Transcript of Tuesday Afternoon Breaking Updates with Ben 8/11/26 New

He was hiding on a Turkish catering truck. The pathetic individual who resides in the Oval Office was hiding on a Turkish catering truck. The headline from The New York Times: Trump hid in a catering container, perhaps worse than a truck, to sneak out of Turkey amid the threats. You've all seen the video by now. Donald Trump pretending that he was aboard the old Air Force One and then crouching and hiding in a catering container because he was terrified that Iran was going to strike down the old Air Force One, which actually is equipped with the capabilities necessary to protect who's ever aboard it from those types of things. The Qatari Air Force One was already moved to the Royal Air Force Base in the UK. Donald Trump was perfectly okay with using the press as a decoy, right? For the press, for other staffers who didn't know that Donald Trump snuck out on the container, they thought they were on board with Donald Trump, but apparently there was a threat big enough that Donald Trump didn't want to be on that old Air Force One, but he was happy to allow the press to be on it.

Washington Post got the scoop. How utterly pathetic. And this follows this past weekend where The Midas Touch was posting video of Donald Trump at Bedminster, where he now is trailed by surface-to-air missiles. He's got literally interceptor trucks that follow him around his golf courses. While the American people are suffering, while the American people can't afford anything right now, while our economy is horrific, while inflation is surging, where jobs are dismal, where people can't afford a home, where there are wars across the world. Donald Trump, minister on the tack, and he's followed around by military vehicles with drone and ballistic interceptors. And that image of him golfing with the interceptors around him just about sums up this despicable presidency. Now, as we approach the midterms and we're seeing Democrats by far the likely favorites to win the House of Representatives, the Senate, even according to Nate Silver, who I don't love citing Nate Silver, but nonetheless, This data is borne out by lots of reporting. The Senate is a toss-up right now in lots of other polls. The Senate is a virtual tie right now, and Democrats look poised to take control of the Senate. So what does Donald Trump have Todd Blanch do as his first act?

Issue a memo saying that executive privilege applies to not just communications within the government itself, not just communications by Donald Trump to his top aides who are government employees, but any private citizen who Donald Trump deems to be a, quote, advisor. Any of their communications, any of their phone calls, their text messages, the Trump regime and the Trump DOJ is saying we're not going to produce any of those records. Not only that, but any aide in the White House who has a communication with private citizens, so long as that private citizen is purporting to give some information to help Donald Trump, doesn't matter. The White House and the DOJ are taking that position that executive privilege also flows downward to any of Trump's advisors and their communications with private citizens. So the plan is this. I just want to alert you to it. Let's say Democrats do a hearing on Donald Trump stealing $13 billion from Venezuela, and we want to learn where the money is going. So the Democrats subpoena banks, the oil industry. We want to understand the facts. Objection, executive privilege. What's the basis? They are advisers. They're part of the Oil Advisory Committee.

Okay. We want to find out what Jared Kushner has been doing, what Steve Whitkopf has been doing. We want to know about their business dealings in the Middle East, in Russia, elsewhere, and how they appear to be compromised. Objection. Executive privilege. They are advisers and these are communications within the corp— course and scope of seeking advice for the United States president. Now, you may be saying, well, how do they do that? Isn't it unlawful? Yeah, it is unlawful. But the plan would be— this is what Trump's plan is. I just want to alert you to it. Object to everything. Anybody from Trump's orbit or even private business, like the law firms— remember the law firms that entered into those horrific settlements with Trump and they bent the knee? Let's say they get subpoenaed, um, just whoever, whichever group it is, just refuse to testify, object and say executive— you could show up, objection, executive privilege, executive privilege. Then the Democrats file lawsuits in federal court. Trump will lose the lawsuits, but then he'll do what we've seen him do before, right? He'll then go to the circuit court of appeals, he'll ask for a stay, then he'll go to the Supreme Court, then it'll get kicked back down, and then he'll keep on fighting every question.

And so Trump's plan is that for the next 2 years, while the Democrats are engaged in oversight, just do these blanket objections. And that began with this memo from the Department of Justice today. And so you may be saying, well, that's not great news. Well, I think it's important that we know what their plans are. And this is why, beyond just, you know, oh, we're going to do oversight— yes, that's very important, but we have to recognize that we have a fascist regime that's killing us. And that's not hyperbolic to say that there is a fascist regime in the White House that's out there Killing us, killing our people, killing people throughout the world, engaging in war crimes. Also, while doing that, it's also notable how weak and pathetic they are. That's why at the top of this episode on breaking news, I wanted to point out that Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. Posting Memes of Himself, AI Images Stealing the Valor of Our Troops, wearing the uniform, a 5-time draft dodger wearing the uniform of a 4-star general in an AI meme with General Patton and MacArthur, making himself feel tough in those AI images, claiming that we are— that this is what the real image should look like, though, by the way.

Patton, MacArthur, and Donald Trump crouching like a pathetic little putrid coward that he is, cowering like the coward that he is in a Turkish container. That, that's what he's doing right there, in a cafeteria container, hiding. That is so utterly pathetic. And then lying about it and then pretending Remember what he said to the press? He was like, we were all in it together. We're all in it together. I was there. You were there. It's a dangerous job. Something's going to happen to me. It's going to happen to you as well. So sick. I mean, really just sick, sick stuff. But yes, one hand he says we're crushing Iran. We've destroyed their military. They're begging for deals. Okay, so much so that you're that terrified of them while you're in another sovereign country, while you're in Turkey? You're that afraid of the country that you claim has submitted, that is surrendering, that's begging you for a deal, that you hid in a catering container? Again, words don't do it justice. Let me share with you yesterday in the Oval Office what Donald Trump was saying. And you know, state regime media Fox is trying to do anything and everything to not discuss this disgusting fascist mess in the Oval Office.

I'll show you what they're doing in a moment as well, what their tactics are, as Donald Trump's approval hits a record low right now. Never in presidential history has the approval of the person in the Oval Office been this low since polling really started with modern polling in 19—

53.

