Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 9/4/26 New

We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. As you know, Donald Trump escalated the catastrophic war in Iran a few days back. Iran responded by striking back hard, hitting US military bases in the neighboring Arab nations. Thereafter, Donald Trump huffed and puffed and said, we're going to go after you. But as of this recording, Donald Trump has gone silent. We also learned that the Trump regime attacked a wedding in southern Iran in Sirak, killing 5 and injuring This adds to the long list of Trump regime war crimes in this catastrophic war against Iran and elsewhere during the horrific regime's reign. We'll talk about that. In addition, nobody on the MAGA Republican side, even some of the most ardent MAGA Republicans, want to attend Donald Trump's so-called Trumpapalooza midterm convention on September 9th and 10th in Dallas, Texas. It's like a parade of excuses from these MAGA Republicans who don't want to be on stage next to him. And they're each like, I can't do this. I got my kid's football game. I gotta go to this. I gotta do that. I'm gonna actually be doing this. I'm going away on a vacation.

They're each making up excuses because they know that Donald Trump has the lowest approval in modern presidential history. We'll talk about what's going on there. This is why Donald Trump wants to, of course, cheat for the midterms. Donald Trump's biggest cheating effort is in the form of having the United States Postal Service change barcodes on ballots. based on a Trump voting list that Trump says, here are the people who are authorized to vote and to empower the Postal Service to destroy tens of thousands of ballots at a time if a single ballot doesn't match Trump's list. This is part of the rulemaking the Trump regime tried to push through. Trump filed an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court, trying to jump over even the circuit court to get the Supreme Court to approve of his his Election Day scheme, which is to create chaos and then say, ah, all of the ballots got lost, so I guess the election doesn't count. Take it very, very seriously what he's doing. We'll cover the latest filing moments ago that was made by Trump before the Supreme Court. MAGA Mike Johnson has now announced that he's going to be shutting down the House of Representatives yet again soon.

In about a week, they will go into recess again, and then they will all go home, and then they won't return to work until after the midterms. MAGA Mike previously promised that they were gonna be here all throughout September. You know, Thomas Massie, the former— the Republican Congress member, soon to be former Republican Congress member, said, no, I know that MAGA Mike's going to send us all home because he wants to cover up the Epstein files in my discharge petition. So that's one of the main reasons he's gonna send us home, 'cause this new Epstein files petition is gaining steam. to empower the survivors to bring private causes of action against the Trump DOJ. And MAGA Mike's like, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to do that. What did MAGA Mike do today? He announced recess time. He's like, this was because we were so productive. We did so much work that we are— we're done. We finished all our work. All our work is finished. Amazing stuff. I mean, the only work you did was cover up child sex trafficking and cause Americans to suffer even more, make things far more expensive. sickos. And meanwhile, Donald Trump has spent the past 24 hours either whining and calling media that says the US is losing the war traitorous and treasonous, or he's attacking Spain, he's attacking Canada, he's attacking the UK, he's attacking all the United States' former allies while he continues to help Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un.

And it's very clear where Donald Trump is in all of this. He thinks that he's their bud. He thinks that he's their friend, but they are laughing in his face that Donald Trump has ripped to shreds the post-World War II architecture created by the United States. And, you know, Trump's that guy in the party who— he's with the party of Xi and Putin and Kim Jong-un. He thinks he's invited, but they're like, all right, who's this guy? All right, all right, you could stay over there, but can you get me some potato chips, please? Can you get me some pretzels? He's that guy, Brett. Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast. Brett, good to— good to see you. Crazy stuff going on in the world. A lot to cover.

Good to see you too, Ben. Jordy right now, don't be alarmed. It's not baby time yet. It could be, but it's— but it's not yet. Jordy stormed out. There's a little like a storm where Jordy is and his power was completely knocked out. And so maybe he'll pop in, maybe not. But, you know, we'll send Jordy our regards and we're still on baby watch any minute now. Any minute now, man. Donald Trump, this entire Republican Party, I mean, just How pathetic. All these people are such weasels, just the way that they lie as easily as they breathe. It is just such a disgrace watching MAGA Mike. And I rewatched the clip because I did a report on our Instagram a couple days ago when Thomas Massie sounded the alarm and he said, I'm hearing rumors. I'm hearing rumors that MAGA Mike— he doesn't call him MAGA Mike, but I'm hearing rumors that Mike Johnson is going to send the Congress home, gonna send the House home because he does not wanna be forced to vote on a new discharge petition. for this new Epstein Files Transparency Act. And Mike Johnson was cornered, out of all people, Mike Johnson cornered by the woman who does the news.

I use that term very loosely for Lindell TV. Mike Lindell, the pillow guy who got just totally destroyed in his election, Lindell TV. And she asked him, is this true? MAGA Mike said, no, no, that's not true.

That's, that's so stupid. He's stupid. He's stupid.

And that's nonsensical.

Stupid.

How could he possibly think that? Well, not 2 days later is that actually coming true with MAGA Mike sending people home. And it's just a pattern. And these people are so duplicitous. We see it with everybody. We obviously see it with Donald Trump every day. We see it with J.D. Vance when he gets up to that lectern and he just lies about everything. Oh, we're not even in a war, actually.

What war?

What war? While Donald Trump himself is calling it a war. We saw it with Howard Lutnick this week where he was like, you know, the data centers. They don't even use water. They don't even use a little bit of water. And you go back to what he was saying, I don't know, a year ago with the same guy. These things suck up water like you've never seen. It's like, how could these— how could you be so shameless? Like, don't these people just feel like dirty and slimy? Because I feel dirty and slimy just looking at them. We're going to cover it all. Lots of news today. Ben, where do you want to start?

Lutnick also said there has been no American service members who died in the war. And then Donald Trump's like, oh, he was talking about Venezuela, wasn't talking about the Iran war. It's like, okay, just stop. Just, just stop. I mean, every day with these people, it's lie after lie. Talking about MAGA Mike Johnson there for a moment, Brett, let's take a look at a couple of days ago where MAGA Mike Johnson mocked Thomas Massie for suggesting House leadership could keep Congress out to avoid the new Epstein Files Transparency Act discharge petition. calling the idea stupid and nonsensical.

Let's play.

Mr.

Speaker, Thomas Massie is now alleging that you are going to hold the House in recess until after the midterm elections due to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. So let me tell you how stupid Thomas Massie's comment is.

If he would come to our House Republican conference meetings as we had this morning, he would have heard me say privately, as I've said publicly, Republicans are here to work. We have a schedule, a calendar that's been out for a year.

We are abiding by that calendar.

I, I, we are going to work all the way through September and every day that's on the calendar so long as people like him don't stop the progress. So that is a nonsensical statement by someone who is not participating as a full member of the, of the Congress, and it's really sad that he doesn't. And then we have a team on Capitol Hill at the Midas Touch Network, and Pablo Manriquez, Pablo Reports, asked MAGA Republican Congressmember Van Orden, so what are you paying more for now That you were 2 years ago than you were 2 years ago. A question on the fact that Americans are suffering right now with things being way more expensive as a result of Trump's trade war against the world, his tariffs everywhere, and as a result of Donald Trump's catastrophic war in Iran and his other reckless and malicious policies. I want you to watch what this MAGA Congress member says to Midas Touch host Pablo Manriquez. Congressman, real quick before you guys go out. Yes.

