Donald Trump is burning down America and burning down the world. Trump launched a massive escalation of his unlawful and catastrophic war in Iran over the weekend, further escalating it as we're recording this show. Donald Trump has been making posts saying that he and the United States should now be called the guardians of the Strait of Hormuz, and that the United States has now reimposed its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz and will charge ships 20% of the value of their ships if they want to leave the Strait of Hormuz. That needs to be paid to Donald Trump. We'll talk about what's going on during this episode. As you now know, Lindsey Graham died at the age of 71. As his office posted, they said that it was very sudden what took place. Uh, there have been FBI agents at his residence throughout this evening and throughout the day. Unclear, um, why they're there. The initial examination from the DC Medical Examiner's Office determined that, uh, Graham died as a result of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Uh, already the governor is now appointing Lindsey Graham's sister to the seat. I've had lots of people from our international bureau saying, what is going on in the United States?
You just appoint the sister? Like, what, what, what system do you have? It's a very good, it's a very good question. And it's, as you all see clearly, a very broken situation where, uh, where Donald Trump right now is saying, well, now that we're resuming war, I'm doing a new war powers letter. And this is a new war that started. The old war ended back in April. This is a new war that we're now doing, and I'm just going to ignore Congress altogether. We'll talk about that. Tragically, ICE, Border Patrol, Gestapo, still out there killing people, hunting people in the United States. Earlier today, we learned of a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, who was executed by ICE. We're now learning that ICE didn't even have a warrant for this individual. This 26-year-old Colombian man was here, had a Social Security number, was going through the lawful process. And just surrounded and swarmed by ICE agents and executed. And again, this follows the ICE murder of Lorenzo Orojo in Texas over at the end of last week. And let's not forget that ICE has killed dozens and dozens and dozens of people in detention centers and throughout this country.
We'll talk about that on this episode. Donald Trump's also announced that he will be doing an address to the nation, holding a press conference at 9 Eastern on Thursday. People are like, what's he gonna talk about? And from what's been leaked thus far, he's apparently going to talk about how the 2020 election is rigged, and he was gonna— he's gonna spread lies about the 2020 election. And we know that Donald Trump's been working with Maduro's lawyers to try to cut a deal for Maduro to basically say that he was trying to rig the 2020 election, and then Trump's going to want to use that to invalidate validate, um, other results from 2020 and maybe like declare that he won. And we'll, we'll talk about what's happening. I sure as hell hope that corporate news does not cover that speech live. I mean, if they want to cover it afterwards and fact-check it, but do not cover that speech live. Oil prices are now surging, uh, the economy right now in the United States is in shambles. With all of this going on, the MAGA Republicans have just announced about an hour or two ago that they were going to be introducing what they call Reconciliation 3.0. You know how unpopular that disastrous bill is that they call the big beautiful bill.
They wanna do another one in order to take an additional $350 billion of your taxpayer money to give it to the Defense Department, which ran out of $1 trillion from the prior budget. And so they want to cut lots of medical programs and programs that people rely on in order to do that. So that's what they're going to be pushing this week. They're calling it Reconciliation 3.0 to give $350 billion immediately, uh, to the Defense Department for more war as Trump escalates. Then we'll talk about the scathing order out of Florida where a federal judge has now issued a ruling referring Donald Trump's lawyers to the State Bar of Florida, uh, calling out Todd Blanch right before his confirmation hearing this week in connection with that collusive settlement, um, regarding the $10 billion lawsuit that Trump in his individual capacity filed against the IRS and the Treasury Department. The judge basically called it patently frivolous and an intention to basically rob the Treasury, rob us, rob the taxpayers of billions and billions of dollars. We'll talk about that and more in this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Let's bring in Brett and Jordy. Good to see you all.
And indeed, as I started off, um, the country is burning down right now. I mean, the level of damage that Donald Trump is causing this country and the world is really, really, you know, it's, it's disturbing just how much damage is being caused right now.
And we certainly have a lot to cover in that regard. And it's great to see you, Ben.
It's great to see you, Jordy.
It's great to see you, Midas Mighty. Yeah, I mean, if I could describe describe, you know, the Trump regime in a couple of words, I'd say looting and pillaging. That's what they're doing right now to the United States of America. And as they do that, they're also, of course, trying to entrench themselves in this power and try to ensure that they have this power forever. And I think we need to look through all of Donald Trump's actions, especially as we approach the midterms, with that in mind, as we hear about this primetime speech that Donald Trump is set to give on Thursday and the rumors that are starting to come out about that speech, about how he intends to spread these election and as Ben was saying, what he's been kind of in the back rooms rumored to be working on with Maduro. Remember those election conspiracies where Donald Trump used to say, Hugo Chavez, who's been dead for a long time, he flipped the election to the Democrats, trying to spread all of that crap on an official platform. And I agree, Ben, do not give this guy live airtime. You could air the clips after the fact as you fact-check him, as you actually confront him on it, but do not air stuff like that live.