He's weak, he's isolated, he's surrounded by just bizarre— you saw the scenes yesterday. There was like that robotic lady standing next to him, behind him, while he was lying about children getting injected with 72 jabs of soda cans filled with vaccines. I don't even know what the hell he's talking about. That MMR, we split up the M and we split up the other M and the R then they're good. But if you put MMR together, it's nuclear, it's explosive, and then you die spreading medical disinformation, which will result in kids being killed by potentially the hundreds of thousands or more from the Oval Office. I mean, it's really sick, sick stuff. And again, all while this pathetic, weak individual hides in catering containers. Show you what went down in the Oval Office yesterday. You had Donald Trump talking about how, uh, question number 1: when will the Strait of Hormuz be opened? When will the Strait of Hormuz be open? We all know that Iran controls it. That's an objective fact. So when will it be open, Donald? Here, play this clip.

Well, it's open now. We're taking a lot of ships. It's open now. Look, the only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall, and we let people in that we want to let in, and those people come in and they've been coming in and they're going out. So it's actually open now. We do not let them go into Iran. They're not admitted into the strait to go to Iran.

Oh yes, of course, it is CENTCOM that controls the Strait of Hormuz while he hides in containers. More from Trump right here. He was also asked additional questions about the war. Let's pull this one when he's asked, so, um, is it safe for ships to leave the Strait of Hormuz right now? And Trump goes, we've mineswept the entire strait, as you probably heard. Maybe you didn't hear because— maybe you didn't hear because that didn't happen. They didn't mine— oh yes, of course, there were the minesweepers that Didn't you all hear our Navy destroyers went in and the Navy minesweepers went?

We just—

I must have missed that story. Must have been so hidden from the satellite images that just happened. Just happened. Here, play this clip.

The mines, you know, we've mineswept the entire strait, as you probably maybe heard, maybe you didn't hear, but, uh, but, uh, we control the strait 100%. Now, can they make trouble? Yeah, they can make trouble, but they're broke. They have no money. You know, Iran is broke.

Oh, really? Well, they still seem to be making ballistic missiles at a rapid pace. They still seem to be making Shahed drones at a rapid pace. They have been able to effectively destroy all of the U.S. military bases, uh, in the region other than in Israel, where the U.S. is basically hiding at this point. I mean, look, last month U.S. forces fired 50 Patriot interceptors in a single day during last month's Iranian attacks on bases in Jordan alone. Roughly $200 million in one day at $4 million per interceptor. And Iran is now using course-changing missiles to force heavy expenditure and deplete scarce Patriot stock. So Iran has actually upgraded both at Shahed drones, they go faster, and on the ballistic missiles, they change direction. So the way the ballistics used to work is you would just set the target and that was it. Now you can— now what they're able to do is have it change course in the middle of flight, and it can detect the interceptors and try to move around the interceptors being shot at it. So the U.S. has depleted its interceptor stock. We've depleted our ATACMS and HIMARS and those offensive, uh, weapons.

We should know also though about the HIMARS too and the ATACMS. They're not as effective as they used to be. For those who know about this, the way this military equipment works, remember the HIMARS made a very big difference. Those ATACMS, when we gave them to Ukraine at first, and a lot of the progress that Ukraine was able to make in stopping Russia's advances was because of the HIMARS and because of some of these weapons. What Russia was able to figure out was they were able to use electronic jammers, um, and they were able to use a lot of other electronic warfare to disable, uh, those weapons as well. So they actually have less effect also. And I just want you to think about it like this. I think the stat was since 2016, the United States spent somewhere between $9 to $10 trillion between 26 and— sorry, and the present. Between 2016 and the present, $9 trillion on the military. Think about that. There's no one even— there's no country even close to that. No one's even near it. And the United States ran out of weapons in a war against Iran that Donald Trump— there, by Trump's admission— is saying they're broke, they have no money.

Many ways that makes it worse, because imagine what would happen if you go to war against a country that does have money and resources. If this is what it looked like, US versus Iran, the US runs out of weapons in a 40-day war, which then drags on for weeks and weeks and weeks as Donald Trump pretends he has deals and makes fake deals with himself. But if this is what it looked like with Iran, could you imagine what it would look like with any other country? Imagine what it looked like with China? Could you imagine what it would look like North Korea? Could you imagine? I mean, you, you name the country. So with all of this, with $9-10 trillion, with supposedly the biggest, most powerful military in humankind, the commander-in-chief of that military. That's your position, right? Think about that— commander-in-chief. You're such a commander, you're afraid to go on Air Force One in Turkey with the press, and you use the press and some of your own staff as a decoy while you and Natalie Harp and some other female assistants of yours and Pete Hegseth go in another military plane and turn off your, uh, radars or turn off your transmitters?

Sounds pretty pathetic to me. So Trump saying that, let's take a look at what the data actually reveals. So the U.S. now has raised oil price forecasts in Hormuz. U.S. energy officials expect Strait of Hormuz constraints now to persist through August. This is the real data. Limiting oil flows. The EIA, the Energy Agency, raised its 2026 Brent crude forecast to $87 a barrel from $82 a barrel and lifted its US gasoline estimate to $3.78 a gallon. Although I think that's still understating it. That's still an entity that's controlled within the Trump regime. But that's what they're saying it is. $87 a barrel is what they expect it's going to be. And they expect for 2026 as like the blended rate and that gasoline for the full year will be $3.78 a gallon. You all remember when Donald Trump promised that it was going to be under $2 a gallon. That was one of his promises, right? Electricity prices were going to be cut in half. Remember that promise? He was going to make housing affordable for everybody, and we were all going to be able to afford new homes, first-time home. I mean, former Vice President Kamala Harris, remember, she actually had a specific plan for first-time homeowners.

But people just preferred— like, that people, you're not you, but, you know, the corporate news just regurgitated Donald Trump saying, I will make it way cheaper. You're going to have so many homes, you're not going to go know what to do with it. You're going to be so rich. Just lie after lie after lie. And I'll show you in a little bit too what Donald Trump was ranting and raving about today was a tax that New York's Governor Hochul and New York City Mayor Mumdani are putting on people who have, uh, second homes— not their primary residence, but second homes in New York City. It's a big issue. You know, lots of people have the second residence in New York City. It sucks up a lot of resources, and people aren't actually living there. They take advantage of all of the New York City resources, and then, um, they'll buy a home in Florida so they can avoid state income tax, and they'll come back when they want to come back. And so, you know, one of the affordability, uh, ways of actually pursuing a real affordability agenda, not scamming people and trying to help all the other Americans and other people who live in New York City and New York.