What are you paying more for right now than you were 2 years ago?

Patience, so I can deal with your stupid questions. Really? I don't think it was that stupid of a question. American people are suffering right now with a cost of living crisis. Things are far more expensive, and that's what they just think. They think the American people are stupid. Well, what about when Pablo Monriquez asked MAGA Republican Congressmember Troy Nells if he wants to sign on to the new Epstein Files Transparency Act. And we know that this is a major reason why the MAGA Republicans are shutting down the House yet again and sending it into recess, as they did before, where they literally shut down the government over the Epstein Transparency Act before at Donald Trump's orders. Watch what Nell says.

Let's play it.

Mr. Nell, real quick, do you think you'll sign on to the second Epstein?

You what?

Do you think you'll be signing on to the second Epstein The Epstein stuff is over with.

It's over with.

I think that, listen, the DOJ, everybody's getting to the bottom of it. We need to focus on other things. And everybody wants to bring Epstein up. The Democrats want to bring Epstein up. Some of the anti-Trumpers want to bring Epstein up because we're, what, 2 months away from a general election. So Epstein, let's just— we got other things to focus on. They declared it, Brett. The Epstein stuff is done. He says it's all good. The DOJ is handling it.

Right. We're done with this.

It's over. We're done with this.

We're done with this guy. Meanwhile, today we had, uh, Leon Black, billionaire, uh, who used to run Apollo Global Management. Leon Black, uh, had to step down from his role as CEO of Apollo Global Management when the Epstein files were released. His close confidant of Donald Trump, was very close with Jeffrey Epstein, paid Jeffrey Epstein more than $156 million in the span of just 6 years. Some folks say that he spent upwards of $180 million, uh, paying that to Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein. Some people, some folks saying even more than that when you actually parse all the numbers. But Leon Black, he was supposed to be— he was scheduled this morning for a deposition before the House Oversight Committee, did not show up.

No-show.

And not only did he not show up, but he then decided to sue the House Oversight Committee, calling it a fishing expedition and saying that he would refuse to answer questions. So now you have Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and you have other folks on the House Oversight Committee calling for Leon Black to be held in contempt. So this Epstein story is not going away. It continues to escalate, and the people who are most closely connected to it are still evading responsibility at every turn.

And it's important that we cover it, one, because it's sick and disgusting that our government at the highest levels is the Epstein cabal. The people who accused others of being the cabal. They are the cabal. They are the Epstein class. On its own terms, it is depraved to have a government led by people who are covering up, like, pretty obviously a child sex trafficking ring. Like, they're there, they're doing it. It's obvious to every American who cares about this issue or who cares about people that our government's covering up a child sex trafficking ring. And it's also one of the main reasons that Donald Trump got involved in this catastrophic war in Iran. It was to distract from the Epstein files. And that's one of the main reasons he started this war with Netanyahu. And when Netanyahu saw Donald Trump flailing— and by the way, I mean, Donald Trump has his own agency. He's a sicko war criminal who needs to be tried at The Hague. But, you know, Netanyahu has been trying to convince president after president to do this, and no one else did it. But Donald Trump was out there flailing over Epstein, and Netanyahu was like, let's do it.

We're going to do it no matter what. We're going in, Donald. It was the same thing that Netanyahu tried to pull with Biden and with Obama and with others. And, and, and Trump said, all right, I'm going in with you. And then they slaughtered little girls in Manab and Lemaire. And just the other day, the Trump regime slaughtered people at the wedding in Sirak, killing 5, injuring 74, 75. A few weeks back, they killed a family at a private residence in Keshem, a bunch of sicko war criminals right over there. But okay, well, we'll We'll talk about other issues that are occurring right now that the American people are suffering from. The price of crude right now nearing about to hit $100 a barrel, both Brent and WTI, both very high. The spot price of diesel, if you were to buy diesel from the refineries, sold like, you know, how it's actually purchased, not the paper crude price. Right. You have to sell the crude. The crude is then refined. The crude then is refined into gas. It's refined into diesel and jet fuel and all of these other things. It's called the 3-to-1— 3-to-1 crack spread is the delta between the price of the crude and the price of, say, you know, the diesel, for example.

And that's record highs. But the price of diesel right now, spot price, $255 a barrel. So when Trump's like, it could have been $255, $300 a barrel, it is. It is. That's what— That's what the price of diesel is, which is used in freight and farms and all— and so much agriculture and business generally uses diesel. And that also adds to inflation surging right now. But I wonder, with all these farm bankruptcies taking place, with Donald Trump undercutting our ranchers by saying he's getting this mystery frozen meat from foreign countries that are going to undercut our ranchers by 25%, and all this market manipulation stuff, Brooke Rollins, Agriculture Secretary, What do you think about what should we be talking about right now? What's your plan, Brooke, in order to actually make things more affordable? Here, play this clip. That no one has fought harder for these ranchers than has President Trump. I want to talk just for a second about what a President Kamala Harris would have looked like for farmers and ranchers. Ranchers would have been imprisoned. Just ask Heather and Charles Mott of South Dakota over things like fence line and Pivots. There was a massive push under the last administration to eat less meat.

Could you imagine?

Don't stop eating meat. There was a massive push under the Democrats to eat fake meat and lab-grown meat. They were working to regulate under Waters of the USA every pothole, every ditch on every American farm and ranch in America. You, you contrast that to President Trump and this administration opening up 5 million grazing lands, opening up the markets around the world, Japan, UK, Australia. Australia. Amazing new trade opportunities, not just for ranchers, but for all Americans. See, they're all con artists. Like, they're all just— every one of them.

It's, it's really, it's truly psychopathic. That's why, like, when it comes to covering these people, that's why you can't equivocate. And you can't be like, well, she has some points there. Do you want to address those points? Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle. Like, these people are just like the gaslighters of the highest order. They are just complete and total, to borrow a word from Donald Trump, Trump scum. And it's— this is their new tactic. They create these fictional worlds to try to distract from the problems that they created. So the entire world is in turmoil. We're at war. Farmers are getting absolutely crushed. It's like, well, Kamala Harris would have killed you if you let her in, so you should be happy with your scraps right now. You know, that's what they do with every situation, right? With the energy prices, we keep seeing what's like the horrific messaging that we're seeing from Donald Trump and JD Vance. Well, it could be a lot higher if Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were there. Your prices would be much higher. I mean, this is the con game that they're playing. Anybody who's falling for this right now, I mean, it's kind of on you at this point.

Then you had James Comer, good old James Comer. He was House Oversight Committee chair. Surely, James Comer, you're going to be going to Trumpapalooza, the midterm convention, September 9th and September 10th. I get that some of these MAGAs in competitive districts aren't going to be going. But you're the chair of the House Oversight Committee from Kentucky. This should be relatively safe for you. Aren't you going to be there? The first ever midterm convention for Republican congressmembers. You're the chair of the House Oversight, so you're going to show up, right? Listen to what he says. Next week, Congressman, the midterm convention in Dallas is being called Trumpapalooza. But it comes as President Trump's approval rating is underwater and at least 45 Republican lawmakers have told Politico they're gonna skip it. Will you be there? I had stuff already planned in my congressional district or I would be there, but got a lot going on back in Kentucky.