And Trump's language right now that we see as he goes out there, this entire crusade of of, you know, we need to rid the country of communists, we got to get the communists out, we need to shut them down. That is all as well— that has the goal of trying to silence dissent and to try to manipulate the elections and to potentially try to declare, uh, any elections to be void if they are won by who he describes as communists, who in Donald Trump's mind is quite literally anybody who is his political enemy. As you see on his social media feed, I mean, he even put out a, a video today on a social media feed saying that the country needed to be merged of democratic socialists, that they were evil communists that needed to be, uh, taken out forcefully from this country. This is incredibly dangerous rhetoric and similar rhetoric that we've seen, uh, from dictators and authoritarians throughout history. Uh, and then of course there's ICE, all the other stuff. I, I know we just have a lot to get into, so I'm going to toss it over to Jordy. And by the way, I've been visiting Jordy, that's where I am right now, and it's been an absolute blast.
And Jordy, how you doing across town?
Bradster, what's up, man? Thanks for making the trip to the Burg. I told you the Burg is a special, special place, man. So it's always great to have you here. The Burg welcomes you. That's Pittsburgh for those that don't know, with open arms. Excited to get into tonight's show, brothers. We have a lot to talk about, a lot of serious topics to talk about. Before we get going, just wanted to remind people, especially the live viewers right now, if you scan that little QR code up top, you see, brothers, I'm pointing with both fingers here. So, you know, I have to be right if I do this. That's how you call— that's what you call a hedge, Ben.
It's what you call a hedge.
You scan that QR code, it's going to take you right to that audio feed where we've been trying to get people to subscribe. It's 100% free. Take out your phone, scan that QR code at the top of the screen. It'll take you to the Midas Touch podcast audio feed. We really appreciate it. Benji, where we starting off today, big bro?
You know, as the Midas Touch network continues to expand, we announced earlier that we're bringing in Justin Wolfers to be our chief economist. He's a professor over at University of Michigan. He started Platypus Economics, his own independent media company that we're going to do a strategic partnership with. But the thing is, we really need data. People right now. And you all know from watching the Midas Touch Network, what's most important to me is the data and looking at the charts and discussing what's going on here. That's why, you know, for a very long time now, for weeks, um, I've been raising, uh, lots of red alarms over these strategic petroleum reserves and that our strategic petroleum reserves are at a point where we're hitting not just functional tank bottom, but tank bottom. And the Trump regime has been manipulating the prices of crude. It's like a futures crude market, which is different than the price of oil in a refinery. And they've been manipulating these prices for a long time. They've been doing it in really two ways. One, by releasing to the global oil market a lot of our strategic petroleum reserves in order to keep the prices down.
Then I notice overnight and throughout the day, there unusual trades taking place and massive short positions being taken by what are sometimes referred to as these whale investors. People are coming in with massive amounts of money and betting against what we all see with our eyes. I mean, we all see the Strait of Hormuz closed. We all see the strategic reserves being depleted. We all see volatility and instability rising, but there are a group of people who are out there shorting and betting that things are not just going to be, um, normal with the Strait of Hormuz, with everything that we're about to discuss in this episode, but that things are going to be better than they ever were before. So you're like, who is betting on that? And I believe when this story is told, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant has been working behind the scenes with a lot of Donald Trump's right-wing oligarchs in order to do that. But even they can't hold back the overwhelming nature now of what's going on. And so oil prices, gas prices, the price of crude, I should say, rose about 9% today, right around that $80 a barrel, which given the instability is actually still pretty low.
You would think based on everything, all the data points where it should be right now, I don't want it to be there, but with all the data inputs, it should be about $150 a barrel to $175 a barrel. But what we do see, there's something called the 3-2-1 crack splits. That's the refinery prices and the crack split, the delta or the difference between the price of the crude and the price from the refinery, that's at record highs. So now though, we're seeing the rise in the crack splits, the delta or the difference, but now we're also seeing a concomitant rise in the price of crude. And this is all pointing to a major, major economic disaster that I've been warning about. Now, Donald Trump is getting desperate. He's now found himself in this escalatory trap. So as I've also been warning, I said, you know, he's got those— this is what I've been saying since last week— he's put those two U.S. supercarriers, Abraham Lincoln and George H.W. Bush, very close to the coast of Iran. I said, watch there, he's definitely trying to create a Gulf of Tonkin-like incident, which is what led to the escalation in Vietnam under Lyndon B.