You have to raise the money from somewhere. So, uh, it's called the pied-à-terre. It's a French word for like your, your second home or like your crash pad. Pied-à-terre. Um, and it's a tax for people who have a second residence or third residence or fourth, but not your primary residence. And it is for $1 million, $5 million, $10 million, $20 million, $50 million, $100 million homes that are not being occupied by you as your primary residence. So it's about a 1%, a little higher, so tax a year. So if you have a $20 million residence in New York City that's not your primary, and, um, you know, and and you, if you prove it's your primary residence, it's not a— you don't get taxed. But if it's not your primary residence, you'll get, uh, like 1% tax on it. So you'll pay like $200K extra. And so that $200K gets paid for you holding this residence that you don't live in, because, you know, you're probably trying to avoid paying taxes in the New York State also, right? And so, and maybe you are— have that residence, but you claim a home in Florida so you don't have to pay the state income tax.

So you could avoid New York state income tax. So New York was trying to figure out, well, how do we, how do we close that loophole, right? Well, here's a way to close the loophole for millionaires. It's not for people who are, you know, I think they've, they've pretty much killed the middle class at this point, but it's, it's, it's a tax on millionaire second properties. Seems like a reasonable approach. Um, Trump's said that this is horrific. Why? Because he has a second residence, and Trump's right-wing buds, their residences in Trump Tower are likely subject of this tax. So what Trump's post this morning was: the New York City pied-à-terre tax is costing the New York City and state a fortune. And that money eventually to be gotten is very little compared to the taxes paid by tens of thousands of people who are fleeing the city, never to return. Florida, Texas, and numerous other states are making an absolute fortune. This dangerous political experiment in New York will destroy what was once a great city and state. Well, but then he talks about jihadists and all this crazy racist stuff. I don't even need to read it.

So what's your plan, bud? You know, he, he loves to attack plans. He's never a deal maker. He's always a destroyer. I could— you have a debate about the pied-à-terre tax, and maybe you say, well, should it be applied to 1 million? What, what rate should be applied from 1 million to 5 million, 5 million to 15 million? 15 million to 50 million. What does that look like, you know? And how do you approach it? I mean, I think we could have intelligent conversations where we may disagree on certain things, um, but in order to try to bring services to the rest of people, in order to find money that then needs to actually be used to help people who live— who actually are living with their primary residence in the state or in the city, you have to, you have to make difficult choices. And it's very easy for Donald Trump to say, oh, I'm going to lower your health care prices by 600%. I'm going to lower your electricity prices by 50% or 500%. Oh, we're in the golden age. That's easy. Fraud is, you know, just lying. You could say all of these things, but you have to do things.

You know, look, was the JCPOA that Obama did perfect? Did you have to make certain compromises and have to make certain payments and have to do a give and take, which you can be critical of?

Sure.

But it resulted in a non-nuclear deal with Iran where the Strait of Hormuz was open and there was a deal. Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. Are there lots of problems with it? Sure, there were. Do I personally believe Obama would have preferred something that looked closer to a single payer and had more government involvement to ensure that people were insured and make it less reliant on private health insurance, kind of exploiting the system and kind of the whole feeder economy that's built around health insurance that makes the process less seamless and more expensive. There was issues with it. Of course there were. But it's easy to attack. It's harder to do. It's harder to make a deal. But it allowed 25, 30, 35 million more Americans to have access to insurance. You then try to figure out how you make it better. Perhaps you have the Obamacare subsidies. Now you could say, well, is that just going to be never-ending subsidies? Eventually, I think where the American people are is the American people want free healthcare. We pay enough taxes. We shouldn't have $9, $10 trillion going to the military. For us to run out of weapons when that money could have gone easily, easily.

Imagine if that money went to universal healthcare. You could probably do it for a fraction of the price that was spent on weapons that we ran out of, that we ran out of already. That doesn't still mean you could, you know, you can still definitely fund the military. I get it, you know, you need a military, sure, you know, but we can still have, you know $300, $400 billion maybe to the military. It doesn't need to be $1.5 trillion. We could take the other money and we could give it to places where that actually benefit the people, that benefit we the people. And it's, you know, this is, you know, why I think also, I mean, you know, this posture that Trump is in right now with the Strait of Hormuz, which is, I'm semi-negotiating That's what he says. I'm low-keying it. Ultimately for him, his comfort, his comfortable place is blaming other people for things. So the catastrophe and the calamity that happens is actually where he feels the safest. As you can see during the conflicts, he hides, he cowers, quite literally cowering in catering trucks. But in the calamity and catastrophe and disarray caused by problems often that he creates, that's where he does things that most humans aren't capable of, where he'll engage in so much fraud and lies.

And because he has no human emotion or anything, he'll just blame everybody else for it. And then he's got his whole kind of MAGA disinformation army just to blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, and not act like an adult and not act like a leader. We have a lot more to discuss. We'll take our first break of the show. Just a reminder, WTF America is the book I wrote with my brothers. Pre-order right now, WTF America. It comes out October 20th, but the pre-order momentum is great right now, and so let's just keep up the pre-order momentum. We talk more— it's not an election book. We talk more broadly about getting out of this loop. And this loop is what brings you this vessel of fascism in Trump. And we need to get out of this loop so we can have generational change. And that's really what we talk about. We talk about the origin story of Midas Touch. A lot of, a lot of discussion about this community in there as well. All right, let's take our first break of the show. Before continuing, one quick PSA for the Midas Mighty when it comes to Medicare.

