Transcript of MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/10/26

Donald Trump's unlawful war against Iran is spiraling out of control. Utter chaos has engulfed the Gulf. The Middle East is on fire. Going into today, the markets were absolutely crashing internationally and here in the United States. The price of oil was going up dramatically, almost hitting $120 per barrel, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P were crashing, like almost circuit breaker crash was expected for the day. So what did Donald Trump do to manipulate the markets? He started calling up reporters and saying the war is pretty much complete, that the war is going to go away like a miracle. It's all just going to disappear and everything is going great. So on the news that Donald Trump was going to taco, that Trump always chickens out, all of a sudden we saw the price of oil dramatically decrease. We saw these stocks rebound and what was going to be a disastrous day on the market, and I mean a disaster, all of a sudden looked like, well, things were okay. And you may have been saying, what happened? Well, it was Donald Trump and his regime manipulating the market. Then we learned more. Donald Trump had a conversation on the phone with Putin today, and Donald Trump credited Putin with coming up with a plan for the United States how to end the war in Iran that Donald Trump started.

That's very odd. Well, not for Donald Trump. While Donald Trump also talked about removing sanctions on Putin and Putin's ability to sell oil to the rest of the world. The Trump regime has already removed sanctions that now allow Russia to sell their oil to India. But Trump is considering removing sanctions on Russia to sell oil elsewhere. This war has been a massive boom for Putin as the United States needs Zelensky's help and is begging Zelensky for help. To stop these Iranian Shahed drones and ballistic missiles that Zelensky has worked to stop in Ukraine. So we are propping up Putin while begging Zelensky for help, which is like a worst-case scenario. But that's typical Trump. Now, as we're recording this live, as the news sets in, which shouldn't be a shocker that this war is not ending soon, we're now seeing the markets fluctuate in the opposite direction. We're seeing the price per barrel of oil now shoot up close to that $100 per barrel mark. We're seeing the futures markets starting to look really bad yet again. This is Donald Trump manipulating the markets. In my opinion, it's fairly obvious what's taking place. Then Before we went live, Donald Trump held a deranged press conference where he said that Iran potentially stole United States Tomahawk missiles and then used the Tomahawks on itself to kill 150 children in the elementary school in Iran and 185 people total.

And then when reporters pressed him and said, You realize that nobody is saying that other than you, like you're making this up. I mean, it was an American tomahawk that crashed into this elementary school with American— it says Made in America on it. We can see that it's tomahawks. We see the crater marks. We know what happened. Now, this has been confirmed by our intelligence agencies, by multiple independent reports.. And Trump is now saying that Iran tomahawked itself on the first day of the war. And reporters like, where are you getting that from? Upon information and belief. This is what I believe happened. More lies, more traitorous and treasonous conduct, in my view. And now the Trump regime is talking about an operation to try to retrieve the enriched uranium, which we have not stopped in Iran, and sending special forces and other ground troops in to do that. Then yesterday you had Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump's chief propagandist, not rule out a draft for the American people, sending your children to war. And that's about a good summation of what's— of what's went down today. We're going to get into it. We're going to show you the receipts.

We're going to show you the facts right now. But folks, it is an incredibly sad thing. And I'll bring in Brett and Jordy when I say this, to see what this Trump authoritarian regime has done to our country internationally. Here, our reputation is shattered. Frankly, it's irreparable. Irreparable harm has been caused. And when I'm watching, whether it's Hegseth or Rubio or Trump or Caroline Levitt, the way we once looked at like Baghdad Bob, you know, and these characters from these authoritarian regimes with zero credibility and their behavior, our people right now in the United States who are in charge of this, although in charge is not how they're behaving, are way worse than that.. And I see this behavior and I'm just like, this is sad. This behavior is sickening. And that this is the United States of America right now. It is sick and disgusting and it needs to be reported as such. Brett and Jordy, good to see you.

Good to see you too, Ben. Good to see you, Jordy. Good to see everybody who's tuning in right now live on the Midas Touch YouTube channel and everybody who is listening to this on the Midas Touch audio podcast. Great to be here. A whole lot to discuss. You know, lying is bad enough during, you know, times of relative peace. Lying is bad enough when it's about inconsequential things that don't really matter. When it comes to moments of war, when it comes to moments of life or death, those lies just become so heinous. And the lies that we are seeing right now from the Trump White House— I want to be clear, none of this is surprising at all. This is what Trump does about literally everything. But the lies we are seeing right now out of Trump and this White House and all of these sycophants around Donald Trump in Congress are just so despicable that they make the Bush administration and the lies that they put out there to bring us into the Iraq War, they make them look like honest brokers. That's how bad these people are right now. They're just so egregious.

The things that they are trying to defend are just indefensible, like the bombing of those children in the school in Iran and the constant lying about it despite all evidence to the contrary. All these kind of mixed messages they're giving the American people. Trump was clear earlier today saying basically that he was going to surrender. And then in the next breath, he'd say that this war is going to go as long as it takes, and it could take a really long time. You don't know what to believe. Unfortunately, it's impossible to trust anything that's coming right now from the Trump regime. I mean, as always, but like I said, it's heightened right now. You know, in the last episode of the podcast, I said this was really reminding me of the way Donald Trump handled COVID with the endless lying and the kind of timelines of it's gone, it's never going to come here, days going down to zero, like a miracle, it's gonna go away. And as every kind of hour passed since then, I feel like it's become more and more and more kind of exactly like that. I know we got a lot to discuss, so I'm gonna stop rambling, but I gotta toss it over to Jordy.

Jordy, what's the latest on your end? What's up, brothers? What's up, Midas Mighty? Big show tonight. I'm excited to get into it. Hey, if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to the audio version of this podcast. Anywhere you get your podcasts. It's totally free. Just search the Midas Touch podcast and we'll pop up. Hit that subscribe button. It's really helpful. Look, I'm very excited to get into tonight's show. The situation is a political and strategic nightmare for the Trump regime. First off, it just completely undermines Trump's core brand, right? This idea of strength and this America First efficiency. I mean, Trump campaigned on ending forever wars. Instead, you know, it looks like he's gotten us in another one with literally zero clear exit strategy aside from him just saying, yeah, I think we're wrapping up. You can't trust what the guy is saying. Instead of a pro-democracy uprising in Iran, because there was no plan or, or thought really put into this, the strikes unified the Iranian public against the US. This makes any sort of long-term victory just impossible and puts our troops at risk, puts our embassies at risk, and our citizens here in the States at risk.

And also, what you can't overstate here is the economic shock of it all with the surging oil prices, the disruption to the global trade routes. The immediate inflationary pressure on the American consumer is being felt now more than ever, and the Trump economy is being dragged down by a war of his choice while the American people are suffering the consequences. And I'm not saying this to be hyperbolic, but it's obvious this is going to get really, really bad.