Johnson. And I said, also look on the coast of Oman, you can see one of these, uh, amphibious assault ships, one of these ships that basically it's the main ship for our special forces, and they're right there on the coast of Oman. And then I say pay attention to where the United States is striking. And if you look at the pattern of these strikes, the infrastructure being hit, it looks like the U.S. is preparing the terrain for a ground invasion of special forces. And they're hitting certain radar— it seems directionally pointing ground invasion, um, and, and leading to something else. And I said, I just want to raise those red flags because that appears to be, you know, what, what's going on. And now we're seeing, you know, this evening, obviously, massive escalation in the region. Um, you know, the whole region right now is on fire. Um, you also have, you know, uh, the, the resumption of, of a real, real war between Saudi Arabia, and which basically backs the government in Yemen, and the Houthis, which control a lot of the territory in Yemen which are supported by Iran. We saw Saudi Arabia basically bomb an airport that was under the control of the Houthis.
The Houthis responded by attacking Saudi Arabia. So we have this whole region in a massive conflagration, massive, uh, war going on in the whole region. All the Arab nations, you know, have been brought into this, and we're at a point that's frankly even worse than I think at the— than at the beginning of war back in March. And then you also have escalation going on right now in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yes, you have Zelensky successfully striking lots of targets in Russia, but you also have Putin striking Kyiv as of this recording, and there are massive, massive attacks that are underway. And so quite literally, you have war everywhere. You know, you have a war going on essentially everywhere in the world, or all nations in the world are somehow involved in a war right now. And that's not me being hyperbolic. As I said, gas is, gas is, right now. And you look at a bunch of the other data points right now, strategic reserves down 3.21%, crack prices up. Um, and then, you know, we'll talk about it a little later also, but you've got, uh, the total US federal debt is now up a record $39.4 trillion.
And get this, Brett and Jordy, rising $3.2 trillion over the last 12 months. Trump has added $3.2 trillion to the national debt while lying and saying he's brought in $19.2 trillion. Well, how'd the debt rise by $3.2 trillion if you brought in $19.2 trillion? And why do you need this Reconciliation 3.0 to fund the Defense Department if you brought in all that money? So I'll pause there, Brett, and toss it over to you. But I wanted to start actually with the data because to me, that's what we need to be focusing on.
And I'll just add this, you know, you know, it reminds me of that kind of famous phrase that's been passed along through the years. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And how fitting is that for Donald Trump to be stuck in this escalatory trap, which fits right into the definition of insanity. I mean, we literally have an insane person right now at the helm making all of these decisions. And for some reason, maybe because he's insane, him and Pete Hegseth and all these folks in the Trump regime seem to think if they just bomb harder, if they just bomb more, if they just do it again, that they're going to get different results. But they're not going to get different results. And they think that they could create this alternative reality as they tried to do here in the United States. And there's plenty of propaganda media who's happy to go along with it. But they're trying to create this alternate reality where the United States actually controls the Strait of Hormuz and, and all this stuff. And it just cannot be further from the truth.
And I think it's worth just reflecting right now how much the kind of mission, the objectives of this war have shifted so dramatically. And think about all the stories that we have heard out of this regime, the Trump regime, from day one. At first it was about what regime change. It was about Iran's nuclear program. I bet if you ask 10 people on the street, what is this war about? I don't even know if a lot of people would even realize we're in a war. But the folks who you— except for knowing that gas prices are sky high and everything is way more expensive. But I have it. I could almost guarantee you that nobody would actually be able to give a straight answer because there really is no straight answer. Now, what Donald Trump seems to be doing every time he goes on television is he seems to be saying that the whole goal right now We got to open the strait. We're going to do it by force. Actually, we own the strait, something that was open prior to the war. So we are fighting for something that was caused by Donald Trump's own actions.
It is the biggest, most clear-cut black and white example of a failure in a war that I can think of, like, in history. Objectively speaking, this isn't like a Brett opinion. Objectively speaking, this thing has been a complete and utter disaster. And what Trump is realizing, I think what he's realized throughout this entire thing is he has no clean way out. We were hoping that the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, uh, would be abided by and that folks would be able to continue down a road and a path of peace, even though that we did not believe that Donald Trump would be able to do that. And this is why we didn't believe that Donald Trump would be able to do that because Donald Trump is not a deal maker. Donald Trump is a deal breaker. He does not enter into these agreements with good faith. And that's the issue that we have, because as we've been saying from the beginning, what happens when you lose a war? You got to kind of give some things up. To the victor goes the spoils. Donald Trump is refusing in this scenario to give anything up. Despite that, despite the MOU, he doesn't want to stick to the terms.
And so now we're left in this escalatory trap that is essentially never-ending, that is just showing the United States of America's weakness, that is depleting our resources, depleting our oil, that continues to allow Iran to rain fire down on American bases in the Middle East, or what's left of them. Complete and total train wreck for the United States, for the region, and for the world.