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Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. Shout out to our sponsors, they help support this show. Support our sponsors. I know Jordy spends a long time with them getting those discount codes, so, uh, just take a look in the description below, click the link and use those discount codes. And so at the same time that we know that, uh, The energy prices are continuing to rise. As we know, Brent crude, WTI crude, uh, have now increased significantly just over the past week as Donald Trump says, I'm low-keying it, we're just going to semi-negotiate it, we're just gonna, we're just gonna chill, we're just gonna chill. Meanwhile, you have Iran striking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz that we've been covering. You have the Houthis, they struck two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea. You have a Libyan refinery refinery that was attacked by drones. No one really took credit for it, but the— but this Libyan refinery was attacked. Uh, you have Ukraine striking, uh, Russian tankers, cargo ships, and refineries. You've got Russia hitting hard in Ukraine as well. You've got Ukraine effectively at this point defenseless from Russian ballistic missiles right now.

The U.S. has run out of its interceptors. The U.S. continuing to come up with excuses why it can't give Zelensky licenses. For, uh, interceptors. I think the latest, they claim that Lockheed and Raytheon are worried about their IP, which I've said before makes absolutely no sense. I don't buy that excuse because it would be very easy to work out a deal, or an actual deal with Zelensky, that any improvements that are done to interceptors belong— that IP goes back to Lockheed and Raytheon. And so You know, I heard people saying, well, Lockheed and Raytheon are worried that in Ukraine they can end up making the interceptors cheaper. Well, isn't that just an admission then of waste, fraud, and abuse, that we the taxpayers are, are overpaying now for interceptors? So I'm not sympathetic to any of, uh, any— I'm not sympathetic to any of that. Um, so in any event, you have a situation where I don't expect the price of oil to go down anytime soon. The Strategic Petroleum Reserves— we can measure the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. It's under 300 million barrels right now. That's below functional tank bottom at this point, you know, and, and that means that it really isn't even able to deliver to world markets the way it was, because like literally the texture of what's kept in the strategic petroleum reserves, you know, is a more compromised material.

I mean, if you think about like a straw, like drinking a soda, you know, imagine when it goes to the very bottom, you know, you could still get some of the soda or get whatever the drink is at the bottom, but you can imagine that it's harder to, you know, it's harder to get. I mean, it's an overly simplistic example, but this is a bad situation that you have to draw down at this point. So just to like recap, like, you know, the guy who bankrupted casinos and Donald Trump, right? It's objective. Like objectively, you know, the guy's bankrupted most of the companies he's touched, right? Um, if you don't believe me, look at his public disclosures to Trump Media where they list bankruptcies. This casino, that casino, this business, that business. It's a whole disclosure section that you have to list by the SEC. The same guy who— Trump Media released their financials today for the second quarter, was the 3 months ending in either June or July. Um, and for those 3 months, for the second quarter, Trump Media lost $250 million, $270 million. They've got a new CEO. Their new CEO says They're going to move out of the crypto business, and they're going to move out of— remember the crypto president?

They bought a lot of crypto, and the value of crypto declined. So that's one of the reasons they've incurred a very big paper loss. But now what their big focus is going to be on is selling the early access to Truth Social posts by Donald Trump to Wall Street firms. There's already been 10 Wall Street firms who are, uh, who have purchased access to Donald Trump's posts before the public gets it, and they pay $60,000 to $100,000 to effectively trade on inside information. And there's 10 firms doing that. So that's the line of business, which in my own humble opinion is illegal. But I'm giving you my opinion. You could feel— I'm giving you my opinion as protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution based on my background as a lawyer. But Feel free to share different opinions with that, but that's the line of business that they want to expand. More Wall Street firms buying inside access to Donald Trump's social media posts that manipulate the market. Okay, so he's bankrupted these companies, he's failing at this company, his meme coin failed. I mean, just look at all this stuff. Look at all of his businesses.

They all crash. They all crash. And in my opinion, the only thing Donald Trump is good at is fraud. He defrauds people and he enriches himself at the expense of others. That's what he's done his entire life. He's bankrupted entities, but he takes, takes, takes, and takes. So is it really a shocker? Is it really a shocker that the sexual predator who was found civilly liable for sex assault is covering up a child sex trafficking ring. Like, does that— is that a shocking fact? He's acting like he's found civilly liable for sexual assault, like he's a bad guy. And he hung out with Beggin. One of the things you saw in the Epstein files that were released is that his crew, you know, whether it's the Jean-Luc Brunel's or the Casablancas, Epstein, you know, the, the whole crew of friends were predators. That's who they hung out with. That was like— that was the friend group. The friend group was predators. And so is it shocking that that's who he likes to hang out with and that's who he's close to? Because the guy is— is it shocking that the guy who bankrupts casinos has now bankrupted our military and he's a fraud?

So he says, I built it, I built it, I built— like, literally You didn't build it. I mean, you destroyed it objectively. Our weapons are— we don't have weapons. Our weapons are gone. You know, I mean, we, you know, in a war with Iran, our interceptors, our ATACMS, our Navy destroyer anti-ballistic, done. Small percentage left, but not enough if there were to be any other conflicts, regional or otherwise, just, you know, we don't have it. What do you think China's doing? They're just sitting back. What do you think other countries in the region are doing? Why do you think the MECA pact was formed between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, who were already in a defense alliance, and Turkey? And Egypt's likely going to be joining. And by the way, the foreign minister of Qatar and the foreign ministry of Qatar today said We respect that alliance. Fascinating. They said that they appreciate that their brotherly Muslim nations are joining in alliances that are not dependent on the United States. We're going to be seeing a lot more of that develop over time while Donald Trump's out there trying to figure out ways to, you know, sell pieces of the United States to kind of continue his Ponzi scheme.

Now that we've run out of weapons, you know, why do you think there's a Saudi Arabian nuclear deal, right? And who knows the status of that? Because Trump will announce that and then he'll say, well, Saudi Arabia, you have to join the Abraham Accords and be allies with Israel. To which Saudi Arabia responds, now we're gonna actually do an alliance with Turkey. And Turkey is not allied with Israel, would be putting it lightly, and Israel is not allied with Turkey. So Saudi Arabia, in response to Trump saying you have to join the Abraham Accords, Saudi Arabia did the opposite of the Abraham Accords by doing an alliance with Turkey. And Egypt's likely going to join. And could you imagine if other Muslim nations start to join that? And Iran praised the Mecca Pact and said, you know, we're not really worried about it, but it's good to see are— they call it brotherly Muslim nations, sisterly Muslim nations. I'm gonna say brotherly though, um, joining in these pacts. And so Trump has to go to the UAE, and the UAE's like— by the way, the UAE sent a jet. I was following the surveillance footage, uh, the satellite footage.