Ben? Yeah, I don't like any propaganda. So let me be clear there. But the Trump propaganda is also just so bad, like it is infantile in its execution and formulation that it's like you can't even do propaganda, right? Like You're trying to do what the authoritarian regimes do, but you're also bad at that. You're bad at everything right now. You know, whether they're posting videos of like Grand Theft Auto or NFL linebackers like tackling people videos and mixing it with war footage, you know, or they were showing what, like, you know, the different like cartoons. I'm like, what in the world are you doing? And then like the music artists call them out and like, stop stealing my songs. And the directors of the movies like, stop using me for like war propaganda. Like, what are you even, you know, doing right here? Right? So I'll tell you how I experienced today's news because I taught today. So there was about an hour and a half where I was out teaching my class at USC. And so before I taught my class, the markets were tanking. And it looked like it was going to be a very grim day.

Economically for this country, perhaps one of the worst out there. Then I leave the class, I go out and I'm like, huh, what's going on? The markets are going up. The price of oil is going down. That's surprising. Did something good happen that I'm unaware of? So I start looking, you know, I see on the newswire, Trump, I think the Iran war is pretty much complete. Then I learn, where did he say this. And it's— he said it to CBS, Weijia Jiang. And he said, and this is what she reported from CBS, in a phone interview, Trump told me that the war could be over soon. I think the war is very complete. Pretty much they have no navy, no communications. They've got no air force. He had that. He added that the US is very far ahead of its initial 4 to 5 week estimated time frame. But he wasn't there, he told Weijia. Asked about Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, that's the son of the prior ayatollah who's more extreme than the prior ayatollah who Trump has openly criticized. Trump said, I have no message for him, none whatsoever. Trump said he had someone in mind to replace Khamenei, but he did not elaborate.

As for the Strait of Hormuz, Trump noted that ships are moving through for now, but he is thinking about taking it over. Trump warned Iran, they've shot everything they have to shoot. And they better not try anything cute or it's going to be the end of that country. So I said, aha, that's what happened. And if you looked at the market, whether it's the S&P starts shooting up, you look at the price of oil per barrel, it starts tanking down like 30%. So, okay, gas prices are going to be more affordable now. What's going on? So then I put on my journalist cap and I go, I get that Weijia is saying that. I get CBS is saying that. But are they just stenographers for the regime? And let me be clear, Weijia is a good reporter. But I think in this day and age, you can't be a stenographer for the Trump regime. So because she's a really good— she asks great questions. She really does. To me, she's one of the top reporters out there., you know, in the White House. So then I'm looking around and I'm confused because I'm like, okay, I know he said this.

I see the markets reacting, but is there any evidence for this out there? And so I'm looking like I'm really— I'm going through all my open source information, Telegram. I'm speaking to our editorial team. Is there anything true to this? Where is this coming? No, it's just Trump said. I said, really? Trump said. And this is what's happening right now when it actually bears no resemblance to what's happening in Trump's unlawful war. Well, actually, things are just as bad as they were before, and Iran still has the capabilities and they haven't run out of missiles and they've done a transition of power to someone arguably significantly more extreme than the past leader. They have their foreign ministers and National Security Council advisers. Doing American media and British media and media locally describing what's going on. I'm looking at the videos from Tehran. I'm seeing people there by the hundreds of thousands in the street protesting not the ayatollah against Trump, against the Trump regime, against Israel, and rallying behind the ayatollah. We've lost even the people who wanted the ayatollah gone because Donald Trump's made comments like, we're going to change the map of Iran.

The next ayatollah is going to have to be selected by me and Netanyahu. And so you've lost the support of even people there who may have been inclined to support you before. But then it gets worse. He spoke to Putin. I'm like, well, this is being reported publicly.

Yeah.

How do we know he spoke to Putin? The Kremlin's been bragging about it. So Trump's been asked about it and he's admitted that he did it. But the Kremlin immediately did the readout of what was said. So Putin, in a phone call with Trump today, shared proposals to end the Iran war quickly. And they also spoke about Ukraine. And they also spoke about Donald Trump removing sanctions from Russia to allow Russia to start exporting its oil across the globe. America's already removed— the United States has already removed the sanctions that prohibited Russia from giving oil to India. So Russia is benefiting massively from this right now because they got to sell super high. When the price was $120 per barrel, that's when they unloaded all of their oil and made massive profits. Then Trump manipulated the market and it went down. Now the price of oil is going back up right now, and they're going to unload more oil, which means they're going to be able to buy more Shahed drones from Iran. Russia is providing Iran with the coordinates of American soldiers and assets to kill Americans, which Donald Trump's like, well, if they're doing that, they're doing a bad job and we do it.

So why can't they do it? That's Donald Trump's defense. We do it to them so they could do it to us. That's what you're saying about Russia right now. So you have Putin empowered more than ever. And I'm trying to learn more. I'm trying to say so. So what is actually happening here? I'm learning that more MQ-9 Reaper drones have been shot down. I'm seeing that the Strait of Hormuz, yeah, there are some transponders being shut off, but by and large, pretty much shut down. I'm seeing Iran issue ultimatums to Arab nations saying effectively, if you have Israeli and United States embassies in your country, then we're going to continue attacking you. If you remove them, you're good. Use the Strait of Hormuz. And I'm thinking to myself, it's market manipulation. The war is still raging. There's no sign of this stopping. How tragic, how horrific, how despicable that we have a regime that would do this. And how do people keep falling for this, Brett and Jordy?

Like, like you said, the propaganda is so stupid and so basic that you'd think anybody with half a brain intel would be able to see through exactly what is going on. But Trump, in the same, like, few sentences, could dance every which way around the same exact issue. And then he allows kind of everyone to hear the soundbite that they want to hear. He did this a lot during the campaign too, when it came to issues like abortion and other kind of controversial issues out there. But you had basically in the same speech today Trump saying the war is very complete. Then he said the war will be a short-term excursion. Then he said the war will continue until the enemy is decisively defeated. Then he said the war's actually already been won in a lot of ways. Then he said we haven't won enough. Then he said we will go forward more determined than ever until we achieve ultimate victory. It was just this, that, this, that, just dancing every which way around the issue. Meanwhile, like you were saying, Ben, this has been a boon to Vladimir Putin and Russia. They could not have gotten more out of this.

I mean, they have to be salivating right now out of every move Donald Trump did by increasing the price of oil, with Donald Trump's war, with the easing of the sanctions, which is now going to make Russia much richer for the first time in a long time. They've been begging for these sanctions to be released, and now Donald Trump is handing it to them at the same time where they— while they are helping Iran to target American troops. I mean, talk about traitorous. And meanwhile, one of the biggest things to me that is crushing me right now, just not even on any sort of political level whatsoever, but just on a human level, is what a betrayal this has been to the Iranian people. If you remember, everybody, what did Donald Trump say? It was kind of like about January, I believe Donald Trump told the Iranian people, now's your time. Take to the streets. The United States has your back. Go protest, overthrow the regime. We gotcha. We gotcha. What happens there in the streets? More take to the streets. Tens of thousands get slaughtered by the regime. And Donald Trump does absolutely Nothing.