So my time's needed there.

Okay. What about—

These people are avoiding him like the plague. I wonder if like Trump, probably not, cuz it's all about himself anyway. I wonder if he regrets setting up this whole kind of, you know, midterm convention, which hasn't really been done before. And I gotta say, like, the DNC, they get a lot of crap. They were very smart for not trying to, like, do their own convention to compete with this ridiculous convention. Just let Donald Trump have his ridiculous Trumpapalooza, have all the Republicans run away. The whole thing is embarrassing. All they're doing is reminding voters of all the chaos of Donald Trump. And, you know, everything in there is going to be about Trump. I mean, I saw his first ad that he released. Trump has $400 million in his PAC that he virtually controls, this MAGA Inc PAC. And you would expect now with under 60 days until the midterms that you'd be unleashing some of that war chest on ads, on supporting candidates. Donald Trump's MAGA PAC has cut one ad so far, which I saw yesterday, and it's all about Donald Trump. Doesn't even mention anything else, just how amazing Donald Trump is.

So like their midterm strategy right now, I don't even know what it is, uh, but they're in complete and total shambles. And you actually see even people high up in this party not wanting anything to do with Donald Trump and going for any excuse to get out of this event.

Well, look, James Comer was asked in that same interview by NewsNation, hey, Trump's MAGA Inc. has only spent $21 million since 2025, and a lot of that has been on stuff for Trump, not for like candidates. And then there was, I think, a little bit of a spend for Darlene Graham in a primary, but not actually for Republicans in the midterms itself. And so James Comer was asked, so what do you think about that? And James Comer's like, well, I sure hope he spent some of that money because a lot of that money we could have raised ourselves, but people wanted to give it to Donald Trump and not to us. So he hoarded it for himself. So we hope he's going to be spending it. Watch what Kohlmer says. Let's play it. Republican lawmakers and donors alike are calling on President Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC to unleash its $400 million war chest ahead of these elections. According to finance, you know, campaign finance documents, only $21 million has been spent since January of 2025. Why don't you think more has been spent at this point, sir? I don't know, but I, I can verify that, uh, a lot of members of the House are hoping that that money is put to good use.

So we're going to need every penny of it. That's a large amount of money.

A lot of our donors have donated to that.

A lot of the individual members' online donations are down because more of the small-dollar donors have gravitated towards that MAGA That's a lot of money. Yeah. And did you see also that like countries— and we saw a lot of European countries do this as well, but like Netherlands, I saw France did this, you know, somewhat quietly a few months back— but Netherlands removed their gold that's in the United States and they moved it to the UK because they're like, we can't keep gold around, he's going to steal our gold. So billions of dollars worth of gold that was stored in the United States States. And they cited the geopolitical tensions and Trump threatening trade wars against Canada to remove their gold. I just want you to think about that, because they're like, he's gonna, he's gonna steal our gold. And they're probably right.

Well, I sure hope that Donald Trump doesn't take our money. I mean, our voters, you know, they gave that money to Donald Trump thinking that he was a good actor, and that he would be giving it to all of us for the election. Surely Donald Trump would never do something like that when he's got $400 million in a bank account. The whole thing, it's like, what the hell do you think was gonna happen? What did you think was going to happen here? The guy is a con man. And the more you kind of watch this, the more I'm kind of seeing the makings of, you know, that Lindsey Graham tweet that he said, you know, Trump will destroy the Republican Party. I think that will posthumously, uh, come true at some point because you see that Trump does not give a crap about this party. You even see it in what he's saying about the midterms right now. You have Trump going out, on the one hand he's hedging, so he's saying like, you know, I'm not on the ballot. So, you know, if, uh, if they lose the midterms, listen, they love Trump. They love me.

They love Trump. I'm the greatest. I'm the greatest. It's them that they don't like, the Republicans. Throwing the Republican Party under the bus. At the same time, you also have Trump contradicting himself and saying the opposite. You have Trump and his surrogates going out there and saying, I want you, when you're in that booth, to imagine that Donald Trump's name is on that ballot. Which is also something the Republicans absolutely don't want people imagining as people are being crushed in every direction this regime.

Yeah, look, former senator— still senator, but he'll be the former senator soon— John Cornyn of Texas also posting Donald Trump has $403 million in his MAGA Inc. PAC. And, you know, they're out there saying, look, I mean, his point is you put Paxton as our candidate right now who looks like the worst candidate like ever. And okay, you, you took me out. I was gonna be, you know, look, We don't like Cornyn, but he probably would have won reelection. I mean, he's a popular guy in Texas, whereas Paxton's completely despised, you know, by most people. And Talarico is a likable guy despite all the weird stuff that Trump and MAGA says about him. The newest crazy one that Trump— I didn't want to play it, but Trump's like, Talarico is Tala Creepo. He eats meat, but then he hates it. So then he goes outside and he vomits it on himself. And I'm like, I'm like, what are you talking about? Trump literally said that at an event and he vomits the meat up on himself. I'm like, you're sick. You think these things like in your mind. But the point from Corden is, okay, you break it, you pay for it.

This is what you want. You should be spending $100 million in Texas because Tallulah Rico's got like $100 million that he's raised. And, and so really, you're going to, you're going to meddle with this and then you're not going to put money for Paxton. And then Trump's comment about Paxton. Did you hear what Trump said about Paxton?

Glowing review.

He's like, Ken, a lot of people say that you look horrible, that your clothes are awful, that you speak bad, that you don't have friends, that people don't like being around you, but you've helped me. So let's vote Ken. That's literally what a lot of people say to you.

You smell like crap. You're ugly. You're unlikable. People hate you.

All right. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, our book, WTF America, America is available for preorder right now. It comes out October 20th, but please get your preorder. WTF America right now. It's helpful if you preorder versus wait until October. Lots of momentum around this book. We want to keep it going. And let me know after you read it in October what you think about it. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Let's take our first break of the show. Oh, reminder, YouTube Viewers, subscribe to Midas Touch on audio. Search Midas Touch Audio. Subscribe there. Audio listeners, subscribe.

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Welcome back. That's usually the Jordy role.

I know, I, you know, I was thinking the whole time, you know, I was in my head too. I was like, am I gonna do this when we get back? Is Ben gonna do it when we get back? We're gonna know.

We both were, uh, whatever.

To our sponsors, for those, uh, just tuning in, uh, Jordy is not, uh, on, uh, dealing with the baby situation right now, for a lot of those asking, but he's in the midst of a storm on the East Coast and it's knocked out his power. Could also— the baby thing could happen at the same time too, who knows? We haven't heard from him because the power's been out at his place. But thanks to our sponsors, uh, Jordy does— gets great deals for you all for the sponsors. Links are in the description of the podcast. Check them out, let them know you support the show. Ben, that JD Vance press conference, what the heck? Or should I say WTF was that?

