Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 10/9/26 New

A lot to discuss on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. We'll talk about Donald Trump's market manipulation failing. Earlier in the day, he said, we're definitely not going to go to war with Iran before the midterms. I hereby decree it via a Truth Social post. I think he was hoping to manipulate the market and that the price of gas and diesel would go down. It did not. The price of oil continued to surge. Diesel and gas continued to rise. Treasury yields continued to rise. No one is buying it right now. The markets continue to do bad. No one's buying this crap anymore. So then he kind of pivoted, and then the news broke, actually, he's now thinking of a 3-day invasion. It's going to be massive, a lot of war crimes, civilian infrastructure. And that's what's actually being planned. And what he posted is just something that he says. Anyway, we'll try to break down what the hell was going on here. Meanwhile, Iran has been able to strike more tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. I feel like a broken record talking about it, but it's just the reality of what's happening. In the past 8 days, there have been at least 15 tankers that have been struck by the IRGC, most recently one off the coast of Qatar, another 30 nautical miles northeast of Fujairah in the UAE, some stationary tankers being struck.

The Fujairah escalation, we'll talk about the significance of that also. seeing the Houthis in Ansar Allah respond to the Saudi strikes in the Houthi capital of Sana'a. Riyadh Airport was under attack, on fire. Saudi Arabia said, uh-uh, what you're seeing with all of these planes on fire is not what happened. What happened is we struck the Houthi drones and the debris hit a medical center and it also hit an elementary school. But the airport is fine. I'm like, I see the airport. It's on fire, man. They also hit Aba. I see what's going on here and I see your strikes in Ansar Allah. Like, we can visually see what the hell is happening. It's just we need to have a clear-eyed vision of what the hell is happening in this distortion after distortion. Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to double, triple down on small price to pay for this catastrophic war. If Iran would nuclear bomb San Diego and L.A., And I didn't actually mean— it's artificial news to say that I actually meant that Iran would do nuclear annihilation of these cities. I'm saying I want to protect these cities. I'm just saying it in a way that makes you think that I am, you know, joking about it.

And that's what we do with commanders-in-chief now. We do jokes about nuclear annihilation of main cities also, or cities in the United States in general. Speaking of San Diego, You've had Hegseth there waiting for the USS Abraham Lincoln. Like, dude is obviously such a creepy, strange war criminal, you know, as well. Like, he knows that those family members are reeling based on the conditions that they've been in. So he's been there every step of the way, like doing PT and doing weird publicity stunts over there, you know, and really sickly talked about today how he's going to livestream the public execution that's coming up and everyone gets to see a livestream of a public execution. We'll talk about that. We've been covering on the Midas Touch Network Russia's escalation in Ukraine, Ukraine's response in Russia, what we're seeing there. Russia's, you know, they're building out those Geran-4, Geran-5 drones. North Carolina— North Carolina— North Korea-style ballistics and cruise missiles that are hammering down And then we've seen Zelensky responding with those flamingo-style drones deep into Russia, hitting areas as far as 900 kilometers in Samara, another one 2,500 kilometers kind of deep almost in that Siberia area where also there was a potential plague outbreak where there are more cases.

And now we learned that RFK Jr. apparently gave $800,000 through HHS to that facility. where the biolab plague was taking place. I mean, is it everything with these people is projection and confession? No wonder Donald Trump's approval is at a record low. The latest Pew poll has Donald Trump at pew pew 30%, and it keeps on decreasing. Donald Trump's appearances in San Antonio and other places clearly deranged. Donald Trump gave a speech today at the so-called Institute of Peace, which he renamed the Trump Institute of Peace. He's like, finally, I'm with high IQ people here and, you know, mocking the people he's been speaking in front of before. Apparently everybody in the Trump regime works for a country called Spierska. Also Suze Wiles' kid, Trump's consultants, all Spierska consultants with the Russia-aligned government over there. And then we have Kimberly Guilfoyle emerges while you have Rubio in Greece with all of her shenanigans with a MAGA donor, a big Trump donor. saying, yeah, she asked me to pay her Amex bill, $100,000, and that she'd help me out in various ways. And this comes on top of other stories with Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly bragging about helping overthrow the Romanian government with the United States.

Just normal stuff. She denies all the allegations. She goes, not true, artificial fake news. But we'll cover it all here on the Midas Touch Network. What kind of freaking intro was that?

What am I—

what words are even coming out of my mouth?

All right, I think the words that are coming out of my mouth are WTF. As always, it's good to see you, Ben. It's good to see you, Jordy. It looks like the United States is now officially joining the likes of Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia in allowing live publicly streamed executions. Uh, and so that's the new thing by Pete Hegseth today and, and, uh, and Donald Trump. I mean, this is— it's so sick, and it's really just shown how the United States has lost its complete moral authority in the world and how we really have no legs to stand on as far as lecturing other countries. It's one of the big ironies right now as we kind of hear the arguments that come out of the Trump regime about other countries, whether they're trying to justify wars or trying to say that the United States is better than some other place, because you'll hear him say stuff like, can you imagine what they would do to you in Iran if you were a gay person? It's like, y'all aren't really exactly the most friendly to gay people in the United States. Let me, let me just say, they want women to be second-class citizens.

Uh, again, you guys, what do you guys want to do? They allow public executions. No, that you're doing that right now, actually. There are 3 theocratic nuts— help, this is like the new one that they keep coming with— they're theocratic nuts hell-bent on destroying the planet. It's like, aren't you the guy like invoking God and saying this is like your manifest destiny to like destroy Iran and to blow it to smithereens and to destroy the civilization, and this is God's plan? It's like the projection from these people is incredible. But that's why, uh, as I said, the only words I could think of sometimes are WTF. And brothers, I got, I got a bit of a confession to make at the top of the show. Okay. Oh, can I make a confession?

Yeah.

Um, so our book WTF America, as you can see here, turns out the book that I've been showing you when I've been holding it up, actually, this is actually a fake version of the book. This version of the book is about feet. And I'm serious, it's, it's literally— when you read the chapters, it's, it's a, it's a book, it's a book about feet.

But what—

I got some news because we just got, at least I did today, I think Jordy got it as well, the first actual prints of WTF America, the hardcover version.

Yes.

Shinier and it's nice and we have the back cover with us on it and the inside flap and it's the actual book with the dedication to you, the Midas Mighty, right here on the front. If I could find it, I'll get it to you, but it's dedicated to you. I got to say, having this in person, there's something really special about the hardcover. And I am so excited for people to get it and to like post it and share it with us online. I want to show like people's pictures if they get the hardcover of the book and share it with us and tag us on social media and stuff. We'll try to show some folks on the show. But I honestly, I got the chills when I opened up the box and I saw like the actual book with the printed text in the book and everything. So check it out, link in description and link on the QR code up here. But it's really honestly just— I have the chills and I'm so excited for you to read this.

Love it. I love it, B. That is so sweet. I was definitely like very surprised when it showed up, even though I knew it was coming. Like, it still is like, oh, it was like a moment. And so I'm just— I'm so excited for y'all to get your copies. Please If you haven't already, go ahead, purchase hardcover copy. Like, it, it felt good holding it. I'm really excited to get into today's show. We obviously have a lot to get to. So, with that, Benji, where are we starting off today?