Now flash forward to months later, Donald Trump is bombing Iran basically indiscriminately. Donald Trump bombed a school and he is refusing to take credit for bombing the school right now. But all intelligence points to that exact fact. We even saw footage of the Tomahawk missile, a US weapon, hit that school. We've seen reports from a lot of independent reporting. We've seen US officials even acknowledge privately that they believe that the US was responsible for that strike. But Donald Trump gets out there and he still tries to say that Iran were the ones who, who fired a missile at their own school. Preposterous. What a heinous, despicable lie. Atrocity denial of the worst kind. And I've noticed in recent days that the Trump administration has been not making a distinction between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people, and they are giving the Iranian regime everything they need to be much more hardline and to have a grip on power much stronger than they ever had before. You saw it even just a few days ago. Pete Hegseth, during his 60 Minutes interview, is one of the first clips that they released. They were talking about the Russia situation that Ben was speaking about, and they were like, well, aren't you worried that Russia has now entered the war and Russia is helping Iran to target American citizens?

And Hegseth putting on his fake machismo tough guy act, said, quote, the only ones who need to be worried right now are Iranians who think they are going to live. As I was saying, not making a distinction between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime, just saying that I'm going to threaten all Iranians. And we saw Donald Trump today at one of these speeches, one of these press conferences that he had. Donald Trump, they were— he was asked, he was like, so they were like, so are you going to still help the Iranian people? You promised them that you were going to help them months ago. And now you seem to be saying that you're okay if you just kind of got out of there and you installed a more hardline leader there. They're still— those people are not free. So you're just going to leave. You don't care about helping those people anymore. And Donald Trump was like, you know, I would love to help them, but they're kind of menacing, those people. And if they were, you know, maybe not so menacing, I would help them. How could you possibly say that and pretend like you are a supporter of democracy?

And how do the people actually think that this is an individual who gives a shit about your lives? And you see the bombing campaigns and you see even just the toxicity of the chemicals right now that are getting in the air because they're just indiscriminately bombing oil. Israel bombed these oil refineries throughout Iran and they had like a nuclear winter type you know, smoke, black. They woke up, the sky was black during the day. It was like dripping. These are the people who are actually supposed to be protecting the people. They're giving the Iranian regime all the propaganda that they need right now to go against the United States. And they've actually made this new ayatollah way stronger. And all they've done was replace an old ayatollah who was like 86 years old, probably didn't have much time to live. With a younger, more hardline ayatollah. Oh, and they killed like all of his family. They killed a lot of his family members just in case, uh, you know, it wasn't enough already. And the whole thing right now, it, it's really, it's like a worst case scenario, uh, for a situation like this in the Middle East.

And Trump thinks that at any time that he could just get outta there and that everything would be okay as Americans now and our allies are just being threatened around the world, quite frankly, because of Trump's It's why you need adults in the room.

And I just don't say that. It's why you need adults in the room. It's why elections matter. And it's why I think there's going to be a clear reckoning in this country in the fight about truth and facts and whether we care about truth and facts as a society or we're just going to allow, like, the algorithms to dictate what you want your idea of the truth to be. What Donald Trump is doing, They are so— the Trump regime is so unprepared for what is happening right now. They are evil and they are stupid, and that is the worst combination because they're also powerful and they're also dictating what happens to the people of this country by their actions of what they're doing with more wars. It's a scary thing when you see how much power the Trump regime is willing to wield and with no sort of like, okay, so what's the rationale, right? Sell it to me. Like, what is the point of all of this? Because to me, there is none. There is no clear point. There is no clear endgame. And that is the saddest and scariest part of this whole thing.

So when Donald Trump goes out there and says, oh, the war is over now, and you see MAGA media, legacy media just regurgitate what he's saying, Ben, to your point, in this like sort of like pseudo-martyr manipulation strategy, it's damn near terrifying because someone at some point is going to have to hold his feet to the fire and demand the truth and demand the facts. So shout out to independent media demanding those things, right? We're not going to be gaslit by corporate media into thinking that what's happening in this, in any of this, is normal. None of this is normal. We should all be outraged. I know we, the collective we here, certainly are. But like, when are more people going to be fed up with this? And I think ultimately we're starting to see a true vibe shift with how just the run-of-the-mill general, you know, society and Americans feel about Donald Trump and this regime.

Let's talk about this. Virtually every former president has some quote about how difficult the decisions are over war and peace. And how painstaking it is for them to decide to go to war. Let me give you some examples. Dwight Eisenhower said, every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. Abraham Lincoln: Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. George Washington: My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: I hate war. Harry Truman: The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know. James Madison: Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded. Barack Obama: War in one form or another appeared with the first man, but we must begin by acknowledging the hard truth. We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. One of the most powerful from Dwight Eisenhower: I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting.

Putin.

Here's what Donald Trump said about war today. Let's play that clip.

But, you know, they've said this about a lot of things. No other president could do some of this shit I'm doing.

No other president.

The things I'm doing, nobody else was going to do it. I say they say it all the time. Sir, could you do this?

You're the only one can do it.

I don't care what political party you're from. I hope the case that I just made and compared it to what Donald Trump's view is just shows you this is not normal. What is happening right now, this is not normal, and we can treat it as such. And so many of the problems right now are people normalizing this behavior by this revolting individual in the Oval Office, or in this case, indoor rally at his own resort, grifting while the MAGA Republicans are there with him instead of actually dealing with Article 1 work of the Constitution. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, make sure you hit subscribe. Look how quickly we got to 6.1 million subscribers. Let's get to 7 million in the next 2 months. Let's do it together. We have a lot more show left. You can also, by the way, become a member. You can join right now. You can gift memberships to other people. Also turn your notifications on so when we release a new video, it alerts you right away. Do that. And store.midastouch.com is where you can get the Midas Touch gear. First quick break of the show right now.

We'll be right back after this.

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

You know, let's talk about this right now. I'm going to show what Trump was saying in just a little bit, but I'm just reflecting on how his family is behaving right now while so many Americans are scared, and rightfully so, as Americans are suffering right now from the psychological torture that this regime is inflicting. One of the stories that the Wall Street Journal exclusively broke this morning is that Donald Trump's kids, you know, Eric Trump and others, are now in the drone business and that they are now behind a startup that will be making drones for the Pentagon right now. Trump sons back new drone company targeting Pentagon sales. It's called Powerus., and it says it plans to acquire Ukrainian drone technology to sell it to the U.S. military. So here's my question. I'm just asking questions, right? So when we asked Zelensky for help to shoot down the Shahed drones, you may be saying, well, isn't that inconsistent? Everything's inconsistent with this regime, though, of Donald Trump Trump then helping Putin? And if Putin is targeting our soldiers by giving Iran the coordinates and Trump is taking away the sanctions against Russia to sell its oil, but then we're getting help from Ukraine.

So how do you kind of put this all together? Well, again, I'm just asking questions. Are we taking the Ukrainian technology, holding over their heads support so they can help the Trump family make money? Right. Once we learn that technology, it then gets utilized by this startup, which now does the contracts with the Pentagon. The Trump family gets enriched instead of the Ukrainian drone companies because We're getting their IP and tech, and then we're helping Russia get richer by removing sanctions. And we're holding this over Zelensky's head.

I seem to remember a political party and a guy who was running for president who made a big stink about an individual, a son of the president who was doing business in Ukraine. And but they made up a whole lot of stories about, about that guy and held a whole lot of hearings about that guy, but they now want to actually enrich themselves off the Ukrainian people.