Well said, B. Look, I want to go back to something you said earlier. The entire justification for this war in the first place was supposedly Iran's nuclear program. Then it became regime change. And then most recently, the goal has become monetizing the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway. This mission has completely collapsed in itself. Up is down, down is up. The United States is losing this war worse than we lost to Belgium 2 weeks ago. And here's the thing. Iran is not backing down. They're not backing down. The longer this drags out, the worse it's going to get for our troops, for our citizens, and for this economy. And to that point, where are all the MAGA people who wrap themselves in the flag and pretend to love our troops? They honestly think that our troops risking their lives is worth this for whatever this is. This is a war of choice by Donald Trump. And it's nowhere close to being resolved. Along with Epstein, along with his bankruptcies, along with unleashing the murderous ICE onto our streets, this failed war will be Trump's legacy. This is one of those things that Trump will be forever known by.
This is his Vietnam in many ways. For whatever reason, ignorance or bravado or what have you, Trump thought this would be an easy victory. And at this rate, it's crystal frickin' clear that it's not gonna get resolved during his presidency.
It's very clear. I mean, but just think also, he wants to hold a press conference on Thursday about the 2020 election in July 2026 while the American people are suffering, tapping into their savings if they're fortunate to have any, or are being foreclosed on and/or going bankrupt and are starving. And he wants to do something about the 2020 elections and lie about it. He still talks about 2016 Russia, Russia, Russia. He says that over and over again. And, you know, he was, uh, what, posting, you know, weird photos of like Hillary Clinton wearing hats that say, I lost to Donald Trump. And this is what he's talking about in 2026. And so my point is, is that he doesn't move on from things. To your point, Jordy, this is not going to end in this term at all. Like, there's no chance this ends. He doesn't know how to end things. He doesn't know how to resolve or solve anything. What he does know how to do is blame and destroy. And so after his first term ended and Biden had to actually fix the things that Trump created, the problems, whether that was actually leaving Trump's never-ending wars and leaving, you know, Afghanistan, whether it was addressing and dealing with COVID whether it was dealing with the supply shocks that Trump created for were completely mishandling COVID.
Biden had to deal with it. And what did Trump and MAGA and our corporate media do? They blamed the firefighter for trying to put out the fire, and they sided with the arsonist who was blaming the firefighters for trying to put it out. And so that dynamic is shaping up now. The problem is, is that Trump's here for another, you know, 2 years, unfortunately. And so the amount of destruction in those 2 years is only going to compound and get worse. And Jordy, when you said, is MAGA good with sending our troops into these never-ending wars? Like, is this what they— is this what they want? That's why I started with the data. I'm like, this shouldn't be like, are you a Democrat, Republican, or independent? Like, look at those charts. Like, gas is about to go average over $4 a gallon right now. You know, our debt is out of control and Trump keeps on adding to it. We're about to get an inflation report tomorrow that Justin Wolfers is going to cover with us. It's going to be horrific. Horrific. Mark my words, it'll be very bad. And then you're going to— and then that'll keep on getting worse.
And now inflation's only going to continue to rise and rise and rise, which is why I said by the end of this year we'll be at 5.5% inflation. And then once we hit the 5 number, oh my God, how did we get here? It's because you've been— other people have been following these media narratives and not the facts and the data. Every month it goes up about 0.3%, 0.2%, 0.4%. It's easy to see how it's going up. It's fairly easy to see directionally where this stuff is going. But Jordy and Midas Mighty, this is a real video. This is not a parody that the Defense Department is releasing. And what they say in this video, this is what— this is their call for people to join the military as they are now escalating everything. Listen to what they say carefully. They go, They go, whether the mission was real and defined or vague, throughout generations Americans have said, send me. Whether the missions are vague, send me, send me. I mean, this right here is straight out of 1985. In fact, far more dystopian here. Play this clip. Throughout our storied history, when soldiers said said, "Send me." Well-equipped or poorly equipped, it didn't matter whether they were stepping into a clear mission or a vague one, whether there were clear skies or raining, was always the determined reply.
Every one of them, just like you, were called to serve something great than themselves. Send me. And it's actually a truly horrifying video if you listen to what they said. Whether they were well-equipped or poorly equipped— I don't know what history you've looked at, but I don't think people were saying send me poorly equipped. Whether the mission was defined or vague, send me. Whether the skies were clear or raining, send me. No, if you actually look at history, We had responsible generals who would not want to send people when there were certain weather conditions because you wanted to keep the people alive.
