Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/13/26

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Das ist einfach die App, die uns versteht. Steuern erledigt? Safe! Mit WISO Steuer. Jetzt kostenlos ausprobieren. Bei Amazon werden jetzt mehr als 50% der Bestellungen mit weniger Verpackung geliefert, zum Beispiel in Papiertüten oder auch ganz ohne zusätzliche Verpackung. Wenn dein Nachbar also Gitarre spielt, liefern wir dir deinen neuen Kopfhörer mit Geräuschunterdrückung in der Verpackung des Herstellers, basierend auf Amazon-Verpackungsdaten aus dem Jahr 2025 in Großbritannien und der EU. Learned earlier today that a US KC-135— those are those Stratotankers, those big fuel aircraft, the refueling crafts— one of them went down. We believe it went down over western Iraq. There was involved in an incident involving another KC-135. The information is fuzzy. We know that on these KC-135s there are 6 crew members, and those 6 crew members are unaccounted for. This is not a plane that you can really eject from or there are parachutes, so we just— we don't know the status. CENTCOM is not giving us a lot of information. Sadly, the Trump regime lies about everything. They're saying that this incident over western Iraq does not have anything to do with hostile fire or friendly fire, um, but we'll be keeping you updated throughout the day.

We also learned, I believe from a CBS report, about another medevac involving multiple other service members, I believe 19 or so, who are being transported to the hospital in Germany. And we're seeing the injuries mount. And I believe that, again, I don't trust the numbers coming from the Trump regime, but the amount of wounded continues to increase by significant amounts. Also, the amount of those ships in the Strait of Hormuz continue to be attacked by Iran. Iran said, if you don't get permission, we will strike you. Now, Iranian oil is moving easily through the Strait of Hormuz. So are Chinese cargo ships. They're going through, in fact, more than ever. They're big beneficiaries of this war, as is China. But we are seeing lots of other ships that have been struck in the Strait of Hormuz. Also, if you look off the coast of Iraq, there was a ship-to-ship transfer involving a Malta flagship, I believe belonging to Greece, and a Marshall Island flagship belonging to the United States that was struck as well by Iran, fully engulfed in flames there. We reported on that throughout the day. And then moments ago, we also learned about this Iranian drone attack on this French base in Erbil.

6 French soldiers at this joint Peshmerga-French base, they were injured in this Iranian drone strike right there. And that base was also being used by the US, I believe, in joint operations, which was one of the reasons that that became a target. Meanwhile, NBC is citing multiple sources close to Donald Trump saying that he is ranting and raving like a lunatic right now. And he's fearing that the markets could turn against him and that high gasoline prices pose a political danger to him. Oh, well, I hate to use a reference to what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz, but that ship has sailed. Okay. Or if it's the Strait of Hormuz, those ships are not sailing. But as it relates to Donald Trump, I mean, the markets are crashing today. The price of oil crude is absolutely surging today. You know, Donald Trump and his despicable regime Pulled that stunt earlier this week on Monday where there was gonna be that market crash. Remember that was gonna take place on Monday. And then Donald Trump said the war's about to wrap up and that we've got our Navy vessels who are gonna help all the ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Remember that pumped the market up. And then the energy secretary fabricated a post about the Navy helping the ships in the Strait of Hormuz, all lies. It pumped the market up, manipulated the market, and now the market is absolutely crashing again. It's been a disaster. I mean, if you think back to when Pam Bondi was talking about her cover-up of a child sex trafficking ring for Donald Trump and saying the Dow was 50,000, today it was in the 46,000s. Also the S&P and NASDAQ getting crushed as well. The price of crude surging as well. The price of the gas that you have to fill up at the tank surging, the price of diesel surging, disastrous situations all around. But folks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, he's telling Sky News that what we're going to try to do is build an international coalition that's going to protect the ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Oh really? That's interesting when you have absolutely zero allies. Donald Trump has turned the entire Arab nation alliance against the Trump regime. Arab nations are now working on security arrangements, powerful security arrangements with Iran. That's right. The Arab nations no longer trust the US at all.

Further, our, our Asian allies no longer support the US. And we're taking away our THAAD and Patriot systems from South Korea, just snatching them back in order to move them, to the Middle East as we are running out of munitions, as our generals and admirals and everybody warned the Trump regime, as the Middle East nations warned the regime. So the Middle East nations now working on trying to build security guarantees with Iran. Iran, China, and Russia never been stronger. A global reordering, uh, taking place à la World War II, except out of World War II, the United States was the most powerful. Now the United States is coming out as the weakest, the biggest loser. Donald Trump's been a loser his entire damn life, bankrupting this casino, that casino. If you ever wondered how Donald Trump bankrupt all of these casinos, well, he's doing it right now in real time, except with the United States. And of course, the US had the most powerful military. But when you're unprepared, when you are demented, when you don't Work with your allies. This is the natural result of it all. And again, we are seeing while all of this is taking place, Donald Trump just making ridiculous posts.

I mean, he's posting about Jerome Powell lowering interest rates. What the hell are you even talking about? This is Trump's post today with all of the things that I just discussed happening, right? This is what he posts. Where is the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Too Late Powell today? He should be dropping interest rates immediately, not waiting for the next meeting. Donald J. Trump. What do you mean not waiting for the next meeting? Okay, they're not dropping interest rates, you idiot. Inflation is about to surge. It already has been surging, but it's about to reach stratospheric levels as a result of this disastrous war. It was already rising. Also, Donald Trump threatened the life of the Iranian national soccer team. It's like everything he's trying to do is unite and bring together the Iranian nation closer to the ayatollah. And as the BBC and others reported, right, there were lots of groups who could have been sympathetic to the United States. I mean, we saw the protesters that Donald Trump betrayed in January. But with everything he's been doing, I mean, blowing up the elementary school, killing 150 little girls or 165 little girls and then blaming it on Iranian tomahawks, whether it was attacking desalination whether it was working to Israel to blow up oil rigs, creating these like nuclear winter-like circumstances in Iran.

They've actually brought the Iranian people, even people who are against the Ayatollah, closer to the Ayatollah now to support the Iranian nation against all of this right now. And look at what he does today. He goes, the Iran national soccer team is welcome to the World Cup, but I really don't believe it is appropriate that they be there for their own life and safety. Thank you for your attention. This man is threatening the life of the Iranian men's soccer team. What are you going to kill them if they show up? Then the Iranian men's soccer team says no one has the right to tell us where we can or where we cannot play soccer or football if you're not in the US. There's that and more. Brett and Jordy, it's so good to see. I apologize just for that long introduction, but I wanted to make sure that we hit all of those major developments from the outset because there truly has been a ton of development.

Well, there's a lot going on, so there's a lot to set up. It's good to be here with you, Ben. It's good to be here with Jordy. Good to be here with you, Midas Mighty. I want to thank everybody for tuning in live. I want to thank everybody for tuning in on audio. And I want to also say there was a weird issue for those on Apple Podcasts. It's unclear whether— we were told it was maybe a glitch, but it's weird because it seems like it was a glitch that only affected the Midas Touch podcast. And so I don't know if there was anything nefarious behind it, if if we were targeted in some way, but our podcast has not been appearing on the Apple Podcast feed for the past couple of days. It's been on Spotify and everywhere else, but the Apple Podcast has not been there. So we need to build the momentum back. This knocked us down on the charts at a time when our coverage, I think, is, you know, super important at this moment. You know, we're covering important topics, I should say. And so if you can go to the Apple Podcasts app, add the show.

If you've already added the show, leave a 5-star review, listen to the latest episodes, help us build that momentum back. We refuse to be silenced. And make sure you're following us everywhere as as well on Substack, anywhere, everywhere. Just follow us everywhere in case we go down on one platform. We get that much bigger on the others. Like I said, it's good to be here. You know, watching this war unfold, we knew that this was misguided, to say the least, from the start. But I think this is somehow even more devastating and more of a disaster than anybody could even imagine. It's just in every single aspect right now. We're seeing American soldiers get killed overseas For what? For what? We just learned, like Ben said, about this refueling tanker that crashed. Apparently there were two refueling tankers involved. One landed safely in Israel. One apparently crashed in Iraq. They're not saying as of now what happened. They say there are rescue missions underway. Like Ben said, you know, I'm praying for the best. I'm hoping for the best. But that plane has no sort of ejection mechanism to my mind. I'm also— I've also learned from speaking with experts that those planes, they don't carry parachutes because they're fuel tankers and they try to save fuel.