Big—

I'll tell you the funny story, Brett, because I had a few copies of the— I guess they call it like the dummy book before the real one gets to you. And same thing, mine's on feet also.

We all got the foot book.

And it's like calf strength, double or single leg calf raise. place your hands on a wall. And, you know, my, my niece Caitlin, who's here, um, she was like looking at it and then she's like, you know, that's an— she was like, it's an interesting approach and it's a little bit different than what I thought.

And she was reading the—

I kid you not, I said, I'm not writing a— I said, did you think I really was going to write a book on feet? Like, this is my life's work. I'm not going to do a feet book. Can you imagine? I guess so.

I love Katie.

It's very, very—

it's very generous of her. You know, it's good. It's It's a bit of a different direction than I thought it was going. I'm just like, Jesus, did I like lost it? I know you see me recording like all of the time, but you know, really?

Okay.

Anyway, let's go through what's taking place. He thought that was the real book. I haven't gotten my copy yet, by the way. I'd like my copy.

I bet I got it today. So I bet you get it later today, but it's—

Maybe they're giving you the Tom Holland treatment, Ben, because you know Tom Holland's Spider-Man, he's very much like a spoiler person. Maybe they're like, we can't trust Ben with the real thing just yet.

Spoiler alert.

Right.

So look, Donald Trump was in San Antonio. It was a deranged event. I counted 12 times when he was interrupted by hecklers and protesters throughout the event. And it was, you know, an interesting sight to behold. Weird crew of people, though, who stay in there like that. You know, I get the protesters and hecklers, but the Trumpers, you know, who are there, I'm like, who are the people who are still there? And I'm not even going to play those clips, but they were like, It's okay, Daddy. Daddy, it's okay.

Don't let them.

Don't let them do that to you, Daddy. We're here for you. I kid— Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. You know, do you remember? This was maybe a pretty big red flag that we covered and nobody else covered. And I kid you not, this happened at prior Trump events. There would be people who would wear diapers and they would show solidarity with Trump wearing diapers. And it wasn't like some like AstroTurf, like they were like wearing diapers. And I would do coverage of it during the 2024 election. Like, they're wearing diapers to show solidarity with him. I'm like, that's pretty strange, right? You're being hyperbolic. You're being hyperbolic. Anyway, I digress. Donald Trump—

This is an aside. This was an issue writing the book because we would write down things, actual things that have happened over the past few years. And when the lawyers went to review the book, because they do it pass, they'd be like, I gotta say, I thought you were making this up or exaggerating. And I did the research and it checks out. And I don't know what to say. How many times did we get—

Was it— was the compliance calls, Brad? Was that— Yeah, the legal compliance calls. The legal calls that we eventually were on were just the funniest calls ultimately because they're like, oh my God.

Yeah, they were so funny.

Yeah.

I mean, look, you know, not like— anyway, yes, I have a lot more to say about that. I'll just Focus, focus, Ben. Going back to what went down in— you know, it's like, should I show the video of Susan Dell in the Oval? No, don't do it. Please, no, please, no. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Do you have it?

Should we do it?

Okay, now do it.

Okay. Donald Trump in San— Donald Trump in San Antonio, though.

We could do it.

To every child across the country.

All right, enough, enough, enough, enough, enough.

Okay.

Donald Trump in San Antonio. He was calling out Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and saying these are great negotiators and it's amazing and they're going to do a great deal with Iran. Listen to what he said. And like the crowd in San Antonio was like, yeah, Steve Witkoff, like you said you were going to end this war in 4 to 6 weeks. Here, let's watch this.

Let's play it.

He's working on the Iran deal and doing very well. I think the deal isn't really something that I want to do, but they're willing to offer us anything to stop, and we definitely— they will never have a nuclear weapon. But he's a great negotiator. He's also a great person.

Yeah, Steve Witkoff, the scumbag Manhattan real estate guy who nobody appointed. And yeah, you really don't want to do a deal, and but then they really are begging you again to do a deal.

It's not you who desperately wants to try to find a way out of this disaster of your own making.

It's them.

This is what Donald Trump said about Los Angeles and San Diego. This is like his line. This is like his go-to now. This is his eating the cats and dogs. Oh, by the way, did you see that they're doing the caravan thing again?

Yeah, I don't— okay, here's the thing.

I—

so Ben's right. So they're now doing like this whole thing where they're spreading on social media the caravans are coming. There's 600 people rolling through Mexico and they're coming to the southern border and they want to kill your family. And the only thing that stands in their way is Donald J. Trump. And like, you have all the right-wing influencers spreading this stuff. And this is the same tack. It's October, right? I think I said in a few episodes ago, you know, it's kind of good. You got pumpkin spice season, you got migrant caravan season. They kind of come in around the same time. And that's what we're seeing right now. And it's just like pathetic. And it's the same move that they always do. But I act— but I don't even understand understand it messaging-wise when you control every branch of government and you're the president of the United States. It's like, I get it if you could say like, look, President Biden's immigration policies are encouraging all of these people to go across Mexico and try to come through the border. But you're the— you're the president. And so I don't even understand like the strategy behind it.

It just feels kind of extra desperate.

Brett, you are trying to provide logic to the absolutely illogical. You know, they're just copying and pasting a playbook playbook that had previously maybe worked for them a little bit, and they're just trying to apply it under a 2026 lens. But they're forgetting the key issue here is that Donald Trump is the president and they control all 3 branches of government. So it's like, this isn't the, the own the libs moment that y'all are making it out to be. I've never seen MAGA in such disarray with their messaging.

Yeah. And when you look at the countries where they say the caravans are originating from, they're all places where Donald Trump has like installed his stooge dictators. It's like Ecuador and Honduras and this kind of like— by the way, those are your people. Like, you put those people in there so they want to flee there. And now you're encouraging the caravan. Like, I'm trying to make sense of what they're at. So there's that aspect, right? Then there is the nicknames, you know, and the hateful, racist, misogynistic, awful kind of nicknames. You know, he calls pediatrician Dr. Annie Andrews Tranny Annie, a slur to transgender people. And, you know, and just tries to mock a marginalized community. He calls Dr. Abdul El-Sayed Muhammad El-Sayed is a jihadist. And I mean, this is— I'm quoting what Trump is saying. I don't want to use these words, but I'm reporting on what it is that he's saying. James Talarico, Talafrico, he says, is a freako. And then he implies that James Talafrico has disappeared because he's involved in horrible things. And so it's the same thing. And then his post today about Minnesota was that, you know, the Somalian people are killing you.

He's trying to provoke a race war in Minnesota. And I also reflect on during the Biden administration where there was a deal for comprehensive immigration reform that was worked out with a very far-right Republican Senator Lankford and Biden did this deal together, bipartisan, strong borders, a pathway to citizenship for people who were here for a long time, expedited asylum process, more money for asylum judges to adjudicate cases. And I remember it was actually even supported by Border Patrol and these, but, you know, even though they're ultra-MAGA and Trump was the one who killed it.

Right.

