Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 8/11/26 New

We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Remember at the start of last week when Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessant assured everybody that there would be a deal with Iran in the next 48 hours? Well, of course that was a lie. Then on Sunday, Donald Trump said, we're not even doing negotiations with Iran anymore. Instead, we're just going to low-key it. Maybe we'll just do semi-negotiations, but we'll just let it run its natural course. That's what he told his personal stenographer, Barak Revid, over at Axios. This followed Iran standing firm on all of the demands it previously made back in March and then in the memorandum of understanding. And they said they were not going to open up the Strait of Hormuz until those demands were met. Meanwhile, Iran continued to strike tankers that were trying to transit under the US direction through the Oman route in the Strait of Hormuz. We'll cover all of the updates that are taking place in this still ongoing catastrophic catastrophic war. And the latest is Donald Trump saying, you know what, we're gonna charge Iran reparations right now because they want reparations from us.

We're gonna charge them reparations. Well, the price of Brent and WTI crude went up dramatically, about 5% in the past few hours since Donald Trump thinks this is all one big game while the American people are suffering. Donald Trump held a deranged press conference in the Oval Office as well earlier today where he put his own medical disinformation and deadly conspiracies in place of what scientists actually say about the child vaccine schedule. Donald Trump just saying lies about the cause of autism and how he wants to spread out certain vaccines, and he's saying what he thinks should happen with Hep B vaccines. It was really deranged stuff. He also looked awful, and he continued to like fall asleep throughout the press conference. A very bizarre scene in the Oval Office. You've got Trump regime cabinet officials saying that we are in a Golden Age because they are showing bronze statues in the Washington, D.C. area that have now been basically painted gold. And they go, you see, we're in the Golden Age. We took bronze statues and we gilded it gold, everybody. In the real world where we're not in a golden age, not only are the American people suffering, um, it should also be noted that our service members as well, in addition to the families back at home, are suffering also.

We're hearing a lot from military families who have sailors still on the USS Abraham Lincoln who aren't even being given the most basic of things, like they can't get a shower, the plumbing and the toilets don't work, they're not getting food. There's a lot of very serious, just basic fundamental issues taking place on the Abraham Lincoln supercarrier that's right outside the Strait of Hormuz. And we were following this as well with the other supercarrier, the Gerald Ford, which was out at sea out on sea for about 326 days, the Abraham Lincoln out on sea for about 263, 264 days, both kind of setting records at this point as the morale is at an all-time low. So you have morale on these super carriers at an all-time low. You have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at an all-time low, less than 300 million barrels right now in the Strategic Reserve, something that we've been warning about here consistently. And you have our munitions at an all-time low. Who would've thought that the guys who bankrupted casinos would blow through $1 trillion in a military budget to shame and humiliate the United States. Donald Trump's polling should not be surprising.

The worst since like 1953, like when the polling really kind of first began in earnest. At this point, right before a midterm, there's never been any president with a lower approval. And you go to any demographic, like even including non-college-educated white people, Trump's like net —8 there across all demos. I mean, Trump is plummeting. People hate this regime. And we'll zoom in on what's going on in Michigan right now, what's going on in Texas as we are following the general elections there, as we are throughout the country, because we're getting pretty close, folks, to the midterms. And whether it's Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, whether it's James Talarico in Texas, whether it's the incredible candidates in Iowa. I mean, we're really seeing, I think, something special happening right now as people say enough is enough. So we've got a lot to discuss. Brett and Jordy, great to see you. Looking forward to this episode.

Looking forward to it as well. Great to see you, Ben. Great to see you, Jordy. Great to see you, Midas Mighty. Have you guys seen this viral meme that's been going around now for— I forget, like, probably like the past year or so. It's called the Theory of Everything, and that everybody's basically like 12 now. Everybody acts like they're 12. I think it really sums up Donald Trump and everything we're seeing right now. I'll pull it up because I think it sets the stage for the comments that we're going to see, uh, with Trump on this episode. Uh, but here, this guy Patrick Cosmos came up with this. He said, I'm working on a new unified theory of American reality. I'm calling everyone is 12 now. I'm strong and I want to have like 50 kids and a farm. Of course you do. You're 12. I don't want to eat vegetables. I think steak and French fries is the only meal. Hell yeah, homie. You're 12. Maybe if there's crime, we should just send the army. Bless your heart, my 12-year-old buddy. And that's what it feels like every time we get Donald Trump in a room.

Donald Trump's decision-making, even with things as serious as war, are as if a 12-year-old is doing that. And I almost feel like I'm insulting 12-year-olds when I say this, but you even see it with the latest comments from Donald Trump when Iran is making the demands that they've made, quite frankly, from the beginning now about compensation for the war. And Trump does the 12-year-old thing of, no, you give me compensation. You give me compensation. Yeah, you're 12, buddy. You're acting like you're 12. We got a lot to go through this episode. Let me toss it to Jordy first.

Jordy, what's the latest on your end? Brothers, Midas Mighty, excited to get into tonight's show. Just a heads up for everyone, I think I'm officially on baby watch, guys. We're about 3, 3 and a half weeks until the due date. Our first one came early, and so who— it could happen during the show. You guys might just see me jet out. I, I don't know. I'm not making any predictions. Not the game I'm in, but we'll see. We're getting very excited on our end. I know the Midas Mighty have been asking for an update, so I wanted to let you guys know it's It's happening real soon. Benji, where are we starting off today, big bro?

Well, Brett, with that 12-year-old unified theory of the downfall of the United States, I mean, we talk about that a lot. We don't call it that per se, which is an interesting framing, but we talk about Trump bending reality and then through a trillion-dollar corporate media ecosystem pushing this bizarre behavior and trying to normalize it such that the debates are taking place within a deeply sick and unwell kind of fake reality where all of the debates are completely divorced, separated from what the American people are actually feeling. And I think it's why networks like the Midas Touch Network are growing at the pace that we are, because while all the media ecosystem kind of again has debates within Trump's fake reality, we're talking about consistently what the American people are going through, that people can't afford homes, they can't afford groceries, they can't afford gas, they can't afford anything. They've had their healthcare ripped away. and they have to make decisions like, I don't know, can I add the food that I need to not be hungry to my refrigerator, or should I not see the doctor and not get a checkup? And if I don't get the checkup, that could result in something that may be wrong with me, um, continuing to, you know, grow.

And so these are, in the real world, these are issues that the American people are facing. I mean, and every day Donald Trump does something just so incredibly cruel, whether it's, you know, the end of last week talking about going after endangered species, right? Or a few weeks before that, continuing to go after nurses. Or in the past, uh, you know, week, we saw bulldozers at Big Bend National Park in western Texas, this beautiful national park. You've got bulldozers building like a wall and, and all of this bizarre drone stuff. And the people there on a bipartisan basis are like, why are you drilling bulldozing the Big Bend. What are you doing? This is our national park. It's a beautiful area. And you're separating the people from the Rio Grande. Like, what, what are you even doing? And it's just one cruel thing after another. And you got to keep up with it. But we also have to connect it to the experience that the American people are going through. Like, even right now, Donald Trump is continuing to try to invade Greenland sovereignty. I mean, just because that gets covered more, say, in January, it doesn't mean the issue just goes away.