And this is okay. Yeah, take the drone technology from Ukraine while then releasing Russia from sanctions, while Russia targets American— helps Iran target American soldiers. And while Donald Trump helps China against Taiwan, while China is also providing support to Iran, just think about that. Trump's granddaughter, Kai, yesterday posted a video. I brought my Secret Service to Erewhon. It's an expensive grocery store in Los Angeles, and she like buys stuff at Erewhon and like like tries the sushi, like, oh, this sushi is gross. And what'd I pay for it? $25 for— I'm going to have to file for bankruptcy. It's like actually what she says. So that's what she's posting. You had Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump's daughter, right? Kaisa granddaughter Tiffany Trump. The day the war begins, she's posting— you can't like make this stuff up. She's posting photos of herself in Egypt. I think she previously took this vacation, but she happened to post it that day, I believe February 27th, I believe was the first day right around there doing the thing where like she puts her finger on the top of the pyramid, like doing influencer poses right there. You have Melania Trump making posts about her movie and saying, you know, the Melania movie is out right now.

Go and check.

Big news.

What does she say? She says big news. Melania France, record-breaking film only on Prime worldwide. You have her making those posts. You have Eric Trump also making posts of himself with like a race car team that he's involved in. You have Ivanka Trump. There it is, you know, with the race car team. Like they're out there partying right now. Like I saw people saying, like, are they trying to like do French Revolution? Like, are they really like, are they putting that out into the world?

Like, what are you doing, dude? They are living— the Trump kids are living their best lives. They are, they are partying. They are spiking. They are spiking the football in the faces of the American people right now.

You know, I think they just realize that like the more extreme they go, like the more their cultish followers will support them. And like in the past, it would be like, like you could do like make a minor transgression and it would be front page news and there would have to be at minimum an apology or people would be resigning from their jobs or whatever it is. Right. But these people, these Trump family grifters, they just know that if they just throw it in your face, I'm my Secret Service trip to Air One. I mean, SNL couldn't write that as like more of fucking parody. Sorry, excuse my language. And you throw that in people's faces, but somehow they get these MAGA people to go, oh, that's amazing.

This is the best guy. What a great dress you were wearing, Kai.

Great dress.

It's like they're stealing from you. It's obvious, right? The way we're talking, Erewhon is like a super expensive, high-end, like, grocery store in California, just in case people don't know, because It's that insane and it's that tone deaf. Literally as they're bombing children, she's going there and my Secret Service trip, Eric Trump posting with race car drivers, Don Jr. doing whatever the fuck Don Jr. does, man. It's so pathetic. They are so pathetic and they do it at such a rapid clip that it's almost hard for people to keep up with.

I'll tell you, I'll tell you, just so you know what this is.

I'll tell you what Don Jr. actually posted on his Instagram account. He posted a photo of some of that black smoke that Brett was talking about from the United States and Israel kind of bombing indiscriminately in Iran. And it says black smoke signals that the College of the Mullahs has not reached a decision on the new ayatollah today. And like, that's— and then Don Jr. goes, not going to lie, this is legit funny. He says, this is legit funny. Well, they picked an ayatollah. It's Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, who is now— if this is legit funny to you, but there are hundreds of thousands of people in Revolutionary Square in Tehran supporting the ayatollah and anybody who may have been sympathetic to the United States or just to the idea of overthrowing the ayatollah are not to be seen right now in Iran. And our intelligence community shows there's frankly very little chance of that rising ever again. There was maybe a small window in January when Trump betrayed them, but even then people thought it probably doesn't have the capability of actually overthrowing.

By the way, I think that was the subtext behind Trump's remarks today when he basically abandoned the Iranian— the Iranian people, when he was basically like, oh, those people, they're, they're very nasty. At one point he called them nasty people, said the Iranian people are very, very nasty people. And in another one, he said, I would love to help them, but they're very menacing, very, very menacing people. And I think part of the context or the subtext behind that that is the fact that he has learned from the intelligence in the United States that he has actually made these people more sympathetic to the regime by the United States' actions, and that Trump has no chance of actually implementing the regime change that he wanted to implement when he embarked on this war without having any sort of strategy whatsoever. He's really only made the problem worse. Problem much worse. And he's made our country much less safe. And he's made the region much less safe. And he's completely disrupted markets. And it's like every possible thing imaginable that kind of could go wrong with a situation like this is going wrong right now. And I think he realizes that.

Well, Rick, because it can never be his fault.

Can't be.

It can't be dear leader's fault. Donald Trump, he's the smartest and most brightest and the bestest guy that ever existed. So it's the. It's the Iranian people's fault now, Brett, that. That he always moves the goalposts here so he doesn't have to actually see the consequences of his ill planning, of his misjudgment, of his just utter lunacy.

That's what it is. Let me go and bring some of the receipts, because I know one of the things you value at the Midas Touch Network is that this isn't a shouting show, right, where we do the split screen, like just.

You trying to say I was getting a little shouty?

No, quite the contrary, actually. I was saying that you were pitch perfect, Jordy. But I was just saying that, you know what, what, what I don't want the show to be about, though, is just like, well, I'm not suggesting you did this at all. You know, I just, I want to show people what he said rather than me saying what he said. Not because I like showing you Trump clips, but I think it's important if I were to present my case to a jury, right, when I used to be a litigator, I'd have to support what I'm saying with evidence. That's why the catchphrase is, let me play you the clip. And maybe you don't like when I say that. It's like, all right, just play the clip. You don't need to say play the clip. But the whole point is, is that here it is. Here's their words. Here's what they're saying.

That's it.

That shouldn't be Democrat, Republican, independent. It just is what they're saying. So here the reporter says to Donald Trump or asks on Iran, you called it an excursion and you said it would be over soon. Are you thinking this week? What do you mean by soon? And remember, earlier today, Trump said, we're basically complete, we're basically done. So a reporter seeks clarification. What do you mean when you told that to CBS? Let's play it. Yeah, please. Thank you, Mr. President. On Iran, you called it an excursion. You said it would be over soon. Are you thinking this week it will be over?

No, but soon.

I think so.

Okay. And with respect—

Very soon.

Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership. In fact, there are two levels of leadership and even actually, as it turns out, more than that. But two levels of leadership are gone. Most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about. So it's obviously been very, very powerful, very effective.

Yeah, just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean that people haven't heard of it. Their foreign minister is the same foreign minister, their national security advisors, their same national security advisor, their head of their parliament. Is the head of their parliament. Their new ayatollah is just the son of the old ayatollah who's more extreme than his dad was. Did you kill a lot of people who were in leadership positions? Yes. Is the leadership structure and the continuity of it in place? It still is. Does Iran still have the capabilities to shoot at the Arab neighbors that were American interests? Are they do So let's again just stick with the facts here. That's all. That's all I want to do.

By the way, you've seen in recent days too, like the, these, these talking points, and it's like I have, you know, Iraq War PTSD from hearing all of these talking points over and over and over again. I can't believe that they use the same comments to try to dupe people and that people believe this stuff. But you see these people one by one going on TV, these Republicans and people within the Trump administration, and they go, well, of course we're going to win. Of course, this is going to be a success. We have far more firepower than they do. They don't stand a chance. I heard that in Iraq. I've heard that with Afghanistan. That's what they said during Vietnam. They've said this during every single war that the United States has went into that has been a complete and utter disaster. Yet they use the same frickin lines every time they send American troops out there to die.