I—
it is the most deranged view of history. And the send me, send me, send me to my death, right? I mean, it's some crazy stuff. I want to pause there, though. I want to take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, we have a lot to discuss. I want to show you what's going on here domestically with ICE, with Reconciliation 3.0. I want to talk more about, um, uh, what else, uh, Donald Trump's been saying today as he escalates this war. We'll talk about Lindsey Graham, uh, what's going on there. We'll talk— we have a lot to discuss. Just a quick reminder, hit the QR code and subscribe on audio. It really helps. We made it easy for you, for those who want to really help us out and grow. It's free to subscribe to audio, so hit the QR code, um, scan it, subscribe on audio, and, uh, and leave a 5-star review. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show.
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Don't throw Ben off his game. He's in the zone.
He's in the zone. Can I just say this real quick before we get going too? I go through my day, I think like most people in this world where you're not even like viewing things through the context of like, is this how a Democrat would respond to this issue or is this how a Republican— oh, now I'm going to respond to it based off of those beliefs. Beliefs. Just go through the day like right versus wrong. And so many times those values of right— I mean, right in like the good sense— get attributed to a single party with beliefs and values and actual like, like stands for something versus the other party that's just okay. Again, sending our troops into this war of choice. It's so frustrating. Like, I'm not here to cheerlead for any parties. It becomes a values-based thing at the end of the day. And just, I just, it blows my mind that not even MAGA, but like more Republicans, more red-blooded Republicans aren't pissed off about sending our troops to die in this pointless friggin war.
Because, Jordy, there's no values proposition for MAGA. It doesn't exist, right? The values proposition is what does Donald Trump think about this? And it's why they could hold 100 different positions at once, right? They could say something one day, hey, heck, they could say something one minute and Donald Trump could say something the next minute, and then they all flip at the same time. So it's not a values proposition for them. It's what does dear leader say? And we even saw that today with when the governor of South Carolina chose to nominate Lindsey Graham's sister to fill this role temporarily. And we'll talk about this soon. But you saw at first, you saw, you know, some Republicans saying, I'm going to pick this person because they have X amount of years of experience, you know, as a representative. I'm going to pick— I want this person. This person will best serve, you know, the people of South Carolina. And then Donald Trump said, no, no, no, no, no, Lindsey Graham's sister, that's who it's going to be. And then like that, everyone was like, oh, I have an idea. Lindsey Graham's sister, that's who it has to be.
There's no other choice. It's like, didn't like 5 minutes ago, weren't you pushing for somebody else? Like, you really have zero spine at all. And the answer is yes, they have zero spine at all zero beliefs of their own.
Lindsey Graham's sister. Again, as I said during the first segment, I've had so many people from the international bureaus of Midas saying, well, he just appointed a sister. What kind of, what kind of country do you have over there? I go, it's a, it's a great point. Yes, Governor McMaster, the governor of South Carolina, has appointed Darlene Graham Norton, Graham's sister, to fill out the remainder of his term. And of course, you all know now, and Midas was one of the first news outlets that did a story on Lindsey Graham's, uh, passing. But as you know, Lindsey Graham died. Lindsey Graham's office made a post saying it happened very suddenly. He returned from Ukraine where he was on Friday, and the videos of him on Friday, he looked, um, you know, as, as it relates to Lindsey Graham, you know, relatively fine. That doesn't mean that, you know, something could have happened at his age. And based on what his, uh, uh, the preliminary results are purportedly from the, you know, autopsy results— do we just have what they, what they posted, Brett, about the condition that they claim? That the initial examination from the DC Medical Examiner's Office determined that Graham died as a result of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
In layman's in layman's terms, this means a tear in the aorta caused by hardening and narrowing of arteries as a result of an underlying cardiovascular disease. I'm not sure people close to Lindsey Graham knew about this. I'm not sure Lindsey Graham, you know, had talked about it. You know, the only kind of questions that I have there is what Lindsey Graham at least had been describing to people, or even what Trump said and others, you know, was that he was not feeling well. That he had made some sort of statement that, um, I hope I don't die before I'm able to, you know, see sanctions on Russia. I hope I don't die before, you know, I'm able to see through what happens in Iran. Or I hope I don't die before I see those things, you know, before the Abraham— before Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords. When we know Saudi Arabia is never going to join the Abraham Accords unless Palestine is recognized and there's a two-state solution, and that Israel Israel, you know, uh, stops the genocide. Um, but, you know, the, the only— I mean, the only question that I just have is that if you knew you had a cardiovascular condition that could be fatal because you've done yearly checkups describing yourself as just not feeling good and feeling under the weather and saying, yeah, I'm just gonna get it checked out, you know, on Sunday or Monday after, you know, you're supposed to be on Meet the Press I mean, what— what— wouldn't you go?