I mean, you've got these Trump regime-linked companies that are going in there without the approval of Greenland and they want to try to start drilling and they're like, well, we've got $1 trillion of liquid gold in here that we need to drill. And the Greenland, the Greenlandic people like, no, you can't drill here. Like, what in the world are you doing? So you have to also keep up with everything that's going on. You also have to make it very clear that what's happening is not normal, but it's not enough just to call out Trump's bad behavior. You have to highlight what the American people are going through, as we just did there at the beginning. You have to tell the stories, for example, of those military families whose Navy sailors are suffering aboard the Abraham Lincoln. As Donald Trump's out there bragging about a blockade and pretending that we control the Strait of Hormuz, what we can forget is that there are people who are really suffering aboard the USS Lincoln, just like the Gerald Ford, just like the George H.W. Bush. And now they want to move the Teddy Roosevelt there come December. These are people's lives.

Lives. You know, when we talk about health care being ripped away, it's not an election talking point. It's something that you experience. And when Donald Trump is out there saying, what's the worst that could happen if we change the child vaccine schedule? The worst that could happen is children can die. That's, that's the bad— that's the worst thing that can happen. And all of the medical professionals who I've been talking to, they explained What Trump and RFK and all these, you know, Trump bootlicking sycophants in the Oval Office are saying. And then there was like a random lady standing behind them and she was like touching her stomach the whole time. And I didn't understand why she was even like in this Oval Office press conference. What they're doing is deeply dangerous and deranged, and it removes what science says is actually needed and why we've had such medical advancements for Donald Trump, just kind of doing a version of, hey, let's just paint it blue. Hey, let's just inject yourself with bleach. Hey, just do that. And we have experts. We have people who have looked into this. Does that mean the experts always get it right?

No. But, you know, but the reality is, is that they're working with the best science to try to figure things out. And that system has been a system that has worked in this country, not perfectly, imperfectly, but it's worked. You know, I did a video about this group called the Steady State, made up of former CIA officials this morning. And one of the things that the leader of this group said is that the reason authoritarian regimes kind of fall the way they do is kind of what we're seeing with Donald Trump, is that it's filled with such malignant narcissism that they think they have the answer to everything. Oh, I don't like windmills, so we're not going to do windmills. I don't like the idea of green energy. I'm going to call it the Green New Scam. And so we're not going to do that. I think that, you know, we're just going to go in there, beam Donald Trump's face and Benjamin Netanyahu's face in Iran, kill their spiritual leader and the spiritual leader of hundreds of millions of Shiites across the world. And then they're going to want Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump to be the leaders of Iran.

You know, it's the, it's the most incomprehensible kind of dangerous view. And you could go to any single topic. And Trump is just not just wrong, he's fatally wrong. And it's often why I use that word fatal. He's fatally wrong on a lot of these things. And I mean, just think about what's also going on in the past 24 hours. I mean, just you could go anywhere. You had an announcement from Sean Duffy of the Real World Road Rules Challenge. That's the guy who leads our Department of Transportation, Sean Duffy. And by the way, this morning he was saying in 2 weeks, that's the Trump regime speak for everything, in 2 weeks, You're going to see my, my reality show that I did. He said, we did a reality show, me and my wife, and we've talked about this. We're going to see my reality show that I can't wait to show it. I don't want to see your reality show. What do you like? Why? We don't want to see any of that. And then you had like the weird videos being made of the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wainemullen and Lara Trump on state-regime media Fox doing like weird workout videos.

The whole thing is just so— we don't want to see any of that. I just wonder how you're going to help the American people. And anyway, I digress. Sean Duffy's like, game changer. He says, game changer. We launched a new campaign to recruit video gamers as air traffic controllers and supercharged the entire hiring process to get the best and brightest in faster. The results are historic: 94% of hiring goal met, fastest time ever to reach the target, 2,000 hired, the most in a single year. I mean, they're bragging about I mean, don't get me wrong, I think that it is— it's great, you know. I think that just because you play video games doesn't mean you can't do other stuff. But we've removed the people who went to school for a very long period of time to be air traffic control specialists, and they're hiring literally gamers. I thought this was a parody, Brett and Jordy, but this is real.

I actually have to look at it. And you know what, it's just the— it's the same way they hired people from ICE also, you know. They, they lowered the standards standards. They actually took away the expertise of it and said, we're just going to take people who respond to us on Twitter or something like that. And it's not a hit on— like you said, not a hit on gamers at all. I'm sure there are a lot of gamers who are very qualified for these positions, but that's not the point. They're trying to find these little ways of kind of— they're recruiting their people. And to me, it's all very disturbing and it adds up. And inevitably, dangerous situations happen when they continue to move these people up the ladder and then they get people who are wholly unqualified. And that's why every time I turn on the sort of, uh, legacy news, or if I, which I honestly rarely do, uh, at this point, but I see, you know, so many clips online and even as I see, you know, some of these podcasters and, you know, you, you expect it from the right, right?

You expect it from Fox, you expect it from Newsmax, you expect it from OAN that they're constantly going to be ranting about communism and social socialism and all this crap. What you kind of aren't prepared for is the rest of the media ecosystem focused on all of this crap while we are literally staring fascism and authoritarianism in the eye as we speak. And they all want to say, no, no, no, no, no, let's not focus on that. Let's worry about this fake problem that doesn't actually exist. You should actually be afraid of the rise of communism, the rise of socialism, coming to this country, just feeding into Donald Trump's deranged version of reality as he installs the most radical people in every position, purges all of his positions, and implements loyalists everywhere across the board in the government, in these long positions, in these positions that were normally reserved for actual civil servants. This is the real threat that's in front of us right now. The threat of the Iran war. The complete disaster, the complete depletion of our munitions, of our defenses. We are right now in a crisis. We don't have to start creating or imagining fake crises because we are staring one in the face.

And the fact that people cannot focus on what is right in front of us right now really drives me up the wall. But I think that's why so many people, you know, in this Midas Mighty community come here as well, because we're like, what are we doing with these dumb distractions? Can we please focus on this maniac right now that's in the frickin White House?

It's such a legacy rot like that just playing out in front of so many people. And again, I think it's meant to like gaslight y'all. But fortunately, we have this incredible pro-democracy community here that doesn't get gaslit by the mainstream nonsense because they tune in to independent media, which is so vital in this time. I just really want to quickly go back, just, you know, cover our butts here with the gamers, because I know we have a lot of gamers in the chat. That I speak to quite frequently, and it's nothing against the gamers. That's not the issue in these situations. But the situation here is they're lowering the standards once again, it feels like. And it's just such a weird thing to spike the football specifically at the speed of which you're hiring such a critical position. You know, I tell people this all the time. I don't care how long it takes. I just want to— I want to make sure it's done right. And I just feel at the bare minimum, that should be the level of competence and approach that our government takes to filling very crucial roles that keep people alive, quite frankly.