The UAE sent a jet to Tehran today, and they have a back and forth going on there. I don't— I know, I don't I, I've reported before how the UAE has paid Iran lots of money, billions of dollars before, in order to try to avoid certain strikes. But then I did notice an uptick in some of the Iranian strikes on the ADNOC ships, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ships, in the Strait of Hormuz. And then the plane arrived today, the, uh, the plane from the UAE arrived today in Tehran, which I'm like, all right, maybe they're coming back to to give some more money or to figure out what to do there. But Iran's saying, this is what we want. We want these alliances with, uh, Muslim nations, even if they're not allied with us. That's part of what Iran's plan is. And Iran's plan was also not to strike Israel yet, not to strike, uh, within the Netanyahu regime, uh, country yet, because they know that that's still where there are weapons. The Iron Dome does work in Israel, and what Iran's plan was to show that the Arab Dome was not a dome at all.

The Arab Dome was basically the first line of defense for Israel. That's how Trump and Netanyahu were setting it up, basically positioning the Arab nations to bear the brunt of, uh, anything first and to have the setup there of the interceptors to eventually alert Israel before the missiles got to Israel. And that's what Iran wanted to expose. So that's what their plan was, uh, that's what their plan was there. So we have all that going on. So what, what is— you heard what Trump's saying, we control the strait. Not true. Then you have Secretary Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary. This is what he posts this morning: thanks to the coordinated efforts of the U.S. military and our Gulf allies, the 7-day average for oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz is currently up to almost 9 million barrels per day. When combined with the additional 5 to 7 million barrels per day leaving the region via newly upgraded pipelines and export facilities, total oil flows are currently averaging approximately 15 million barrels per day. On Sunday alone, over 20 million barrels left the Arabian Gulf, which is above the pre-conflict average. I mean, again, these people are just the biggest frauds, and I— they're just the biggest frauds about everything.

So you're telling me right now, with all we know, with the massive drawdowns in our strategic petroleum reserves, with the satellite footage where we can see the ships that are leaving the Strait of Hormuz— obviously, if they have their transponders on, we can track them. But if they don't, you can see the satellite footage. These ships are big. They're VLCCs. They're very large. The VL, they're very large. You can see them on the satellite images leaving the strait. It's just not— it's just not happening. Like, what, what he's saying, what CENTCOM is saying, what Trump is— it's just not only is it not happening, it's not even close to what the reality is. And if it was close to what the reality is, then why do we care? What, what, what, why do we even— why even care about opening up this? Why do any— why do a blockade, right? If we objectively are getting more oil out than before, then what? Okay, great, then just— you don't even need to do a blockade of this trade. What's the point of any of this? It is all not just a lie, it is all massive market manipulation.

And it is being done to help Trump and his right-wing oligarchs and screw over everybody else. That's what this is all about. And I hope you're paying attention, though, to this right-wing media machine that's out there pumping the disinformation. But not only do I hope you're paying attention to that, I hope what you're seeing is how left-wing media, if you want to even call it that, or other corporate media that may not be overtly regime media and how the political consultant class also for left wing or whatever you want to refer to it as, they buy into these right wing narratives and they debate within these narratives. And it's not where the people are. Where the people are right now is they see a fascist regime in the Oval Office that is literally killing Americans. That's destroying people's life here, that's ripped away healthcare, that has lied about everything, that's made the cost of living completely out of reach, and a regime that's involved in war crimes abroad, using our taxpayer dollars to commit war crimes, to aid and abet genocide, and to be involved in horrible things abroad when Americans don't want any of this.

And Americans want to be able to just to go about, live their lives get paid with dignity, afford a home. That's where people are feeling right now here in the United States. Overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, the people aren't having— like, real people out there are not having debates about, do you disavow this podcaster, or do you disavow that podcaster, or what about this podcaster? Oh, or, you know, no one's having this. That's not Stop falling for the bait and going down those rabbit holes. Focus on what your own narrative should be is not living in right-wing MAGA narrative world. That's why I don't even deal with that stuff. Or if I do, I do it purely to call out the tactic in the propaganda to say, here is what we need to guard against, because what we need to be focused on is not just Trump is horrible. Trump's the worst. Trump's a fraud. Trump's a con artist. Trump's a scammer. Trump's a coward. He is, he's all of those things. He's all of those things. But we have to connect it to people's lives. And here is how it is hurting you. And here is how we can fix it.

Here is a way out of it. And you can see how terrified these right-wing oligarchs are, this system that's propped up the vessel of fascism, Donald Trump, how terrified they are of ways to find solutions, even the discussion and the debate about what these solutions can be. They're terrified of it. So they have to label it all of these things and they go back to all the talk about the WNBA and Sophie Cunningham and Democratic socialist this, and they're coming to get you. And then, and you know, you're— they're gonna, they're gonna take your healthcare away. Excuse me, they're gonna take your— you already took the healthcare away. You already took the healthcare away. I reduced it 600%. Most favored nations clause. You didn't do any of that. You're a liar. You're a liar. They're all liars. They're all liars. And they, with Project 2025, with their disastrous budget bill, with covering up the Epstein files, with supporting never-ending wars. They've made life so much worse. And so what we need to talk about is, and not be afraid to talk about it, is how to make life better. We need to lean in on empathy.

We need to lean in on joy. We need to lean in on solutions. We need to lean in on fixing this and calling it out for what it is and just stop with the stupid debates over, uh, You believe that in 2020 this podcast— that's not what American people are worried about. What American people are worried about is— it's August 11th, I'm recording this at 2:20 PM, and people are looking at their calendars right now and they're saying, wow, this summer is almost over, my kids are going back to school, am I going to be able to afford to pack a lunch for my kids right now? Am I going to be able to get them a bologna and cheese sandwich? And am I going to have to miss a doctor appointment for myself that I really needed a checkup because I can't afford it? And if I go there, I'm not going to be able to get my kids lunch. Or the parent who's looking at their kid who's saying they're not going to have a better life than I had, far from it. That's what's going on right now in this country. And that's what needs to be discussed.