They haven't had parachutes on those planes for a while. So I'm hoping for the best. But it appears like the numbers that we have that have been reported on so far may increase in terms of deaths, sadly. And we've already learned that this government has lied to us repeatedly, the United States government, which especially in a time of war is especially appalling. They downplayed the amount of injuries of our service members. We had to find out from the media that at least 150 service members before today were actually injured. And we're talking like serious injuries as well, like traumatic brain injuries and very serious wounds. And the United States government has been lying about this and they have not been sharing the accurate data. Reporters had to dig and they had to find out that this was going on. And I guarantee that we hear a whole lot more about that. Ben mentioned the attack on the school, which is truly just one of the biggest stains on this country's history. How awful. It's hard for me to even grapple with the fact that our tax money was used to kill these 165+ girls at a school who were just there innocently going about their days.

Just absolutely grotesque and disgusting. And there's mass displacement happening right now as well throughout the Middle East. That is going to cause a whole host of other issues. In Lebanon, more than 800,000 people have been displaced. There's been devastating Israeli strikes in Lebanon going on. We see the UN says that up to 3.2 million people have been internally displaced inside Iran since the war started. There's mass chaos within Iran as bombings are happening and innocent people are being attacked. Innocent Iranians are dying. And you see, I said this in the last episode, but Trump regime seems to make no distinction between the innocent Iranian people and the Iranian regime. And that is deeply, deeply, deeply disturbing to me. And then we're seeing things happen at home. We're seeing an increase in attacks. We saw earlier today at Old Dominion University, uh, a shooting, and they are saying that the shooter was somebody who had ties to ISIS, who was convicted for for his ties to ISIS and served 11 years in prison. That was that event. One person died in that attack, a couple others injured. Then we saw a synagogue in Michigan attacked by an individual with a truck who rammed into the synagogue with a truck full of explosives and then started shooting.

Thankfully, in that case, to our knowledge at this moment in time, uh, there were no injuries, no deaths other than, uh, the shooter. But then we learned that the shooter in that attack Apparently, what we're learning as of now, and this is all preliminary information, that shooter had family members who were killed in one of the recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon. And so we are just seeing right now these— the effects of this war kind of hit home with this terrorism here in the United States ramping up in these horrific ways as we disrupt the entire world. World. And it's increasing also this antisemitism within the United States, which also breaks my heart as people conflate, you know, Jewish people who are innocent and aren't doing anything with the actions of a state, with the actions of a government like Israel. This is all honestly just so horrific to watch. And we have truly just the dumbest, most incompetent, most reckless people who are running the ship right now. And it is just— it's all just so incredibly disturbing. I know we got a lot to break down. Jordy, what's the latest on your end?

What's up, brothers? What's up, Midas Mighty? Look, we were told that this would be a quick win, right? We were told it was about strength and American exceptionalism, MAGA. But a week into the Iran war, the bill is coming due and American soldiers and our wallets are paying the price. Because of the lack of preparation, because this Trump regime, Brett, to your point, is full of these incompetent buffoons. I think 9 American service members are dead that we know of, and roughly 150 are wounded. And the kicker with that 150 number is that the Pentagon didn't even want to admit how many were hurt until reporters leaked the truth.

This is not strength.

That, that's an active cover-up that we're witnessing. For those who think that the war is far away, check the gas pumps. By turning a global shipping lane into a war zone, Donald Trump just handed you, the American people, a massive new war tax. Oil prices are skyrocketing, and that means the price of everything from your groceries to your Amazon packages, they're going right up along with them. We've traded potential, I say their potential, their economic stability, for a conflict that we didn't even need to start. And because we've been acting like buffoons for so long under the Trump regime and embarrassing ourselves time and time again on the global stage, we're going at this totally alone. Like, we have isolated ourselves, leaving us without our allies, and have invited cyber attacks on our power grids and an increased threat of domestic terror. Instead of making the world safer. The Trump regime has unified our enemies against us while leaving us, the American people, holding 100% of the bill. This isn't policy. This isn't leadership. This is a disaster, Ben. It's time for the Trump regime to just stop gambling and start protecting Americans.

Right. Think about the post-World War II global reordering that put the United States of America as the leader of the, quote, free world, right? That's over. Donald Trump ran that into the ground, just as he did with all of his casinos. And we just saw it take place with the fast forward on the remote control right now, because Trump spent the first year destroying things, breaking things, ruining all of our alliances, whether it was the tariffs against the world or what Doge did here at home, and also invading American states and cities and towns with ICE and Border Patrol mass Gestapo, right? And this year has been about as Donald Trump was like, and then now I get to use the military. Well, after breaking everything and breaking our State Department and harming our alliances, Donald Trump went into this war unprepared. And despite having the most powerful military in the history of humankind, if it is utilized by someone who doesn't prepare and doesn't know what they're doing rushes into things, doesn't rely on science and facts and the top generals. We also got rid of a lot of our top military people. Remember when Hegseth purged all of the military?

And remember, you have someone like Hegseth who couldn't even run military nonprofits. He was pushed out because he was too incompetent to run that and engaged in a real dereliction and bad personal behavior there. This is a natural consequence. So, you know, Donald Trump did all these quid pro quo deals to benefit himself. With all these Mideast nations. Remember, the first trip he took was basically to collect, in my opinion, what were bribes from the UAE and from the Saudis and from Qatar and all of these places. And they would give him this money for protection. It's kind of like a mafia-style, like, protection racket, right? He would go country to country. He would try to enrich himself. And from these countries' standpoint, they thought they were getting the protection of the most powerful military. That would help them and would help their people so they can modernize and they could build out Doha and they could build out Abu Dhabi and they could build out Dubai and they could modernize and think about a future where they weren't purely kind of oil-dependent countries. And that was their big focus. Well, Donald Trump didn't even consult them.

In fact, they warned Donald Trump about these exact consequences. And so now they've been engulfed left in the Gulf in this war that Trump provoked. And now they're being targeted by Iran. And obviously they're furious at Iran for targeting them, but they kind of get it. You know, they kind of understand it in a way. They're like, yeah, Trump and Netanyahu did all of these things and we were allied with the US. So naturally, if we're not being protected by the US, but we still have been helping the US, of course they're going to attack us. What do you, what do you think is the consequence of this?. And now the Trump regime is begging them to join alliances with the Trump regime and saying, we need your help now in the Strait of Hormuz. We need you to do this. What are you doing? Why aren't you helping us? And they're like, you know, the pay for play part, we're the pay part of the pay for play. You're supposed to be the play part. We pay, you play. If you ain't playing, we ain't staying. That's what they're saying. They're saying, see you later.

And we're going to try to form an alliance with like Iran. Or China or Russia because you can't help us. This was all about you being tough, but you were the blowhard who in a food fight didn't even throw the grape. You cowered. You just talked about how powerful you are. I'm so powerful. I'm so powerful. Powerful people don't need to go around talking about how damn powerful they are. That's a sign of weakness. And by the way, these Arab nations should have seen it. But I guess they thought, based on all the things that America was able to build still, that Trump would be able to wield this machinery at least semi-effectively. But no, he's broken everything. And then you've got our Asian allies. I mean, think about if you're South Korea right now. We just snatched their THAAD missiles that we promised them. We just took them because we're running out of munitions in the Middle East because they've been targeted by Iran. And so what does North Korea do? Kim Jong-un starts trolling. He starts posting photos of himself, you know, showing new missile tests that he's doing. As a way to give the middle finger to South Korea.