Not, oh, we filled these positions in expert— in record time. It's like, I'm sorry, but I want the experts to actually go through the process. I want it to be a rigorous process with standards to ensure that it's the most qualified people being hired. Like, is that a crazy thing to say, Ben and Brett?

No, look, to be fair, I think I did praise the gaming community and, and I think they understood that. But I double protect our bases and give a shout out to gamers for sure. But no, I mean, look, I think that they would even want to acknowledge, okay, we should still go through the same process as, as, as everybody else. Brett, I want to pick up a point that, you know, you were saying also, you know, which is also how is it that after seeing all of this, which appears to be so obvious, that it's not just the right-wing media, but it's just that seeing everybody kind of fall for the bait and bite the bait so obviously, the trap is so obvious. And so frequently you have the corporate media and then even just others chase the narrative that is being set and the bent reality, as we started this episode, from Trump and Fox. And the moment you start even debating with this phantom fake Trump-bent reality, you've already moved the Overton window so far that even if you win the debate, you've already lost because you're arguing in this kind of fake trap world that the American people aren't even in.

And sometimes, you know, it's like when you look at a fish and you see the bait just kind of right there and the fish is, come on, it's like, you know it. Didn't you see your brother fish? You know what? If you go and do that, you know, it's gonna— we've done this before. And then if it's like, it's like, I told you, it was right there, right in front of you. It's right in front of you.

The issue though with the broader like information ecosystem right now though, I feel like everybody always feels the need that they, that they need to be talking about X, Y, and Z because other people are talking about X, Y, Z. You don't just need a— you don't need to follow, okay? You need to actually report on what's going on And when there are threats as grave as what we are seeing right now, you gotta be able to stay focused on that and not be the second fish that comes along.

You know, it's like, oh, so we got angry about Hasan Piker. I'm like, what are you even talking about? I don't even understand what you even mean. He's a streamer. Who cares? Look, focus on the fact that the American people are unable to get healthcare right now. Focus on the fact that Donald Trump makes up every day that we're going to do deals with Iran and then says, I'm going to blow the effing ass out of them. Oh, I want them to give me reparations. Or that Treasury Secretary Bessant says, well, you know, the Strait of Hormuz, just some water. It's just, it's just water. Like, we don't even need it. We're just going to build pipelines that are going to— who's going to buy it? Who's going to build these things? Ben, they're low-keying it, bro.

Ben, you can't— I know they said that they were going to have the deal done last week. The deal was imminent, right? They said said that he was being sarcastic. You can't— you didn't pick up on the sarcasm. And now this weekend, don't worry, they're low-keying it. They're low-keying it all. Well, look, you know the 30 rule, right?

That if you take over 30 private companies, that's not communism. Once you hit 31, then maybe we can have the conversation.

Trump's literally taken over—

like, the United States has significant equity stakes in over 30 companies where I don't know if that's not a form of taking over the methods and means of control. I don't know what else is. And Donald Trump behaves more like an authoritarian communist than anybody. It's happening right before our eyes. It's the exact behavior, in my opinion, of the Stalins. And, you know, when everybody and everybody like that. Yet these debates are happening like, well, what's happening in New York City with Mom? I know, lowest crime in the history. Sounds pretty good to me. Will you disavow? Will you disavow what Hassan John Piker said in episode 200. Yeah, it's, it's enough. We've made the point. And now I want to spend time talking about what the American people actually care about. I mean, it's— look, the price of oil went up 5%. Think about the volatility, 5% in the last few hours because in response to Iran doing what Iran has done since March. That's why I report on it every damn day and say, here's what they've said. Their demands have remained the exact same since March when there was a 10-point plan.

When it was in the 14 points that added to it from the memorandum of understanding, which actually ended up being more friendly to Iran that the US signed, to what they've stood on afterward. It's been the exact same exact stuff. They want unfrozen funds. They want Israel out of Lebanon. They want US out of the bases in the region. They want a $300 billion fund for reparations for the, you know, for the attacks on them. You know, this is what they've consistently— they want to be able to keep their ballistic missiles. They want a nuclear program. They said it won't be weapons-grade. We'll do what we did in the JCPOA, but you can't— it's the exact thing.

This is why when Trump did his post earlier today where he did like the, no, you do comp— you compensate us, his 12-year-old thing, like he acted like he was surprised by this. He's like, I see that the representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran are asking for compensation for the damage done them. They've been asking for this the whole time. They've been asking for this from the beginning. The fact that if this is indeed a surprise to you, then somebody's not telling you things that you should know. Either way, you should not be in this position of power if you did not know on your own or did not know via people telling you that this was what they've been asking for the entire time. Like, say anything you want about the Iranian regime. Regime, they've actually been remarkably consistent in the terms that they've been demanding from the United States. So much so that we could name them off the top of our head here on the Midas Touch podcast. And if we know them, the president of the United States should know them. And right now we see Iran, uh, consistently saying, hey, uh, at this point we're hearing from sources close to the Iranian regime, close to the speaker of parliament, advisors to the speaker of parliament saying like, we're not going to even deal deal with this guy until 2029.

Like, like, why, why even bother? Like, this guy can't be trusted. We'll just wait you out. We're just gonna ice you out. We'll just wait you out. Good luck with your Strait of Hormuz. Good luck with your economy. Good luck with your oil reserves. See you later. Goodbye. And then you see some other folks saying, like, if you want to abide by the MOU that we signed, we could go back to those terms, but we're not going to go less than those terms. Like, we, we hashed this out already. We had an agreement. Like, the ball's kind of in your court here. But Trump just cannot be trusted throughout any of this. And he's not only lied to them, but he's lied to the American people throughout the whole process.

Trump acting surprised about what's in the MOU too. I mean, like, it's the first time I heard of it. Well, I never heard of this before. What are you talking about? Of course, buddy, because you're 12, you don't pay attention, you're not listening. Stay focused here, okay? Stay focused, buddy. Try and— try and focus here. And the real issue is, the longer this drags out, the worse it is for our troops. Like, Iran has made it clear that, hey, we have these positions that we've already agreed to, the MOU. This is how we're going to move forward here. Donald Trump has since gone back on that multiple times in multiple posts and just acting very confusing and erratic, his typical behavior. And it's at the expense of our, of our troops, quite frankly. Right. When this started, there weren't 18 known soldiers dead. That at least they were willing to admit the US government. Who knows how many that know, like how big that number actually is. And in my opinion, I believe it to be more. But that's neither here nor there right now. The longer this drags out is the point that I'm trying to make here.

The longer this drags out, the more troops are going to die. And it's all because Donald Trump's sheer incompetence of trying to actually behave like an adult. He's getting our troops killed. He is. There's no other way to say it.

