nuclear weapons. Which they never built in the first place, but to stop them from enriching uranium to build weapons-grade material for nuclear weapons, which back in June the Trump regime claimed they had totally obliterated all of these facilities and that Iran was not capable of rebuilding any of its, uh, nuclear facilities.

Totally obliterated, read the headlines. So those were the objectives, right? And now the objective shifted apparently just to, can we reopen the Strait of Hormuz? That, that's the objective. And now Iran firmly controls the Strait of Hormuz, um, with Oman. Remember, the Oman foreign minister was working as the mediator handpicked by the United States to try to negotiate a deal back in late February before the US and Israel launched an invasion of Iran. Remember, end of February, the Oman foreign minister said, we reached a deal in principle and Iran has agreed to a nuclear deal that was far stronger than even what Obama negotiated, with far more oversight, and that this was a crowning achievement, the Oman foreign minister said. And the United States selected that Oman foreign minister. What the Oman foreign minister said is, on Monday There was a— that happened on a Friday, remember? On Monday, we have to just go to the IAEA, the Atomic Energy Organization, for some technical details about how inspections would be done. But generally, a deal was reached, and then that night, Trump and Netanyahu invaded Iran. Well, now Oman and Iran— Iran brought Oman in They control the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran says that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed long-term for both the US and Israel. Same time, US oil prices have officially marked their highest close since June of 2022. The nationwide average price of a gallon of gasoline has reached $4.08. We saw the WTI crude and Brent crude both increasing dramatically. You know, what else is Donald Trump posting while all of this is taking place? Photos of Davy Crockett and weird behavior. Goes, Davy Crockett, obviously a distant relative of Jasmine Crockett and a very high IQ frontiersman, would be proud of the legacy that began long ago and especially Jasmine's great success as a politician from the great state of Texas, Donald J. Trump. I mean, again, it's just really weird behavior. You know, also, I'll show some of the clips from Donald Trump's, it was probably the worst national address in the history of the United States that took place. But one of Donald Trump's lines was, we're going to, what, blow up Iran back to the Stone Age, or we're gonna send them back to the Stone Age. First off, I think I said this on my other Ben on Breaking News Live that I did on Tuesday.

I said Donald Trump sounds like the corny bad guy cartoon character in the shows I used to watch growing up. Like, if you gave me a script of the bad guy in a movie and I saw the things that Donald Trump said, I'd say, ah, that's, that's so corny and so hyperbolic. Like, real bad guys don't actually talk, I'm gonna blow you back to the Stone Age. And again, making no distinction either between the Islamic Republic and the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the people of Iran. I mean, Donald Trump, Hegseth, and the Trump regime comments about decimating Iran, it's focused on the Iranian people, the whole country, you know. And, you know, the Iranian people of course have a cultural heritage that dates back over 1,000 years. And Iran has repeated that over and over and again, that we actually have a proud history. You think that we're afraid of A country that's been around for 250 years. We're not going to be broken. And Iran's— whether you want to say it's Iran's propaganda, their messaging is directed with a purpose. I want us to understand the tactics because in war there's asymmetrical warfare that Iran is deploying right now with its Shahed drones, FPV drones, and ballistic missiles, right?

They have a strategy there. And they have a communication strategy that is systematic and is systemic, and it is purposefully driven, and it is planned, right? They have a plan. And Donald Trump seems every day to just be kind of winging this thing and saying deranged, contradictory things that is— that's causing a lot of problems. And, and, and is resulting in a catastrophic situation becoming even worse. And you can see why with Donald Trump's pathological defects, why he's bankrupted so many entities and why so many of his companies fail to the point of bankruptcy and utter destruction. Because, you know, he's like the, you know, gambler in the casino who won't leave until they lose everything. And he keeps doubling down, doubling down, doubling down on stupid, dumb, and evil, and it's having really bad results, really bad outcomes, right? I mean, the foreign minister of Iran, in response to the Stone Age comment made by Donald Trump, he writes, there's one striking difference between the present and the Stone Age. There was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then, and POTUS and Americans who put him in office Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?

Those are the messages that they're saying here. I mean, you know, it's interesting. I saw— I think it was Dana Perino, one of the Fox propagandists. She used to be, I think, the press secretary for George W. Bush. Remember, she's the lady who Donald Trump was sexually harassing In my opinion, that's what it was. You can call it whatever you think it is. But when Donald Trump— she was asking him serious questions and Donald Trump's like, remember when we had lunch so long ago? Again, I'm just giving you my opinion. You can disagree with that opinion if that's that or something else, um, you know, because she was asking a very serious question. He's like, you're so beautiful, you're so attractive, you know, you're a good-looking lady, you know, you never even changed.