Trump said, uh-uh, we need the problems so that we can run on the problems. Because for them, everything is all a game for power. And it is all about causing problems, being the anarchist, because I think the strategy, Brett, if there is one, it's the oldest in the dictator's handbook: create catastrophe, and fear and then prey on people's fear. Look, as we have hurricanes approaching, and I put that plural, I mean, there's a tropical storm on the West Coast, a major hurricane that's heading up the kind of southeast of the US, another major storm coming up kind of by the Mexico area. People are often most vulnerable, like after natural disasters. Elderly people are often preyed on by you know, con artists and fraudsters. And so at large, the Trump regime creates those situations and is preying on that behavior, basically.

I want to go back to this also, which is what you said before. And you said that Donald Trump was trying to stoke a race war with his tweets. And, you know, I don't want people to think again that you're being at all hyperbolic in what you're saying. And I want to really show what Trump is doing here. And so let's go to Trump's message right over here. This is what he sent out. He said, the once great state of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali immigrants. There is violence, murder, and mayhem all over the state. The people of Minnesota must fight back. You have been robbed and abandoned by your state government. Your governor is an incompetent thief who doesn't want to get involved. He just wants to get out of town with as much as he can steal and then lead a quiet life. By the way, the frickin projection just dripping out of every word of this disgraceful tweet. He just wants to get out of town. The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back, Minnesota.

Fight back.

If you need, the federal government will come to your rescue. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, this is disgusting race war psychotic behavior that should be on the front page, quite frankly, of like every newspaper. Imagine if he said this about any other group, right? He's allowed to attack Somali immigrants. Imagine if he, if he said fight back against the Jews, fight back against That Black Americans fight back against this. I mean, which is essentially what he's saying here.

This is appalling.

It's appalling stuff. And that's, I think, one of the issues with the Trump era and especially Trump 2.0 is the things that he says are so explosive and so offensive that when you actually tell people about them who may not be as tuned in with the day to day, they go, you're exaggerating. You're being hyperbolic. Stop, TDS. You're, you're, you're, you're doing it again. You're— he would never, he would never say that. And again, it goes back to the lawyers, right, who were going through our book and it was like, did he really?

Oh, he did.

No, he did. No, this is what it is. And Donald Trump has effectively normalized this sort of rhetoric, normalized this sort of behavior to the point where far too many people who may not be in the day-to-day and even far too many people in the news media and professionals who see this stuff or hear about this stuff brush it off. He's just joking around. He's just saying that. Don't overreact again. No, I think we should be. I think we are reacting appropriately. And I think it's important for all of us never to normalize this sort of thing.

Absolutely. And you know what's also there, too, that's abundantly clear is his threats to Walls, Governor Walls there. Like, it's so obvious to me that he just can't get him out of his head, that he always has to go after him and always has to attack him. Just saying how the governor wants to steal steal as much as he can and then leave, lead a quiet life. Like, that's not a dog whistle. I don't know really what is, because what he's trying to do, he's trying to invoke the MAGA base, whomever, these right-wing lunatics to continue their onslaught of threats against Walls and the Walls family. It is wild to me that, again, that that becomes an accepted behavior right here.

Right.

You have a guy—

People have already— Democratic politicians have already been killed in the By a MAGA lunatic.

Yes.

A guy who wanted to go around and do mass killings at No Kings rallies, a MAGA conservative Christian guy who they then used the fact that he had the pamphlets for the No Kings rallies because he planned to go there to kill those people. They tried to turn that around and say that he had those because he's actually some lib, despite the fact that every piece of evidence about the guy ever, everything he speaks about, the fact that he was a Republican, all of a The fact that all of it— he was a big Trump supporter. They try to act like, oh, that was a liberal, that was a Democrat killing a Democrat. It's like, shut— it's the most offensive thing. And the fact that these Trump people still push that when these children lost their parents because they were shot and killed by this maniac, it's absolutely disgusting. And for Trump to then stoke more violence and to try to rile people up exactly like you're saying, Jordy, it's, it's, it's so offensive. And nobody takes the power of his words seriously for some reason anymore.

Well, I think we'll talk about this when we come back. You know, the idea that his words are meaningless when the president's words are meaningless, the president of the United States, then everything trickles down as being meaningless. And that's what they want to create, where we expect somebody in that position to be careful, thoughtful, serious, competent, sophisticated, cautious, you know, all of those types of qualities. And so much— it's like when we'll talk about, you know, the San Diego-Los Angeles thing. He's joking.

He's—

it's not funny. We don't do jokes about nuclear annihilation. And if you're talking about nuclear capabilities, choose your words very carefully because you're talking about like the end of human civilization. Oh, Ben, you're being hyperbolic.

No, I'm not being—

what do you think nuclear weapons are? What are we talking about here? And look what's happening throughout the world. Look what's happening in Ukraine right now. Look what's happening with Russia's increased strikes. Look what's happening in the region. Look what's happening in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and throughout the world right now. Look what's happening with Kim Jong-un and his ballistic nuclear capable tests. Look what's happening. This is real. This is real. This isn't a game. And somehow people have just been— not all of you, but like we're like living in this dystopian reality show where people are these non-consensual extras like, wow, whatever. Whatever. No, not whatever. Not whatever. We need to stop this. That's what we talked about in WTF America. Hey, Brett, does yours have the back of it with the photo of us also?

Do you got that one?

Oh, does it?

Let's see.

It does. There you go.

See, that's how you tell. That's how you tell the authentic hardcover versus Ben's phony, you know, fake one. You know, I learned something new though, that they, you know, you learn, you learn new stuff when you go through this process that people have dummy books that they give to the press and, and that they give to you to you know, show the book. But to have the— this is the real first edition, hot off the press.

Did you know 85% of the world's population will experience low back pain at some point in their lives?

I just love Katie's— I love that Katie thought that was our book.

It's an interesting direction.

Feet was an interesting one.

But let's— lower back pain is no joke though. Let me be very clear about that. Let's take our first break of the show.

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Let's go! Shout out to our sponsors, links in the description of both YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, That's the one we sent you. Brett, what are you showing to the camera right now?

There it is. The dedication.

I don't think people are going to be able to see that. You mind reading it?

I know.

The thing is, I'm— it's not a— I don't have an autofocus camera. So if I went up, it's going to be very blurry. But if you zoom in here, for the Midas Mighty and everyone else who wakes up, checks the news, and can't help thinking WTF. I love that we're able to dedicate this book to this community who made it all possible.

WTF.

Here's Donald Trump in San Antonio repeating the line that he says over and over. Let them hit San Diego or Los Angeles with nuclear weapons. Let them hit it. That would be bad. Let them hit it. That would be bad. Also, of all of the cities to use, it's just repeating Los Angeles and San Diego over and over again. And by the way, I mean, California Governor Gavin Newsom is taking it seriously. He's put the state on a very serious alert and saying, like, I know, like, like you saying that actually invites, um, the potential for attacks here, as people may read and hear what you're saying as inviting it. Here, let's just listen to what Trump said again.

But you want to see trauma? You want to see problems? And I said it the other day, let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way. Let them hit. You want to see a horror show? You want to see problems? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles and you want to see some bad things happen. You want to see a country that would be in freefall. We're not going to let that happen. We protect our cities.