Well, remember when this all began and Trump said it's going to end in a few days, it's a few weeks. I don't like to say we won, but we won. Well, we were preparing everybody for this is never going to end. We said this will just be like COVID. There is not a lot of things that you can say fortunately when it comes to COVID or any of these things. But at least there was an election in 2020 and somebody had to fix it. And the firefighter in that case, Biden, was blamed as the arsonist who had to actually roll up his sleeves sleeves and fix it. The unfortunate thing right now, even though we have a midterms, which I believe there will be a massive repudiation of Trump, is that Trump will still be in the Oval Office, sadly. And so I don't see how this ends for the next few years. And Iran, Brett, to your point, today through MB Ghalibaf's advisors, uh, a few things happen. Number one, they said we don't believe that there's ever going to be any way to negotiate with— he's incapable. So we have a 2029 main time clock right now.

But also, less reported but should be reported a lot, Ayatollah Mojtaba. He's been a little bit more public lately. Um, he met with President Puzeski and recently the president of Iran, and he announced high-level appointments of all of the main Iranian military positions. And they're all IRGC kind of hardliners, you know, who have no interest in doing any type of, you know, deal anymore with the United States. So they're prepared that this is going to be a struggle, and they're sending a message you know, through, um, you know, through 20— through 2029, you know. But, you know, you just think about, you know, these things too. Like, remember, this is one of the most ridiculous ones. You all remember April 26, 2026, Donald Trump calls state regime media Fox. He says Iran's oil infrastructure and pipelines are going to explode in 3 days, and all of Iran's going to be naturally wiped out because the blockade is so effective. The pipeline the pipes get congested, he says, and then it's going to blow up. So they have 3 days left to live. OK, it's the most ridiculous things in a normal, healthy media environment. If the president of the United States says that and that doesn't happen or just says that, or we can talk about what he did in the Oval Office today, he's removed.

End of story. We don't, we don't go, well, you know, no, no, no. We go, that's a psycho. That's a psychotic human. Whether it's 25th Amendment or whatever, the tsunami of coverage should be, this is a sick, sick, sick, you know what? And this person's got to go. That's it. It's not a Democrat position. It's not a Republican position. This is— this is a sicko. And, you know, whether it's fake 90 deals in 90 days, whether it is what, 2 weeks ago we did another deal with the Board of Peace in Gaza. Netanyahu has agreed. Hamas has agreed. I did it. So what he posted 2 weeks ago and I was thinking, isn't this what they said last October? And then there's been thousands of people in Gaza killed by Netanyahu since then. But what's the— okay, but you're saying it again. Okay, so what's going to happen? Netanyahu says, no, we're not agreeing to that at all. I want to be precise. Israel rejects the 15-point document. And that's what Netanyahu said. We're supposed to move on. Okay. What you got for me, Donnie? You got some memes of some bronze statues painted gold, Donnie?

Okay, okay, I'll see what you're doing. You're gonna do some weirdo hair, Donnie? Okay, you're gonna do a little weird wig for me today? You know, no, I'm not distracted by that crap. I'm gonna call it out as weird, but we're gonna say this is sick, this is rotten, this is demonic. Not to mention they're covering up child sex trafficking rings out of the Oval Office, and they swore in the guy who's leading it with Donald Trump, Todd Blanch today. And then you've got people like these MAGA Republican senators, you know, who were complicit in all of this, saying, well, you know, I don't like RFK. Ashishi, he's lying. And I almost voted against Todd Blanch. Sick and rotten to the core. But we have to understand the core rottenness that leads to a Trump, how the system is broken. And that's what causes Trump to rise to begin with. And Trump's a vessel when you have these people who are so weak and pathetic and who stand for nothing and fall for everything here in this country, and why we need to stand up to that. By the way, it's what we talk about in WTF America.

Pre-ordered right now. It's the book that me and my brothers wrote. It comes out in October. You can scan the QR code or you can, uh, click the link in the description below, or you can search it. Just be careful if you Google it that you get the right one. There's a lot of AI people spoofing it. Just make sure it looks like The book WTF America by Ben Bretton Jordy Mycelis, the way out of this hell and back to democracy. Preorder it now and let's keep the momentum. It's got good momentum, this book. It comes out October 20th, but preorder now. All right. Let's take our first break of the show. We will be right back.

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Let's go! Shout out to our sponsors, links in description, both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's exit survey. Let them know we sent you. Benji, where to next?

Let's talk about what went down in the Oval Office, but first let me show you what, uh, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican from Louisiana, who is no longer going to be the senator after the midterms because Donald Trump didn't endorse him, and, uh, his career is over because of Trump. He's a doctor, Senator Bill Cassidy. He's an MD. Uh, he was the decisive vote that voted in favor of RFK Jr. Jr. to become the Health Secretary, even knowing that, uh, the answers that were given to the committee at the confirmation hearing by RFK Jr. went against all medical science. And this guy was a doctor, but he's like, yeah, let's give him a shot. You know, it's also cowards like that who voted for Todd Blanche to become the Attorney General and also made it like a whole show, like, what am I gonna do? And I've decided, despite my deep concerns that I'm gonna give him a shot because everything's weaponized. So what else can we do? And so today, after this deranged Oval Office presser with Trump and RFK and Bhattacharya, the NIH director, uh, where they said that they're changing the childhood vaccine schedule and just said everything that was false, like, like just everything that was false, that, that children are getting Coke cans of vaccines, these vats of Coke cans injected into them, is what Donald Trump and RFK were What are you talking about?

So that's not a thing. That it's only safe to get the hepatitis B vaccine when you're 14 or 50 years old, which goes against all of the science there. That the vaccines actually explode and can kill you if you do it the way it's currently being done. Making false links to autism. That people were much healthier many decades ago and now they're much sicker as a result vax. I mean, real serious, dangerous disinformation. But this was Cassidy's post: I'm a doctor. This executive order is wrong, referring to what Trump signed today. The president does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines do not cause autism. Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe. Parents should listen to their child's pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order. This is so wrong. Go on to say what you also are implying there. Say what's explicit. This will kill children. This will lead to children being killed, right? When you rip healthcare away from people, people die.

I mean, the stat isn't reported, but But how many hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of Americans have died already since Trump has ripped healthcare away from them because they couldn't see a doctor? I've heard a lot of stories from people, and I'm sure you've heard it as well. They didn't go to the checkup because they can't afford it. Uh, they didn't go get this checked out and it turned out it was something bad. In the United States of America, the wealthiest nation in the world, the priorities from the regime are $1.5 trillion to the military-industrial complex to aid and abet genocide and war crimes and slaughtering little girls in Manab. That's where they were. Or, uh, building Trump-class battleships in an age of drones, unmanned submersive anti-drone interceptors, where we see what modern warfare looks like. Donald Trump wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars from that $1.5 trillion military budget on a Trump class of nuclear battleships because Donald Trump likes the aesthetic. He likes the way battleships look between the 1920s and the 1940s, thinks it looks good, doesn't like the way stealth looks. So as a result, that's where our taxpayer dollars are going while the American people are suffering.