WTF. Well, look, it follows the escalation started by Trump yet again against Iran. Trump attacks the coastal cities of Iran. The US targets a wedding in Sirik in southern Iran. That's an area in southern Iran. There was, I guess, a telecommunications tower nearby, which I still don't make— still don't think that made the telecommunications tower a military target. But it was near a residential facility, as you a residential area. As you know, the Trump regime, through Pete Hegseth and others, cut back on all of their programs to protect against civilian deaths in war. They gutted those programs in the military. And the Trump regime used a SLAM-ER, it's called, missile, which are very precise missiles too. And they targeted not the telecommunications tower, maybe the telecommunications tower was part of it, but they targeted the residential area. and they killed a lot of innocent people. At least 5 were killed in the wedding, 75 were injured. Lots of people were brought to that Manab Hospital, which already dealt with the trauma of the other war crime where the Trump regime slaughtered 168 little girls in Manab. Then of course, early in the war, the Trump regime slaughtered 17 children at a sports hall in Lemaire, little girls in volleyball practice.

Later on, the Trump regime killed the family in Qeshm using a massive, massive ordnance to just kill this family that was there. Early in the war too, the Trump regime used a submarine to attack a defenseless Iranian naval ship, the Dena, which was leaving an Indian parade that the US was also invited to as well. As part of taking part in the parade, you had to remove all of your weapons and prove to India that you didn't have weapons. But the US had a submarine hit this, uh, IRIS Dena Navy ship. And then when the Iranian Navy people were drowning in the water, uh, the Trump regime got an order from Hegseth and Trump to show no quarter and to make sure everybody drowned to death. The Sri Lankan Navy was able to save some of the Iranian naval officers who were— and sailors who were in the water drowning. But a lot of people died in that incident. There have been numerous other war crimes, but the latest was in Sirik. So the Trump regime attacks, then Donald Trump posts basically, do not retaliate or respond or else we will destroy your civilization, or words to that effect.

Iran immediately responded, striking military bases in Jordan and and Kuwait and UAE and Iraq and Bahrain. And then last night, Iran also struck U.S. bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, notably 2 in— I believe it was in Kuwait. It seems that Iran struck a condo area that it was targeting of a military officer. Also, we're getting no word from CENTCOM, about if there were casualties or what the consequence was. The silence from CENTCOM following those strikes is certainly noticeable. The US did not right away engage in strikes against Iran. And also, I mean, from the satellite images, Iran really hit some of these bases hard. They hit a new base In Jordan, Camp Titan, which Iran claims that their surveillance showed was being reconstituted as a logistical facility since the Bahrain facility was destroyed, which was the main logistical hub. So then we had to make a logistical hub in Diego Garcia, which is far away from the Arabian Sea where our aircraft carriers are, which is why these aircraft carriers aren't getting the food and supplies and uh, the kind of basic necessities that they need. If you look at the photos, I mean, Camp Titan was ripped to shreds by these Iranian strikes, and some of these other bases look like they were hit pretty hard.

But no word from CENTCOM. Like, CENTCOM lies about everything now that Admiral Brad Cooper has demonstrated himself to be a real clown. I know top people in the military who are so disappointed in this guy because he used to be a somewhat serious guy, but I put an emphasis him, used to be a somewhat serious guy. And so that's kind of where we're at right now. I wanted to frame kind of what has occurred in the past few days. Also, Iran struck some more MQ-9 Reaper drones, $30 million each. They've already hit like 35 to 40 MQ-9 Reapers since the war began. And also Iran was able to strike multiple other tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran claims that mines hit these tankers. And then we get confirmation, usually late, from that UKMTO organization about these, uh, tankers being hit. But CENTCOM never tells the truth about it. And then UKMTO is usually 48 hours— they used to be the moment it happened. Now it's like 3 days behind. And Iran has usually been accurate when it says it hits a tanker. It ends up turning out they hit a tanker.

Yeah. And CENTCOM's communication has just been abysmal by design. And even when they do post, it just, it just lies. Like the they'll be like, fact check, the United States attacked, you know, X, Y, and Z. And they'll say false, the United States did defensive strikes. It's like, okay, so you attack them. So you attack them. That's not, that's not false. You're putting your own spin on what the attacks were. And it's honestly just disturbing. And shame on everybody over at CENTCOM. And, you know, anybody who is going along with these lies and gaslighting people, especially while Donald Trump is having you commit these horrific war crimes. If you looked at the missile manufacturer's website of those weapons that hit this wedding in Sirik, near Sirik, it specifically says one of the selling points is this is like the most accurate weapon, never misses its target, will always get exactly where you want it. So you could take with that what you will with the fact that they hit a wedding with this, killing innocent people, injuring a ton more people in this. And it's just war crime after war crime after war crime after war crime.

And we saw what they did with the last casualty numbers. So like, as of now, we don't know if there were casualties in the past few days with all these strikes because CENTCOM hasn't provided any updates whatsoever. And Iran has been claiming that there have been a lot of casualties. So right now, we don't have the data when it comes to this specific issue. But we can remember what CENTCOM did last time. They hid the casualty numbers and then they quietly updated the numbers of the injured on the website, uh, hoping that nobody would see it. And then they took them off, and then they said that those actually didn't count towards the war. So when we hear J.D. Vance speaking about this war— and yes, it is a war— um, it— I think the language that he is trying to use in saying that this isn't a war, I— it has a lot of other implications. Of course, congressional approval and all of that. But also, in my opinion, it's to hide the deaths because they're going to say, oh, well, these aren't aren't war deaths. These are just, you know, it happens when you're in the military.

Like, they're actively trying to cover up what is actually going on overseas.

And if you look at Manab, if you look at Lemaire, CENTCOM, Trump regime, they come out with statements. What do they say? Iran used the Tomahawk. Iran used this new pellet weapon that was used in the Lemaire one. And it's like, they shot their own people. They did it. And then it's like, okay, that, that's not true. And now everything you say is just like an, an utter lie. And what do they say here in Sirak? They were like, Iran shot their own people. It was like, we can see the Boeing markers. I mean, the SLAMMER weapon is Boeing. You can see it. New York Times, BBC verified it as well. Um, you— it's, it's very clear. It's like, it's like very clear it's an American weapon. And you know, when the Trump regime lies like this all the time about about this stuff. It's just like—

Same thing they did at the school.

They—

and Trump said at the end, I think it was one of their weapons, when they don't literally don't have those weapons. Uh, same thing that Israel's been doing with Gaza from the beginning. Oh, they bombed their own hospital, actually. And it's like, how many times could you just feed people these lies, uh, before you feel like a little like dirty and ashamed by it? I'm ashamed just as an American that my tax dollars are going towards these horrific war crimes. And I think everybody probably should feel some level of horror horror that that's what's happening with our tax dollars. But the fact that they just lie about this, Donald Trump constantly making up fake numbers about the Iranian protester deaths, all of these things that they're pushing out there is straight-up propaganda. And yes, Iran has their propaganda and it's extreme, their propaganda. We have our propaganda too. And a lot of people, I think, don't realize that the American people are so propagandized right now into believing things that simply aren't true, that aren't happening, they're being— these things are being hidden from the— from regular people. One of the top things I see as comments on your videos, Ben, is, I didn't see this on the nightly news.