That's mobster talk. Imagine if a mobster said, I'll use person X so that I don't use anybody's name. You want to see person X get killed? You want to see person X get beheaded? You want to see person X bleed out and get tortured? That would be awful for person X, now wouldn't it be? Well, I'm not going to let that happen. It's that— that's how he's— at the best reading of it, the best reading of it is that in his favor. I don't mean that's— I read it as him actually saying that that's what he wants to see or hear, but you don't have to view it that way. We shouldn't have to construe through what his words mean. A president should be thoughtful in speaking on topics. But the most generous version is the mobster version that I gave you just there, or him saying, well, I will protect those. And that's not actually what he said. And it's still very bad, Brett and Jordan. But there's so many people in corporate news, that's not what he said. It's like he said it, you know, he's crazy.

He said it. And that was the second time he said it. The first time And the second time he said it, I think he said it specifically to try to clean up the first time that he said it. Because the first time he said it, all he said was, let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego, put a button on it. There was nothing else added to that. And now he's adding the line, that would be a horror show if that happened. We're never going to let that happen. And so that's the new version. Those other 2 lines weren't at the end of the lines the other day when he said it. But the reality is, to your point, Ben, you know, I saw some, you know, fact-checkers online being like, somebody speaks Trump rally speak. You know, I— the way I interpret this as if I look in my Trump rally speak book is— and I'm like, listen, this is a guy who has built his entire career of being a politician, and all of his supporters have brought this guy up by saying he just tells it like it is when he says something.

he means it. But all the time, all of a sudden, he's being misquoted by these people. It's out of context, not in context. You're, you're making that up. He didn't really say that. And here's the thing, at the end of the day, it doesn't even matter necessarily what he said, even though he did certainly say it the first time, and I think he was trying to clean it up that second time. But our adversaries don't have the Trump Rally Speak SparkNotes book. I don't know where you buy this book, They don't— it's not— they don't have that one, okay? I don't have that one. They have their own interpretations of what Donald Trump says, and his words have meanings. His words move markets, at least he hopes occasionally. Today, it didn't quite work out that way for him. And his words have the ability to cause war and peace. And so you have to know that, and that's why you have people who are— and presidents throughout history have been so careful with their words and don't just recklessly have these hypotheticals about Los Angeles and San Diego, uh, being blown up. So to me, that's the most dangerous part.

It's somebody who hears Trump's words, takes them however they want to take them, and then runs with it and does whatever they do and puts the lives of people in my city here in LA, people in San Diego, or wherever at risk. Also, I'm pretty sure that Trump is so dumb with a B that he believes that Los Angeles and San Diego are like the closest American cities to Iran, and they're not. They're actually like the farthest— it's the farthest point from Iran. And also, Iran doesn't have missiles capable of reaching anywhere close to the United States. They just— they don't have that technology. They're not— they're not even close. But New York and DC are far closer than Los Angeles.

But even if they did have the technology, didn't we destroy all their nuclear facilities? capabilities anyway. So we were worried about that.

That's totally obliterated. Yeah.

When you watch Donald Trump speak, it just— it really just amazes me in like the worst way, just, just where we are as a country with him being the quote unquote leader. Right. It's unbelievably pathetic as you see this, this, this monster, I guess, up there just so carelessly saying words. Right. Like almost with no meaning behind them other than the sense of he's not here to protect America or Americans. He's going to say whatever he needs to say in order to push forward his MAGA-first agenda in the weirdest friggin ways possible. I'm just so sick of corporate media time and time again making excuses for this absolute buffoon up there. That's the president of the United States.

But, you know, and look, I've said over and over again, we should never have been involved in this catastrophic war in Iran in the first place. place. I've been very clear in calling Donald Trump and Hegseth and others war criminals. I've called for them to be turned over to The Hague if and when a Democratic president takes over. I also want to reflect, though, even if you supported this war, which would befuddle me why you would, I don't see how you can't acknowledge that the way the war has been carried out has also been incredibly reckless and negligent. And just from a military strategy standpoint, having Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth fire our 4-star generals and admirals and 3-star and 2-stars, which Pete Hegseth brags about— they weren't worthy of the position. I mean, Hegseth has really no military leadership experience at all. The nonprofit that he worked at before being a state regime media Fox Weekend host basically purged him because of how incompetent he was and all of his bad conduct. He has no— he should never be in this position. But them running this has just been an absolute disaster. We don't have an aircraft carrier in the Pacific anymore.

It's now the only aircraft carrier, the George Washington, 1,000 kilometers outside of the Strait of Hormuz in the Arabian Sea. Our other aircraft carrier is now in Phuket, Thailand. Yes, one aircraft carrier is going to be arriving arriving mid-November. That's the USS Theodore Roosevelt. But this is the first time in a very long time we've had like no aircraft carriers even close to the Persian Gulf or Gulf of Oman. And it's because Iran's able to project deterrent capabilities with its ballistics, with its anti-ship missiles. And that's why the only aircraft carrier is 1,000 kilometers away right now. The US military bases in the region have all been destroyed by Iran. Right now, the Pentagon is refusing to allow Democratic Senator Murphy, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, from visiting the U.S. bases. The Congressional Research Service just updated a report that it prepared in May where it said 41 aircraft were destroyed in the war to now it's like 81 or 82 aircraft. That number is going to keep on going up. So just from a military perspective, like if you're a neocon warmongering person. I don't know how you— other than your view that Donald Trump is your daddy and you're like just weird and you hate Iran so much that no matter what Trump says, it will cloud the logic here.

But just from a military standpoint, we get an F. Again, we shouldn't have been in the war, but from a strategy standpoint, Iran has won. Iran is a regional power, if not a global power right now. You have Bessin today saying economic outcast. Strikes again, he says. And he's posting how we're putting more sanctions on the ghost fleet of Iran. And this is going to really show them right here. We're really hitting the tyrannical regime hard. And then, then he posts this from the Treasury Department where he's like, today we are not the ghost fleet, the shadow fleet. We're targeting them. Iran's already sold all of that oil to China. So you're sanctioning something that doesn't even exist in the first place. Iran still has oil for domestic purposes. You've all said Iran was going to blow up 3 days after some random April date that you made up, and you keep saying they're about to be destroyed. You have Iran's central bank governor mocking Bessent today, and he's like, tell Bessent that he's got 3 more days for the United States to exist. You have Foreign Minister Araghchi today saying that previously Iran submitted a 7-day plan to the United States, which basically incorporates the terms of the memorandum of understanding, that the US responded, but Iran's just going to take its time and maybe will respond, you know, in a few days.

You have Iran's nuclear chief saying under no circumstance is the nuclear file on the table right now. And Bessent can say economic outcast all he wants. Iran's President, Pozharskyi. And I know Donald Trump likes to say to that crowd, we don't know who their leader is. Yes, we do. We know who all their leaders are. We know who their president is, Pozharskyi. And we know who their foreign minister is, Araghchi. We know who their deputy foreign minister is, Gharbabadi. I know who leads their parliament, MB Galibaf. I know their top adviser to Ayatollah Khomeini, Mohsen Razai. I know all these people. Okay. And I know the structure. And that doesn't again mean, oh, that means you're sympathizing with them. I want to let you know what the hell is happening right here, because Bessin can say economic outcast all he wants. The president of Iran today was meeting with Putin at the CIS. That's where the old Soviet countries all meet. It was in Turkmenistan where they talked about cooperation between Russia and Iran. And while that's going on, sure, it seems like economic outcast. Iran got the invite as the honorary guest. Iran's not an old Soviet country, and it got the invite as the honorary guest the way like the European Union invited Canada as their honorary guest.