And I'm sick of it.

Here's the thing, though.

Wait one sec, man.

Just wait. Just wait until he does the banner thing. I say that not being funny at all. He's going to do the mission accomplished banner thing. He does it every day, though, at this point, right? Yeah. It's fair.

Fair.

But just wait till the photo op itself. Just wait because it's coming.

It's absolutely coming. Right. But to me, Brett, I hear you of the similarities. But like, to me, it's the difference of like degrees that are so vast that like at least with Iraq, and I'm not necessarily saying this is a better thing, like at least they tried to present it with intelligent people who worked hard to pretend they were building a coalition. And like there was months and months and months of selling that to the American people, you know, like, like right now this is like out of a stupid comic book. Like, it's not even done at a level that bears any, like, intelligent thinking. And, you know, and I'm watching, I'm like, this is just, this is just stupid. This is, that's what I said earlier in the show. Like, I don't like propaganda. There's to be, that's an AI image of the mission accomplished in the background. Just so we're mocking that he's declaring mission accomplished, just so, just so you know. But he said those things essentially. But Again, I don't like propaganda in general. I detest it. But this is like, this is like F-level propaganda. You're like, like, what? What are you talking about?

Then he bragged about speaking with Putin. I mean, just think about it. American President Putin is out there right now trying to kill Americans. Putin's sworn enemy, the United States of America. Putin is working to destroy our country. All of Europe other than, I suppose, Orbán, you know, you know, and trying to destroy Ukraine, which I consider part of Europe. Of course, he hates us. He literally wants to see America dead. But Donald Trump's like, yeah, I had a good call, good call with the guy today. You had a good call with him. And by the way, the way we found out about this was from the Kremlin originally. So when the reporter was asking Trump, it was for confirmation about what the Kremlin published. Watch for yourself.

Let's play it. Do you approve of Iran's new supreme leader? And secondly, can you tell us more about your call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today?

What did you discuss? Yes, I had a very good call with President Putin. We had a lot of people on the line from our side, from his side. I said we were talking about Ukraine, which is just a never-ending fight. And when, look, there's tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky. They can't seem to get it together. But I think it was a positive call on that subject. And we obviously talked then about the Middle East. And he wants to be helpful. I said you could be more helpful by getting the Ukraine-Russia war over with. That would be more helpful. But we had a very good talk and he wants to be very constructive.

That was really a Helsinki kind of moment for me. Like, if that were a first-term Trump comment, that would be like the top headline for a while. Russia wants to help us. They actually want to help the war. It reminds me of after that Helsinki meeting when he was like, oh, well, Russia's actually— Vladimir Putin actually says that he's actually— was actually very very strong in his denials. And, and the Russians actually want to help us with our cybersecurity. So we're actually going to now we're going to join forces, actually, and they're going to help us with our cybersecurity because Vlad tells me he wants to help you guys. You know, he's, he says he wants to help and I believe him.

Yeah, I'll just show you. I mean, we know that Russia is providing data to Iran to kill our soldiers and to blow up our military interests abroad. That's an undeniable fact.

It's undisputed fact.

In fact, the Trump regime doesn't even rebut it.

Right.

The Trump regime's line to it— and Brett, do we have that? Like the spokesperson, you know, one of those State Department spokesperson, that lady who says that just their line is, well, if Russia is doing it, they're doing a bad job.

Yeah.

Tammy, Tammy Bruce, the UN ambassador. Let's just play this. Their line is not to deny it. It's to say, well, they're not doing a good job. What do you mean they're not doing a good job? We've had like our drone Reapers destroyed, our CIA facilities in like Saudi Arabia destroyed.

I have the full clip, which is kind of long if you want to play the whole thing.

We don't need to play the full clip then. It's fine. She says that. But and that's repeated over and over again by Trump regime officials there. And it's like, what, dude? And China is helping. Iran right now. And Trump's like, well, I'm just trying to do my best to help China. Help America. Why don't you help America? So a reporter then asks Trump, a video appears to show a Tomahawk missile likely destroying the Iranian girls' school. There's video of it. You can see the Tomahawk in the video. And then from the satellite image, you can see the craters. That are formed from the Tomahawk missile. And you can see the nearby areas that were also hit. And it has a pattern that was utilized that is clearly consistent with the US Tomahawks. The US is not selling Iran Tomahawk missiles. Okay. And there's not a lot of countries even have these Tomahawk missiles to begin with. And I'll show you what Trump's response is. To this atrocity. And look, it was very hard for me to report on this. It's sad for me to report on atrocities like this, you know, but it's my job as a reporter.

And there were lots of people who were even denying it when we were reporting on it early on, and they were saying, no, that's just Iranian propaganda. I'm like, it really happened. We know it happened. And now it's been confirmed. Across multiple intelligence agencies. We know that's what happened.

Okay.

And now the Trumpers are like, we're doing an investigation. Well, here's what Trump said when a reporter asked him about it.

Let's play this first. Go ahead.

There's footage that shows an American missile strike and a Tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girls' school. So will the Americans, will the U.S. accept any responsibility?

Well, I haven't seen it. And I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries. You know that. And whether it's Iran, who also has some Tomahawks, they wish they had more. But whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk, a Tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries.

But that's being investigated.

Okay.

Current operators include UK, Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands. There's not a generic tomahawk, like a generic medication. It's not ibuprofen.

Ibuprofen.

You know, it's just, you know, when someone does a lie like that, that's such a big lie, right? If someone watches that, you're like, wait a minute, what part of that was a lie? Every aspect of it. So they don't have tomahawks? No. But what about the generic kind?

No.

What do you mean he hasn't seen it? No, he's seen it. He knows. He knows that the United States did it. He knows the United States killed 150 little, little girls on the first day. The question that needs to be answered, although the answer doesn't bring back to life these little girls who were massacred, though, is was it autonomous AI that did it? Because there were Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities nearby. But this facility has been existing for a long time. Did the AI mix up the facilities?

What happened there?

But we did it. It's that—

that's what happened.

So a reporter then asks him another question like, so are you suggesting that Iran has used a Tomahawk on itself? Is that the suggestion? To kill the little girls? Like, that's what you're saying?

Here, play this clip.

Mr.

President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked, standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this?

Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation.. But tomahawks are, are used by others. As you know, numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly— whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report.

Does it even mean you're willing to live with the report? We massacred 150 little girls. And, you know, that's his concession that we did it. I am willing to live with it. Okay, you're willing to live with atrocities. We know, we know that about you. But why should we, the people in the United States, live with this regime? This is where our taxpayer dollars are going to while your healthcare is being ripped away, while you can't afford homes, while you can't afford basic necessities in life, while you are not getting paid with dignity while the Trump regime launches what they're calling an anti-fraud crusade against our veterans, basically accusing our veterans of defrauding the VA. That was their big initiative that they rolled out today, going after our vet. While they're doing that, our money is going to drop bombs and kill little girls. But you think about it, this is the Epstein class, right? What is this war also about? Covering up the fact that this is a regime of predators who committed atrocities against little girls. So it doesn't shock you that the people who are predators against little girls are predators against little girls and can live with it, can live with it and say, I can live with that.