But it takes real complicit bootlickers, real sick, real weak humans like Bill Cassidy, who go along with this. And one of the things— and again, I won't— I'll just plug the book quickly, but then move on. But it's an important point from WTF America, but an important point that I make, that Trump is a vessel. He is a horrible blob, a blobfish. Did we do that video? So he's like a horrible blob vessel for authoritarianism, and that we see this authoritarian blobfish throughout the world. Trump's the vessel in the United States. But what we used to have here, to use the medical analogy, is we used to have an immunity built up through the strength of our democracy to that authoritarian virus, where we would look at sickly countries across the world and see that authoritarian virus rear its head. We would call it out. In some cases, the authoritarian would be such a ridiculous person, we would mock it— Baghdad Bob and this or that and the other. But now it's here and our immunity has been eroded to allow the vessel, the virus, to infect. And the point we make in WTF America, but that I talk about, is this has been decades and decades of a project by the right-wing oligarchs to achieve this.

And so we need a generational immunity to this. We need to build up our defenses and purge the virus of authoritarianism and build up the immunity to stop it again. But it's weak people like Cassidy who go and say, well, there's nothing I can do. What do you mean? You're a senator. You are a United States senator. You know, or people like Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Well, what do you expect me to do? He met with— Todd Blanche met with the Epstein survivors. Well, he tormented them. He went to the victims of child sex trafficking whose names he outed and who he's already caused more PTSD. And he met with them because you told him to meet with them. And then he caused them PTSD by treating them rudely and abrasively and mocking them. And that's what the— and then you vote for him, you know, or you go to John Cornyn of Texas. We talked about earlier in the show, Big Bend National Park. I could give you give you a myriad of examples of how Texas is suffering right now under the Trump regime. I mean, they literally in Texas gave no taxes on electricity to data centers to attract the data centers.

They incentivized it with no tax on the electricity by the electricity guzzling data centers to go in their backyards. And now Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, is like, Well, we're going to audit them. We're going to study them. What are you going to audit them? You did it. You told them to all come in. And Brett, you made that great supercut in Ohio, supercut in Ohio with Vivek Ramaswamy, whose whole thing was data centers, data centers. I never said data centers. Yes, you did. You did. And by the way, the way we're calling them out and focusing on the issues that matter to the American people, that's— hello, that's what you focus on, not what Hasan Piker is saying Are you a Democratic socialist or this? No, because there is an authoritarian communist in the Oval Office right now. So stop the BS about, well, does this person do the— look at the results, look at the action. All I know is I see violent crime record lows in New York right now. I see businesses staying in New York right now. I see someone who is a deeply empathetic mayor in New York who's responding to the people of New York.

Well, Patrick, enough.

Yeah, enough of the fearmongering. And honestly, the people like Bill Cassidy make me absolutely sick. Absolutely sick. I quite frankly prefer probably the most radical of the Republicans, hardliners, where we actually know, you know, that that's who they are rather than this spaghetti human being who bends at every whim. I mean, just look, I'm going to pull up this picture. I pulled it up a second ago, but I don't know, describe it for the, uh, for the audio listeners. This is Bill Cassidy right after he announced that he was, after he did that very apprentice style. Tune in at 11:00 AM and you'll find out, will I vote for the guy who's gonna weaponize our Justice Department and cover up for Jeffrey Epstein, or will I not? I'll see you at 11 on the floor of Congress. Well, this is him walking out and like, he looks like a tormented individual. And quite frankly, I hope that he is a tormented individual. I hope he understands at least a little bit of what he's done. And like you said, Ben, he's a medical medical doctor. To me, he's violated his Hippocratic oath of do no harm.

He did like the most maximum harm on the planet. He could have stopped RFK. He didn't. He made excuses then. Well, he assured me that he wouldn't do any. And then when, when RFK and Trump and them start spreading all this disinformation about vaccines and, and there's a measles outbreak and cyclospora and everything else that's going on, He's like, oh, I, but he promised me, he, he promised RFK, you promised me. And then in that same moment, he has the ability to at least be like, you know what? I was wrong. I learned from the RFK fiasco that I can't just trust people. I should actually look at the overwhelming amount of evidence that is laying in front of me right here and make an honest, informed decision. And then he does it again with Blanche. And then he wants the credit when he goes on TV during the Sunday shows, uh, this past weekend to be like, well, you know, I almost voted against them. Don't I get a pat on the back for that? These people are horrific. And there is not a Donald Trump unless there are Bill Cassidys along the way propping up the Donald Trumps.

And that's true throughout the entirety of history, how these autocrats come to power. And I am sick, probably most sick of the people like the Bill Cassidys, like the Susan Collins, like the Lisa Murkowskis. And yes, I know they voted against Todd Blanchard in this scenario, but I'm telling you, it's all orchestrated. They coordinated all— they know exactly how many votes they need. They do it based on the calendar often so they could be like, look, I'm a moderate. I vote for me, I'm a moderate. See, I voted against this, even though they knew that it was going to pass anyway. They're playing games. They're gaslighting you. And they frankly don't give a damn about the consequences. And the consequences are enormous. The amount of medical disinformation— and, and I think we're going to get Dr. Vingupta of Midas Health on the, on the pod soon. So look out for that. The amount of medical disinformation coming from the White House today, when they were speaking about all autism, and they were speaking about vaccines. I mean, horrific, horrific, horrific stuff to see the President of the United States saying stuff like that. I think we're lucky that this is just like an executive order that at the end of the day really doesn't have much meaning, but it's going to lead to people believing him and questioning things that are set in order to make sure that their kids stay alive, so that their kids are healthy.

Healthy. And what they did today is just so irresponsible. Reminds me going back to like the big Tylenol rants that Donald Trump did. But there is no more dangerous, you know, people than we could possibly have in the Oval Office than the people who are there right now.

Absolutely. Look, I think from my perspective, too, from brothers, our perspectives here, we all have young children. As I mentioned at the outset of the show, I have one on the way in a couple of weeks. When I went to my pediatrician here here, um, a couple months ago for my son's vaccinations, you know, we were talking about all this chaos and I just, I just asked the doctor, I'm like, Doc, what do you, like, what do you think about this? And like, just the exacerbated, like, sigh and look on the doctor's face. I just know everyone in the medical community who has studied, like, this stuff, who's become an expert in their field, has practiced for many years following the science, following the data, like, doing their, you know, best to just put their best foot forward to, to help children. They're exhausted right now. They're exhausted by this Trump regime because, Ben, as you so bluntly put it, and as Kastor so cowardly tap-danced around, this type of action from the Trump regime of mixing up these vaccination schedules, what, just for the heck of it? Uh, who knows? It's going to lead to the deaths of children.

There's no other way to sugarcoat it. And the medical professionals know this. And now they're out there doing their best, having to work under certain guidelines, and it's exhausting. And I can only imagine what they're going through. As a parent, it's horrifying and scary, right? I, I didn't study this. I, I don't know. I lean on the doctors and I lean on the guidance to better inform my decisions, right? That, that's the best that we can do here. And when our quote-unquote leaders are seemingly self-sabotaging us and our families and our loved ones, it becomes a horrible situation to be in. It becomes stressful for the doctors. It becomes stressful for the parents. You know who it's not stressful for? Donald Trump. He doesn't give a damn. He does not give a damn. And this is another thing as we go forward here as a country. I mean, it is just so important that we have leaders who actually want to lead while they are in a position to do so. Right. Like Cassidy's on his way out over here and he doesn't care anymore. And so I'm glad he's speaking up in this instance.