All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder, WTF America is the book I wrote with my brothers. Preorder it now. We'll be right back after our last quick break.

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Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. Great work by my brothers there with those ad reads. Support our sponsors, they support our show. We'll put the, uh, links to the discounts in the description below. But like, let me just show you so we can kind of build our defenses and our guards up of like just what's kind of happening here, right? And I know you know this, but like you'll have Caroline Levitt, okay, going on state regime media Fox, and state regime media Fox won't even address the fact that Donald Trump was so damn cowardly at that NATO summit in Turkey that he hit on the catering truck. They won't even like address it. They won't talk about it. Again, can you imagine if Biden did that? Biden went on the train and took that ride knowing that he was on it from Poland into Ukraine 19 hours. That's what you do. You're the commander-in-chief. What, what message do you think it sends, by the way, to our sailors who have been stuck on the USS Abraham Lincoln for going on 270 days right now, when they see that the commander-in-chief, a 5-time draft dodger, at the NATO summit was so terrified of Iran that he snuck out of old Air Force One in a catering truck.

What message do you think that sends to our sailors who already have the worst morale over on the USS Lincoln? And think about it, our sailors before, uh, who were on the USS Gerald Ford, and that ship was there for 326 days And now you have the USS George H.W. Bush and the, and the USS Abraham Lincoln there. We're seeing that the food rations that they're getting— they're getting— and by the way, let's talk about food rations and water rations. This is nearly not getting any attention at all in Puerto Rico right now. As you know, they have the water rations right there in Puerto Rico. They're not getting— they don't have drinking water over there. I know Donald Trump wants to do his memes about you know, how everything's amazing in Venezuela right now, as the people in Venezuela are doing worse than before the U.S. invasion. Not even just because of the terrible earthquake right there, um, the back-to-back, very rare back-to-back earthquake right there. Um, but in Puerto Rico, which we know that Donald Trump says that he never liked Puerto Rico, would be an understatement. Um, struggling to get basic water over there.

But anyway, I digress. What do you think the message it sends to our troops? That that's your commander-in-chief, the 5-time Vietnam draft dodger? Of course he said our service, but he thinks everybody's a sucker and a loser. He probably thought the press and the staff who went on that old Air Force One were suckers and losers. He duped them. He used them as a decoy. What a sick thing to do. What a sick thing to do while you're out there saying that Iran is begging to make a deal and you're winning. That's your behavior. But no, what does Fox want to do? They want to bring on Caroline Levitt and just these radical extreme liberal socialists, communists, whatever you want to call them. This is not your grandpa's party. No, you know, I want you to understand that the the power structures often create the language, right? So this idea that somehow wanting healthcare for everybody, that's not radical at all. The idea that Americans shouldn't be paid like $7.25 an hour in some states, and that the fact that there should be a wage with dignity, the fact that people should be able to afford homes, these are not radical ideas.

The radical communism that exists in the Oval Office right now. You want to talk about who is the closest to the authoritarian communism that we've seen rear its head in history? It's Donald Trump. Trump is a communist to the T, in the image of the Stalins of the world. And he also embodies the malignant narcissism as well. I mean, that, that's the reality of what the situation is. But the American people right now are being exploited by this regime. And, you know, and so all they have are these words: you're radical, you're extremist, you're a socialist, you're this or that. That's all they have are those words. We have to be focused on what's actually happening out there. Here, play this clip of Caroline Levin. Let's play it.

These are radical extreme liberals, socialists, communists, whatever you want to call them, Sean. What matters most is their extreme policy positions. This is no longer the Democrat Party of JFK. Heck, this is not even the Democrat Party of Barack Obama. This is a party that has been totally captivated by these far-left extreme liberals who support massively raising your taxes, who support abolishing your police, who support abolishing private prisons, who support opening, reopening our southern border and our nation's borders to illegal alien criminals all over the world.

So we've had 2 years now with this Trump regime and they've implemented their Project 2025. They think that right now what they've done is not the most radical, horrible thing to our country. We've never been weaker. We've never been poorer, unless you're one of Donald Trump's right-wing oligarch friends. That's just objectively what's happening. They want to talk about states' rights. They put ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo into states to literally invade states. I mean, they wanna, they wanna talk about, uh, socialism. Donald Trump has equity stakes in 30 companies, taken over 30 companies, or has major equity stakes in them. They want to, they want to use the word socialism and communism. I mean, Donald Trump has a social welfare system for billionaires. And when he was speaking in Nevada recently The governor there admitted it, and the governor of Nevada said, we need that. The billionaires need our help first because the only way everybody else can be saved or can be helped is if first we make sure we take care of the billionaires because they'll be the ones who give everybody jobs. That's what they say. They're saying they want data centers in everybody's backyard.

This is what they're saying out loud. This is what they're saying. Imagine what they're saying behind the scenes as well. There's never been more radical, more dangerous, more communist-like, more authoritarian people than those who are in control right now. And, and, and I just think about the image, and, and, you know, I don't, I don't do political ads.

I don't like—

as you know, I increasingly care— I mean, increasingly, I care far much more about the values and principles than a specific politician or political person, but like, just think about that image of Donald Trump golfing with the surface-to-air missiles behind him while the American people are suffering and can't afford homes and are in foreclosure and are having their lives tortured by this regime, and he's out there golfing. Think about the radical— you want to talk about radical? And also weak and pathetic. That's part of it for me too, is that this guy is just a loser. Like, I don't think it would make it better if the authoritarian was actually strong and competent, but it definitely makes it worse that, that this guy at his core is, is a scared loser. And you're just like, because the rest of the world sees it. And then we have to deal with this gamified politics here in the United States where The way the news tries to report on this is they act like this guy is like tough. That guy's a scared loser who hides in catering trucks. Like a freaking loser, man. That's part of it.

I look at him, I'm like, ugh, this freaking loser. Really?

Really?