What do you think South Korea thinks about us? What do you think Japan thinks about us right now? What do you think Taiwan thinks about us right now? If this is how America is responding to Iran, you think America is going to be able to protect Taiwan from China? Well, the US has already made clear that it ain't going to do that. We have not given Taiwan the military aid that was promised to them. We haven't given them the missile systems that we promised them. And we've left them very vulnerable. Look, 3 days ago, what the Chinese embassy to the US posted, they posted, Taiwan is ours. We want to be very clear. They are ours. Taiwan is ours. And that's it. And what's Trump doing with all of this? Trump is going to run over to China to do a state visit with Xi Jinping while Xi Jinping is mocking Donald Trump for being too disorganized to even plan a state visit. That's what you have, like Xinhua and all the Chinese media. Mocking Donald Trump for not being able to even coordinate a state visit. You've got China and Russia helping Iran right now destroy the US world order, and they're doing an effective job at it, I might add.

And Trump wants to go and meet Xi Jinping because Trump has this deranged vision of himself standing there with Xi Jinping while the Chinese soldiers march in lockstep, and Donald Trump can peacock and feel very tough next to Xi Jinping while they're all laughing at what a damn loser he is. And just as he said, oh, you know, everybody's laughing at us. Yeah, literally everybody's laughing at us right now, by the way. I'll talk about Russia in a moment, but you want to see how they're laughing at us? I'll just watch this cartoon that the Iranian embassy in The Hague put out mocking Donald Trump's connections to Epstein. And I mean, by the way, when you watch this cartoon, it is not too different from what Donald Trump actually said to the press. Like, they actually kind of used Donald Trump's actual press interview. And you're like, yeah, this is propaganda.

Sure.

But they're actually using what Donald— the way Donald Trump is communicating with the press about killing the 165 little girls, little girls in Iran. And by the way, the Epstein class that did the Epstein war, that spent decades being predators against little girls, the first thing they do in this war is kill little girls. Should tell you a lot. It's consistent with their M.O. They're predators and they're behaving as such. And now they've rallied everybody in Iran who could have been supportive, who may have been supportive against the U.S. and in favor of the ayatollah. Watch this. Watch this ad or whatever. They're just mocking Trump. They're laughing at him. Watch what Iran's embassy in The Hague put out here. Play this clip. We have no issue with civilians. Why did you attack the school? Go on, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

We didn't hit the Manab school. America doesn't have Tomahawk missiles at all.

We care deeply about the Iranian people. You see what it said at the end?

Epstein.

Now I'll show you Inside Out. Epstein's client, for the audio listeners.

His client. Yeah. And, and I'll show you the one that China put out. Here's what China put out. Mocking Donald Trump's Shields of the Americas. Here's one that China put out. Oh no. Let me keep everyone safe. Sounds great.

Maybe not. Now there we go. Relax.

Sometimes security comes with a little control. That's what's going on. And by the way, if you want to watch Donald Trump's speech, I mean, I'll show you the speech that he gave in Kentucky. Where he says, Epic Fury. What a name. What a name. We're winning the war. We've won. We've won. It's over.

We won.

Really? I mean, okay, geez, we can observe what is happening throughout the Middle East right now. Like, we see the fact that Iran is using unmanned vessels, these UAVs, to strike these ships. We see the residential properties in Kuwait and in Bahrain and all these other areas, UAE, that are getting hit. We see the frequency now of Iran striking northern Israel, also using these cluster munitions. We see the French base being struck in Iraq.

We see— we see— and then it's not just we see it, they see it. They see it. And they're right there doing all these actions. They're seeing everything that happens. So when Trump Trump goes out there and he just says all of these lies about what's happening on the ground in this war and says, we won, everything's going great, hahaha, we're crushing them. It just makes us look weak. Like, that gaslighting makes him look extra weak. And so I'll play this clip of Trump saying what Ben was saying. We won Operation Epic Fury because it just shows how weak Donald Trump is, how weak he is making the United States look, and how he putting our country in even further danger.

Watch this. Hadouken!

And as we take decisive action to stop the threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran with Operation Epic Fury, Is that a great name? Well, it's only good if you win, you know. You can only do— and we've won. Let me say, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the bet in the first hour.

It was over. Let me just— I just hate this so much. I just hate— like, it is so comically stupid. Like, it is so beneath The Office. It is so beneath what I grew up knowing this country to be. And it is so deeply upsetting on so many levels that he's out there acting like he's some WWE announcer.

Sorry, Brad, I'm going to interrupt. But I mean, what did you say last episode, though? Do you remember what you said? You said Donald Trump is going to have a mission accomplished moment, right? That's going to— that's coming any second now. And I said, dude, he's having a mission accomplished moment every time he opens his mouth or writes on Truth Social. And sure enough, that right there, I mean, he said we won. How much more of a mission accomplished moment do you have? Does he need the banner to be up as well? And those people around him to just be clapping there like seals. Like, I know, like, the corporate media says, like, I need to treat these people with kid gloves and be like, oh, what happened? Oh, maybe perhaps you'll vote for a Democrat. Perhaps you'll not vote for Donald. Those people are freaking clowns. They do not think for themselves at all. They are mindless zombies who just do whatever the hell Donald Trump wants them to do. You know, there've already been polls released on these MAGA people, and the MAGA people were polled prior to the strikes on Iran, and they asked, do you want Donald Trump to bomb Iran?

Do you want a war with Iran? And it was like, you know, the single digit— it was like 17% or something like this. Very low numbers is my point. No, no, that would be not— that wouldn't be America first. That would be a betrayal. Donald Trump does it and he goes, Operation Upward Fury, and all those people go, yay! Yeah, and now those polls show like 80-plus percent of MAGA people now are pro-war. They now support this. And so it just shows you, they— their whole kind of anti-war, all their whole shtick is not based in anything. It's not grounded in morals. It's not grounded in values or principles. It's simply whatever is right there at the time that could help them help Donald Trump. It's whatever Donald Trump says they will regurgitate, and they will use those topics as a cudgel to attack Donald Trump's opponents as saying, oh, you're a warmonger, you're this, you're that. Remember those headlines back in the day where it was like Hillary the Hawk, Donald the Dove, like all these people buying into Donald Trump's bullshit when time and time again he just shows us that he is the opposite of everything that he tries to portray himself as on the campaign trail to these people.

But these people just don't care. Like I said, they are brainless zombies who just applaud at anything. And I'm sick of treating these people like kid gloves, with kid gloves.

Look, we're going to take our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss when we come back. One of the things that we do here at the Midas Touch Network, though, is we do painstaking research into everything that's going on on the ground, country by country, city and town within each country to try to bring all of these connections and make these connections together. When we come back, I also want to talk about what was going down in Miami yesterday, where you had Yushchakov and Kirill Dmitriev, the two top Russian envoys, meeting in Miami with Whitkopf and Kushner to discuss broader economic cooperation and alliances between the United States and Russia. While Russia is openly supporting Iran against the United States, the Trump regime is meeting with Russia in Miami, in Miami, in South Beach, Miami, talking about doing economic deals together and further removing Russian sanctions. And Russia is making out like a bandit. In this war, selling their oil to places they could never before, rearming themselves after Ukraine has launched a successful counteroffensive. This is Putin's dream right now. This is Xi Jinping's dream right now. I think the one thing that they're just shocked about is just how quick it's come about.

I think they knew it was coming, but I think they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We just—

what do we do now? Like, this is kind of sped up a little bit quicker than we thought it was going to, uh, happen. But that's the reordering of the world right now.

You ready for this stat right here, Ben? I just think this brings the point home. Russia is now making an extra $150 million per day from its oil sales due to the rising prices. So the Russian government right now is set to receive up to $5 billion in extra revenue by the end of this month, all because of Donald Trump. So when Trump posts those, those Truth Social posts that says, oh, oil, high oil prices, they're good. Now we're all getting rich, right? We're getting rich. High oil prices.

Are we great?

No, high oil prices. Who's getting rich? Your oil baron friends and your Russian buddies. Those are the only people who are getting rich. It's just making the rest of us poorer.