They did vote to confirm Blanche, which is horrible and horrendous. And Brett, as you astutely pointed out last week, we knew that was all orchestrated and was going to happen. And just it's awful that all of these people just behind the scenes here are doing what's best for their party. Right. And like, look, I'm not like a Democrat Republican type of guy here. Dems have their own issues that they obviously have to work out. Like, that's just politics of it all. But time and time again, the Republican Party, it's so obviously at the forefront here. Their politicians, their senators, their congresspeople, they're not working for the American people. They are not working for the American people. They are working so they don't receive a mean tweet, a mean statement from their dear leader, Donald Trump, so they continue to get invited to the party, so they continue to get invited to X, Y, Z event. Why? Because that's what they care. They care about their access here. And holding these positions is only important to them to further advance their lives, I guess, professionally, but also monetarily. And so they don't want to lose that.

And so something's got to give when they don't want to lose their access and their money. And that's the people. They don't care about the people. And it is so obvious every single day. And it's just frustrating. It's, it's, it's absolutely disheartening. I do believe that we could get back to a place in the society where we actually are electing leaders who care about the people. And I think, I think we're kind of at a moment here where pavement's going to meet the road and it's just going to be, you know, what it is and how we figure our way out through this. But we can no longer elect the Bill Cassidys like, like it is just so obvious to me. That the Donald Trumps— like, Donald Trump, man, he's an issue, obviously. Trumpism, though, that's the thing that has so metastasized, like, within our politics, that has trickled down to so many politicians, especially in the Republican Party, where just hatred and vitriol and making money and status symbols rather than helping people and just frankly being kind, but helping the American people and actually doing your job that's taken precedent for whatever reason.

And we have got to get that out of our politics.

You think about every area of subject matter expertise, the economy, Donald Trump, tariff. It's a beautiful word. Everybody loves the word. It means we get richer and it means we tax the other countries, which is just not what a tariff is. Everybody warned it's going to cause more inflation. It did cause more inflation. You know, when it comes to health, Donald Trump, you know, spreads all of these lies about the vaccines and here's what I think we should do. Or you're putting Coca-Cola bottles of vaccines in babies. Like, okay, that's, that's not happening. I don't know what you're even talking about. Like when it comes to energy, uh, we need big beautiful coal and windmills are horrible, right? When it comes to war, you know, it's like we, let's change the name of the Department of Defense and then let's say that our warfighters need to be groomed better, and that's what we need to do. And, and, and then we can, uh, we, we control the Strait of Hormuz. We're doing all these fake deals. Trust me, Iran's going to treat us like we're heroes. They're going to fall in 2 days. You can go to any area.

And he— and this is what the, the guy who runs that, uh, organization with the CIA officers that It is. Trump's wrong about everything. And is— and you know that because he says, I'm right about— Trump's right about everything means he's wrong about everything. Right. Because that— and it's always, it's always the opposite about every topic. And again, it's not a Democrat or Republican thing. It's just, are you, are you, are you right? Are you wrong? You know, and then I could do every topic. Immigration, you know, killing comprehensive immigration and then lying and saying you're going after criminals, but going after hardworking people and also harming the economy and just being cruel, you know, destroying our national parks. Everything, every single thing the guy does is cruel, unusual, and incompetent. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder, preorder WTF America. It's the book I wrote with my brothers. Comes out October 20th. But the preorders are very important. Um, gives it the momentum it needs, helps us plan our book tour. So preorder WTF American now. You could scan the QR code, link in the description below. Put in the chat WTF if you've ordered it already.

When we come back, we've got a lot to discuss still. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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And, uh, you guys see these photos of Trump, by the way, golfing? Like, Trump is genuinely terrified of like getting killed by Iran. And I don't know if like everybody has seen these pictures but now when he goes around, he was on like his golf course in Bedminster over the weekend and he had missile interceptors next to him on the golf course in Bedminster. And I feel like, like I've never seen this before. So I don't know if this has ever happened with another president. It seems very peculiar to me and also peculiar that this isn't even like a bigger story than it is. But here's a photo of Trump. When I first saw this, I was like, it's like, yeah, it has to be AI. Right? It has to be AI. And then I found videographic proof that it was legitimate. And these are— they appear to be AN/TWQ-1 Avenger short-range air defense systems. And throughout the entire weekend while Donald Trump was at his golf course at Bedminster, like, the— they were also like intercepting all these planes. They had F-16 fighter jets intercepting like 2 per 3 planes who flew near the restricted airspace, uh, around Donald Trump.

Because as the war goes on and on and on, Donald Trump is becoming increasingly paranoid. I mean, remember even just a few weeks back when he did that last minute swap of the Qatari jet, swapped the Qatari jet for the old Air Force One. And then he made really weird comments to the press on the plane where, uh, they were ask him about it and he'd be like, hey, if, if they get me, they get you too. Like, this has been in his head for a while. He's really been haunted by it. I think seeing the intelligence that is theoretically out there and also the signs that people have up in Iran and just the way the war is going. Uh, but you know, I think just a really kind of fascinating sight to see, uh, these interceptors and, you know, also contrasted with the fact that our interceptors and munitions and everything are running low overseas. But now we're using these interceptors to protect Donald Trump while he goes golfing over the weekend. I just think— I think it's a metaphor for something there.

For the audio listeners, Brett's playing the video right now. The interceptor is literally behind Donald Trump as he's taking his backswing. I'm not being sarcastic. This isn't AI either. And I don't say this on the show because, like, I'm being funny. This is a guy, Brett and Ben, my righteous, mighty. He's deeply concerned about his own mortality. He is. That's why he's doing the funny wig thing these days where he just looks preposterous with this new wig that he wears. It's why he covers his hand when he speaks, because he's deeply embarrassed that he's rotting from the inside out. It's why he wants to name things after himself and build the Golden Arch and rename the Kennedy Center the Trump Kennedy Center. It's because he knows that he does not have a legacy to leave in the United States that is any somewhat positive at all. And so what is he trying to do? He's trying to manipulate what that legacy looks like by taking all these alternate routes to just put his footprint on there.

You know, Trump gave defense companies a 21-day ultimatum to come up with immediate plans how they're going to build back interceptor stocks also, and ATACMS and HIMARS and all of the weapons that Trump depleted with poor management. Sometimes a lot of this though is also, you know, it gets debated on corporate news through these partisan lens and this and that, and this is this side and this is that side. No, no, objectively, the United States ran out of weapons in the war in about a 40-day period of time. And we knew that before the reporting because we would look at the surveillance footage and the satellite satellite footage, and we would see that the interceptors were not stopping Iran's ballistics. So Iran's ballistics would be able to shoot the U.S. bases in the region with relative ease, such that the U.S. had to abandon most of its bases in the Middle East. Other than Israel, the U.S. has basically abandoned all of the Middle East bases. Do you know that? Like, in Bahrain, the Fifth Fleet abandoned. One of the reasons also why our sailors on the Abraham Lincoln, USS Abraham Lincoln supercarrier, struggling— they're not getting their mail, they're not getting supplies.