And can you—

you remember when we had lunch back in, you know, back in the day? You're just as beautiful now as you were then. You know, on TV. I mean, I think it was, you know, intended to embarrass her, in my opinion. Again, giving opinion speech protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. I'll just flag all of that for you right there. Um, you know, she was saying about Donald Trump's disastrous speech last night, she goes, you know, the pro— but before it took place, I did a video on this too earlier. She goes, the problem is, is that because of the repression of the Iranian regime, the Islamic Republic. The people of Iran are not going to get to see that speech. They're not going to get to see Donald Trump's words because of the media blackouts and the control that Iran has over the media ecosystem there. I mean, ironically, our media here in the United States is controlled mostly now by right-wing oligarchs. She's saying it from state regime propaganda media in the United States, which calls itself Fox News, but she's also just factually wrong. The people, the leadership in Iran love showing their people what Donald Trump's saying.

Donald Trump is cutting the highlight reel of the greatest hits that they can show their people to rally support against the United States and keep people there motivated to never surrender and to fight back. I mean, Trump is literally giving them ammunition. I say literally because he is giving them ammunition. Think about it, he's quite literally giving them ammunition. He's removed the oil sanctions from Iran, allowing them to make $14 billion, right? Trump and MAGA, they always attacked Obama, like, and they lied about it. They're like, you gave them $1.4 billion in cash packed on a plane. There was there was never cash back then, but whatever. I'll assume for the sake of argument you did. You just gave Iran in a short term a $14 billion influx based on removing sanctions on their oil. They now control the Strait of Hormuz where they can charge $2 to $3 per gallon of oil, $2, $3, $4 million toll. So they use that to literally buy ammunition. That's why I said you've literally given them ammunition for they can build more drones, more ballistic missiles, more Shahids to attack the United States and their Arab nation neighbors who have American military interests in them.

Donald Trump's removed the sanctions against Russian oil, Russian vessels. Trump's attacking NATO, right, which also allows Russia to continue to invade Ukraine and fuel Russia's war against Ukraine while also allowing Russia to manufacture military supplies, Shahed drones, FPV drones, to then give, usually via the Caspian Sea, to Iran. So you're giving them ammunition there. You're also quite literally giving them ammunition in the form of these posts where they can repost them and tell their people, look what he's saying, look what he's saying. So when Donald Trump posts, the biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again, much more to follow, The Iranian social media accounts say the following: Trump directly admits to targeting civilian positions. International organizations, governments, hasn't the time come to act against this brutality? You know, one of the things I note as well is that the Trump regime has been using this guy a lot, Barak Ravid, this Axios reporter, to try to funnel Lots of the propaganda goes through Axios and this guy Barak Ravid, who's almost always wrong about everything. He's the guy who will be like, Donald Trump says ceasefire is happening. Donald Trump says this is happening.

Donald Trump says this is happening. You know, he kind of reminds me when I used to be a litigator and I would handle sports cases. There were always those, those, the sports reporters who would like for each league, they would like they'd be like the insider, right? There was like an NBA insider and the NFL insider, well, like Schecter and Sham and all these. I'm not making a one-to-one comparison, but you know, like the team or the agent would call them, hey, post this, and they would post it, you know, whatever. And then they did some good reporting too. So I'm not, in the sports realm, there's a lane for that, right? But when we're talking about matters of war and peace, life or death, You know, anyone in the Trump White House calls this guy Barak Ravid and he publishes it, and then he uses, you know, the masthead of Axios as a way to, you know, be like, look, Axios is reporting it, but it's the same guy. So Barak Ravid 2 hours ago wrote, a US official tells me the bridge was attacked because it was used by the Iranian armed forces to try to secretly move missiles and missile parts from Tehran to launch sites.

'in Western Iran and for giving logistical support for Iranian military in Tehran.' To which Murtaza Hussain goes, 'This is obviously a lie since it was not even operational yet. The US president also said he bombed it because it was the biggest bridge in the country.' Like, Barak Ravid will write that, but then it's like Donald Trump posted, 'It's the biggest bridge in Iran, comes tumbling down. I'm gonna come after your other bridges.' So you see how, like, others in the Trump regime then tried to sanitize the war crimes that Donald Trump admits to through our propaganda media in the United States. And so what I've been trying to do here at the Midas Touch Network in all of this reporting is to— like, I'm showing you what Trump is posting, right? If— and then I'm showing you what the Iranian foreign minister's— and then I'm looking to see what's actually happening in the region, right? So if we were dominating and decimating the war, we would control the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would not be successfully retaliating by hitting the Amazon facility in Bahrain, or, uh, infrastructure in Qatar, or infrastructure in the UAE, or they would not be able to continue to send missiles into Tel Aviv, right?