Quick break.

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We hit the 50,000 review mark on audio, but it just so happened to coincide with this really strange event that Brett touched on. Earlier in the episode where we don't know if it was a targeted thing. It seemed to only happen to our podcast, though, where the audio feed for the last 48 hours just was not loading new episodes. So obviously during this time when we're trying to get out crucial information to as many people as possible, that's really an issue. And it just— the whole thing feels weird because here's another thing that I noticed, too. People were leaving comments, positive comments. Thank you guys so much who do that. But then they were also telling me that like Fox News, like a week before, started targeting our show. So let me just get out and let you guys know, we would never take their, you know, we would never be like, yeah, let's do a deal with Fox News. No, they targeted us. We have no control over those, you know, those programmatic type ads. The ones that we control are the ones that I read. And so for the commenters who did that, obviously never do that.

So just wanted to clear that up. And now a week after that, you know, our feed was just shut down. Something weird is definitely happening. So please, it just goes to say, if you haven't already, download the Midas Touch podcast wherever you listen to audio. If you're an Apple user specifically, please leave a 5-star review and a comment. This whole thing has been—

and even if you're like, you know, I'm not usually an audio listener, like, it would be super helpful if you guys— because we got to build this momentum back. So go to the Apple Podcast app on your computer, on your phone, add the Midas Touch podcast, leave a 5-star review. It only takes a couple of seconds. Seconds, listen to the latest episodes, it'll be a big help. And if you already do all of that stuff, share the show with a friend. Let's get back, we got to get this momentum back. I was very upset to see that this information was not getting out there.

Huge bummer. Huge bummer.

Benji, let's get into the next— let's get into the news, folks. Um, so the USS Gerald Ford, that big aircraft carrier, there are two massive aircraft carriers right now that surround Iran. One is the Abraham Lincoln,, and the other is the Gerald Ford. Well, the Gerald Ford had a pretty major fire on it, uh, earlier today, uh, and apparently it originated in the laundry spaces. According to the, uh, Trump regime, it was quote non-combat related and it got contained relatively soon thereafter. Two sailors were being medically treated in this fire. And I think what's important to note is that this Gerald Ford ship this aircraft carrier, it's $13.3 billion, one of the flagships of the American naval power in the Middle East. It's also not meant to be deployed for the amount of time that it's already been deployed already, nearly a year. So lots of the members of the Navy who are on this ship, they've missed weddings and births and funerals and key events. And so you may recall several weeks back before the war started, I was doing reports where I was talking about sources who were telling other kind of military families back at home how low the morale was.

There's been problems with the plumbing, sewage leaks, like literally like the feces and the urine would kind of come out and they'd have to go in and fix it. There's a lot of maintenance that are required on ships like this, and Iran recognizes that in a war of attrition, this is a war that if they just continue to stretch it out and stretch it out, the wear and tear of the United States military relative to Iran's very kind of nimble and cheap weapons systems— they have expensive ones, but they also have the Shahed drones and the unmanned vessels— this asymmetrical warfare Trump didn't prepare for.. And I think that's also a big learning lesson in the world. Why am I— I'm connecting that to the fire because, you know, you put a ship out there for a long time, things go wrong naturally. Now, the Trump regime lies to us about everything. So who knows what the real cause was? I don't think we'll necessarily get the true story. I don't really know. I'll just flag that to be clear. But you just put ships out there, things are going to break, pipes are going to burst, fires are going to start.

And people need to get home. They need to be with their families. You can't work people and grind people in these types of conditions. But the thing that this war is showing, though, is, you know, America has these billion-dollar systems that they sell to countries. And this is what these Arab nations bought and what the Asian nations thought that they were getting— these Patriot missiles, these THAAD systems, these really expensive military hardware, satellites, all this expensive stuff, these massive aircraft carriers, right? Billions of dollar systems with millions of dollar or tens of millions of dollar missiles while Iran's using $20,000 Shahed drones that can be very deadly. And so if you've watched some of these videos of these interceptors, right, you'll, you'll shoot 6 interceptors at one $20,000 Shahed drone. Think about that. And then Iran's developed these missiles that are these cluster munitions that are more difficult for the Patriots and the THAADs to strike. So that's another development that I don't think the US has been prepared for. Now, we should have been prepared for it. We could have been prepared for it. We could have looked what was happening in Ukraine. That's the perfect example of the way asymmetrical warfare is being fought, right?

Russia came in with their heavy artillery, their tanks. Right, fighting a traditional military battle. And Ukraine, yes, they were using the Javelins and yes, they've been using a lot of, you know, American-made systems. But over time, what Ukraine learned is that this is a drone-based war and Ukraine can manufacture all of these drones. And then you have to build these anti-drone interceptors, which are basically drones. They're anti-drone drones, essentially, which are the interceptor anti-drones. That then, that then are used to stop the drones. There's also techniques that you use with this, like netting that's put over certain areas. Ukraine's figured out how you deal with it. Last August, Zelensky tried to help Donald Trump and say, this is what's going to happen if this war would have raged on when he invaded Iran the first time. Here's what could have happened. Fortunately, it didn't because the war ended in 12 days or so. But here's what could happen. We want to give you our technology. We need your help in Ukraine. Trump says no. And then Trump tried to bleed Ukraine dry of its resources to help Putin take over Ukraine. We all saw, we all saw that happen.

So now Eric Trump has started a defense investor, or he's been brought into this drone startup. They now want the Ukrainian technology. So Zelensky is trying to help, but Zelensky also wants protections as well and guarantees there, which is not clear that Trump is giving. So Zelensky is still trying to help. And while all of this is taking place, what's Donald Trump doing? Well, he has Whitkopf and Kushner meet with Ushakov and Dmitriev, the two top Russian people, and they meet in Miami where they talk about economic cooperation. Dmitriev and Ushakov and Kremlin state media. They put out. We're talking about big economic deals together, how US and Russia could be more collaborative and work together. And we talked about removing more sanctions from Russia. At the same time, Russia is helping Iran publicly. Putin's out there saying, here's what we're doing.

We're—

we are helping Iran. We stand firmly with Iran. That's Putin saying it publicly. And also, we know from our intelligence, it's obvious that China is helping Iran. One of the signs that, you know, they're helping Iran is that the only ships that are leaving the Strait of Hormuz are Iranian and Chinese ships. Duh. What the hell do you think is going on there? We should be aware. And China is testing its military equipment. In my opinion, seems pretty obvious that that's what's happening. But I will, I will couch it as my opinion here. By observing how this war is being fought. China is testing its potential invasion of Taiwan by providing this military equipment and resources and satellite imagery and coordinates to Iran and testing the US capabilities and the ability of US to guard Taiwan. And what China is learning, what Taiwan is learning, what Japan is learning, what South Korea is learning, what all these Gulf nations are learning is that the US at least under Donald Trump and now for the foreseeable future, because Trump is so degraded, our military is incapable of protecting allies. And the whole system was based on us being the unquestioned national power that nobody can touch.

You know, we're $37 trillion in debt. By the time this Trump regime is over, it'll probably be closer to $60 trillion. The first Trump administration put on 25 to 30% of all of our national debt. So I think the number— I always said I thought the number would be significantly higher this time around, and it's heading there. So you may ask, well, how does the system function with that much debt? Well, the US can just print money. And based on the full faith and credit of the United States and our Treasury Department and the fact that we basically have limitless buyers, or did, of our bonds, right? We continued to have very successful Treasury bond sales, and other countries would put their money and pour their money into the US. The US dollar was unquestionably the, you know, currency of the world. The US is the place you'd park your money. And so we can continue on this even though it was, you know, I think, destroying the future of generations because we've got to pay $1 trillion in interest on the notes alone, on our debt alone, you can continue the Ponzi scheme. But like any Ponzi scheme, Trump's past Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, Enron, though not a Ponzi scheme when they cooked the books, at some point when you discover that the there there is not there and that there is no there there, the parallel paths of the financial mechanisms were tied to national strength.