I mean, he lived in D.C. There's the George Washington Hospital right there. You know, the moment you started feeling anything, knowing you have a condition that could be fatal and knowing the age group and risk, that— that's just the only part. You know, there are lots of FBI agents. As I've said before, I'm not veering into the land of kind of conspiratorial, um, and I don't want to, you know, other than to say we know that these are people who don't tell the truth about basically anything. Anything, um, and at all. And, you know, that, that, that's just— those are just—
I'll, I'll say this, I think it's quite, um, weird. The FBI handles things quite weirdly, I will say. And this administration, this, the Trump regime, seems to, uh, do everything in like the weirdest way possible that, uh, allows for conspiracy theories to thrive. So like sending nearly 20 FBI agents to Lindsey Graham's house after he has, uh, after he dies in this way is very peculiar. And Kash Patel's comments that he made were very peculiar and to me only serve to amplify conspiracy theories. But, you know, when I think about this whole thing, if I could just give my, you know, opinion here for a quick second, the whole thing is really sad to me, honestly. And I just wonder if, you know, there are other folks in the MAGA world who kind of sold their soul who look at this and have some sort of awakening. I'm certainly not holding my breath thinking about it, but I mean, think about it. Lindsey Graham, He was a warmonger like the whole time, and, and that's, you know, frankly unforgivable. But this is a guy who, when you look at those clips of him back in, you know, 2016— and we made plenty of videos, you know, especially at the beginning of Midas with the things he said about Joe Biden and the things he said about Donald Trump— I mean, we all remember that.
To so give up your soul and give up your power, give up your autonomy, give up nearly every single thing that you believe in in order to become Donald Trump's little pet, and then to go out in this way as you Donald Trump's little pet, giving away all of your power, all of your dignity, any shred of dignity that you may have had. To me, that's a really sad, sad, sad way to live. And I just wonder if there's anybody, any of these Trump sycophants out there, who look and go, is that how I want to be remembered? As Donald Trump's little pet, as his little pet dog? Like, it— to me, it's just— it's— that's a choice that you make right in life. You only have so many years on life, and you can't again, life could be taken away from you at any point, right? And it's one of the most shocking things to me that people insist on living that way, on, on living to support this man and these heinous actions and the heinous things that they do, knowing that it could all go away in a second. And that's how you're going to be remembered, and, and that you're going to throw everything else away.
It's just— it's that, that part of it is, is quite tragic to me.
No, well said, B. And look, I want to add this point man, states' rights, I totally get it. Kind of like, yeah, okay. But it's bizarre to me that state to state, it's either the governor like a McMaster gets to go ahead and appoint or it's a special election. It's wild to me that that state implications could then have federal implications in a way that's not chosen by the people at large. It hurts my brain sometimes when I look state to state and say, okay, so the governor gets to appoint in the state, this state goes into a run off. This is a special election. It's crazy to me.
Welcome to federalism. Thank you. And let me say, you know, it's not like, you know, we're the United States, you know, where they hate us for our freedom, right? The Ayatollah over there, you know, who came in? Oh yeah, it was the Ayatollah's son who came in. So it's kind of like that. It's kind of just like that.
Look, I know it might sound sophomoric, but still, whenever it hits, I'm like, oh, this state, the governor just gets the— but I think, oh, and now it's the sister with no, with no experience.
Okay, it's a little more complicated. Nothing that you say is sophomoric though, and everything you say is, is a wise sage. So I just, I support it all.
There is a—
there will be a special—
there will be a special—
I believe it's next month. This is temporary, just to—
but, but that's what I'm saying, for this, for this period of time.
It's odd. Look, it's, it's, it's odd that you're like, yeah, his sister is going to become a senator right now. So, so, so, so, but, but, but here are some of the contradictions, or just outright fraud right? The crowd that says, "Don't tread on me," love being tread on me, right? The "don't tread on me" crowd is, "Tread on me, Daddy. Tread all over me, Dad." I mean, that's quite literally— they call him Daddy. They love being treaded on. They love having a guy who's crazier than Kim Jong-un as their Führer. It's bizarre for me to watch it. It's bizarre that corporate news even treats it, and I'm not talking even just about state regime media. Media like Fox or CBS or Newsmax, just even corporate news, you know, treats a lot of this like it's normal when it's the furthest from normal. You know, also the people who profess to be pro-life, they hate life. They hate life. You know, they, they support genocide. They support mass murder abroad and slaughter. They don't give a shit when they slaughter little girls in an elementary school in Iran or in Gaza or in Lebanon. But they claim they're pro-life.
And more significantly, not significant or equal, you know, equally as, as, as crazy. You know, they don't, they don't care about their own life. Like, to like, like, just it was profoundly, you know, when during COVID when you saw the death toll rise, and Donald Trump was giving himself an A, and the people out there were literally like, like, you know, you saw those MAGA politicians who were like, just out there like dying, and then the family was like, but we love Donald Trump.