The honorary guest at CIS was Iran. Same thing, by the way, we saw at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting and the BRICS bloc meeting that's been taking place. And Iran is likely getting the Geran-4, Geran-5 technology from Russia. Russia upgraded the Shahed drones with these jet-powered Geran-4s. So that technology is being exchanged. When you look at a lot of the parts in these drones, you've got semiconductors coming from the United States and lots of dual-use component parts from China. That's in the Russia Geran-4s and 5s and in the Iranian weapons as well. And then the Trump regime bows down to Xi Jinping with the Thucydides trap, saying, Yes, you are the ascending power, China, and we are the declining power. And the US keeps talking about doing deals with Russia's Lukoil company. And today it was the Nord Stream pipeline and other things while Russia is there with Iran, while Donald Trump is spewing all of this nonsense. And so, you know, Donald Trump will post, we're bringing out 22 million barrels every night. Last night, we never brought 22 million barrels ever. The most we brought is like 20 million barrels a day before the war.

Right now it's somewhere in the range of, I would say, 8 to 12, maybe 13 million barrels a day of oil are getting out through the Strait of Hormuz. But even if you say that's the amount of it, let's just assume it was 20 million barrels. It's not 22 million. Just assume it was the same amount. Right now, these VLCCs, these very large crude carriers that take the crude and transport them, are charging $1.5 million a day. The captains of these VLCCs are making $100,000 a month and a $50,000 bonus to get out of the Strait of Hormuz. That puts a risk premium per barrel of oil of $33 based on the risk. And the way some of these tankers get out of the Strait of Hormuz is a ship-to-ship transfer scheme using small boats to try to deliver the crude onto these stationary ships. Some of them hang off the coast of Qatar, others hang off the coast of Fujairah in the UAE, and they hug the very shallow coast by Oman. They turn their AIS sensors off and hope to avoid the IRGC. which is able to strike usually somewhere in the range of 10% of every tanker that crosses.

That's why it's so expensive. And when you do a ship-to-ship transfer, eventually you run out of ships. But then in the past 8 days, Iran has struck 15 tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and the most recent ones targeted the ship-to-ship transfer scheme, sending a message by striking a ship-to-ship transfer off the coast of Fujairah. That's why I've called it Fujairah escalation. And one off the coast of Qatar where there were numerous casualties there. Meanwhile, you also have Ansar Allah, the Houthis, responding to the strikes that Saudi Arabia has been making in Sana'a, in the Ansar Allah capital. And we see Riyadh's main airport, King Khalid, on fire. Abha Airport and a facility, a refinery in Abha. Saudi Arabia has been hit over there. And so that's just what I just painted for you is the reality of the situation. Now, you know, you could, you could like it, you cannot like it. Why do you think the price of crude and the price of crude is what it is, like $105 a barrel? Why do you think diesel and gas are so high? Why would we have to draw down so much of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve if there was such an abundance, a pre-war abundance of oil.

That makes no sense right there. And also the process of getting you diesel or gas or heating oil or jet fuel, it's the process requires refining. You know, it's like bragging about picking the fruit from a tree or from whatever and then saying, well, this is how you make juice. No, you still have to take the fruit and then turn it into juice. And if the cost of transporting the fruit to the juice maker costs way more than it did before, you're not getting your juice. And so, like, we have to speak in an educated way. And then you have freaking CENTCOM, you know, as we purge these top generals, you've got this clown, Admiral Brad Cooper. And it pains me to say that the head of CENTCOM is an absolute clown. When I saw the guy testify, one of the only days Congress was in session, my jaw dropped because I'm like, this guy's a MAGA idiot. And this guy was— this guy used to be, from all the things that I heard in the military community, a normal dude. And it's like he's out there on the CENTCOM account posting like things are great.

Claim earlier today, a general from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed in media reports that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. And his country has full control over it. This is false. And they put that in bold. Fact, traffic is flowing through the Strait of Hormuz right now, carrying commercial goods and energy supplies, including 20 million barrels of crude oil. The United States and regional partners clearly control the strait. Imagine being a regional partner and reading that, right? I mean, there's the, you know, who's the intended audience? Freaking Twitter, X? Who's your audience? The regional partners will go, oh, they're dumb-dumb. They are Trump dumb-dumb and dangerous. They don't control. So why do you think in the past day or two, look who's meeting with Iran, the German ambassador, the Japanese ambassador, the Pakistani, all these people are meeting with Iran's ambassador, you know, because they're all seeing the US word is nothing. And so that's my analysis there. And that's not a pro this or an anti this. It's just those are what we would call in the law when writing a summary judgment motion, the undisputed facts. There's nothing that I said is disputed there.

Take it however you want to take it. But we can't be told things are amazing and they're great.

They're not.

They are catastrophic. And that's not me being hyperbolic. That's the truth.

It's— it is fascinating how people, like, if you lay out the reality of the situation like that, people will be like, oh, you're a sympathizer of the IRGC. It's like, what are you talking about? Just literally, literally just saying what's happening. And the fact is, is that the United States and CENTCOM and these admirals and all these people, they're pumping out such propaganda on a daily basis that they're trying to get you to believe a reality that doesn't exist. And one of the things I noticed, Ben, you said, who are they doing this for? Right? Yes, I do think they're doing this for Twitter. Right? I do think a lot of it is for X and Twitter. I think think one of the reasons for that is because of the people on X who are a lot of journalists, the MAGA base, and you also have a lot of the oil analysts, oil and gas and diesel analysts who are on Twitter and make a lot of market decisions based on the things that they see there. And so one of the things I've noticed though, especially in the past week with all these latest Trump statements, is that the analysts now are just like, they're done with this game, right?

I saw Gregory Brew, one of these oil analysts, he wrote, This is today. Brent spikes above $105. Trump says no strikes before midterms. Lots of oil getting through the strait and productive discussions are happening with Iran. The two don't seem totally unrelated. And basically what I've seen a lot of these analysts say right now is don't view that Trump's word doesn't mean anything. Don't view him saying that he's not going to strike as anything to do with war or if he's going to strike or not going to strike. His words are meaningless. And the only thing that his words should be looked at through are through the lens of market manipulation, and that Donald Trump sees the markets heading in one direction. He sees the stock market heading in one direction, oil price heading in one direction, and he tries to hit the metaphorical panic button by sending out those posts saying, no strike, no strikes, lots of oil's going through, lots of oil, guys, you hear me? Lots of oil. And that's his strategy. And that's the only strategy he has right now in this war. It's pathetic.

The analysis that I gave there is one steeped in research and sleepless nights and following the satellite footage. And I track the ships and I look at it and then I try to distill it though in ways that we understand. And by the way, I think that is as pro-America as you get. You know, when people are like, well, you're rooting for them.

them.