And when you degrade the national strength, you degrade the financial mechanisms. As I said, pay for play. The people who pay expect you to play. But if you know Donald Trump's entire life, he would defraud. So exactly what he did with his note holders and the contractors and everybody who worked for him. Now his protection racket was exposed as an utter fraud, and that now seeps into the financial markets.. And SEEP would be doing a lot of work there. Tsunamis into the financial market because these are interconnected principles. So I think that's important and not getting enough attention.

Brett and Jordy. Yeah, no, I think that's all very important information. And, you know, I would add, you brought up the Ponzi scheme analogy and the end result of any Ponzi scheme eventually is that the chickens come home to roost eventually. The scheme falls apart, you're backed into a corner, you're unable to actually continue and keep the Ponzi scheme going. And I fear not for Donald Trump's sake, but I fear for our sake that we are kind of in that moment right now. I mean, Trump is completely backed into a corner. I saw earlier today the foreign minister of Iran write this message, and I would love to brush this off as just, oh, this is just propaganda coming from the Iranian regime. They're lying. This is BS. But we know that everything he's saying here is actually just like is true. And I'll bring up the statement from Syed Abbas Araghchi. It says factual knowledge matters. Case 1, Iran's proposal to ensure no nuclear weapons was dismissed because US counterparts didn't grasp the technical details. Case 2, Americans won't make money from surging oil prices and tariffs they enrich corporations and crush households. And in case 2, he is quoting Donald Trump when Trump tried to frame increasing oil prices as a good thing and Americans were going to make money from higher oil prices.

I mean, how stupid is that? And I want to go back to case 1 for a second where he says Iran's proposal to ensure no nuclear weapons was dismissed because US counterparts did not grasp the technical details. Why do I want to go back to that? Because before, Ben mentioned what happened in Miami, this week, which was that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with the Russians about all this stuff. And those same two individuals, Jared Kushner and Witkoff, were the same people who were meeting with the Iranians. In a lot of ways, they are to blame for this whole thing happening and all this falling apart. Remember that one day right before the strikes, I think it was like hours before the strikes, there was the Omani mediator who went on TV in a very unusual fashion because I think he saw what was happening behind the scenes. And he made clear that what was offered to— and this was an independent person who was put in as a mediator who was agreed to by the United States. So this isn't somebody who is like an Iranian person or whatever. And he said that the Iranian regime was willing to give Donald Trump basically all of their terms, that they were willing to get, you know, make sure that they weren't building a any nuclear weapons.

They were willing to go even much further than they went during the Obama nuclear deal that Donald Trump tore up. And that has led us to where we are today. But now here we are. Whatever happened in those meetings, I don't know if Whitkopf and Kushner lied to Donald Trump about what happened in those meetings. I don't know if Whitkopf and Kushner did not understand what was being offered at those meetings. But whatever happened there, ultimately, the obviously started and the war began, and now the entire world is in utter chaos over this. And to me, just as a layman in this whole thing, you wonder, how are you supposed to get this train back on the tracks, metaphorically speaking, if while you were trying to negotiate the deal is when you started the war, when you attacked the mediators, when you blew up the people you were trying to make the deals with? You think people are going to be so excited to get in a room with you and try to hash this out again when last time they did that, you killed them in the middle of it? I mean, you put yourself— and that's like a— that's a war crime, by the way.

So you've now put yourself in this situation where how do you even end this thing? And you've caused so much damage to a nation that— referring to Iran here— that wants so much retribution and has such religious history too with its leaders, that now you have stoked something in these people that didn't even exist before. So you basically— these Iranian protesters who are out there, these pro-democracy protesters, they were in the streets and you said, go in the streets, we're the United States, we will have your back. All you ended up doing, Donald Trump, was you led those people to slaughter. They went in the streets and you did not have their back. And then the second you decided to show up, months after the fact, the first thing you do is you bomb a children's school and kill more than 165 little girls. And then you want them to say, oh, this is the person who's going to keep me safe. And as Ben mentioned kind of fleetingly earlier, what the BBC is now reporting is that a lot of those people who were actually hoping that the United States would do something to help after seeing the United United States's actions in the region are now saying, oh, we can't trust the United States at all to help us.

In fact, we're probably safer with the regime or somebody else because the United States right now is killing us. They're killing our families. They're causing chaos. I look up and it's nuclear, it's acid rain and looks like hell and fury, all the things that Donald Trump says. And so it's just a very, very precarious situation right now. And that's why throughout our history, even with people I vehemently disagreed with, you at least felt like there was some strategy, some plan that they were following intelligence and had specific knowledge about what to do. With these people, it feels like they just think it's— the whole thing's like a video game and they're just pressing buttons and seeing what happens, and then they're adjusting adjusting based on what happened. And you even see that in the— we showed you the propaganda videos from the Iranian regime and the Chinese government before. The United States is doing that as well. And all of theirs are like, so juvenile. They're posting clips of like Grand Theft Auto mixed with war footage or Nintendo Wii clips mixed with war footage. This ain't a video game. American soldiers are dying. Americans are being targeted at home.

Innocent Iranians are dying. Innocent people in Lebanon are dying. Innocent people in Israel are dying. And it's all because of Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.

And just before, Jordy, you go, just Brett, to your point on the differences in the propaganda, what Iran and China are focusing on is framing the US as the predator nation attacking others, right? Attacking Manab, you know, and then calling Trump like the Epstein client. The Chinese one, Donald Trump exploiting the doves, you know, or the pigeons, um, who are the, uh, nations in Central America, South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Then the Trump propaganda though plays right into it, right? The Trump propaganda is such a good point— them bombing things, blowing things up, and then treating it like a video game and saying touchdown while people die. And so we— it's important we recognize propaganda techniques because it is part of warfare. But notice what's happening, how Trump is even executing the propaganda terribly, literally spiking the football in videos, actually doing that.

Well, it's like what— it's like his propaganda, though, in the United States, right? He appeals— what does he always try to appeal to? Broader, the United States, everybody, try to bring bring unity to the country. No, he tries to play specifically to his MAGA base. And so when he's doing this propaganda right now, he's once again trying to play specifically to people who are like, yeah, blow shit up, Team America, fuck yeah. You know, those are the people he's trying to play with. When the Iranian propaganda— and don't misconstrue this for support of the Iranian regime in any way whatsoever, I don't want anybody to get it twisted— but the Iranian propaganda is actually playing to things that Americans care about. They're actually quite smart and, and they're thinking about this in a sophisticated way. The way they're talking about how this is going to make your gas prices more, your oil prices more, the way they're talking about Donald Trump as part of the Epstein class and Epstein's client. I mean, they know exactly what they're doing with that kind of messaging. And Donald Trump's messaging, like Ben said, is just playing to their biggest caricature of what this government is in the United States.

And that's because that caricature of what this government is in the United States is accurate. The Trump regime is full of two types of people, in my opinion: smart people trying to play dumb and dumb people trying to play smart. And in my opinion, that, that's the most dangerous combination of idiocy. These people have one agenda: to keep dear leader Donald Trump happy and do his bidding no matter the cost. Donald Trump was born halfway between third base and home plate with a silver spoon in his mouth. He's not some great negotiator. He's not some great businessman. He had daddy's money. He had daddy's money and connection, and he failed at everything he's doing. He's failed at everything he did, and he's failed at everything he's doing now. And just so happens now he's the president of the United States, and his losses aren't monetary losses or business losses. He's bankrupting the country and he's getting American soldiers killed. He's getting American soldiers killed. I mean, I could just keep shouting that and shouting that because it should just disgust all of us. He got us into a war that we did not need to be in.