That.

And people, I'm just, I'm begging people to not reflexively engage in this atrocity denialism that exists. And it happens a lot in these situations. I think we saw it so much in Gaza when schools were bombed and hospitals were bombed. The instant kind of reflex of a lot of people and the instant propaganda push to try to cover for those bad actions were to say that they did it to themselves, were to say that these missiles were actually misfired. By whoever. And you could acknowledge that the Iranian regime is a very evil regime that is very bad to its people and has killed tens of thousands of its people in the past few months alone who were protesting for their freedom. And you could also say that it is absolutely reprehensible and unforgivable that the United States killed over 150 little girls bombing a school. And then, you know, the excuses just continue to mount from there, because I've been seeing these online. I see how the propaganda works. So I just want to call it out quickly. You see, people say, well, why are they building these schools so close to military bases if they don't want to be hit?

Let me tell you, because I looked it up. There are more than 160 public schools located on US military installations. So are you saying that you would be okay If another country bombed a school in the United States and you write it off, well, they shouldn't have had it that close to a military installation. That's not even accounting for the schools that are in the perimeter of these military installations and bases. So, no, it's not okay. And I think we have to drop any of the sort of like equivocating when it comes to something that requires our moral clarity in moments like this. We need to hold this administration's feet to the fire when it comes to this, because we should not be okay, as Ben said, with our tax dollars being used to bomb and kill innocent children who have nothing to do with any of this whatsoever.

Let's take our last quick break of the show. A quick reminder, make sure you're subscribed to this YouTube channel. Double check because you may think you're subscribed because you look up the Midas Touch videos every morning, but you may not actually be subscribed. So double-check that you're really subscribed. Also turn your notifications on so you get alerted every time a Midas Touch video is released, which we do quite frequently. And also become a member if you can, and you can gift memberships to other people as well. That helps grow this independent media platform. If you want to take a look at some of the Midas merch, you can go to store midastouch.com there. Our Substack is midasplus.com. You can check that out. Last quick break of the show. A really big audience here today. When we come back, we'll discuss moving forward what we expect to see happen in this disastrous war, and we'll talk about more.

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Benji, where to next? So after Donald Trump manipulated the markets today, used CBS as his conduit to put out a message that he wanted to end the war soon, then did that deranged press conference that was all over the place. About an hour ago, he posted the following on his social media platform: If Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back as a nation again. Death, fire, and fury will rain upon them. But I hope and pray that it does not happen. Just pause there for a second, Brett. To your point, he's also lumping in once again the Iranian people into this as well and saying death, fire, and fury will rain upon them. Just think about that language. That's the language of Hitler. Right. That's the language of, like, Mussolini.

That's the language, the language that he's saying right now. There's another comment that he made, like, the map of Iran is going to look very different after all this is done. He keeps threatening the country of Iran, not just the Iranian regime, which is the biggest gift that he could possibly give to the Iranian regime for them to hold and strengthen their grip on power, um, on the Iranian people. I mean, the Iranian people don't want to see their country get destroyed. They don't want to see their borders shrink. They don't want to see their country go away.

Okay.

A lot of them may want new leadership, but Donald Trump right now is doing everything he can possible to ensure that the most hardline are the ones who remain in power there.

And Ben, I want to ask you this, and I'm sorry to ask you and interrupt you there, but like, if you could get in his head— and I know it's a scary thing— why do you, why do you think he is using this type of language? Is it like this machismo, this, this strong man, this frankly authoritarian dictator type of language? Do you think he's doing this because he thinks this is going to like invigorate his base? They're like, oh yeah, this is our guy. Like, why, why is he using these words?

Because it's how weak men behave. It's weak people behave like this, right? It's the opposite of what Sun Tzu describes in The Art of War, right, about how you should portray when you're strong and what you should portray when you're— it's clear that Donald Trump's behavior indicates to anybody who's analyzing him how weak he is, because strong people don't need to behave like this. This is how desperate people sound. And a lot of the time when people are like, oh, you're anti-Trump, anti-Trump podcast. That's what I mean. You know, the bottom line is that if it helps more people watch this, you can say anti-Trump podcast, but it's not. It is a pro-democracy, pro-humanity, pro-leadership pro-decency, pro the values and principles that we talk about. The way Trump's behavior is and all of his life is that of a predator, someone who threatens and takes and steals and destroys and bankrupts and defrauds. That's how he's always been, Jordan. So his behavior is consistent with that, right? Who covers up child sex trafficking rings? Who's best friends with Jeffrey Epstein? Who says they grab women's vaginas because you're rich and you do that when you're rich?

That's what Donald Trump says, right? Who says that you buy beauty pageants to inspect girls naked because when you own beauty pageants You get to be their doctor or their inspector, and they have to let you do it. Who says these things? Who behaves these ways? Right. Donald, who takes a social media company like Donald Trump's when you have that position and lose $700 million and only make $3 million in revenue such that you have to merge with a fusion company? Company, which then has government contracts. So your social media entity is actually a fusion company who lives in a home that is the site of child sex trafficking. When all these people are like, all these people are like, well, what does the Epstein Files show about Donald Trump? Okay, child sex trafficking took place at his home. Shouldn't that be a pretty big red flag, right? Virginia Giuffre, when she was underage, was recruited by Epstein for his sex trafficking ring at Mar-a-Lago, the place where Trump lives and the place where he is conducting this unlawful war, is an area where Epstein partied. Who calls it Operation Epic Fury as though it's some game?

I shared with you those quotes of former presidents because matters of war and peace should be the most painstaking decisions that are made for any American president. It should be the hardest thing you do, and it should keep you up at night.. And it should bring you a sense of moral responsibility to have everything buttoned up. But the thing is, it's not— I'm not anti-Trump because he's this guy. I don't— his qualities and these characteristics are now resulting in so many people suffering. And then he's found this cabal of deeply weak people who, who are, who like get off on this stuff too. I mean, do we have Lindsey Graham? I said this before on videos, and I truly mean this, in my opinion, whatever Lindsey Graham is hiding about his sexuality or his personality or who he is, I don't know. I want to be, but I don't know. I don't know his background. Around. But whatever it is that he is unable to deal with or grapple with, or whatever that may be— and again, I don't know— in my opinion, whatever he's dealing with, I think that he truly gets aroused. And I'm not saying this to be funny.

I actually think he gets off aroused by talking about war. I've never seen any human talk about war in this way. And again, I'm just giving you my opinions on this. And I want to be clear to make that distinction that this is opinion, First Amendment observations that I'm giving you my opinion on. But take a look for yourself at Lindsey Graham so you can see here.

Play this clip. President Trump is in the process of doing it. They're going to lose and we're going to win.

Israel and the United States, you just wait to see what comes in the next 2 weeks.

The next 2 weeks meaning what? We're going to blow the hell out of these people. This regime is in a death row now. It is going to be on its knees. It's going to fall. And when it falls, we're going to have peace like no other time. We're going to have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine. Peace, brother. Brings prosperity. You can't do it by talking. The Democrats criticize this operation. They didn't do a damn thing. These men and women in the military should make us all proud.