I didn't see CNN report this. I didn't see XYZ report this. I can't believe this is going on. And I think that's by design. There's sort of like a blackout, and there's so much happening at any one time that they don't know, uh, you know, kind of what to cover or how to cover it. And then what they end up doing is they will just show the comments made by Donald Trump or J.D. Vance lying about it without giving the proper context of the bombings that have occurred, the war crimes committed, the true atrocities that are kind of— that are underway right now by our own government. They kind of hide that to the side and let the regime speak for themselves, and that's a problem.

Look, all countries have propaganda. I think though a distinction is most countries' propaganda is propaganda in the national interest, right? Trump's propaganda is in the Trump interest, individually Trump, right? Regardless of if it undermines the American interest. So the propaganda doesn't even work to help America. You know, like, that's the difference. Like, you can go lots of different countries, but we'll talk here about the Iranian propaganda. propaganda is still propaganda to bring people of Iran together and to rally people and to try to bring solidarity and resistance. But it's done in a national interest. For Trump, it's like Trump, Trump, and it harms the United States. I think as a general organizing principle as well, the thing is, is that we've never really before in the United States history. We've had bad presidents before, but never have we really had someone who doesn't do the job for a national benefit, for a national interest. For Trump, the concept of nation, of national interest, of doing things for the country, that's so foreign from him. It's all about Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And so when you have a loser brand already, The Trump loser brand against nations, the national interest of Canada, the national interest of Iran, the national interest of Cuba, the national interest of you name whatever country it is, of Denmark and Greenland, the national interest united, people united against Trump wanting to extract and take things For himself when Trump is actually working counter to the American interest.

Our national interest here, if Trump cared about our national interests, is get the hell out of Iran. Nobody wants you there, literally, other than the small group of neocon warmongers with outside influence. Nobody wants us in this catastrophic war in Iran. And I can give you the control versus variable group right here, because the moment Trump signed an MOU, where objectively the MOU was a surrender document and United States lost. Trump was in a way rewarded for it by just getting us out.

Right.

Prices started going down. He had a very, very slight uptick in the rapidly sinking numbers that he had, you know, and he was getting rewarded for, for being the arsonist, which wasn't a good thing. But Americans wanted out of it. And he couldn't help himself. He needed to get back in because he's a psycho and it's all about him and his ego and him and everything is just him, him, him. So he brought us back in. You talk about Canada. No American wants this trade war against Canada. We love Canada. We like Canada. The things that he says are so bizarre about Canada and so dangerous. No one feels this way at all in the United States except Trump and his weirdo cabinet who are like, yeah, they've been treating us so bad. No one in America is like, you know who's treated us badly? Canada. But for Trump, it's about him, not the national interest of the United States. And someone like Prime Minister Carney acts in the national interest of Canada, of their sovereignty. And that concept to Trump— sovereignty, national interest, people in— he doesn't— it's not something that registers because for him, It's take, take, take for Donald, for Donald, not for America, for Donald.

And that drives Trump crazy. And that's why he always says, oh, Canada is being so disrespectful. Like, he just expects people to fold to him at all times. He legitimately doesn't know what to do when people actually stand up to him, whether that's Canada, whether that's Iran, whether that's Greenland. I mean, you name it. Trump is a sitting duck when that happens. All he could do is threaten and bluster and use AI to change names on maps and do whatever weird stuff that he does. Now, we're circling back to a few months ago into stories that we also saw a while back where the Wall Street Journal has been reporting that Donald Trump is now considering basically quiet quitting the Iran War. Donald Trump basically thinking, you know what? Maybe I just leave. Maybe I just go and I hope that like a miracle, everything will fix itself and we'll just get out and we'll just pretend it's like the Seinfeld episode. uh, with George Costanza where he, uh, just, you know, quits and, uh, says, what do you mean? Like, I've been here the whole time. Uh, it's insane. And but you know what, in a weird way, like, I prefer that.

Like, like, I don't want to be there. I don't think we should be there. Get the hell out.

And whatever you want to—

whatever you want to call it, want to call it a win, I don't care. If you want to surrender and leave, goodbye me. We should not be in this illegal war. No more of this imperialist ridiculous behavior. I think it's really opened a lot of people's eyes to what Trump and the United States is doing overseas when we do these wars. As we said before, he's really united the Iranian people in a way that we haven't seen in a long time against the US. He's also pissed off all of our closest allies in the region and pissed off all of our closest allies in our region, in North America. Pissed off Canada. He's pissed off every country. He's pissed off the UK. He's threatening Spain.

He's threatening—

threatening everybody. So at this point, you look at the map, you're like, who are your friends even? You have Donald Trump cozying up to people like Kim Jong-un, but Kim Jong-un does not feel the same way about Donald Trump. He's happy to be building his nuclear weapons and, and doing all that to be left alone by Trump, but I'm sure he doesn't have the same level of affection for him. Vladimir Putin— Donald Trump keeps saying, oh, I trust Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin promised me that he was going to help me with Ukraine. And then everything that Vladimir Putin actually does is against Ukraine, against the United States. And so this is a guy who is both simultaneously presenting this false bravado, is backing all these dictators and authoritarians, but while all that is happening, all these people are taking either just like completely humiliating him on the global stage, or they're taking action that is generational in its destruction to the US because of Donald Trump. Canada taking taking billions and billions and billions of dollars out of the United States economy. There was a report today that something like 6.5% of exports no longer going, uh, to the United States, or imports no longer coming from the United States.

Canada is looking elsewhere. They're, they're buying products from overseas, which— and those have spiked their imports from other countries, but they're not buying American anymore. That's going to be something that really sticks with you, especially as the parts that they're using in their manufacturing and stuff Because all these other aspects are coming from other places and not the United States. They're getting rid of their dependence on the US. That's going to have long-term ramifications that extend far beyond the Trump regime.

Yeah, and that's why we focus a lot on international developments. And while someone like a Darlene Graham will say, we don't care about Taiwan in here, we know the average voter doesn't care about Taiwan. Well, the international developments are the reason why someone in South Carolina or North Dakota or Alaska or Idaho or Iowa or Texas or New York or Maine or Florida or any of the 50 states, why there is higher prices, why this is all connected. And rather than And brag about ignorance at a leadership level, you should read up and be knowledgeable. We should understand what took place at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Kyrgyzstan. We should know where Kyrgyzstan is on a map. We should know about the city of Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting took place. We should know that Xi Jinping took a trip after the Bishkek Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting to Egypt to meet with El-Sisi, the president there, where Xi Jinping announced publicly a new security architecture in the Middle East rooted in Middle East countries asserting their sovereignty. The clear implied subtext here being with the United States security umbrella destroyed with China as an ally, not a protector or guarantor, but as a major ally to help sovereign Middle East nations fight back against the United States.

We should know what happened in the G20 finance meeting where Treasury Secretary Bessent invited the Russian finance minister to Asheville, North Carolina this past week. At the same time, Russia's President Putin, Russia's leader Putin met with the president of Iran in Bishkek and talked about economic cooperation, especially in the areas of nuclear capabilities. They're saying it out loud. In Iran, while Xi Jinping met with Putin at that Bishkek as well, while Iran was viewed heroically at the Shanghai Cooperation, Iran getting far more respect. And, you know, like when, you know, someone who you didn't expect to like beat up the bully, you know, shows up and everybody's like clapping for that person. That's Iran right now. Iran shows up and Iran gets standing ovations and they get treated with levels of respect and treatment that they never had before. I'm not— I'm just telling you what's happening.