If they were decimated, we wouldn't see those things happening. If they had no more leadership we wouldn't see social media posts from their leadership. I mean, you can literally see the gatherings of their parliament, you know, meeting and deliberating on laws. I mean, how much deliberation, you know, who the hell knows? But, you know, they passed the Strait of Hormuz law that gives Iran— that declares Iran has sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. And by the way, what Trump was saying in his speech last night— we all heard his speech— he said, uh, you know, that's for France to deal with, that's for other countries to deal with. That's for everyone else to deal with. Um, they can deal with the Strait of Hormuz. We're gonna leave. We don't need— we don't need oil. We have so much gas. We have so much gas here in the United States. And it's like, what do you— and then Donald Trump also said there's no inflation. Inflation's— inflation's good. We're, we're all good. And it's like, what do you mean we have so much gas here? What are you even talking about? And it also doesn't understand the different types of gas, like the difference between liquefied natural gas, crude oil, right?

He has no clue of the distinctions. WTI versus Brent. And frankly, can I be totally honest with you? I don't want to know the difference, right? There was once, right? Once upon a time, I want to know it now because I report on it. But once upon a time, I didn't have to know the difference between Brent crude, WTI crude, liquefied natural gas, the components that are extracted to help make helium and fertilizers. Like, you think I wanted to delve? I have to because we all have to be very knowledgeable on these areas because of the lies and disinformation that's out there. So we have to apply Like when I was a lawyer and I would jump into it— I'm still a lawyer— when I was a litigator, I would have to become experts in areas very quickly, especially if there was a trial coming up. I'd often get hired to what we called parachuting into a trial. So we would parachute into a trial and I'd have to make compelling cases and explain it to jurors in ways they understand it very quickly, and I'd have to become an expert in topics. There's some areas, you know, in, in the way government functions that we took for granted, that it required competent people and smart people and things where you didn't have to think about these things.

Right now, I'm constantly studying the 2-year, the 10-year, the 20- and 30-year Treasury yields and whether they're going up and how that impacts mortgages. And I think it's helpful for me to explain all of these things as I do on these videos. But Donald Trump doesn't know any of these things. It's clear to me as I learned him, he does not know anything. We all know the most basic rudimentary understanding of international crude oil markets. If we didn't need the Strait of Hormuz, then why is it that oil prices are going up? Why is it that the WTI crude is going up? Even higher than the Brent crude if we, the United States, are not impacted by what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. We clearly are impacted. That's why gas prices are going up. So if you think that the United States can exist by supplying itself with crude drilled in the United States, then you don't understand the way crude oil is drilled and processed and refined and before it's turned into the gas at the pump, right? And, and instead what we get here, you know, is state regime Fox propaganda. We had Lara Trump on today, and Lara Trump was split screen next to the bridges that I talked about being blown up, and she's like, this is so great, other presidents never had the courage to do that.

Other presidents didn't do this, Lara, because this is a war crime. You don't target civilian bridges. It's not what you do. The whole war is unlawful, but then you brag about targeting civilian bridges. And again, the— you know, I mean, Trump's such a fraud in everything he does, in my opinion, you know.

Because—

but, but he's able to convince certain people, and I think that ability is fading by the day, but he's able to convince certain people that what he— that this is smart and this is how billionaires behave and this is what rich people do and that— and this is what strength is. It's always been the opposite. I mean, the Iranian foreign minister is right in saying that actually shows desperation, that shows weakness. It shows that you're flailing and your plan is to just blow up bridges. And just think about that. All that's going to do is force this war to continue on and on and on. I saw one person who's the main kind of oil analyst for Keppler, K-E-P-L-L-E-R, uh, in the Middle East. And what she was saying was right now the earliest that we can potentially even think about oil shipments returning to some pre-war, the earliest is at the end of May. And my own view is that's incredibly optimistic. And to me, it's just like COVID all over again, right? Remember COVID? If you track 2020, you all remember COVID though. If we track 2020 with 2026, Start times were right around the same, right?

February, February-ish, right? You think about, what is it, Tom Hanks, the basketball, the basketball player, right? Those early signs in February. March, it starts picking up, obviously. Donald Trump says, like a miracle, it's all going away. We're going to bend the curve by Easter, right? We're heading into Easter weekend again. We're gonna, we're gonna bend the curve by Easter. It's getting better. We've won. We've defeated it. No one said it could be done. You remember he said all that stuff? It's the same. It's the same stuff, but now the other side is speaking, and they're saying, we're not going away. Here's our plan. In Iran, you know, Donald Trump and Fox and right-wing propaganda, like, they've, in a very racist way, I think, they framed— or ethnocentric, whatever the right term is— they framed Iran as though these are just a bunch of, like, lunatics in caves yelling, like, "Allah Akbar" over and over again, and they don't know what the hell is going on, and these are not smart people. Like, you're very wrong about that, you know. And, but that's the stereotype that I think they tried to convey to people, you know.