That, that guy? We're gonna get you this time. We're really good. We're gonna blow up all of you. They shouldn't have been involved in this war in the first place. We're gonna get you. All right, all right, all right. I'm speaking to the Ayatollah. We had a good conversation. What do you think they're thinking in Iran about us? They're like, really? I mean, you know, if you look at these comments now coming from the Iranian leadership, they're acting like they're lecturing us about like, just honor your deals, grow up, understand the conditions. And I'm just like, this is the United States of America, man. The National Review headline: Is anyone in Iran willing to accept Trump's surrender? That's how embarrassing it is. He's trying to surrender, like, please just open up the Strait of Hormuz, we're cool, right? And Iran's like, no, you got to pay us because we don't trust you. And Trump's like, oh, then you pay me, you— then you pay me also. Really? You pay me also? You started the war with Netanyahu, you invaded them, you said that their nuclear stuff was obliterated last year, you started the war. What are you talking about, you pay me?

What do you mean? You know, I just— it's just, it's just, he's a cringy loser. And there's just part of that also that's just like, come on, man. And then you have the state regime media, Fox. It's like, all right, let's talk about— let's talk about penises and vaginas, everybody, because that's crazy. Oh, let's talk about trans people also. Oh, talk about WNBA and let's make up a fake controversy. Let's do— let's spend all our time talking about that. Our digital editor, Asin, went through all of the topics that they're talking about on Fox. And let me be very clear though, they are building a message and they've built a message for 60 years. We talk about that in WTF America, by the way, you know, since Roger Ailes' memo about how we could avoid a future situation where a future Nixon is held accountable. That's the origin of a lot of this, but they are pushing a concerted narrative that is coordinated with the White House, and they just push it relentlessly, relentlessly. It's not random. It is intended to divide. It is intended to distract. It is intended to, uh, take people's eyes off of what the real issues are.

It's a playbook that they run. They run it very successfully. It's not unique in the United States. Orban ran it. You see right-wing, um, lots of right-wing governments run it. Um, you know, I saw this morning, uh, Israel's diaspora, diaspora, uh, chief, um, talking about how Israel's worked with a lot of these right-wing governments, whether it's Le Pen in France, whether it's the so-called Reform Party in the UK, whether it's the far right wing, was the AfD in Germany, whether it's, you know, this is a concerted force that they use the same tactics. They use the same, they use the same playbook. Um, my dogs are barking. Um, let me share this with you though. This is part of the, this is part of the way they see divide the population, because most of America, when you really break it down We're 70-30, we're 80-20 on most of the issues. We really are. There's a lot more that brings us together than that divides— than that actually divides us. But where they could divide us, that's where the right-wing oligarchs are able to, uh, you know, entrench their own power, um, if they keep us divided.

That's the goal of all of this. So I just want to show you the tactics. This is, uh, state regime media host Capagno. And she's like, you know, this is what's going to happen when you have a bunch of dudes beat all of your girls. Here, play this clip. Finally, I just want to say this.

The coach of the Fever, how dare you not stand up? There's so much here. First of all, I love how Sophie Kenningham communicates, which is clearly and concisely and just common sense. And that's partly now why she has drawn attention. She has always loved the Lord. She has always been common sense with everything. But now when she decided to come out and or whatever the time was, an answer to a question and say, you know, yeah, this is— this should be for girls only. Now she is the subject of that very vocal minority. She is the subject of the hordes online of social media that are swarming her and making her out to seem like this transphobic, horrific individual.

Yeah, I mean, I truly have no clue what they're even talking about. I mean, I, I understand that Sophie Cunningham did like that with her finger, and then she like follows MAGA accounts, so they like her. And I, I don't— I, I don't— there were two right-wing MAGA former NBA players who said that they're, they're now ident— in order to mock the transgender community, they said we're— they're identifying identify as women and they're going to join the WNBA draft just so that they can create problems. And now Fox reports on that as like, oh, look, now they've identified as women. So now they're going to— what you going to do now, WNBA? I really don't care. I really don't care. WNBA, do whatever you want to do. Don't let them play. It's stupid. I care about the fact that there's a genocide going on in Palestine right now. That there are— is mass slaughter taking place in Lebanon with our taxpayer dollars. That's what I care about. I care about that our government has used trillions of our dollars to slaughter little girls in Manab and to kill people around the world, not to make us more safe, to make us less safe here in the United States.

I care about our sailors who are in the Persian Gulf right now, um, who again, the United States was so terrified of, uh, the Houthis that one of the aircraft carriers, uh, the George H.W. Bush, had to travel around Africa because the U.S. was too afraid to travel it through the Red Sea, the same way Donald Trump hid in a catering container in Turkey. I'm concerned about the morale of our troops. I'm concerned that when you hear from their family members They say that their loved ones who are aboard these carriers know that they're engaged in war crimes and they don't want to be a part of it, and that's weighing on their mental state right now. You hear a lot from family members saying that. I'm worried about the people here who can't afford a home. I'm worried about the people who have tapped out of their savings at this point. Um, you know, I'm worried about, you know, I, I have I have family members who, you know, work an honest day's living out here, um, and, you know, they'll work as a nurse or they'll work as this, and, uh, they'll have 3 kids and they can't afford rent.

And I know that story is repeated over and over and over again countless times. That, like, that's where— that's what I'm focused on right now. That's my worry. And we need to have problems, we need to solve them. And so where you have somebody like New York City Mayor Mom Donnie trying to figure out a plan, how do we do this? By the way, working with a governor in New York, in Hochul, who is trying to deliver on affordability, real affordability, by— and she's listening to Mom Donnie. And I think it's a good dynamic to see what happens when you have, you know, a governor working with a mayor like that in trying to figure out a relentless affordability agenda that actually works. And we can have debates one way or another, but I think we should all agree, man, is that fair that you have these millionaires and billionaires in New York City who claim their main residence is in Florida so that they could avoid paying New York State income tax, but they suck up the New York City services while they keep their apartments or their homes or their condos in New York City, which appreciate in value, um, while they don't live there, which gets the benefit of all the New York City services, and they avoid those New York City taxes and the New York State taxes, and they go to a place like Florida, which has a, uh, very regressive tax policy where people end up paying a lot more money, but I guess the rich are able to avoid, you know, the big state income tax hit.