This—

I'm not debating you. Like, you know, oh no, that's, that's what happened. Go watch for yourself what happened in Bishkek. Watch what happened in the NOBAD Games afterwards. Watch what's going to happen at the BRICS meeting in New Delhi that's about to be coming up. And then we have our idiots here in our stupid cabinet with Bessent and these people. Our meeting with Russia was very good. You know, they may not be fully aligned with us when it comes to Iran, but— Well, then you threatened economic D-Day 2 weeks ago, Bessent. the words you used were D-Day, economic D-Day, that you would annihilate countries that had economic relationships with Iran. All these countries not only have economic relationship with Iran, they just did a conference where they bragged about it. And what does Bessent do? Invites the Russian finance minister to North Carolina and treats this guy way better than he treats the finance ministers and people from Canada and and, and our— and other NATO allies. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. Don't hold it against me that I didn't show you JD Vance clips. I— you really want to hear JD Vance?

I— maybe I'll show you a JD Vance clip or two just to confirm the craziness when we come back. But, um, reminder, WTF America, pre-order it right now. It's the book I wrote with my brothers. And in addition to WTF America, pre-order it now, subscribe to this YouTube channel And subscribe to The Midas Touch on audio. Put in the chat if you've ordered WTF America already, and, uh, let me know if you— did you get it as a gift for somebody? Also, let's take our last quick break of the show. We will be right back.

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Hey, hey, hey everybody!

Is that what Jordy does? Is that Jordy?

Hey everybody, Jordy here! Jordy here!

Thanks to our sponsors.

I want to remind everybody, the sponsors are great. Check them out. I spend a long time negotiating all of those great discount codes.

I think you got to— I think you got to stick to your Lutnick impression. I'm not sure the Jordy one's refined just yet.

I'll do my— I'll do my Lutnick impression. It's very— it hurts my throat, the Lutnick impression.

It is. Yeah, it's hard.

So Donald Trump's tantrum this morning. This— just think about like, this is supposed to be the president of the United States. Joker clown. For the treasonous scum that refuses to accurately report on our military operation in Iran. We have virtually unlimited amounts of mid to high-grade ammunition. What does that mean, virtually unlimited amounts? And what a stupid thing to say.

Or about—

how about this one? The people in media outlets that keep harping— You're going to use the word harping?

Really?

Of all words to pick, harping? Okay. Natalie Hart. The people in media outlets that keep harping on the fact that we have no ammunition and they are 100% wrong are actually treasonous. Sinus. It's the other one, Brett, with a smaller, shorter one. And then he posts— there it is, that's where he says harping. Then he posts this graph, like, as though, like, we've, we've replaced actual graphs and charts that convey meaning to whatever this is. Hormuz oil volumes are back. A photo of the Strait of Hormuz in an AI cartoon form, a barrel of oil An AI that appears to be sprouting out some oil, then a bar that says— from like a bar chart that says 20 million barrels per day, and then another one says before— that says before, and the new one says 18 million barrels per day now. Okay, well, we're not getting 18 million barrels a day. You know, the salt caverns in Texas are so low. This is a real issue. They can collapse like it's an actual salt— it's a cavern. And if it gets low and it dries up the way it did and it's so low and it doesn't have the, you know, the right amount filled up to where it normally is, it can literally, based on the pressure that it's used to, where like it could collapse in on itself.

And that's—

It sounds like what Trump was saying about Iran and the place.

Trump was saying in April, right, is exactly what Remember what Trump said in April, that they were— just think about this, folks. I mean, how ridiculous this is. In April, you all remember the line? It was like late April, mid to late April. Trump was like— late April, it was like Trump was like, Iran has 3 days left. Left to what? Left to exist. How? Explain it to me. The blockade is so successful, he said in April, that in 3 days the pressure was going to build up in the pipes, whatever that means. that it would explode and all of Iran would explode and be destroyed. We're like, I don't think it works that way. And then after 3 days of Barak Ravid posting about it at Axios and all of that, they just move on to the next one. I guess what are you talking about? It's going to blow up. But it's the same thing that— just think about it. In 3 days, it's going to blow up. What does that remind you of? COVID right? It's the 3 cases. That's it. It's going to go away by Easter. We'll bend the curve.

By summer, it'll get too hot. It'll kill it. Inject yourself with bleach. He's never going to end this catastrophic war in Iran. Brett, to your point, I hope we get out. The sick, the sick thing about the MOU, like, and just shows you still, like, we've got real issues as a country, is that we should have signed the MOU. It was the right move. But Trump was actually being, like, rewarded for it. Like, most people are like, good move. Like, yeah, like, okay. Okay, we're out of that. Okay. Like, people ignored— like the same way people, like, just erased COVID from their mind too.

And they were like, oh, whatever.

Okay, Biden. Like, they were going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt again.

Also, I'll give you this comparison right here, right? Say tomorrow, miraculously, there's a decree. The Strait of Hormuz is now fully open and it's legit, fully open transit. The media would hail the guy like a hero. They would go, he did it.

He did.

I'm like, what did he do? Restored things to the way they were before this all happened. That's what we're— that's what we're heaping praise on this guy for. And that is what they do. They like—

they—

the markets do it. The news media does it. They're always praising the guy for fixing his own problems. And most of the time he doesn't even fix his own problems. He just destroys and destroys and destroys. And by the way, You want to know the one way, one simple way that you know that this idea that all of a sudden all this oil is flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, you know how it's BS and how it's BS when Donald Trump said, I got all this oil from Venezuela and the prices are about to come down fast. They're going to come down very quickly. You're going to see it soon. Gas prices down, oil prices down. Well, if that's the case, then why is Brent crude up, up, up, up, up, nearing $100 a barrel? Why did diesel today Hit an all-time high, all-time high US average for diesel. And by me here in California, it is even way more expensive than the all-time average that it says there. And diesel, because it's used in trucks and things like that, that flows through the entire economy. That's going to contribute to additional inflation in everything we buy because it's going to control everything that's transported.

And this trickle effect is going to continue. That's why you see the Fed right now. being so wary. And you see even Donald Trump's pick, Warsh, over at the Fed implying— and he's not giving these forward-looking analyses that they've normally done historically in the Fed, but he read between the lines. He's basically saying we got to get this under control, it's very bad, and we may have to raise rates. And I think that's been, you know, what people have kind of thought throughout this process. When you look at that 10-year yield, which continues to rise every single day. I think that right there, I think that's what's really freaking Donald Trump out. I think that's what's freaking Scott Bessant out. They put on this bravado, right, when they're in front of the cameras or on, on social media or whatever. But I can assure you, these people are panicking behind the scenes. And I think that's why that story leaked about Trump saying that he was thinking of just quiet quitting this war, because he's seeing the signs right now and everything, just like the data. Right. I don't know about how the data ends up getting reflected in reality right now.

But when you look at the data and you add up the yields and everything else, it's bad. It looks very, very bad, uh, for everything. And, you know, I— but Bessent's a smart enough guy where he should certainly know that.