He got us into this and he's getting American soldiers killed and he's raising the prices here in America on a daily basis. It is impacting the Americans' wallets as our soldiers are dying. Like, to me, it's the be-all end-all of just idiocy. And the worst of the worst of what could happen is literally happening. And in my gut, I just know, I just know it's going to keep getting worse. Like, we are just that— we're just at the start. He's going to declare victory every day for the— I guess until his presidency ends on this thing. And it's just going to get worse. And so I just want to caution our viewers here, like, we need to call the collective— we need to be in this together for the long haul here and call all of this bullshit out because it's going to get tiresome. Like, it just is. But again, American troops are dying because of this buffoon in the White House because he's too stupid to figure out what the hell he's doing.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things I'll just note as well, Brett, to your point, the various propaganda campaigns. You know, Donald Trump's out there in Kentucky or Cincinnati screaming off the top of his lungs, saying the most, like, heinous and outrageous and disgusting things. I mean, there was one clip where he talks about, and I said, why did we kill the Navy? You know, we killed a ship, the Dena. We blew up a ship called the Dena leaving the Indian parade. And the Indian parade in India, they made sure Modi made sure they were unarmed. When they entered the parade and it was like an international parade. And we blew up— we blew up this ship, the Denna, with a torpedo and killed, you know, again, you know, so many people and let the people drown. And part of maritime law is you have to help them. And Trump's like, so I said, why do we kill them? Let's just make them part of our Navy. And you know what the generals told me? It's more fun to kill them. It's more fun to kill. Like, that's what Trump is saying. Like, so that's the messages that he's putting out into the world.

And then on the other hand, you have, you know, when I watch, like, what are the Iranian foreign ministers saying and what are, you know, their national security, right? They intentionally do this. This is part of their plan, but they're acting with intentionality. Like, that's the thing. They have a strategy. It's obvious to me what their strategy is. And Trump has no— and their strategy is they put people wearing suits because you don't even think that. And they're very calm in their delivery, like almost very soft with their voice. And they go, well, look, we are trying to do all of this and here's what we'd like to do. But however, he keeps blowing up the elementary schools and, you know, we would love to have regional stability.

And they're talking in ways you would never expect because let's face it, let's be honest, right? Let's talk candidly like what people people are expecting when they open those videos is for people to be like, "Death to America," and like screaming and shouting. But instead, it's not like that at all. But when you listen to Donald Trump, that's like what he's saying about them. And so he is delivering them the propaganda that they need and is making this so much worse. And I'd be remiss if I didn't at least close out this conversation by mentioning or taking a little step back and saying, why was Donald Trump in Kentucky in the first place? Why was he there of all places campaigning? Oh, he was there because he was supporting the primary challenger to Republican Representative Thomas Massie. And why was he supporting Representative Thomas Massie's Republican challenger? Because Representative Massie led the charge with Representative Ro Khanna to get the Epstein files least. Not exactly beating the accusations there, Donald. Listen, we got a lot more to speak about on this episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. I want to thank everybody for tuning in.

This is going to be a quick break. I want to remind everybody, we had those issues with the Apple Podcasts where they were not— they were blocking our podcast the last few days. We're finally fixed up, but we need help getting back up the charts. If you had issues, if you didn't have issues, if you're an audio listener, if you're not, go on Apple Podcasts, Add the show, leave a 5-star review, help us bounce back. We refuse to be silenced by big tech or these apps, and we need to get this information out there. Subscribe to us on Substack and all other platforms. Our Substack is MidasPlus.com. We've got great recaps every single day there. And obviously, be sure to check out the Midas Touch store. We got some great merch there for you. Okay, last quick break of the show.

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Us. Remember to text MIDAS to 511511 today. Message and data rates may apply. Shout out to our sponsors, links in description of the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Benji, before I toss it to you, so that's become— I guess that's becoming a little bit of a thing online is, is when we come back from break, when I, when I say that, because a couple people in my DMs on, on threads and in Blue Sky, they were repeating that verbatim, like just trying to poke fun of me. So hey, we have fun here. We have— the Midas Mighty is a fun community. So I, I see it, I laugh.

You guys are hilarious. Benji, where to next? Where to, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant? This was all our plan. We knew the strain of Hermose was going to be closed. We knew it.

That's that.

We knew all of this was going to— this is what we wanted. It's going exactly as planned. Here, watch them for yourself.

Let's play this clip. You starting to think if this does keep persisting as it is, that the Navy has to go into the Strait of Hormuz to, to help ships get through, which would have a big effect on— look, that was always in our planning that there's a chance that a U.S. Navy or perhaps an international coalition will be escorting oil tankers through. There are, in fact, tankers coming through now, Iranian tankers. I believe some Chinese-flagged tankers have come through. So we know that they have not mined the straits. And was that what you were just discussing in the Situation Room? We were We're discussing a plethora of things. And is, is it your belief that the volume of ships going through the Strait of Hormuz will be improving immediately from now? It is my belief that as soon as it is militarily possible, the US Navy, perhaps with an international coalition, will be escorting vessels through.

Okay.

Well, plethora. I'm just kidding. He didn't say pleather.

He said a plethora. Real quick.

Real quick.

And I know there's an S in plethora.

Out of the whole thing, all I heard was plethora. Plethora. And that caught me off guard too.

Let me just say also, he's lying. Can I? Real quick. I need everyone to Google Edgar from Men in Black because that is a dead ringer for who he reminds me of. The dude is just so uncomfortable in his own skin because he knows, he knows what he's doing is wrong, like, in his heart of hearts. I truly believe that. It's what I used to say with McCarthy when he would speak. It sounded like his soul was leaving his body. That, that's the same exact vibes that I get there, Ben.

Well, you give a lot of, you give a plethora of cultural references. I always expect that from Jordy. And now let me give you a plethora of facts, because the reporting shows that the United States was woefully unprepared for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It was not something that they had anticipated or expected. It was basically considered to be like the nuclear option. I feel like it's a regrettable phrase to use in the case of war, but you know what I mean. This was like Iran pulling out all the stops. I remember Pentagon officials told like CNN before all of this happened, they were like, Iran would never— they would never close, fully close the Strait of Hormuz. Because that would be devastating. And they couldn't take that. So that's never going to happen. Well, no, they, they understood how devastating it would be to the global economy. And it's part of their strategy is to kind of completely destroy the United States and the global economy by doing exactly what they were doing right now. So you have Scott Bessant lying there. And you have also Scott Bessant saying things which are just so irresponsible.

First you saw the comments we showed briefly earlier where Scott Bessant was like, he said this to Sky News. He said, well, maybe an international coalition could protect troops. Maybe if only we had an international coalition. Yeah, you're supposed to get the international coalition together before you go to war. And you're not supposed to threaten all the partners that would be in that coalition with invading them. You're not supposed to threaten Greenland. You're not supposed to constantly threaten the UK and Spain and Mexico and you name it, Donald—

Canada.

Donald Trump has spent all of this time threatening all of our allies and isolating the United States and turning America First into America Alone. And now he expects that people are going to solve all of his problems for him. The whole thing is insane. There was this other comment by Scott Bessant that I think is worth flagging, where Scott Bessant, when he was asked if rising costs would ever lead him to tell Donald Trump that the war is no longer affordable, he firmly responded to Sky News, absolutely not. And this right here is the danger of having only yes-men surrounding you. To me, a good leader should have people who aren't there to, you know, try to cause confrontation, but people who are able to get in there and say, you know what, I have a different opinion on that. Or, you know what, I've looked at the impacts that these actions right now are having on our economy and the world economy. And if this thing lasts a couple more weeks, this is going to be devastating. We're talking a recession, if not a depression. So we better figure this stuff out right now.

No, not doing that. Instead, all they want to do is say things that affirm Donald Trump's own beliefs, which is why we are here right now.

Let's talk about what went down in the White House though, because this is the time where you would think about what? Truman's radio addresses or FDR addressing the nation, or commander-in-chief commanding and really explaining whether it's fireside chats or level-headed explaining to the American people, here's what's going on. Here are the issues that we're confronting. But, uh, what went down in the White House was yet again Melania took center stage. Remember two weeks ago when the war started, Melania was leading the United Nations Security Council on behalf of the United States. She was placed as the U.S. representative, and she led the discussions on behalf of the U.S. while we were at war, while we were beginning this disastrous, unlawful war. Well, Today, Melania was also leading the discussions, and she talked about how great she was and how, uh, what a visionary she was. And she was like, yeah, I won't do the Melania accent. I don't know if that's offensive or not. I'll just do it. Do it.