We love him.
You're getting killed.
You're literally killing yourself.
You're dead.
I want to know, what are you doing? And so that left a profound impression on me also that, you know, we're not dealing with— we're dealing with crazy stuff. I don't know how else to capture it other than by just kind of calling it out what it is. I mean, just look what went down, you know, what Trump's even talking about. Trump goes on one of these right-wing shows before, and he's talking about, we're going to hit Iran very hard tonight. Tonight we're going to hit them hard tomorrow.
Not a damn thing they can do about it.
Okay, they're not—
damn, what do you mean there's not a damn thing that they could do?
You want me to tell you what they can do about it? They're shooting a lot of ships right now this evening in the Strait of Hormuz. Okay, and not even in the Strait of Hormuz, outside of the Strait of Hormuz. We're seeing right now over here that Iran was able to strike a ship off the coast of Kulat in Oman, which ain't even all that close to the Strait of Hormuz. There are UAE tankers that are being hit right? There's like an all-out war. What do you mean that there ain't nothing they can— there's a lot they can do about it. They're doing a lot about it right now, and things are escalating very much.
They got no Navy, they got no missiles. They want to do a deal though.
By the way, he said that tonight also, Trump, in an Oval Office presser. I think that they still want to do a deal with me. And it's like, dude, shut up with the deal. Stop saying the freaking word.
Everyone—
I'm a deal guy, I do deals.
They want to do a deal.
I don't want to do a deal. Dude, just shut the hell up and either do the deal or don't do the deal. Just— it is truly like, as you said before, Brett, like a psychotic, deranged person. Here's what he told the right-wing podcast person where he's like, he's like, yeah, they can't do a damn thing about it. Here, play this clip. Can you or the American military or the Israeli military get to what's left of their third string and their fourth string and their fifth string?
Do you know where they are?
Can you kill them?
Yeah, I do. But we don't want to talk about that. But we certainly are watching. Yep. I know a lot about that subject. I know a lot, but I don't think it's appropriate to talk about it right now. But we will. We will be hitting them like, as an example, we're going to hit them very hard tonight and we're going to hit them hard tomorrow. And there's not a damn thing they can do about it. They have nothing. They have nothing going other than they have big mouths. Keep it up, Mr. President. Good that I did. Got to know him.
The MOU, Buckle.
And it's a lot better. You know, people say I was at least reasonable, but I got to know him. They're stone cold crazy people.
First off, he's a stone cold crazy person. That reporter's a stone cold crazy person. And their third string and their fourth string.
Can you kill him? Can you kill him? Yeah, kill him.
I'll kill him.
You want to kill him? I mean, man, unlike Donald Trump, the Iranians have big mouths. And, and Trump would never, uh, do a whole stream of consciousness that's all psychological projection about himself. It's really incredible how everything the guy says is about himself, and he is putting these on other people. And as I said before, it's literally— it's the definition of insanity. He's doing the same thing over and over again. But because we're— to me, we're in this stage of the war right now where it's been drawn out, where this MOU has been such a catastrophe, and Donald Trump's back is against the wall, I think you feel even more desperation coming out of Donald Trump. This is the guy who said, like, on day 2, we won the war. Remember? I mean, we could go back in time and play those clips. We won the war. We won. We won. It's over.
It's over.
Like a miracle, it's going to go away. 2 cases. It's the same shtick. It's the same stuff.
It's the same shtick. And now, you know, as we were saying on the last episode, we were reporting on the fact that one of the things that's really not being talked about a lot right now, and this— this is mind-blowing to me that it's not a bigger story— is the fact that the Pentagon is essentially going bankrupt at the moment. They had the biggest budget that they ever had, $1 trillion budget. Donald Trump is now requesting $1.5 trillion. That's nearly like double what the budgets were before Donald Trump came into office, and they are burning through this money at a rapid clip. And so you're now seeing Donald Trump at these press conferences speaking to to the press. And he right now, I think in the back of his mind, is realizing how damaged the United States is. Remember, he always says, oh, I built the military back up, I made it— he's doing the opposite. He's running the United States military and the Department of Defense— yes, it's called the Department of Defense— he's running it right now like one of his failed casinos. And so even just before we were recording, Donald Trump was out there in the Oval Office, and he's speaking about that now.
This is his new scam, right? Oh, we actually think maybe the— all the other countries They have— they should probably reimburse us because we came into the region and we were such good people by coming into the Middle East and causing all this chaos there and getting Iran to attack all of them. So maybe they will thank us by showering us with cash as, as a thank you. Did you say thank you, Saudi Arabia? Did you say thank you, Qatar? I mean, this is actually severely deranged. Watch this.