I think that's the most pro-American analysis that we could give people, the truth. And we can develop a strategy that will hopefully avoid more never-ending wars and help avoid more escalation that would lead to utter disaster. You know, the CEO of Aramco, which is Saudi Arabia's biggest state-owned oil— only state-owned oil company— he said we've lost 3 billion barrels of oil already as a result of this catastrophic war. The CEO of Vitol, the largest independent energy trading company in the world, also said that he wouldn't be shocked based on what we're seeing now if the ship-to-ship transfers were stopped by Iran, that oil goes to $200 per barrel. And then Kepler, who a lot of people rely on, For their— they misconstrue what Kepler is saying to try to act like we're getting all this oil out. That's not even the numbers that Kepler is providing. But there was a Kepler analyst who said that some of the ships that are getting out are actually paying Iran 10 to 20% fees of what's in the ships for Iran to turn the other way. And that's how Iran's making revenue, which is, you know, look, if you're going to borrow some of the data from Kepler, what about that?

So that was fascinating to me as well.

All right.

WTF America. We go into facts, man. We go into details. And I'll give you this warning, and I think it's a good one. It's not an election book. It's not about what happens in the 2020 election. It's generationally, how do we build the structures and the foundation and the principles to get out of this hell as inspired by you, the Midas Mighty?

That's how—

that's the main message of this book. So, So get a copy of the hardcover and the ebook. Preorder now. During the break, I'm going to check to see if mine came in the mail. We will see. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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Let's go. Shout out to our sponsors. Links in the description, both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. What What really frustrates me beyond the incompetence of the Trump regime is like, these are just evil people. Like, they're just, they're just bad people. Bad, bad, bad people who, like, don't genuinely love this country, but yet wrap themselves in the flag and act as if they do and then act like, oh, you're going to speak out against my heinous actions? Oh, you hate this country. Actually, you're, you're the person. You're a communist.

It's—

they're all just— there's such such jokes, man.

Because look what's happening. I mean, while Donald Trump is talking about nuclear annihilation of San Diego and Los Angeles, Trump bought up to $25 million in Meta and millions in SpaceX debt offerings in August, as much as $5 million in SpaceX 2 days before he signed a sweeping policy aimed at expanding US commercial space transportation. ABC did an analysis this week that Don Jr. and Eric's companies that they have investments in have been given like $6 billion in government money or government funding. And so like what's going on with all of this is it's not about the United States. It is about Trump's just Taking and taking and taking more for themselves. That's it. And, you know, I think one of the perplexing things for countries that have national identities is when they see that behavior, they go, oh, you're not even trying to help the United States. Like, that's fascinating. You know, I think that they're not used to just having an adversary who truly doesn't care. about the country. You may have dictators and authoritarians who act vile or chaotic or crazy or all of these things, but it's usually historically rooted in some view about the civilization and the pride of the country and that you are here to augment the country.

Not that you want to make money so you can build condos and you can sell watches or guitars or like crypto tokens or put your name on shit. Like, that is an aspect that they're like, oh, that's what you want to do? You want to turn your West Palm Beach golf club into the new Camp David? That's what this is about? By the way, Putin understands that about Trump. That's why when Witkoff and Kushner shows up, all Putin talks about is, I've got this great Lukoil asset for you. Just remove the sanctions and we can do a deal. That's what, you know, he realizes when he's like, we got this pipeline, you know, and that's what really gets Kushner and Witkoff thirsty, you know, and especially Putin talks about Trillions of dollars. Trillions bigger than billions, you know. And so you've got like fascist Furby, trillions, trillions, trillions. And meanwhile, the American people are just like, hey, I can't, I can't fill up my car. I don't have food in my refrigerator right now. I don't have healthcare right now. And then you have Marco Rubio and Trump and And, you know, RFK, oh, this is just a game.

This is just fake news. And these are the Democrat fake news people. And it's like, it's not a game.

This is—

affordability is a made-up word.

They hit—

By the way, I'd argue that it's also the same thing like Putin does it. I'd argue also all these business leaders are doing— using the same strategy because they know how easy it is to manipulate Trump if they go along with his BS. So they go— you have like people like Jeff Bezos and Elon and Zuckerberg and all these people. What was that? Michael Dell.

Susan Dell.

And they just go, oh, yes, superintelligence is a much better name, sir. Super. You're right, because artificial, it's like artificial sweetener. Oh, yeah, you're so right, Mr. Trump. You're so right. Superintelligence. Because they know all they have to do is say that, suck up to the guy. It's just what happens in corrupt banana republic societies, right? Which is what we live in right now. But all they know is they have to do that. And then Donald Trump will say, okay, here's your tax breaks. Go get data centers here. I'm going to stop stop any sort of regulation on AI whatsoever. Go have fun and go at it, do whatever you need to do. And they know all they got to do is just, you know, just say the, say the line, you know, make them happy, suck up to them for, you know, in public, and boom, you get whatever you want while people suffer.

Could you imagine Enron under Donald Trump? Bernie Madoff under the Trump era? Lehman Brothers under the Trump era? Of course not, right? What would happen? They would come up with some scheme with Donald. They would say, oh, it's super, it's super. They would have some meeting with the head of the SEC. They would give money to the MAGA PAC, and they would—

Million percent.

And they would continue the Ponzi schemes over and over again. And you may go, well, Lehman Brothers collapse was one of the main things that eventually led to the Great Recession. So if we could avoid that, isn't that a good thing? Sure. But it was— the Great Recession had to be confronted with the bundling of mortgage-backed securities that lost its value. Where places like Lehman Brothers had all this high exposure and didn't reveal it to the public. And so it actually took a lot of people coming together to try to solve the problem versus saying, you know, the mortgage-backed securities, not fake news, artificial news, not real. We've never had a better Healthier environment for mortgage-backed securities. Bernie Madoff? No, no, no. It's fake news. The people who are accusing him, they just have to have a long-term perspective of what's happening over here. You know, you go through one by one all of these, you know. And Ron, that's, that's just the way you do accounting. They'll get you the audit in 2 weeks. Don't worry, 2 weeks, they'll get you the right audit. And the way they, they do the book-to-market, that's just— give them some grace, please, and stop trying to hurt America if you're a patriot.

So what would have happened if you continued to allow the sick patient to get sicker the way Donald Trump treats the Strait of Hormuz? It gets worse and worse and worse. And I'm like, all of those crises that I just listed, what's happening right now is to use a term that we've been hearing a lot about, nuclear version of all of these kind of combined, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. So the way this ends is one of two things happen, and we talk about this a lot privately, brothers, also. Either it blows up even more soon, and it already is. It's not like the American people are doing well right now. They're struggling. There's a reason consumer confidence is at an all-time low, or they keep it going. They keep it going. And then you have the Democratic president in 2029 who now looks at this and all of a sudden you have to fix it. You have to rip the bandage off. And what happens sometimes when you rip the bandage off? It starts to bleed. And in the case of catastrophic injuries, what happens? And I don't want to make a gross analogy here, But it is bad.