Okay, let me, let me do the accent.

Go full out. Do your Melania, then follow it up with your RFK.

Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, definitely. Melania RFK, and then I'll accentuate Bessant, and then we'll see if I still am able to have a job.

We'll see where— we'll see where— we'll see.

It's a plethora of accents, you know. I'll test one cancelation on Bessant where I come close to the line, and then I'm— then I do Melania where I'll probably, you know. But I think, I think the shot and chaser with all of— as offensive when I do my Lutnick I think it's like a Men in Black one, to use your example, Jordy. And everybody's so transfixed by, he's disgusting and I would never go to such an island, it disgusts me. Well, Howard Lutnick, you were on Epstein Island. Yeah. Who were you there with?

My kids.

Why? I brought my kids to Epstein Island. 16, 13, 12, 11. Oh, really? Like, that's— you think that's a good thing?

Yeah.

What else did you do? I brought my friend's kids. So you and a bunch of kids went to Epstein's house? Yeah.

Yeah.

But you told everybody that you never spoke to him again after 2005?

Yeah.

Okay. Do we know that's bad? That you shouldn't be the Commerce Secretary?

But let me explain to you. I'm happy to report you have not been canceled.

Canceled yet.

A lot of people— you have a lot of people— you get a lot of people encouraging. Let me say, let me just say, let me say, you have a lot of people encouraging you right now who are saying, Ben, do it, we want to hear the RFP.

I am a Vietnam—

wait, but then, but then you have people like Michael Larson here who says, please don't.

I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna just play the Melania clip. All right. As a visionary, I know success Success is not born overnight, but rather takes shape after a long and sometimes challenging process. Often alone at the top, I follow my passion, listen to my instinct, and always maintain a laser focus. In solitude, my creative mind dances, filling my imagination with originality. Attention to detail, demanding schedules, and multitasking are everyday realities when building towards success. The principle resonates across all my roles as a mother, humanitarian, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.

Wait, wait, did she start that by saying as a visionary? Quit. Let's— can we just play the—

we've got to play the beginning of that one more time. There's no way.

There's no way she started that saying—

started off with 'as a visionary.' I, I think somebody typed— I mean, I think all of her speeches are written with ChatGPT, or she steals them from other people.

This, I think, was pure ChatGPT.

Just play it. As a visionary.

As a visionary. Okay, ready? As a visionary, I know success is not born overnight, but rather take shape after a long and sometimes challenging process.

Often alone at the top, I follow my passion. Often alone at the top. Listen, it is so hard to be this ridiculously good-looking and smart. And listen, and being such a great podcast host, like the number one podcast host in the world, you know, it's tough, but I'm happy to tell all of you people what it's like, you know, just being so great and handsome and good-looking and intelligent and such a good athlete, and I should be a model. But I could tell you though what you should be doing if you want to be at the top like me.

How about this? As a virgin, Eddie, as a virgin, Eddie, it was very difficult for me to go to the Kit Kat Club and meet Donald Donald Trump in the late '90s.

And you guys, you know how people like sell courses, like the Instagram, like influencers who sell— like, I feel like she's getting ready to sell me a course.

Originally, Paolo Zampoli told me, you know what the wealthy men in Manhattan are? You go to the Kit Kat Club. And so I went to the Kit Kat. It was very beautiful. And I met Donald at the Kit Kat.

The Instagrammer.

And I met him, he was on a date and he said, you, you are the one, Melania. And then I met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And I said, hey G, you are incredible. And your, and your, that spread of you and Jeffrey Epstein in New York Magazine. Amazing. Amazing. Jeffrey Epstein looked great. You look beautiful in the photos. To which Ghislaine responded to me and said, hey sweet pea, I'm too busy for you right now, sweet pea, but I will see you again in Meanhattan soon. Am I canceled?

Just give me a—

No, I think you're good. I think I see a plethora of, I see a plethora of positive comments.

And by the way, that was the real email.

That wasn't just like making up. Yeah, that was the email.

One of the funny things is like, we know that was actually the email that I read that was sent between—

I also appreciate that. Like, I know we know Melania's people like watch the show to make sure we're not saying anything bad about her.

So hey, hope you— well, I'm just gonna say this, everything— well, look, I mean, the email described the email to the best of my ability, and also pursuant to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, I'm sharing my opinion speech. And clearly there was also parody mixed with opinion based upon my accent. So both a humor exception as well as an opinion exception, and also the factual exception as well as it relates to those portions there. Thanks for the views. They go and play the clip and it's me, you know, sitting there anyway.

What if we just played the clip and it was you in a wig doing the impression? Are you trying to reel us back into real stuff? Okay.

Well, yes, get talking about real stuff. Sorry. Okay, but I do want to talk about this coded language by the Air Force General Grinkovich. Like, there was— this is all serious. This— no, no. At the Senate hearing, I want to cue you in on the language that was being used because there were things happening at different levels right here. So this top Air Force general who's now the United States Supreme Allied Commander in Europe is actually a really good guy. Like, I'm not just saying like, like, you know, he's been someone who's been dedicated to service his entire life. He was an Air Force pilot. He climbed the ranks and he's doing his best to help Ukraine and to help keep NATO. I follow him. In the various moves. I watched his speech in Sweden. If you watch the Midas Touch Network, you know that I actually cover Grenkowicz a lot because I'm trying to see who's trying to just keep this all together right now in the face of Donald Trump trying to break everything, and he's trying to keep it together. So the first— one of the first clips I want to show you is where he talks about how what he's observed as an Air Force pilot is that when you attack civilian populations and you bomb them in airstrikes and you hit civilians and you miss military targets, you harden the resolve of the people.

This is a red alert that he's actually telling the Senate and specifically the intelligence community. He's delivering a coded or not so coded message that this is not going well right now. And he's limited in what he can say because he doesn't want to get fired.. And this is why there's this dance going on between the way the Senate is asking him the questions and how he's answering it.

So let's play this first clip of him saying that. Let's play it. In the war, um, and the, uh, what I've observed over the course of studying air power in history is that anytime you attack a civilian population, you usually, uh, end up finding that it just hardens their resolve. We take this all the way back to the London Blitz in World War II. The Brits just had a stiff upper lip and kept on fighting.

And I think that's what we've seen Ukraine as well. And he's using the examples of the Brits and Ukraine, though, to talk about what's happening with the Iranian people right now as well, and how it is actually causing them to coalesce around the ayatollah. And he's giving these historical examples where, to try to make it make sense, where Ukraine and the Brits were under attack. Here he is again when he's asked by a Democratic senator about how the oil prices going up have benefited Russia. I, I want you to listen though. I'm going to cue you in on some of his coded language here as well.

Let's play. Which one of the unexpected beneficiaries of our operations in Iran has been Russia? Uh, the price of gas has increased dramatically. Which benefits their economy at a point where their economy was suffering after multiple years of warfare. We've in fact lifted sanctions on the delivery of oil with India and other countries.

We are now in a position where we must send missiles, particularly Patriot, to the Gulf area to replenish our supplies rather than to provide them to Ukrainians.

This all seems to be a situation where Putin is benefiting dramatically.

Is that your perception, that this has unexpectedly or unintentionally given him a significant increase in staying power?

Senator, a couple of thoughts on this. First, I'm very proud of the role that European Command is playing to support Operation Epic Fury. And our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians have been operating at a high tempo in the Eastern Med and elsewhere, defending alliance territory and defending our forces and projecting power into, into U.S. Central Command. As you noted, the price of oil and gas has gone up. We know that Putin does depend on that. I think how much he benefits from it depends on how long those prices remain elevated. I know I know the leadership of the department is watching this very closely. I know the president's watching this very closely, and that they're certainly concerned about the prices that are out there. So I guess, you know, on the munitions front, what I would say on that is, we do continue to flow munitions into Ukraine. I could get into some of the specifics on implications in the classified session later today.