And should we have a solution? Now, we can— one, we have to ask ourselves, you know, should that cohort of people who also pay less taxes often than my family member who I was just talking about, or probably you— and I'm not just talking about percentage, I'm also talking about sometimes they find ways to put losses here and put losses there. And you're like, you know, we saw Trump's past taxes. The guy barely paid any taxes at all before he gave himself tax immunity. Should we figure out a system that's a little bit more fair? I think the answer is yes. So then when one tries to be implemented, oh my God, that's socialist. You know, and I saw— I forget which— I forget who I saw talk about it. This way. But, you know, they said, you know, it's fascinating because you, you often, you know, you often hear right-wing people talking about, you know, America was better, you know, they in the '50s and the '60s, they have this idea. I'm like, you want to look at what the tax code was like then? You want to look at what the tax code was then?

You actually had a more fair, more pro-middle class, uh, tax system, uh, at that period of time than you have right now, as private equity and all, you know, And these hedge funds and all these people have figured out all the loopholes in order to make things far more expensive and in order to avoid paying taxes. And that's why we have a broken system that we need to fix. And you have these right-wing oligarchs are terrified by anybody who tries to come up with some ways to fix it. That's not some radical agenda. That's— I, I'd argue it's the least radical thing. It's radical to do what's happening right now. I mean, that's what's very— what's, what's radical is when they roll out Alligator Alcatraz and they brag about alligators and crocodiles eating up immigrants, and, and then, and then laugh about it, and then incompetently run it. They can't even run the Alligator Alcatraz and then shut it down after spending billions of our dollars that could have went to hospitals or could have went to lunches or could have went to making life more affordable for people, you know, where all of these ICE detention centers where they've ripped apart families and they put people in these detention centers right now, um, and pay their— pay their right-wing oligarch friends billions of dollars.

I mean, you know, think about it in Texas. You've got what, Big Bend National Park, uh, the contractor who was like demolishing this beautiful national park by the Rio Grande getting billions of dollars, a Trump donor, while they destroy beautiful— that's freaking radical. That's radical and crazy. It's crazy stuff that that's taking place. I mean, in Texas, you want to talk about radical? No taxes for the electricity bills for data centers. Did you know that? Did you know that in Texas? I'm sure if you lived in Texas you knew that. And then they have the audacity to be like, well, now that we see people don't like the data centers.

We—

I'm going to do an audit of it, is what— is what Abbott says. You're going to do an audit on it?

You—

you gave them no taxes on electricity as they guzzled up all of the electricity? That's freaking radical. That sounds like some form of weird oligarchical communism to me, while the people are the ones who struggle. Anyway, that's what we talk about a lot. So in WTF America, people are like, is the book going to get outdated? After the election. Quite the opposite. The book is not meant for the election. Um, the book is actually meant for a generational perspective of getting out of this loop. Because if we just continue with the loop of Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, you fill in the person, Ossoff, AOC, Newsom, you pick the person, then Rubio or, or whoever, you know, and then you go back and forth. That's a broken freaking system. That's a broken system on the decline. So what I'm focused on, what I want to do with this platform, is figure out how do you break this loop and how do we get into a trajectory of a generational move in the right direction. Because if you just keep slingshotting back and forth and the arsonists blame the firefighters and then the firefighters fix it and the arsonists destroy it.

That's what we've had now for the better part of the last 60, 70 years, and it's been disastrous. And so you add those conditions, you add the international conditions, that creates the recipe for fascism. And a vessel like Donald Trump, who says, 'I alone can fix it,' takes advantage of the pain and suffering that people are legitimately feeling, but he's the one who's caused the pain and suffering. Why he has such a good insight— and this is not to applaud him— but why Trump has a good insight into the pain and suffering that people are feeling is because Trump's the one causing it. He sees it because he's inflicting it. He's doing it and he knows how to keep on doing it. And so what we have to do is recognize that pain and suffering is real. It's not a talking point. It's not an election cycle thing. And I think that's one of the disenchanting things I see watching this election cycle is people who I didn't hear from over the past 2 years when it would have been nice to hear their voice. You know, they come out during the election cycle and now they want to lecture me and you about the election.

I don't want to be lectured by you about the election. You weren't there for me at the inauguration. You weren't there for me after November when hope felt lost. You weren't there for me during those periods. So don't show up now and then start telling me that you know from the focus groups or that you know from your own instinct back what you did in the 1990s or this or that, that you know what the people are— where were you when we needed you? You were nowhere to be found. Maybe you were at the country club. Maybe you were hanging out at the same places where these MAGA people I don't know where you were, but you weren't fighting for us. So I don't need to hear you lecture me and lecture my audience, to lecture our community, to lecture the Midas Mighty, to lecture what we've all built together, built by this community, about what you think about that. No, you weren't there for us. And that's the thing about— I want people to speak to values and principles And I want them to understand what you're going through and what everybody's experiencing and offer problems and solutions, not bash this candidate or, I need you to disavow what you said and shut the hell up.

I don't need you to tell me what you need to disavow in 2019 or 2020. No, I want to know that, is this an authentic fighter for me and for this community and for this world right now? Is that what That's what we need right now. That's it. That's what we're looking for. It's that simple. It's that simple. And it's not enough just to be anti-Trump. It's what are you doing? And you have to have moral clarity. It's a genocide. Call out the genocide. Just say it.

I don't need to say it.

Just say it. It is what it is. That's what it is. Okay. People are suffering. People are feeling pain here. Trump's a war criminal. Trump's a fascist. Just say it. They're covering up a child sex trafficking ring. That's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. That's what they're covering up. It's sick. It's disgusting. That's what's happening, and we need to move beyond that. We need to get into a better place as a country. Anyway, I'll stop preaching. Get your copy of WTF America. I appreciate you watching this. Um, thank you for everything. I'm truly— I'm just— I'm grateful for, uh, always grateful for this community. Pre-order it now. We'll chat soon. Thanks, everybody. Keep fighting, hang in there. Shout out Midas Mighty. Want to stay plugged in?

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