A lot of the supplies were routed through, you guessed it, Bahrain and the Fifth Fleet, and then it would go to the supercarrier. But that supply route has been shut off by Iran. I can talk about Kuwait, I could talk about Jordan, I could talk about Al Udeid in Qatar. I could talk about the bases in UAE or Bial in Iraq. Iran obliterated those bases, at least $12 to $13 billion in damages, probably more there. And that's in addition to the US running out of weapons. So Donald Trump has now ordered defense companies— you figure it out, dude, you had a $1 trillion defense budget last year, $1 trillion, and now here you are blaming Biden You blame Biden for the economy. You blame Biden for this, Biden for that, Biden for this, Biden for that. Truthfully, Biden should have been blaming you for the things that you did because that was actually real when Biden came in. But Biden didn't. He acted like a leader and he took it and he said, I'm going to fix it. That's what I do. I'm going to put my head down. I'm going to fix it. And then two rough years.

But then we noticed manufacturing booms and things were getting better and inflation was decreasing. And then Donald Trump screwed it all up all over again. And that's just what we see repeatedly. I want to point this out as well so you understand some of the developments. It was also announced recently that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who already have a defense alliance, they are— they just brought in Turkey, and they're calling it the Mecca Pact. And we believe Egypt is going to be joining soon. And so what's actually significant— and by the Iran kind of applauded it, but also is wary of it because Iran's like, well, at least you're learning that Arab nations, Muslim nations need to form alliances with itself. It was a funny comment by Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson who was like, we're not worried about this. And you could tell they're not worried about it because the Houthis, who are aligned with Iran, continued to strike eastern Saudi Arabia at an Aramco facility. today. But just also a contrast, that at Bedminster over the weekend where Donald Trump put those interceptors, it was sponsored by Aramco with a legacy deal while the Houthis were striking in eastern Saudi Arabia and also striking within Yemen in areas by the Saudi-backed government.

So the Houthis weren't afraid of that announcement, but that announcement was made because the U.S. security umbrella is broken and China's going to move in, and they already have moved in, and it's going to basically replace the U.S. though more Muslim nation, Arab nation forward, um, security alliance in the region. That's, I think, an important thing to point out. Another thing I want to point out, because it's not getting enough attention or it's being framed the wrong way— I don't know if you saw this— we've, we've been talking about how Trump has been depriving Ukraine of the interceptors that it needs in order to shoot down the Russian ballistics. And as a result, Russia's been able to really strike hard in Ukraine because Ukraine doesn't— Ukraine's Ukraine can strike down the drones, Ukraine can strike down cruise missiles, but Ukraine struggles— can't— struggles— it can strike down ballistics without PAC-3 or THAAD interceptors. Trump promised that they would sell— that US would sell it to Europe and Europe would sell it to Ukraine, and then Trump went back on that. Trump promised they would give Ukraine a license, Trump went back on that. So Trump lied, tab Zelensky along, uh, the entire time.

But now, I don't know if you saw this, Raytheon— the story is that the reason that Ukraine can't get the license is that Raytheon and Lockheed are worried that Ukraine may develop better versions of the interceptors if they get that technology, so that it's an IP issue by Lockheed and Raytheon. Let me just say it now clearly so when it's proven to be be correct. We can say, let's go back and roll the tape. In my opinion, as part of Donald Trump giving $50, $60 billion more to Lockheed to produce interceptors and giving billions and billions more to Raytheon, he's having them say that so that it could be blamed on them as an IP issue versus a Trump issue, because it literally makes no— like, let's use common sense. How easy would it be for Donald Trump to say to Zelensky, if he actually cared, you can have the license, but for the next 50 years, any interceptors that are made by Ukraine become the ownership of the United States? And Zelensky would agree to it in negative 5 seconds, right? He'd say, of course, we need the interceptors. What do you want? That would actually be a deal.

And Trump could do that in second. So you're telling me it's an IP issue that they're worried that Zelensky is going to make better IP? If anything, if you're Lockheed and you're Raytheon, you can get a windfall if they make better weapons. Just claim ownership of it. And that's an actual deal that, you know, you would be like, okay, that was a smart deal. But obviously that's being used as the excuse, in my opinion, to help Putin. So I want everybody to pay attention to these international developments because they have important ramifications. And I just want to talk about this to the Pew Research poll. We talked about at the outset that Trump's approval rating before the midterms is the lowest of any president after 1953. And that's like when this polling first started. Okay. And I think Asa from our network did this analysis, which was— which we got to do this analysis every day because it focused on what state regime media was— Fox— what they were focused on. So between 9 AM and 3 PM, the main topics on state regime media— Fox— the WNBA was mentioned 34 times, Sophie Cunningham 15 times, Hong, the Wisconsin governor candidate, 32 times, AOC 20 times, al-Sayed 35 times, Hassan Piker 12 Obama 14 times, Mamdani 24 times, Fauci 45 times.

That's like their main coverage right now is something about— focused on the, focused on the important things and how there are these two 6'10" and 7'1" NBA players, Royce White and Enes Kanter, who they, they, they say that they're trans now so that they can mock trans people and they want to join the WNBA draft. So they go on Fox like wearing wigs and they're like, look, we're trans now, we're doing the draft. And then Fox is like, oh, the Dems are going crazy by this. It's like, dude, no one's going—

we don't know what the hell—

what are you doing? What are you talking about? What is this? You know, they're like, the Dems are going crazy over his hair. Like, dude, no one cares. It's just— it's weird. It's objectively strange.

I think that people just want healthcare. All right. People just know people want to be able to get takeout food. —take out food or make dinner for their family and not spend a fortune. People want to be able to go to the doctor, not go bankrupt. They don't care about your ridiculous stunts. They don't care about all this other BS. They really don't. They care that there's a fascist that's been taking over our country and an entire class of people around him who have been enabling him. That's, you know, these are things people care about, but that's why they want to keep people distracted with all this other garbage. So, you know, I think so much of of like when, when we're speaking about these topics, like almost as important as what you speak about is also the things that you don't speak about. And that's why, and Fox knows that and the right-wing media knows that. And that's why they often try to push all of this BS at you because they'd rather you talk about that garbage than the stuff that's actually impacting your lives. Because if they actually speak about the stuff that's impacting their lives, inevitably their viewers are the ones who are probably getting effed over far more than even most of the country.

Uh, it's just the facts of the matter here, but they don't want them focused on that. They want them focused on this other garbage. And, uh, and by the way, I want to go to this other story too quickly before, before we get out of here, because it's, it's just a crazy story and it really goes, it sums it up a little bit because before I was talking about Donald Trump, uh, being afraid, uh, of these, uh, attacks against him. And every day we're learning more and more and more about Donald Trump's panic and Donald Trump's fear. And, and then, you know, that's why when you start your videos or you do a video about Trump panicking or Trump being terrified and stuff, sometimes you get comments that are like, no, he's not, he's not panicking, he's not scared, he's not terrified. And they buy into the image that he's trying to portray. And then the actual substantiated Evidence is so far to the contrary. And so there was a Washington Post story out tonight that is worth bringing up because it fits into this bucket. And what the Washington Post says here, let me pull up the headline right here.