Remember when again, you would see like a Baghdad Bob? Like, to me, what I'm seeing there, Jordy, to your point, why these are weak, weak individuals. So now take a look at— and this is like hard for me to like even like wrap my mind around. So I look at the foreign minister of Iran and I'm thinking to myself, you know, is this person going to be out there doing death and fury will rain down upon you? And, you know, what, you know, and chanting and, you know, all of the stereotypes that like our media tries to propagandize. Right. And I'm trying to like I'm seeing Trump saying death, fury will rain down down. And these people don't even know the tomahawks. They tomahawk themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Red, you know, all of that.

Okay.

And then I'm watching, you know, okay, well, what are they saying on the other side right here? So play the foreign minister, Araghchi. And here's what he sat down and told American media.

Let's play.

Well, let me ask you, because what conditions would Iran accept to bring this war to end?

Well, actually, we are not at that point yet. Obviously, this time is different from the previous time. Last time we accepted the ceasefire. But, you know, this time is quite different. And the reason is obvious. You know, last time they attacked us, they made aggression against us. They killed our people, they destroyed our places, and then asked for a ceasefire. And we accepted out of good faith because we were only exercising the, you know, the act of self-defense. And when the aggression was stopped, we stopped too. But, you know, it didn't— it didn't bring about peace. And now this year, they again started to attack us. And again, they have, you know, they are killing our people. They are killing, you know, girls, students. You know, they are attacking hospitals, you know, freshwater desalination, you know, refineries. You know, everywhere people have been killed, places have been destroyed. And now they want to ask for a ceasefire again. Well, this doesn't work like this. So there should be a permanent end of the war. And unless we get to that, I think we need to, you know, continue fighting for the sake of our people.

So then she asks him, well, what do you think about Donald Trump saying— which is, that's framing— what do you think about Donald Trump saying that it was actually Iran Iran that bombed its own elementary school. And that's how she frames the question. Donald Trump said react to what Donald Trump said and watch what he says here.

Here, play this clip.

Let's move to the strike on the elementary school in southern Iran. It killed more than 170 people, including many children. President Trump said Iran is responsible for that strike.

What is your response to what the president said? Well, it is, it is, you know, funny. It is our school. These are our students, our girls, and they are attacked by an American fighter, a jet fighter, and they have been killed. Why Iran is responsible? Have we started this war? Have we attacked our own people? No, we, we were negotiating with the United States. And in the middle of negotiations, in the middle of diplomacy, they decided to attack us. And they have attacked so many places, including schools and hospitals. And there is a— then there are all evidences that this school is attacked by an American, you know, jet fighter.

And then I'll just show you one more because I'm like, okay, Who— who I see the American Trump regime people speaking, right? So he's one of the people they have out there. Iran also has this guy, Kamal Kharrazi, the foreign policy adviser to the supreme leader, to their ayatollah. And again, I'm like, okay, so is this guy going to be out there, you know, talking about death and fire and fury? Like, is he out there going to be doing what we hear the Trump regime is doing? Is he going to start saying those things, you know, we're doing suicide bombs. And like, I'm— is this what they're going to say?

Here's what this guy says. Let's play it. Iran has a new supreme leader. What does that mean for your military effort and the confrontation with the United States and Israel? That means the system is quite functioning. So the United States says it's drastically degraded the Iranian military, the capabilities as far as missiles is concerned, drones is concerned. And how much longer can you do this? That is one of the false narratives that the United States government is producing. Iranian military is quite strong, as you see, because they have the motivation, they have the arms that they need, which are produced in Iran. As a matter of fact, we are not dependent on any other country for weapons and arms. So your side is ready for a long war if the United States and Israel choose that. Do you consider this an existential threat to the Islamic Republic? It is an existential threat to the Islamic Republic, and therefore we have to say with full might, as we are doing now.

One thing I want to say before turning it over to Brett and Jordy, CNN is at its best when they do that type of reporting. And to me, if I were running CNN, I don't need to because I run the Midas Touch. I want to do more of that here on the Midas Touch Network, especially as we build out our international presence. That's what they should be doing. They don't need to be doing shows with, you know, Scott, whatever that guy's name is, you know, Jennings, and having people yell. Just get the facts. And that's good reporting right there. We can all judge for ourselves, right? We can look at the body language, the statements. We can compare it to then what's happening on the ground and we can form opinions. About the war when we're given a data set, just like members of the jury can do that at a trial. To me, that's what journalism should be about. That's why I do play the clips. More, more of that is what they need to do, and more of that is what, you know, I want to build here at the Midas Touch Network.

And I'm showing it to you not to spread Iranian propaganda or to say, you know, here's what they're saying. I just showed you what Trump's saying. I'm showing you what they're saying. And you could make a decision if you believe that that Iranian regime is about to surrender, if they plan on giving up, if they look fearful or disorganized or all over the place.

You can judge for yourself, Brett and Jordy.

Yeah.

And, you know, unfortunately, it's an indisputed fact that the Trump regime lied us into this war.. And we know from third parties who were trusted third parties of the United States who said that Iran had come to the table and that they had conceded to the Trump administration far more than they have given to any other administration in history in the United States, even going beyond the Iran deal that Obama cut was how they put it. But Donald Trump refused to take yes for an answer. Or in that case, and Donald Trump brought us into war in the middle of those negotiations. So we are dealing now, and I'm not saying our— far from it. I'm not saying our government has never lied to us before, because I would say probably just about every single president out there has lied to us. We've been lied into wars before. We've been lied about what's happening in wars before. But the level of lies that we are seeing right now, and just how in-your-face they are about these guise. It's so much just demeaning to your intelligence that they go out there. And so I think it's important that we do have that split screen, that we are able to share the raw data.

And I think as we reflect also on what this Trump administration has been doing for the past year or so, the way they've gone and just tried to completely gut any of President Biden's successes that he's had under the guise of America They've actually done the opposite. They've actually left America all alone, and they've actually made the United States of America far less prepared for emergency situations kind of like this. And I'll give you one quick example: energy. Because we've been speaking about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, right? Something like 90-plus percent of the ships right now unable to go through the Strait of Hormuz. We've been seeing these massive fluctuations in oil prices, which obviously benefits Russia and Vladimir Putin, as we discussed earlier in this episode. But you know what would help with that from the administration that has constantly talked about, we're energy independent now, this is what energy independence looks like? No, we're not. And we're seeing that we're not right now. But you know what would have helped with energy independence? All of those clean energy projects that Biden was working on, all of those clean energy initiatives that that were already built or that were underway, that were also providing Americans all across the country with thousands of thousands of jobs, all of those clean energy products, projects that Donald Trump axed when he got into office.

I think we would actually be doing a lot better right now if we actually had a stable source of clean energy right here in the United States than having to rely so much on foreign oil supplies. And we're seeing the ramifications of that right now. No, we saw what did the Wall Street Journal headline yesterday probably sent a chill through Donald Trump's spine and everybody in that administration because they compared the energy crisis that we are in right now to the energy crisis of the 1970s. You even saw Donald Trump commenting on that today. You know, it was like Jimmy Carter had a big energy crisis back then. Didn't work out so well. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening right now under So when you talk about clean energy and initiatives like that, it's not even just that it's a good thing for the environment. It's also a strategically smart thing. And that's why Donald Trump, when he continues to set us back, he's actually making the United States of America less safe. And I think we need to connect the dots on those things. There was even a comment today, for example, because in the midst of this war, what does Donald Trump go to?