Yeah, and it's also why they rushed to announce this deal with Venezuela that's not really a deal, right, with Delcy Rodriguez for $65 billion. Barrels of natural reserves underneath. And then Trump rushed out to say, and we will immediately fill up our strategic petroleum reserves with the natural reserves, with the oil that we'll be able to drill from Venezuela. We'll be able to fill up our strategic reserves. This is going to be huge for the United States. And it's like, I'm not going to go do my whole oil shtick here because you probably are sick and tired of me saying it, but just to be very simple about it, the Venezuelan oil is sour, viscous, tarry. It doesn't mix into our strategic petroleum reserves without an investment of tens of billions of dollars in new infrastructure in order to try to convert it to a type of light sour sour or other grade that could then go into our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Quite literally, it would destroy our— it's mixing the wrong thing into our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. There's not really 65 billion barrels. It's an exaggerated number. If you look at what they say, it's like potential.

Even if it was, you'd have to build out hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure in order to extract it and then refine it. How do I also know though there's a lot of issues around it. Most American private businesses didn't want anything to do with this, and the ones that did were in the low billions, nothing $100 billion. So the Defense Department, Hegseth, with Donald Trump created a Trump Oil Company essentially within the Defense Department to do a deal with a guy named Alejandro Bentercor, who is what they referred to in Venezuela as a bolichico, A Chavista who made his money basically, it's alleged, ripping off the people of Venezuela through a horrible electricity grid and stealing or taking or extracting— this is the allegations against him, which he denies, but he was under investigation by a lot of international organizations for this and other things as well. He denies it. Extracting lots of profits from the electrical grid. There we go. We all know the electrical grid there is horrible. And ultimately all this does is cement Delcy Rodriguez as the authoritarian for life, because if they ever had elections there, this is against Venezuela's constitution.

It is a clear exploitation of the people. If you brought in the opposition party, this is going to be voided immediately. And so there's never going to be an opposition party. So the incentive is to keep Delcy in power forever. working with this Alejandro Benta-Court and his purported private company that has all the deals with the public company that's owned by Venezuela to try to get around Venezuela's constitution to do this deal with the U.S. Defense Department. And this was the headline from Reuters Venezuela: White House says oil from Venezuela deal could hit U.S. reserves in November. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly on Wednesday told Fox News America reports that oil from a deal struck with Venezuela will probably hit reserves in the United States in November. It's like literally impossible. Anytime you see White House says, you just need to draw a line and cross everything out afterwards. Like it doesn't—

White House official says, U.S. officials tell me, X, X, X, X, X.

It's literally not going to happen. But why do they pick that date? It doesn't— isn't the plan obvious? The plan is help Donald Trump, not America's interests. Why would this be in America's interest to do this deal with Venezuela? By the way, China and Russia previously had deals with Venezuela. How'd that work out for them? They're not loving, you know, their relationship because the oil is not a great oil grade. By the way, Trump previously said that Venezuela has tarry, unusable oil, which, you know, is, you know, So it's partially true. The issue is, is that it can be used not to substitute for what we have right now. And also it takes hundreds of billions of dollars, though, to convert the tarry substance and refine it. And it's very difficult to do it and very expensive. And then there's all the geopolitical issues of the Delcy Rodriguez regime. But they push that stuff, Brett. And it's just lie after lie. Because the price of crude goes up, the crack spread, because the price of diesel is so high, the delta between the crude price and the diesel now is still very, very high.

You know what I'm wondering, and you might have some insight. We saw Nicolás Maduro, the ousted Venezuelan leader, who Donald Trump ousted, he filed his motion to dismiss. In his motion to dismiss, he's claiming head of state immunity. saying that you can't arrest a head of state. It's just not something that you could do. The Trump regime is saying that he was— their argument is essentially that he's an illegitimate leader, um, and his government was illegitimate, which then would make Delcy Rodriguez illegitimate, thereby, uh, making that entire agreement that he made with Venezuela void. But let's even forget that part about it. Let's go back to the Maduro part. What if he does get his mo— what if the case is dismissed? What happens? Does he fly back to Venezuela, take control of the country, and void this entire document? What happens after that?

Yeah. Well, it should be a slam dunk immunity claim. I'm not rooting for him to get out on immunity, let me be clear, nor was I rooting for the United States to invade Venezuela and do any of these things. But here we are. I think the charges against Maduro in general, if you support the Maduro regime, are bizarre charges to bring. I mean, you're charging him essentially with narcotrafficking and laundering machine guns. His vice president's running the country right now.

Right.

So if he's doing it, all up Most people viewed Maduro as a figurehead and that the people pulling the levers were the people behind the scenes, the technical Chavistas, and that Maduro was the guy you see in the photos, like, you know, the guy who was doing the dancing, the figurehead, you know, the guy who came up through their, you know, you know, Chavista labor movement, you know, and that was kind of his That was his shtick. But like, people always viewed the real operators as people like Delcy and others. So you're charging him with that. Why would she not be charged with that? And how could he be guilty and she not be guilty? And you say she's very well respected. Just assume this case— assume it doesn't get dismissed on immunity. Who would be the witnesses? I mean, you have Donald Trump saying Delcy's well respected. So his vice president's well respected. You could just use Donald Trump's words in that trial against him pretty easily. And then how are you even going to do the trial? Could you imagine all the CIA involvement in Venezuela and all of the stuff that Maduro knows that the Trump regime is never going to produce these documents that would show all of this type of meddling the United— so it's not— it's hard to even fathom what this trial is going to look like.

But his immunity claim is there's something called head of state immunity. I— if you're making the argument that I'm illegitimate, you can't say my vice president is legitimate and I'm illegitimate. The Trump— a normal argument would be the opposition party. Maria Machado is legitimate. Maria Corina Machado is the legitimate, and the election was stolen. This is what the argument would be by Maduro and Delcy. And so they can't get head of state immunity when they stole the election. Like, that's, you know, when the opposition party won, when Machado's party won. But that's not what Trump's saying. Trump is saying actually Delcy is the rightful president. So if she's the rightful president, he's the rightful president. So that's what his argument basically is going to be. Now, it puts the judge, Albert, Albert Alvin Hellerstein. He's 92 years old. He's in a bad position because what is he supposed to do? You know, I mean, if he followed the law, he's supposed to release Maduro. But then Trump regime is going to blame this guy who happened to be a judge in other Trump-related cases who ruled against Trump. So I think part of the plan over here is give Maduro a great immunity argument, dump this on Hellerstein's lap, who Trump doesn't like anyway.

And kind of set up Hellerstein. But anyway, pay it to— the point I wanted to make immediately, and I think we did a good job at the Midas Touch Network doing it when the Venezuela deal was announced, to let you know that it's a fake phony thing. It's a part of Trump's fraud. And I think that people understand it right away. And that to me shows the strength of new media, independent media, getting out in front and calling this stuff out. I, I want to leave with this though. which is Democratic Congressmember Neguse. And I thought his cross-examination here in the Rules Committee was brilliant. As one person said, people need to understand what Neguse just masterfully did there. After speaking about the evils of socialism, the Republican Congressmember was asked if the government should own grocery stores. A fast no from him on that. But when Neguse asked him about Trump's government Owning the parent company of the grocery stores. Watch this exchange for yourself. Let's play it. Now, that cut in about 5 minutes of my question there. So going back to you, Mr. Steyer, socialism, owning the means of production, right?