And so then someone's got to fix it. And then what do MAGA do? Oh, you broke it. It was perfectly fine. You destroyed it. The markets are tanking. This is tanking. This is destroyed. And it's like you all handed a shit sandwich over to the next person and they have to deal with it. Now, look, there's a lot of valid criticism about the Biden administration. Was inflation high during a number of years? Absolutely. The root cause was Donald Trump's handling of COVID shipping routes being destroyed, bottlenecks over there, reckless printing of hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, the disastrous PPP program. That was some of the original source of the inflation. When the world opened, then all of this stuff— to use my example, the bandage was ripped off. But the question to me is, Well, what condition did Biden leave the country in? Was it perfect? No. Was it great? No. Yes, according to the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and Bloomberg, the economy was the envy of the world. That's still not how most Americans felt, but it was certainly heading in the right direction. Inflation would be at 2% now.

Look what the New York Federal Reserve said. 2.9% of the inflation we have right now now has been caused by Trump's tariffs against the world alone. So if you remove that, prices would all be way down. We'd have interest rate cuts by now. And so he is fully the arsonist making it all worse and not confronting the reality of the situation systemically is planting the most fatal poison pill in the heart of our country.

It's like if you were running a— if someone was running a business and running a fraudulent business and they handed business over to new ownership and they look through the books and realize that the books were completely cooked and fraudulent and how they had to go in. And now the announcement happens, oh, all this was actually all fake and it's all blowing up now. Do you blame the person who they just put in charge to actually look through this or do you blame the person who caused it? And that's what we see happening. I think going back to your Enron analogy, I think it's a reason why we so often see a lot of these fraudsters who are quite literally in prison appealing to Donald Trump to try to get out. We even see— I saw a few days ago, I'll pull up the tweet, I just grabbed it from Elizabeth Holmes. I think this is like a week or two ago. Elizabeth Holmes, who ran the Theranos scam, you know, is in prison right now. She's like reposting Donald Trump's posts and writing, we are winning, like clearly trying to appeal for a pardon from Donald Trump.

You've seen similar behavior from people like Sam Bankman-Fried, and we've also seen documents from Sam Bankman-Fried's legal team that said their strategy was to try to be nice to Donald Trump on the internet and go on podcasts where Donald Trump's sons may listen to and try to get through to Donald Trump that he's a sympathetic figure and get a pardon through him. So I think the Enron analysis there is particularly apt. And this fraud runs through the entire Trump family, even family members who aren't even like a part of the Trump family.

Even ex-fiancées.

Yeah, this Kimberly Guilfoyle story is crazy. Kimberly Guilfoyle, first off, the whole thing is nuts. They shipped Kimberly Guilfoyle off to Greece. Okay, her and Don Jr. broke up. He ditched her. He married this, this new woman, you know, because she probably knows where the bodies are buried. What do they do? They ship her off to Greece. Go have an ambassadorship.

Don't speak. Please keep quiet. it. Go, go, go to Greece.

And what did she do when she gets to Greece? She's humiliated herself and humiliated the United States there. Like every few weeks there's like a story about her making a mockery of everything. You remember like a few weeks ago there was the story of her in Greece where she basically was like, oh, you know, the United States could totally take down your entire country and your economy if they wanted to. And the government officials in Greece were like, why would you say that? Like, that's like a weird thing for you to— we've done it before.

You see what we did in this country and that—

Romania.

And you see what we did in Romania? It's like, why are you threatening us? Like, what are you doing? And now there's this news story. There's this Trump donor, big donor, Eric Dieters, I believe is his name. He had already paid Kimberly Guilfoyle like $300,000 over a span of years for speaking appearances because she's such an incredible speaker, folks, and she deserves a premium. Well, The Wall Street Journal did this report and just 6 days before she was confirmed, uh, as the ambassador to Greece, which is crazy. Uh, Guilfoyle apparently started pressuring, uh, this guy to pay off her $100,000 personal, uh, debt on her American Express card. And then she starts being really weird about it, right? Because it's shady and she knows it's shady. So she goes, it won't— allegedly she goes, it won't show up anywhere if you just wire the money to American Express. Don't send it to me. Don't pay the bill online. Wire the money directly to American Express and no one will know about it. And then she kept allegedly badgering the guy to submit the money. He was like, honey, please, I need you to do this for me.

Do this for me today. I need this done today.

And Brett's not exaggerating. These allegedly are the messages.

These are the quotes that the Wall Street Journal has reviewed. And so you can look up their—

is Dieters. Look, Guilfoyle denies all of this and says that the messages are inauthentic. So let's give her side as well. Dieters, the guy who's a Trump donor, MAGA guy, he's the one. It's not like they used all these off-the-record sources. They used the guy who she was messaging.

And he's been— and he's like doing the media circuit now talking about it.

It's not like he's holding back. And he's like, do we have the video of him? Look, the guy's here. Show the video. Show anyone the videos.

Let me get the clip.

I'll play.

I'll play a clip.

Random. Just play. Kimberly Guilfoyle is a grifter. Kimberly Guilfoyle, I have no doubt, has done this to more than me. She's doing it right now in Greece. I know Corey Lewandowski did this stuff. I mean, come on.

It's a crime family.

That's the Trump donor. That guy's a Trump donor.

Yeah, that's not— that's not Midas Touch. That's the Trump donor I'm talking about. That's Dieter's guy. And so he also said that Kimberly Guilfoyle promised him that if he paid off this $100,000 Amex bill, that she'd be his. And this is a direct quote. I'm reading it, quote, Trump ride or die forever and ever. Just do me this favor. Just do me this one thing. And so the Dieter's guy was like, no, I'm not doing it.

Like he said, he goes, he goes, my wife will kill me if she sees that I'm wiring $100,000 to another woman.

woman.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's another woman's Amex. She's not gonna believe that I'm doing this from being Trump's ride or die. She's gonna think that there's something going on with us. Brett, the other part of the story though too is Bettina, Don Jr.'s wife, her dad was Epstein's banker. And of course they then go and have the wedding in the island that's paid for in part by the Russian oligarchs who were very close to Putin. despite them making hundreds of millions of dollars under the Trump regime. So you have the Russian nesting doll aspect. I wanted to point that out as well.

And then you could add on to the Russian nesting doll with this story about this— how do you even say the name of this place? I honestly hadn't even heard of this.

Spirka.

Spirka. Republika Spirka, where apparently all the Trump advisors, everybody, everyone hangs out now and they, and they pal around with pro-Putin figures there and try to prop up their political campaigns. So first we saw was 2 high-level Trump campaign officials who were there was the first story we heard, including Chris Lasavita, who's a big name in the Trump world. And so that was the story like yesterday, right? We heard about them. And then Trump went through a series of kind of different excuses. First, it was like, well, if they really did that, I'm going to fire them. And then like an hour later, he was like, well, they don't actually work for me directly. It's like, yeah, they do. They're consultants. They're your like top-level staffers on your political— on the political They may not be in the White House. They work for your political campaign. And then like a day later, and who knows, they're like leaking this back and forth to each other to try to get the heat off the other ones. But, you know, apparently, you know, they didn't like that this was discovered. But today, another story comes out about Republica Sperca.

And what is it? Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff. Was it her daughter, Ben? Susie Wiles?