And if you've learned any basic military history or military tactics, whether you've read Sun Tzu's Art of War or whoever, you have to know your enemy, or just understand the other side if you believe they're your enemy. But you have to understand the dynamics taking place there. And when you understand the cultural subtleties, the dynamics of Iran, who the former Ayatollah was in terms of his meaning to the Shiite community, the idea of martyrdom within the Shiite population, the sophisticated engineering historically and presently of Iran, Tehran University, and even with a very repressive Islamic Republic regime, first-rate engineering capabilities. That's why Russia and Iran partnered when Russia needed help churning out drones and churning out missiles, the Shaheds and FPVs, um, in Russia's invasion of Iran— I mean, in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And the Russia-Iranian relationship is so obvious right now. And, and Donald Trump, you know, either is so ignorant or just so woefully defective or just so utterly unlearned and evil— probably a combination of all of it— that he acts like— he's like, what was it the other day? What are they going to shoot us with, BB guns? BB guns?

No, no, no. Like, what do you— like, that's a disqualifying statement. No, they're going to shoot— they're going to shoot the bases with the Shahed drones and FPV drones and ballistic missiles that they still have. Not BB guns. You know, what are you talking about with that, right? Like, there are so many words that he uses that are so utterly disqualifying. I saw— I forget which reporter— we know Donald Trump's polling is record lows, right? I mean, CNN poll, his approval is at like 35%. UMass Amherst YouGov poll has him at what, 33%? His net negatives are like record highs, like way worse than even like Biden at Biden's worst. I mean, historically low. But I saw a reporter basically say, you know, it's interesting to watch the percentage drop of Trump, and they try to compare it to Biden. And they were like, well, after Biden removed the troops from the Afghan military base and you know, soldiers, American soldiers were killed at that Afghan military base. Um, you know, it's like Donald Trump's war in Iran has done the same thing to Trump as Biden getting out of Afghanistan did to Biden's poll numbers.

First off, Trump's polling is worse than that, so just set that aside. But the, the, the broader point to make is that every day in this war, Donald Trump, to me, is doing about 10 things that are like the withdrawal from— that, that have a bad outcome, let's just say. I, I actually think— let me be clear— the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the right decision. Obviously, a horrific terrorist attack took place. Donald Trump was actually the cause of the fact that the Taliban had their 5,000 prisoners released. Remember, that was, that was a Donald Trump-Pompeo deal. I want to remind everybody about that as well, that, that the thing that they blamed Biden for was a Trump thing. Um, you know, and now granted, there was a, you know, terrorist attack that took place under the Biden, um, administration. Biden always took accountability for what happened, even though Biden left and didn't get us into wars, let alone never-ending wars in the Middle East. He removed it. But all of that was Trump doing a deal with the Taliban. Remember, Trump invited— people sometimes are shocked when I remind them of this— Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David on 9/11 to have like a feast on 9/11.

He invited the Taliban leaders to hang out at Camp David. Just think about Think about that right there, right? And then, you know, but the broader point I'm going to make— and maybe it's not a good comparison to Biden in Afghanistan— but the point is, every day Trump does 10 things that are far worse, that are far worse to me. Every day, at a minimum, he does 10 things that are impeachable, that are criminal. Again, I'm just giving you my opinion, protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. You could share my opinions or disagree. 10 things that are impeachable in my opinion, 10 things that are criminal and impeachable, and 10 things that would require the 25th Amendment to be invoked every single day. Probably way more than that, every single damn day, you know. And we saw that yesterday, we're seeing it today, we're going to see it tomorrow. And he is incapable of thinking strategically, of developing plans. All he knows is, in my opinion, fraud, and then cover up for the fraud, and turning bad decisions into worse decisions, into catastrophic decisions, into bankruptcies. And I fear that that's exactly where the global economy and the United States is being you know, being pushed into.

Now I want to talk about, of course, how other countries are responding, whether it's France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, not even allowing the U.S. to use airspace or military bases. We heard Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of UK, give a speech addressed to the nation, addressed to the UK, saying we will not be dragged into this war, be bullied by Donald Trump, right? Powerful speech he gave, I thought. Um, you know, I think there are domestic things that he's struggling with. On, on international affairs, I think he's been too cozy with Trump publicly. He's been great on Ukraine. I understand the special relationship between the UK and the US. I get it as an American. I think he's been a little bit too, um, cozy with Trump publicly, although I understand there's a lot intertwined that if that fully ruptures, what happens. So I, I'm, I'm sympathetic at least to understanding that. But he's been strong on Ukraine, you know, in, in, in my view. Um, we saw Anthony Albanese in Australia address the nation. Um, we're seeing a lot of countries, uh, right— Austria no longer allowing U.S. to use airspace. Um, lots of people are starting to assert themselves as Trump attacks NATO.

That's been a theme throughout Donald Trump's life— always attack NATO, attack NATO— and now saying because NATO didn't help, um, invade, engage in an unlawful war, that, you know, NATO— America should pull out from NATO after the war. Um, but Trump's going to keep dragging this thing on and on and on and on. He doesn't know how to get out. He's lost all of his allies, all of America's allies. Um, I don't know if America is a superpower right now. I, I mean, I think the superpower is its cruelty. It, it— but it is a bloviating— like, like, uh, the way it's like, it's like a bloviating fraud at this point. A fugazi. Yes, it has these resources. Yes, we have the biggest military. Yes, we have these things, but in the hands of a maniac What use is it in the hands of a maniac other than to inflict cruel and unusual war crimes and punishment on the rest of the world? I'll show that quick clip right here of Lara Trump that I was talking about, just because I don't want to lose that train of thought. But this is what they're doing on propaganda media today.