That's a piece of it.

Yeah. Okay. What would you call the Trump administration acquiring a 10% equity stake in Intel? A 15% stake in rare earth producer MP Materials and a 10% stake in Lithium Americas and Trilogy Metals. Excuse me. It's an American First policy to make sure we can outcompete China. Do you believe that the government should own grocery stores?

No.

That would be socialist to you? I think that would be a type of overreach of the federal government.

Absolutely.

Would that be socialist to you? That'd be a form of socialism. Yeah. Okay. And if Donald Trump announces tomorrow that he's going to take a 20% equity stake in Kroger, would that be socialism to you? I'd want to see the details. Oh, you want to see the details? No, but understand the— understand the difference.

What percentage would it be?

50%? 80%? For the folks watching at home, watch the sleight of hand, because I think this is—

Sleight of hand? Yeah.

I'm asking an honest question. You said if government owns grocery stores, that would be socialist. But if, of course, Donald Trump were to announce an equity stake in a grocery store, well, I'd have to really see the details because we all know the play, Mr. Stile. If I mentioned anybody else but Donald Trump, you would have answered it a different way. What about if the defense secretary mocks high school students in Canada, cadets, and tries to shame them? What do we think about that? What do we think about when the defense secretary, his Secretary of Defense order book, which they've now deleted from the classified database because there was a leak to the Washington Post that the top generals and admirals other than CENTCOM all said this war is catastrophic and it should end, and they did a do not concur. What happens? Well, if Donald Trump did it, if Donald Trump did— you know, the person there, that MAGA Republican who was being cross-examined by Neguse, in many ways, when I think about a term that was used about Hitler, the banality of evil, the banality of evil, I often pondered about that term and its meaning.

But you have evil, and then you have the banality of evil, the, the normalization of it that becomes almost so entrenched that someone like that can go up there and endorse anything that Donald Trump says, regardless of how sickening, anti-American, disgusting, war crime, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's— they have a Führer, Donald Trump. And if he says it, that's what they— that's, that's what they do. Except, of course, when it comes to this midterm convention where they don't want to be on stage with him. They think that that is— that that's the thing. If they don't go near him, then they could avoid all of this, that the American people will somehow go, ah, they're not there at the midterm convention. They're not there being photographed. at this thing. Too late, bud. Too late for that. Brett, anything you want to say before we go?

No, they treat him like he's got some, like, physical, like, I don't know, something that they're gonna, like, give to him. Now you're already stuck with whatever you got, okay? You've already got this MAGA disease and it's on you and there's no escaping it. That was brilliant by Neguse. Great questioning. And really, honestly, that's their entire policy. That right there is a microcosm of of the entire Republican Party and everybody who works for this Trump regime.

Oh, Brett, I got to make 2 updates. I apologize. I said I was going to do the court updates. I forgot my court.

Sure, sure.

All right.

Do the court updates quick because this is good news.

Big news. Okay. Well, the good news first in the Missouri Supreme Court, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the gerrymandering that was taking place over there. And so what, Brett? It was going to be a 7-1 after the gerrymander Republican. Now it's going to be a 6-2. And so that's a big update. They were trying to manipulate the congressional seats over there and the Missouri Supreme Court struck it down. Donald Trump ranting and raving like a lunatic a little bit earlier before we started the show. The Missouri Supreme Court ridiculously ruled in favor of changing the maps back to what they were a long time ago. It's called ancient history. You know, just again, this guy's psychotic.

Way out, way out, way out.

Just a psycho. And then, though, the Trump regime has rushed to the Supreme Court after a district court blocked their implementation of the United States Post Office rule that basically creates a new barcode system for election ballots where the barcode links to Trump's voter list. And if you're not on his list as matched by the barcode, then the Trump regime has the discretion to destroy like 10,000 ballots at a time, even ballots that match the Trump list. But like, what the hell is the Trump list in general? And this was apparently rushed out in June, defying the court order to begin with to implement this barcode system. A whistleblower reached out to Senator Blumenthal and sent this whole letter about this, this horrific scheme. And, and so you may remember previously the Supreme Court ruled that the, that the lawsuit to block what the Trump regime was doing was premature until the injury happened. But the injury has happened because the rule finally went through and it went through and the Trump regime was not allowed to actually do the rule, which is why the Supreme Court's ruling I was warning about, because Trump doesn't follow orders like you can't give him him an inch, he takes your life.

You have to pay attention to what he's doing. But any event, a district court immediately blocked this rule from being implemented once the rule was passed. So then the so-called injury took place based on what the Supreme Court did. So the Trump regime is now rushing on an emergency. They're saying, emergency, Supreme Court, you need to block the district court immediately because they're blocking us from implementing this new rule that needs to happen before the election. That's sloppy. It's not prepared. It's going to result in ballots being canceled and lost. And so the Trump regime is trying to jump over the circuit court to get right to the Supreme Court, which you have to normally go through a process. They're saying, Supreme Court, help me out before the midterms. I'm about to lose. So we're going to pay attention there. The last Supreme Court ruling was not based on the merits of the rule. It was based on them saying there's no standing, there's no justiciability because the rule wasn't passed. Well, now the rule is passed. So the question is, what's the Supreme Court going to do if they enable this rule to go get passed?

You know what Trump's going to do? He's going to lose everybody's ballots. He's going to lose everybody's ballots. And he's going to say, oh, I guess it was a Democratic scheme. And then he's going to blame the state, you know, the state. leadership and say they're the reasons it got lost. So the whole plan is to destroy the mail. Who uses— like, and again, this is because, going back to what we said, he doesn't care about the nation. All he cares about is enriching himself and stealing from us. Which, by the way, go check out the interview I did with Congresswoman Ansari. She's talking about this concept that David Frum talked about in The Atlantic about how after this Trump regime is over, Donald Trump should have to have all of the money that he stole from the people and that his family stole from the people disgorged, taken back, restitution to the American people. So I think that's a good point, actually. All right, that's all I got. Brett, anything else you want to say before we go?

I'd say check out our new series, our climate-focused series In Your Backyard, Luke Radle, uh, hosting and Incredible series. First episode is focused on a really important topic: data centers. You can find it on the Midas Touch Podcast audio feed and on our Substack at MidasPlus.com. We're doing daily bulletins on the Substack at MidasPlus.com every single day. We do Ask the Editor-in-Chief with Ron Filipkowski. Make sure you check that out. Make sure you're subscribed. Make sure to preorder the book WTF America, available for preorder everywhere right now. Link is in the description to this video, and there's a little QR code above my head if you're watching this that you can scan. So be sure So make sure to do that. Let us know in the comments if you pre-ordered the book. I'm so grateful for all the people who have told us that you pre-ordered the book. And remember to listen to the Midas Touch Podcast. We're posting these updates every day, daily updates, breaking news updates. So make sure you're following along, Midas Touch Podcast, anywhere you get podcasts, and you will stay in the loop with all these free shows. Ben, why don't you take it away?

Shout out Midas Mighty. Hey, before you go, our book WTF America is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click Click the link in the description. Let's do this.