Susie Wiles' daughter.

Daughter.

Daughter, also seen in a photograph authenticated by many a publication with one of these pro-Putin figures in Republika Srpska, this place that I had never heard about, to be honest, before this. But apparently all these people in Trump world are palling around with these people with very close connections to Vladimir Putin in this place that I've never heard of. And there are— now we know of at least 3 of them. And this comes, like Ben said after the wedding that was paid for by the Russian oligarch. So, uh, that's to say what? Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. I think it's back. And, uh, you know, I think the threads are still there. We're still seeing, you know, all of these connections and the corruption and how, um, you know, to Jordy's point, this has never been about the country or doing better for the country. It's entirely been a grift for everybody involved, whether it is Donald Trump, Whether it's the, the ex-fiancée who was shipped off to Greece, whether it's the tech oligarchs who are milking this presidency for all they can, trying to pad their bottom lines at the expense of the people.

You just, just look at what's going on right now.

The expedited— we're breaking up. We're also shipping you to Greece to then getting married. I mean, it's so Trumpian and just weird, like getting married.

They shipped her to Greece.

They should do—

they shipped her to Greece.

Kimberly Guilfoyle fan of the show.

In the Guilfoyle saga, I will never forget that. I think it was like some sort of Irish folk tap dance that she would do at all of the Trump rallies. I mean, just we're talking about a really, a really disturbed family here.

Well, Jordy, let me just sum this up by— let me sum this up by saying one thing.

The best is yet to come.

Yeah.

I mean, look, very, very bizarre. Just very overall bizarre behavior. I mean, but look, if you said sent me to— like, you sent me— if you sent me to Greece to be the ambassador, like, that's such a job that's like, you know, everybody wants. Like, there's probably some that are viewed as like to be the ambassador to Greece, right? And you couldn't even be normal with that. Like, you had to be so allegedly corrupt and do all these weird stuff. There's the other story, Brett, that she rolls around with this this 39-year-old Greek lobbyist from this construction company that's gotten into like the LNG business. And the Wall Street Journal has been all over this story. And, and while— and they reported that lots of people thought that this guy was her chief of staff, but he's a lobbyist that works at this company that's new in the LNG space that was a construction company. And apparently, this is the allegations, Guilfoyle would tell people like that, like, this is our— like, this is our guy. Like, this is the company if you want to do work with America, this is the company to work through.

And they've got a big contract with the Greek government. This is— and she, again, to be clear, she denies everything and says that the messages are inauthentic and that Dieters is a liar and all of these things. Well, what does Marco Rubio have to say about all of this? Because when Rubio was in Greece, surely this was going to come up. So Rubio was asked, Rubio, what do you make of not just the most recent allegations by Dieters, But the issue about the 39-year-old guy lobbyist, the allegations about Romania, the allegations about what she said to Greek officials, the whole mess that is this ambassadorship. Surely you knew you were going to be asked this question. Let's watch what he says.

Is there anything new on the reporting from the Wall Street Journal that Ambassador Guilfoyle had sought—

Yeah, guys, let me tell you something. Okay, you guys are going to ask me this. You're going to ask me again in Portugal. I know the game, okay? The game is someone gives information to a newspaper or a media outlet, the media outlet reports it, you immediately turn to me and say, I need you to respond to our reporting. That's not the way this process works. Like, our job is not to respond every time someone decides to give the media something without any advance warning, without any— having any chance to look at it and see what's in there. That's not the way. That's not the way you run an organization, and that's not a serious way to conduct the policy of our country. So I'm not going to comment on a story that literally posted a few hours ago. I get the game. Okay. I've been in this for a long time. Within hours, some member of Congress will write you a letter demanding you answer questions to something we've never seen before. I don't even know if it's true or not true. So it's just not going to work that way. And it most certainly is not going to work that way when I'm sitting in another country.

All right. You're sitting in the country where it happened and there's no game. And the answer is very easy. And if you want to protect the due process rights of somebody like a Kimberly Guilfoyle, despite how bad this all sounds, you just say, I'm aware of the allegations. I'm not going to comment on it at this time. We will conduct a thorough investigation. Obviously, any allegations like this are very serious, and that's all we have to say at this moment.

Ben, but the game, the game, the game, Ben. I'm not gonna play the game, Ben.

I'm not going to play the game.

It's a game.

And so they've already—

Doesn't that tell it all?

Doesn't that tell it all? Because they've already come with the position.

It's a game.

Exactly.

Exactly.

They've already— it's already being filtered through a MAGA unserious lens and that it's, ah, this isn't real. This is fake news. Everyone's coming after us and all of these things. And it's just like, it's just nonsense. As I said, we've talked about a lot in this episode and, you know, more information's coming in as well about an ICE shooting. Mayor Mamdani talked about it in New York, where— and Marble Hill, in a residential neighborhood where an agent surrounded this individual and a 5-year-old child before firing multiple rounds. The child was physically unharmed, but this individual seems to have been harmed. And Mamdani saying he called Trump to confront him about it. And Mamdani ends by saying abolish ICE. But I leave with that also. I want to get more details, of course, about everything that's happening there, but I don't want to ignore it on this episode. So what we're talking about is not Democratic or Republican or independent. As I've said this whole episode, and what we talk about all the time in WTF America, is at the, at the very least, we should be serious people. We should be a serious country. That doesn't mean we can't have a sense of humor.

It doesn't mean we can't have hobbies. It doesn't mean we can't have fun. We absolutely should. But that exists in certain spaces where we should have fun and laugh. It's not joking about nuclear annihilation and war crimes, and it's not promoting ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo to kill people. We have to recognize there are places, movies and comedy shows and family, where certain things happen. But at a country level, we should be serious. Then we should be serious and competent. Then we should be serious, competent, and exercise a level of care. Serious, competent, exercise care, and then a level of sophistication. Serious, competent, care, sophistication. Then we should have public servants at the top of my hierarchy of running a country who are sophisticated public servants who are truly aligned with the country and with the interests of the people. We talk about that in WTF America because that's not how politics is often covered. Who slam dunked on who? Who's the winner? Who's the loser? This person's up. That person's up. Look, we should cover it. These are, after all, called political races. But what we shouldn't forget is that what they're running for should be to deliver for us, we the people.

And that's what the big thing is that we should never forget. And that's what we talk about in WTF America. What we talk about too is then connecting that framework internationally. Midas Canada, Midas Europe, we're building out. We didn't forget about you, Midas Australia. I saw some of your comments, you ignored Midas Australia. No, no, no, Midas Australia for sure.

Never to the Midas mates, man. We'll never do that.

Exactly.

We got you.

So there you have it. Feet, feet, how steady are you? Your foot wake-up call, things I should probably know. You might be thinking, who's your favorite child? This is a lot. Well, whatever. Go get The Real WTF America: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy, the hardcover, the ebook. Let's show corporate news we don't need them and that we'll, you know, we'll rise to the top without them together with this community. Thanks everybody for watching. We're grateful for you. Great episode. Great spending this time with you. Jordy, take it away.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

The mind of the mighty is standing strong. Against the fascists, we sing our song.

We will get it right whenever.

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 preorder, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.