Let's just play it.

Because you want to talk about what the United States of America can do, take a look at this video. Take a look at all the videos he's posted of the bombs dropping, of the explosions, of us targeting something The size of basically a fingernail, our United States military. It is really impressive. It has so much more gravity to it when you see it like this. And I just think it's so impressive because, again, we have never seen something like this happen. We've never had a president like this willing to do this sort of thing. And hopefully it's all for the best, you know, for the entire world, the best for our people, the best for the rest of the world. And just to go back to what you guys were talking about with the allies, This president has talked about how disappointed he is with his— with the NATO allies. He also talked last night about the fact that the people who rely on the Strait of Hormuz to get their oil need to step up. Now's the time they need it. We don't need it here in the United States of America. They're going to have to step up and do something about it.

I thought his speech last night was really powerful, and I think that he sent a message then. He's sending a message now with this video as well.

I mean, again, if you're Iran, if you're any country in the world and you watch that the president's daughter-in-law is going on TV to threaten NATO and to say that, look at the precision with which we bomb bridges— you know who bombs bridges? Terrorists bomb bridges. War criminals bomb bridges like that. Civilian bridges. And then boast about it. That's what terrorists do. That's what war criminals do. Bombing bridges like that, that are used for civilian purposes in, in, in that way. And then bragging and boasting about bombing the bridge. What are we doing? And we have Lara Trump out there attacking NATO. You better get your act together. Who are you? Who, who are these people? You know, do we have the quote, Jeremy, from French President Emmanuel Macron? There were a few, uh, snapshots that I took today of just some of the things that he said. He goes, we must be serious. And when we are serious, we do not say the opposite of what we said the day before. Perhaps we should not speak every day. We should simply calm things down and build a lasting peace. What else did he say?

6 months ago, we were told everything had been destroyed and settled. Clearly, that was not the case. Without international inspectors verifying materials, research, and hidden sites, Simply not serious. And this is a common theme— not serious. He goes, opening the Strait of Hormuz by force, it's not the option we have chosen because it's unrealistic. A military operation to reopen it would take an infinite amount of time and expose forces to immense coastal and ballistic risks. From the beginning, we have said it must be reopened, but only in coordination with Iran. The world cannot live with a strait that can be opened or closed overnight. Like, let's be serious. Like, that's one of the main messages since Midas Touch was created. Like, let's be— let's act like adults. Like, let's act like grown-ups. And, you know, I know lots of people like, oh, well, you hate Trump, you're a far leftist, because I'm like, let's just be grown-ups and adults. I was not a political person in the past, as you all— I was a litigator. I represented Democrats, Republicans. I went into trial, whatever, I was just a lawyer. My own personal views were always privately very progressive, always privately, you know, very, you know, aligned with helping marginalized communities and stopping bullies.

That's where I was personally. Professionally, I wasn't like a politician person. I just wanted to help people. But I tried to approach my work with a level of seriousness. And so when I see this behavior, it's clowns. Stuff. It's clown stuff. And so when we come back, I want to talk about Pam Bondi's termination. We started off talking about the Trump regime firing the Army Chief of Staff, the top Army— one of the top Army people, Army Chief of Staff Randy George. That's always a sign that the war is going well, right? This headline will get buried though in the bigger headline that Pam Bondi was fired. Pam Bondi's already out there taking pictures, I guess, at football stadiums now. I don't know what the hell she is. We'll talk about that when we get back. Um, have you subscribed to Scott McFarland's YouTube channel yet? If you do, throw that blue emoji heart if you subscribe to Scott McFarland's YouTube channel. Also subscribe to our YouTube channel. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Um, a lot of your feedback was on my last episode, you're like, Ben, you're too ranty, you're ranting too much on the show.

Yes, tone it down at some kind I just get angry sometimes when I see this stuff. So I take your consider— I took your feedback into consideration. I'll— I, I will, I will share my emotions less. I was just— the last Tuesday when I was just so— and it's just so angry about all the lies. So I was like, ah, I'll bring it back down to that voice. We have a lot more show. We'll be right back after our first and only quick break.

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Welcome back. Great ad reads, my brothers. They do great ad reads. Thank you to all of our sponsors. We're grateful, uh, for all of our sponsors. Uh, let's talk briefly about— I think what deserves even more attention right now than it's getting, so I don't want this, uh, video not to just fade off into a news cycle. It's Donald Trump in the White House saying that the federal government can't take care of daycare. We're too big of a country. We're fighting wars. We can't do Medicaid. We can't do Medicare. We can't do daycare. All we can do is war. Now look, for those who haven't seen this, you probably have seen it by now, but you probably think when I give you that setup. Come on, he couldn't have actually said those. How could he have actually— he actually said those words? I mean, like, do you remember back in the day when it would be kind of disqualifying when a politician couldn't spell potato? Like with Dan Quayle, remember, it was over. The guy, the guy spelled potato the wrong way. When you've got Donald Trump from the White House, as a war escalates in Iran spiraling out of control, and Donald Trump says we can't take care of daycare, we're too big, our money needs to go to the wars.