Uh, contradicting public statements, Trump took secret flight from Turkey amid Iranian threat, secret flight from Turkey amid Iranian threat. And this goes back to exactly what I was speaking about before. when I was talking about how Donald Trump ended up switching planes. He, he had that Qatar jet and then all of a sudden he was on the old Air Force One. And so what this article is saying, I'll just kind of summarize it quickly, is that that assassination threat against Trump, there was a secret operation that had to take place because Donald Trump was so terrified of that assassination threat that he publicly boarded boarded the Air Force One, the legacy Air Force One that he had, you know, switched to, or so we thought. He was then secretly moved by an airport catering truck, like a shuttle, a catering truck moved secretly to a smaller military aircraft while journalists and then White House staff flew on this decoy plane. And they thought that, uh, most of them thought that Trump was still on that plane with them. They thought he was still on that Air Force One with them when he actually flew in a nondescript plane to Britain on a nondescript call sign with the tracking systems disabled, concealing his location for hours and hours while they publicly claimed that Trump was on this other plane.

If that doesn't just sum up what's going on in Donald Trump's head and the reality that he is kind of having to grapple with and to majority's point, the mortality that he is now grappling with and the fear that lives with him every single day, then I don't know what else is. What a crazy, crazy, crazy story.

Yeah. You know, it's fascinating because I would say, you know, being self-aware, the criticism that I frequently get is he's not panicking. Melania didn't disappear. The, the polls aren't crashing. I'm like, oh, you, you, you try to explain, you use other words. I think the issue is underplaying it and not using the right words for the moment. All I can do is observe what's happening, and it's not hyperbolic when Donald Trump is doing things so overtly catastrophic. So it is a catastrophe, yes, when you're in the Oval Office and you're telling 14 and 15-year-olds to get the, to wait until you're 14 or 15 to get the Hep B vaccine and lying about babies getting Coca-Cola vats of vaccines, 72 jabs that kill them. And I say it's a disastrous event. It is. That doesn't mean there can be, there could be multiple disastrous events. But I think using a headline that says, you know, questions are raised about, you know, is missing what this is. This is a 3-alarm, 5-alarm, 10-alarm fire. You know, whatever, whatever word you want to say, this is an emergency situation in our country. And to meet the moment, you have to use the language of the moment and you have to be descriptive about what's actually happening.

Yeah. Where the hell is Melania? You know, I mean, she has to— where she's just— she's gone. Am I— you know, what the hell is she doing. You know, yes, Donald Trump is panicking. He's flying on other planes while having frickin drone interceptors follow him around on a golf course while he lies and claims he's doing deals and then says, I'm not doing deals, or I'm going to blow the effing— said I'm going to blow the effing ass out of them. And now the plan, just by the way, I mean, the plan is, according to him, we're gonna, we're gonna lowkey it. We're going to semi-negotiate it and we're not going to do anything. Okay, well, Iran's going to strike the tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. They've been striking 1 or 2 tankers a day. The price of crude went up about 5 to 6%. By next week on this path, we will probably hit close to $100 a barrel again. The only reason why gas prices— the paper price of gas was in the 70s is the market is obviously being manipulated by— and I'm not— this is not me speculating or being hyperbolic.

Like, the market is being manipulated. It's happening before our eyes. There is a part of it that's being done a little bit more surreptitiously by having, I think, these kind of whale shorters working with Bessant to short crude and to try to keep it down. But they're timed also with Donald Trump's statements and Bessant's statements, where Bessant goes on CNBC financial programs to affirmatively manipulate the markets. Like, that's actually happening. But in the real world, we are at tank bottom. We're less than 300 million barrels of oil right now. And you have the price of oil going up, up, up, up, up. That's what's happening right now in the real world. Real world. And that means prices are going to stay up for a while. And if Trump's plan is, I'm going to low-key it, I'm just going to do nothing, I'm going to pretend it's not happening. Brett, to your point, and Jordy, to your point, that's also the tactic of the 12-year-old. And so we'll have this episode go full circle. And no offense to 12-year-olds because they behave more maturely. But when we talk about leadership, when we talk about patterning behavior to adults, to act like grown-up, you know, just saying, "Nah, I'm not even gonna deal with it anymore." "Oh, you're gonna do it?

I'm gonna do it too." Or, "I'm gonna blow the effing ass out of you." Like, that's the behavior of deeply disturbed 12-year-olds who we probably knew growing up, you know, that behave— the 12-year-old deranged bully, you know, who's frequently put in their place. And that's like what we're in, and we can't accept that reality. Reality. We can't accept that reality. And then I'll toss it at Bridget, but I'll leave you with this because some people are like, well, you guys are saying it, but what are you doing about it? Well, first off, building a media network that does this the right way is important. Would you all say that Fox is ineffective because all they do is talk about it? No, of course not. So we have to build something that sets the narrative about the things that people are talking about. We need to set the narrative, set the framework, set the conversation, set the language, set the tone so that it is aligned with the people, not disaligned with disinformation by Fox. But then I got to give a hat tip to the people who are doing things, people like Katie Fang and Alison Gill and so many others at this network that don't just talk the talk but are in there and they're fighting every day to do more than most politicians are out there doing right now.

Now. And so creating a support structure that allows that to happen is something that is an important thing. But you have to build infrastructure. You have to build an institution. You have to then build an ecosystem around the institution. Right-wing fascist media has been doing this for 60, 70 years to build it and to counteract it. You have to build the remedy. You have to build the antidote. You have to stop And that's what our focus is on here, to do that hard work. And that's what we're going to keep on doing every damn day here. So I'll leave you with that. Brett and Jordy, if you want to say anything else.

I'll just posit one quick theory for people to chew on before we go. And that's Donald Trump. We're just talking about his trip to Turkey and how he did the secret voyage away. Donald Trump goes to Turkey a few weeks later, new hair. Coincidence? I'm just saying, I'm just, I'm just saying, folks, somebody might want to dig it. Somebody might want to dig into that. Okay, I end on a stupid note, but a lot of serious stuff discussed on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. I want to thank everybody for being here. Thanks to everybody who pre-ordered the book. Remember to, if you're watching live, write WTF or use the WTF emoji if you pre-ordered the book or plan on pre-ordering. Pre-orders are huge, like Ben and Jordy said. They really help set the tone of the release, but also allow us to figure out what cities we're gonna go to for book tour and other sort of events like that. We're really proud of it. Thanks for not minding too much when we talk about it, but we're just— we're so proud of it, and I think it's a really important resource that's not just for kind of this time, but, you know, hopefully for all times.

And I'm really excited for you to get your hands on it. All right, Jordy, take it away.

Anyway, shout out to the Midas Mighty! Breaking news right now, my brothers and I wrote a book. It's called WTF America, and well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre-order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below.