He goes back to the greatest hits. He starts ranting about wind and energy and windmills. I'm not making this up. This is what he was speaking about today during his speech. And Donald Trump said the following, and I'll, I'll quote him here from this clip. Donald Trump said, try finding wind farms in China. He was basically saying you can't find any wind farms in China. Here's a map of all the wind farms in China. For those listening, there's a dot where there are, you know, a bunch of wind farms. The entire map has a lot of dots. There are a ton of wind farms in China. China is the world leader in wind farms because China doesn't view this as a political battle where, oh, we need to help this industry versus that industry and its political donations, or they just view it as a strategic thing for their country because they know how important it is strategically. But Donald Trump has completely destroyed any strategic advantage we may have, and he continues to do it up to this very minute by making comments like that. So I just wanted to point that out as well.

How ill-prepared Donald Trump has made us to handle such a disruption to the markets like this. And of course, everything else Donald Trump has done with the tariffs and everything— there's going to be so much inflation as a result of all this and so much instability. And it's really— the effects of it aren't even going to be felt until, you know, we're already seeing it at the gas pumps. But the effects of it, like, as a Holistically speaking, it's going to keep coming like this is going to keep showing up on reports and things are going to get more and more and more expensive.

And the Trump administration is completely unprepared for what's next. Exactly. The Trump regime completely unprepared for what's next. I fear, too, that the legacy media and the MAGA media and all those entities are also ill-prepared for what comes next. If they're not going to be willing to hold his feet to the fire, fire on the little lies, then what about the big lies? Are they going to hold his feet to the fire on any lies? Ben, you bring up such a great point. That CNN segment was a good segment, a solid segment. The CNN fight show, I genuinely believe that that's bad for the country. That show, like, that level of brain rot is just horrific. We have just got to get to a place in society where facts and truth and data win the day. That's what I'm most proud of with what we, the collective we here, are building with the Midas Touch Network.

Because facts—

look, people will inevitably let you down, but facts, data, the truth— if those could be your North Star, your core ethos, your values, well, that's a pretty good place to start and point yourself at. And so as we continue to grow, Ben, I'm excited to bring people more facts, more, more more receipts, more videos, because ultimately, like, it's us and independent media against everybody else right now. And corporate media, quite frankly, is failing. They are not meeting the moment and someone's going to have to hold their feet to the fire.

Yeah. You know, and we've been very focused on international reporting, not just in launching Midas Canada. That was the start of our international expansion. Shout out to Charlie Angus and make sure you all subscribe subscribe to the Midas Canada YouTube channel, by the way. But almost every day I either do a report on Ukraine or a report on international news, and I've been doing it every single day since the November election and the horrific results in that election. And if you've been watching Midas Touch, you've been seeing all of these geopolitical developments play out. And the shifting world order that's taking place as Trump is weakening the United States of America. So in many ways, Trump's unlawful war against Iran really is part of the confluence of factors that are the perfect storm for destroying America's strength. Forever, basically, because we tariffed the world, we pulled out of trade deals, we gutted the State Department, we threatened our NATO allies. Donald Trump has empowered China and Russia, which in turn has empowered Iran to build the Shahed drones for Russia We have collectively abandoned— the United States has, you know, we— here we are, abandoned international institutions.

Trump's Board of Peace grift, trying to make these Middle Eastern countries pay him tribute in return for protection, but then actually causing the biggest crisis for these Arab nations that are going to perpetually weaken them. We've seen Donald Trump's complete support of the atrocities being committed by Netanyahu going all in. We've seen all of those Netanyahu visits to Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere. You know, we saw when Donald Trump posted the memes, remember Trump Gaza, what they called it, right? And like, you would think that that would get like a lot of attention, but it barely got attention. He posted Trump Gaza, which was him and Netanyahu like dancing with like, like girls in bikinis and AI partying in Palestinian land. You know, remember he did that fake ceasefire in Gaza. By the way, more people are getting killed by Israel and the IDF, innocent people in Gaza. You know, every day that there was never a ceasefire in Gaza, it was always a fake thing that they just said. Anybody who knew knew there really wasn't a ceasefire that took place. Hundreds, if not thousands of people have been killed since they announced the fake ceasefire.

And every day, journalists, women, children, Um, that's, you know, you take all of these factors together and then you have this mediation between the United States and Iran. U.S. picks the mediator, the foreign minister of Oman. A breakthrough is reached in the mediation. Uh, we think that peace is on the horizon. Wow, did Donald Trump do this deal? And Iran is going to agree to things that were even stronger than the deal that Obama got. If Trump was able to get that, I'd be skeptical. But if he really did it, well, I would say that great, great work. You did it. We should all— if he did the deal, you know, we could separate a good deal from all the horrible deals. But that's what was announced that Friday. We all remember it. Our own handpicked mediator, the foreign minister of Oman, said so on public TV. No one, no one rebutted it as, oh, that's not true. And then that night, Netanyahu told Donald Trump, Israel is going to invade Iran. We're attacking Iran. So you're either with us or you're against us. What is it, Donald? Pick right now. And Trump goes, oh, I guess I got to do it.

I'm not— it's what Rubio said happened. I'm not—

I'm not making this up. I'm literally— Trump basically said it again, by the way, in another interview today.

We knew that they were going to and Rubio saying, oh, they're all saying it. That's what happened. And now here we are in this situation where now the way Trump is dealing with Russia and China providing aid to Iran, supplies to Iran, coordinates to help kill American soldiers and to go after American assets is by not denying it, but just saying, well, if they're doing it, they're not doing a good job, I guess. And then calling Putin and saying that he had a great call with Putin. Put that all together. Those are the facts. We need to live in a world of facts. What you do with those facts, you do with those facts. But those—

that's—

I gave you the undisputed facts of what have occurred, and that's what we'll keep on doing here every single day at the Midas Touch Network. A reminder make sure you hit subscribe. Our network is growing every day thanks to you, which is great because we're getting more facts in front of bigger audiences. So share this with as many people as possible. Hit subscribe, turn notifications on. Subscribe to our audio podcast, search Midas Touch there. Even if you don't like listening to audio It helps us. So just subscribe on audio, leave a review, 5-star review there.

Check out the merch store.midastouch.com. Don't forget, remember, if you were— that was a good burp then because I'm outing you on your burp. That was a good burp timing because 15% off, use code MIDAS to check out store.midastouch.com.

You're able to see that.

I thought no one could see that. Everyone saw. No, everyone saw it. All 20,000 people watching live saw that. It was great.

Good burp. You kept it to yourself.

Sometimes when you're doing gross Sometimes my best closing arguments just involved me belching.

Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's great. Love it. Anyway, code Midas at store.midastouch.com, get 15% off your entire order.

Benji, you want me to say it?

No.

Okay, you say it. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our Substack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available midasplus.com.

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