But I assure that support continues. And there's a few things going on there as well. Notice that he says what he's proud of, and it's subtle. He's proud of European Command supporting the high-tempo nature and defending our forces to project power into Central Command. A lot of word salad right there, but what he's doing is differentiating what he's doing from what Hegseth is doing at the Defense Department. And he's actually saying our role that we're doing is not causing this to happen and we're doing our job. And the implication is we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. You know, I'm not the guy for this question. Like, look at— look over there. He can say that publicly, but that's actually a message where you may be thinking, well, is he trying to cover up? And he's acting like they're doing good. What? No. He's making a very narrow thing. We're doing our job. And the implication is, is, yes, they're not doing their job the right way. And yes, I'm aware the president is watching this. In other words, you should be watching this very closely because this is a major issue and this can be helping Russia.

But he still wants to assure the senators that at least as he's there and he's asking for protection, I don't know if you like— he's asking them to protect him without saying it. I'm aware that we're still flowing munitions into Ukraine, and there was a lot going on in that. And then finally, I'll show you Senator Gillibrand's questioning with him. Let's play this clip. Any person who can get satellite access to Google Maps today can see that this was a school. New York Times had no problem getting that data and information for a report today. What do you intend to do at UCOM to make sure your targeting is consistent with American values?

Yeah, Senator, thanks. You know, over the course of my career, I've— as a fighter pilot, I've always I've done everything I can to avoid civilian harm and civilian casualties. And I would tell you, I'm absolutely committed to that. I know the department is committed to that, and that when tragedies like this happen, it causes us all to reflect and try to improve our processes. I've been involved in the targeting process, both at the tactical and the operational levels throughout my career. And I would tell you, we do have a number of safeguards in the system. You know, every single time that at the tactical level, I I was going to release a weapon on a target, I was personally making an assessment as to whether there was any chance of civilian harm. And if there was, was that proportional to the military necessity of striking the target? At the operational level, both from my time in U.S. Central Command previously and then now at U.S. European Command, I can assure you that we have robust standards that we go through and look to see and update the imagery and update our understanding of of the target and refresh the intelligence on a recurring basis to determine the chances of civilian harm and to address any collateral concerns that might be there.

So you just, just know I'm absolutely committed to trying to mitigate that risk.

I appreciate your testimony.

I'm highly concerned, however, that Secretary Hagel does not agree with you. Secretary Hagel has criticized rules of engagement designed to adhere to the laws of armed conflict and support civilian harm mitigation. Um, Secretary Hegseth has also cut the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence by about 90%. And by the way, with the back and forth you see there, it's choreographed. And it's not to say that they said, here's what I'm going to ask you and here's what you're going to respond, but what they're both communicating is that this is Hegseth's doing this and that this is coming from the Defense Department. And he's saying, I'm doing what I can do, but we are getting pulled into this direction. And they're also admitting, you know, what happened in Manab. And of course, this is what the U.S. did. They killed 165 little girls there and 185 people, you know. And now, you know, one of the things over here that we're talking about also is the Iranian girls' school, which military investigators believe was bombed by the US. It was bombed by the US. Like, it had a years-long presence, dozens of photos of the children and their activities.

Um, like, like, it was very well known that this was a school. I want to give you some more breaking news right now as well. Uh, French President Emmanuel Macron is now confirming that a French soldier was killed in Iraq tonight after a drone attack targeted a counter-ISIS deployment in the Erbil region. Remember how we said that there were 6 French soldiers who were injured in that attack? Well, one has now been pronounced dead, and French President Emmanuel Macron says it. I'll just, I'll just say anecdotally, sometimes I see in the comments, and I appreciate, you know, interacting live with the comments sometimes, but sometimes in the comments, like, well, what's the breaking news. Like, all of it. The whole show is a break. We start off every aspect of it's breaking news. Like, all the stuff that we talked about from the beginning until the end is quite literally news that is either breaking during the show or broke within 2 hours before the show. And sometimes I see comments that they're just like, what's breaking?

I mean, that, all of that, quite literally all of it. Can I let you know? Can I let you know really on, like, a lighter note? Out what I thought you were going to say because you were holding your glass. I've seen, I've seen 20 people at least say, Ben, please clean your glasses in tonight's episode. So I, on behalf of all of them who I see in the comments asking you to clean your glasses, it gets super foggy.

You know, they sprays and you do as many hot takes again.

Dude, my room, the hot— I like, well, I like that the hot—

remind me of the room that you're hot, like it gets muggy.

I'm just, I'm just relaying information because obviously if 20 people said it, it means like 2 million people are thinking it.

So, well, well, here's the— well, and going back to Ben's thing before, I, I think so many people that were just like burnt out by just the never-ending chaos on a daily basis. And so when it's like, you know, breaking news, like, what's the break— like, enough stories happen today that would be months-long controversies, scandals, articles, news stories in a previous time period. It's just the news cycle moves so fast right now that it feels like, oh, a war started. Oh, a tanker got bombed. Oh, this happened, the plane crashed. Like there's so many things that happen on a daily basis. I think people are just kind of numb to it. And that's to me one of the scary things honestly about kind of this Trump era. And I think it's by design of, you know, of Donald Trump.

The amount of stories, Brett, and also the amount of what would be like career-ending scandals, like from an administration, from—

it's like when Ben does the series, like, you know, Hell Breaks Loose, and people are like, where did the hell break loose? That's hyperbolic.

It's like, yes, the world's on fire. The United States government is actively lying and covering up how many troops are dead and injured. Like, that in itself is a career-ending career-ending cover-up that's actively occurring in front of our eyes. That's just one. And so when we go and Meg goes and reports on the stories after the stories— Ben, I give you all the credit in the world, man, for getting up and digging through the filings and digging through the receipts and grabbing the videos and just bringing it to the people in the way you do, because I just think it's so needed in a time when someone needs to just be easily to like pick up a phone and be like, wow, look at this, look at this right now. Because unless it's in your face, the way you're able to present it, Ben, to the audience, it's like so smart and so succinct.

It's in one ear and out the other for people. So I appreciate Ben's plethora of information.

I appreciate our plethora. You guys just know you made me sad with the dirty glasses.

I'm sorry. I didn't know it was going to upset you that much.

You're trying to— I mean, look, I was on a roll.

I wasn't trying to boost you. I thought you were holding up the— and by the way, I really mean everything that I just said, Benji.

It's okay, Jordy. We love you. I'm just joking. It's fine. It's fine. I still love you. Look, at the end of the day, we covered a lot.

This is how we tease each other.

And you're a visionary, Ben.

I mean, as a visionary, I went to the top.

Benji, it must be lonely at the top. It's got to be lonely at the top.

But very lonely at the top. And number one, it's got to be hard to be this smart, man. I beat Rogan, I beat Candace Owens.

And do I—

as a visionary, nobody says to me, around me, you number one, you beat Joe Rogan 5 weeks in a row. No one writes articles about me winning. Where can one person just write an article and say, Ben, you are number one on the YouTube charts, 5 weeks.

5 weeks in a row.

Everybody glazes everybody. 5 weeks, not one article. No, not one article about you. Nobody glazes anything that you do. Nobody cares. It's lonely at the top. It's too lonely at the top. I just want one person to say, that you do good work, but— Anyway, thank you, everybody. With all the crazy news, we have to be— We have to laugh, folks. We have to. All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for watching. We're grateful for you. We appreciate you. Hit subscribe. Help us get to 7 million subscribers. Let's get there soon. Become a member if you can. Join right now. Become a member. Go to our Substack, MidasPlus.com. Check that out. Go to store.midastouch.com and get the gear. Midas Touch gear. Give us some reviews.

Subscribe to the audio podcast. Yeah, that's everyone's homework right now. Apple Podcasts, go bring us back. They tried to silence us.

I'm not happy about it. It really upset me.

That one really upset me. Not happy.

And now I will go to the Kit Kat Club tonight.

Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our Substack at midasplus.com.

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