To the war. Their whole thing was that they were— the whole thing they ran on was no more wars, we're going to make things affordable. That was the lie. That was the fraud. Here's what he said yesterday at the White House. Let's play it.

Because the United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them. To make up for. But we— it's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection.

We have one thing that we focus on: military protection. You know, one of the ironic things, if you want to use the word irony, is that one of the ways that the Trump regime, whether it's Rubio, or Hegseth or others have attacked Iran. They were like, can you imagine this? In Iran, they spend all of their money on weapons and the people don't get anything at all. All the money is taken away for weapons and war. Everything with this regime, with this Trump regime, is projection and confession. And we now know that Trump has proposed a 2027 budget where there will be $1.5 trillion in military spending. Remember when they were talking about $1 trillion and that was going to be a crazy number? Now they're at $1.5 trillion while cutting domestic programs to support it. You know, and every time everyone's like, oh, we don't have enough money for the Obamacare subsidies, we don't have enough money for this, we don't have enough— yes, you do. Here's what you want me to do, it really simple for you. You take that $1.5 trillion military budget and you bring it to— how about this number, everybody?

$450 billion a year. You go from $1.5 trillion, let's go to $450 billion a year. In my opinion, probably still too high. It would still be leading the world by significant amounts. $450 billion. Especially with modern-day warfare where it's basically drones, drone interceptors, you know, a lot of that, you know, for, you know, we're seeing what's happening with conventional army forces against drone armies. Say $450 billion there. Look, voilà, I've just saved us $550 billion, right? Uh, you know that $200 billion supplemental that they found? Okay, well Let's add that. I just found us basically close to $800 billion right there. What else? What else? Okay, now we'll tax the rich a little bit more, just a little bit more. You know, I'm not, I'm not gonna— I won't— we don't have to go super high right away, but let's just tack the— let's tax the rich. What? How about this? 2%, 1.5%, 1%? Let's start 1% to 1.5% more. How much money do you think I bring in with that? Probably in the trillions, but who knows? Let's— I don't have the number. I'm not going to pretend I know. Let's just say for the sake of round numbers that I just found us another $500 billion by putting another $1.5 trillion.

By the way, I believe in the idea of a wealth tax. But if you say, hey, Ben, that's complicated. And well, how do we do— how do we deal with unrealized capital gains, and do we, do we tax future stuff? Just tax income, actual income, 1%, 1.5% more. Okay, I've just made us somewhere in the realm of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion. I found you, I found you the money right there. I found you the money right there. Lots of money, lots of money to help lots of programs. Now You can say, well then, Ben, so you're just going to give $2 trillion to the federal government? Like, do you trust these bureaucrats with all of it? And I would say, what if rather than doge firing everybody and engaging in this reckless whatever, what if you really though did look for efficiencies and we use technology to actually find ways to make government more efficient, not in the cruel and unusual ways that the Trump regime did it, But we try to figure it out. Okay. You know, does it make sense in 2026 to have this division over here and this department over here and this over there?

Can they be consolidated? Oh, oh, I, I found two. Oh, I abolished ICE and I abolished, uh, Border Patrol. Um, I still think there needs to— let me be clear. Let me be clear. I still think there needs to be a strong border, right? I think there needs to be a strong border. I think that there's a role at the border for some people to deal with border. I think there should be a pathway to citizenship for people who pay taxes and who participate in our economy and are helpful. I agree criminals need to go and bad people need to go for sure, be prosecuted or go. I 100% agree there. I don't— to me, ICE and Border Patrol aren't doing that function. So I would create something else. So maybe that other entity gets $50 billion or $100 billion. I don't know. I still found us close to $2 trillion. And I think with that money, we could fund healthcare for all. I think we can build housing. And I think we could, yeah, I think, I mean, China spends $250 to $300 billion per year on their military. So we'd still be leading in my plan.

We'd still be number one, America, number one. Right? And my plan, I think it's reasonable. I think it recognizes lots of dynamics and it puts the money back with the people. Problem solved. This isn't actually a complicated problem. It's just people creating the complications so that you get screwed. That's— anyway, that would be my— I'm not running for anything though, so Use my playbook, don't use my playbook, whatever. But that's what I would do. What else did Donald Trump say? Oh, his ballroom. He talked about his ballroom yesterday. It was big. I can't get my ballroom approved. Remember, Judge Leon, federal judge, blocked them. I told you that the judge was going to block the ballroom. I was almost wrong, though. Remember when the judge denied the preliminary injunction twice and y'all gave me a bunch of shit for that, huh? You were like, you were wrong. You told us the ballroom was going to be blocked. Your legal analysis— they didn't fully utilize the legal analysis in their preliminary injunction, so they actually filed an amended complaint, and that's what was granted. But here's Donald Trump whining about the ballroom. Here, play this clip.

They call me king now. Do you believe it? No king. I'm such a king, I can't get a ballroom approved. Pretty amazing, right? I'm a king. If I was a king, we'd be doing a lot more. I'm doing a lot, but I could be doing a lot more if I was a king.

And then he attacks his own Supreme Court justices. He attacks them and he goes, they're stupid, they're dumb. Here's what he says. Let's play it.

Republicans, judges and justices, they always want to show that they're independent. I can— I don't care if Trump appointed me. I don't care. If he doesn't make any difference to me, I'm voting against him because they want to show their independence. You know, stupid people.

Okay, those are the people he appointed. Stupid people. Stupid deal, right? He says, he says that the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement's a stupid deal. You did it. You did the USMCA. You did the trade deal with Japan before. These are your deals that you've done in the past that you say are stupid. I mean, you know, again, just, just so screwed up. Attorney General Pam Bondi was fired. I did a whole hot take on it, so I don't think I need to totally repeat everything, but here's what she posted most recently. Um, spent today partnering— this is a post that she made moments ago— that she spent today partnering with local sheriffs in the NFL Hall of Fame to promote the National Child ID Kit Program. Like, she's acting like she didn't get fired. Um, here's what— I'm okay, everything's all right. We think that Kash Patel is probably going to get fired soon as well. Um, Democrats are making clear though with Pam Bondi, okay, just because you got fired though doesn't mean we're not subpoenaing you still. You're going to show up at your deposition, and arguably if she's not the Attorney General anymore, she certainly even has less excuses now to try to avoid showing up.

I mean, she's a civilian. Civilian, civilian subpoena. You got to show up, Pam. You got to show up April 14th. Yeah, Donald Trump posted that, uh, the acting Attorney General will be Todd Blanche right now. We love Pam. She'll be transitioning to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector. Daily Mail reported that Pam Bondi begged, begged Trump not to fire her during dramatic White House showdown as insiders reveal his final straw. And Daily Mail claims the final straw is that, uh, I guess people were saying that Bondi tipped off Eric Swalwell about the FBI's efforts to release investigative documents regarding his relationship with Christine Fang. I don't know, that doesn't— to me it seems like it was the— it's her botching the Epstein file cover-up. How'd you screw up that cover-up? By the way, did you— at 5:30 AM Pacific time, I did a video saying that she was going to get fired today. Granted, the New York Times reported it first. Um, but we went, uh, you know, we, we went all in on the reporting and saying it definitely seems that given all of the information out there right now, um, how livid Donald Trump is that the House Democrats in the Oversight Committee just keep on pushing forward, pushing forward.

Bondi was not able to wiggle out of the deposition from April 14th. Remember two weeks ago I reported how she tried to, um, voluntarily show up on 24 hours notice in front of the House Oversight Committee. And everybody was like, uh, well, the Democrats were like, we're not, we're not sitting here so you can use this as an excuse to avoid a subpoena. No, you're going to show up for your subpoena deposition. You know, I'm sure Donald Trump's going to have to pardon her and issue a pardon. It'll be interesting to see, honestly, if any states move to criminally prosecute her right, like, right now. If there's any state criminal prosecutions or state criminal investigations into her behavior. I mean, she's now a civilian. Donald Trump can't pardon her for state crimes. So I'd be interested to see if, uh, if, if that happens. Um, what else, uh, on, on that? Oh, Pablo Manrique says someone needs to find Jamie Raskin so he can say, who's the washed-up loser lawyer now? Congressmember Frost wrote, uh, Pam Bondi still has to testify under oath in front of the House Oversight Committee regarding the Epstein files. This does not get her out of that bipartisan lawful subpoena.

We will see her soon. Watch, she'll try to get out of that. I'll show you this, um, there was a last week I did a video on this also before. James Comer, right, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, even he was basically saying, well, nobody agrees the Justice Department did a good job on the Epstein files. Here's what he said. Let's play this clip of James Comer if we've got it.

Well, I think the Justice Department has botched this. I don't think anyone in America, Republican or, or, you know, avid Trump supporter, would defend the way that this has been rolled out. Having said that, it's very complicated because of all the lawsuits.

That's kind of what they go back to, right? Like It's so complicated, like you can't understand this. And so everything's so complicated, so complicated, like let us figure it out for you, okay? Let Donald figure it out because it's so complicated. Don't you see that that's what they always do over and over again? So complicated, so complex, you wouldn't understand it. No, no, it's actually pretty easy. It's pretty easy, right? You wanna, you wanna give Americans universal healthcare and help people get housing and get people resources to make the entire country better. Tax the rich a little bit more. Remove $500 billion, or now if it's, uh, $1.5 trillion, remove $1 trillion from the military budget so it's about $450 billion. Uh, defund and abolish ICE. That gives us another— it's actually fairly easy. I just solved the problem. I just solved the problem like that. The complicated part is that lots of people will be like, oh my God, can you believe that men are playing women's sports? And oh my God, do you see— do you know the sports and bathrooms? And, and, uh, they're eating your cats and dogs. Ah, they're coming to get you.

Everyone's coming to get you. The complicated part is that They want to pit us against each other so we don't realize how simple the solution— the solutions are simple. But these sociopaths, these sickos, right, these Epstein class, these, these pieces of trash, right, these miserable people, you know, the, these, these people who want to see us suffer because They're miserable, so they want to bring us into their miserable worlds. They try to pit us against each other when actually the solution is very simple. I solve the issue, everyone gets healthcare, everyone gets free education, we're still a safe country, we have a strong border. We could focus actually on the criminals, not the people here who are helping. We're nice to each other. It's actually, it's actually fairly simple solutions to a lot, to a lot, to a lot of these issues. You know, when it comes to the Epstein files, just release the files. Said you were going to release it, release the files. But Biden, Biden, Biden is not president anymore. What do you want me to tell you? What do you want me to tell you? He didn't run on releasing the Epstein files.

He ran on creating manufacturing jobs. He did that, and then he got treated like shit, but he led to a manufacturing boom dissolved all the chaos that Donald Trump created, but, you know, the American people didn't want him because he was, you know, slower, older, whatever, you know, but did the things he said he was going to do. I mean, I remember when I interviewed Biden in the Roosevelt Room, I said, what do you want your legacy to be? Remember, he was— remember, I was the last person who interviewed Biden. Um, by the way, that was before Midas Touch was all that big. I mean, we were growing, but, you know, 2025 I think was our watershed year. 2026, you know, we're obviously— and I'm so humbled and honored thanks to your support that it's like the number one show across— more people watch this than anything else, Fox, whatever. Um, but back in 2024, Biden gave his last interview to us, and lots of people were like mocking that, that he gave it to us, but I think He saw what the future of media was going to look like. That's what he said.

He said, I saw what the future— that's why, that's why I'm doing this. But in any event, what he told me is, I said, well, what do you want people to remember you by? And he said, I want them to know that I kept my word, that, that no matter what I said what I was going to do, I did those things. I got inflation under control by the time I was leaving. It was heading to 2%. I created more manufacturing jobs and more jobs than any other president. That's what I said I was going to do. I got us out of wars. That's what I said I was going to do. I handled, uh, the chaos that was left by Donald Trump with all the disinformation about COVID I got it under control. I stabilized things. And, you know, for, for 4 years It was barrage after barrage after barrage of attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks. And, you know, politically he couldn't survive that. He said, I kept my word. And I think that's a good place for us to end here with, which is, which is, you know, simple values— keeping your word, being honest, treating each other with respect.

Right, to me, this is why I've worked to create this network, was because somewhere in the gamification of our dystopian politics, that stuff isn't talked about. And that's the most important stuff out there, is being a good human being with the short time that we have here on Earth and being stewards of this valuable and precious time that we were granted on this planet. To ensure that future generations are left with either something that they can live with comfort and stability, or ideally something better. That's why we're here. And if we're not here for that, what are we here for? I mean, Donald Trump is 80 at this point, and his focus is on turning his presidential library in that he got gifted money from Miami-Dade, got gifted land from Miami-Dade, uh, college, which he basically stole. Like, DeSantis basically stole it, and Donald Trump's turning that into a hotel, a hotel that he can make money off of using the settlements that he extracted from media companies, uh, to have a tax-free hotel. You know, we all have a very finite time on this earth. Why? What's the— you're, you're so crazed about making money and that, that you want your legacy to be, you know, uh, uh, of, uh, that you defrauded the presidential library system.

What are we doing here? What are we doing here? We'll keep on fighting for you each and every day. We're going to stay in the fight. We're going to keep growing this network, and, uh, we're very grateful for all of your support as always. And let's keep doing it. Remember, the show I do with my brothers starts at 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific. Check it out. Excited to Be with my brothers tonight live. And, uh, just thanks for continuing to watch and spread the message about the Midas Touch. Have you subscribed to Scott McFarland's YouTube channel? Have you subscribed to Katie Fang's YouTube channel? Have you subscribed to the Legal AF YouTube channel? Have you subscribed to Aaron Parnas's YouTube channel? What about Tennessee Brando? What about Adam Mockler's channel? Have you subscribed to all of the Midas Touch YouTube channels? Would love for you to subscribe to all of them. We're building something special here with your help. We're grateful for you. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time on a much calmer and zen-like Ben on Breaking News, per your advice. Shout out Midas Mighty. Thanks, everybody.

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