They were involved because they're stone cold crazy. They are crazy. And we're not going to put it up. Yeah, I want to be reimbursed because we're protecting a very rich portion of the world. We're spending money. And so what we've done is we are going to be reimbursed for protection. We're protecting by the countries that we're helping. For instance, you look at the 5 countries. You have Saudi Arabia, you have UAE, you have Qatar, or Qatar, as I always say. Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain. And by the way, you have others. You have Kuwait and you have others. And they will do very well. But we think it's appropriate that we don't need them. You know, we have more oil than any other country in the world. When you add Venezuela, which has been amazing, when you— which has tremendous amounts of oil that we control. When you add Venezuela and everything else, we have more than 50% of the world's supply. We don't need it. But we need it from the standpoint of protecting allies, etc., etc., including Israel, including Saudi Arabia, including Qatar, including UAE. We're protecting all of them and we've done a very effective job.
So 4 months ago.
But, but, but brothers, might is mighty. What about Liberation Day? What about when we did all of those tariffs? Wasn't that supposed to make us so rich beyond belief that we would—
$21 trillion or $21 trillion in investment coming in from all these countries already. We're flooded with cash. It's on the tariff shelf. Didn't you all get your Doge rebate checks? Didn't you get your tariff rebate checks? Are you seeing the pattern here? It's one scam after the next. And as he bankrupts this country, he just continues to lie. He just doubles down on the— doubles down on the lies. He doubles down on the Ponzi scheme. That's what we're watching. Play out right now in real time.
Can I address one thing, Brett, to that point? So when I was a litigator against Ponzi scheme type cases, one of the things that the Ponzi schemers would do is create special purpose vehicles that would then basically rob from Peter to pay Paul. So you'd have Special Purpose Vehicle 1, Special Purpose Vehicle 2, Special Purpose Vehicle 3, and as you would kind as they would steal and loot the money from Special Purpose Vehicle 1, and then the investors in 1 said, "Well, what's going on? What would you do?" You create SPV 2, and when you take that money, then SPV 3. So to me, Reconciliation 3.0 is what they're calling it, is the exact thing that I've seen writ large as Special Purpose Vehicle 3.0. It's basically Special Purpose Vehicle 3.0. They've looted and pillaged Brett, that's what you said in the first segment. And now they've bankrupted. So what do they do? They create the special— it's the Bernie Madoffs. It's the exact stuff that I've seen litigated against the Ponzi schemes. That's what reconciliation 3.0 is. And who are they robbing? Who are they taking? They're taking more money from the services that we're actually supposed to be paying for our taxpayer dollars for.
That's supposed to be helping us. And they're stealing it and taking it. It and they're saying it's fraud and it's waste and it's abuse. That's why we need to raid these programs that Americans rely on in order to now deal with the fact that they've quite literally bankrupted the Defense Department and they've bankrupted all these other areas. And where do you think a lot of that money is also going directly to? Like, that money's going to Trump and his oligarch friends and the people who open up, you know, the private prisons in the United States and all of the defense industrial complex. All of these companies are getting our taxpayer dollars. Where did the trillion go? Where do you think it's going? It's going to Trump and his guys, mostly all guys, like his people. And so now it's Reconciliation 3.0, that special purpose vehicle 3.0. And then I see, you know, even the more basic scams that I would deal with when I was litigating against people. You know, what's one of Trump's recent scams? Oh, inflation is surging. He cites Walmart coupons as though they're these discounts that prices are going down. He did the same thing during Thanksgiving.
Let me put it in perspective for a second. It would be like if like 3 days before Prime Day, I was like, Mr. Bezos, lower your prices.
I give you till Wednesday, you better do it.
And then Amazon's like, it's Prime Day Wednesday. And I was like, called it, got it.
Or called it. Brett, it's worse though. It's Zadisai then that called it. Then you extrapolated Prime Day discounts as though that was an economic—
Yeah, but it's like I summoned it.
I called it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That reflects the general economy, that now prices are down because they have Prime Day, because Walmart has done a coupon, that that now means we've reduced inflation while inflation is surging. And then what's the other scam, which I'll talk about before our last break? Break of the show, which is the Freedom Centers, the Freedom gas stations, right? We know that gas is going up now again. It'll be $4 a gallon soon. We know that Americans can't afford anything. So what do you do when 150,000 gas stations are now charging a lot more for— that's how many gas stations are there, maybe a little more than that in the country. Well, you open up 25 in Pennsylvania, you rebrand a gas station, you call them Freedom Nobody knows who runs these things. They're clearly being subsidized somewhere and they're losing money. You charge $3.47, so you can say, look what Trump did, 47 cents. Then you put out a message, look, I've made gas prices $3.47 because 15 gas stations that nobody knows who's even controlling these gas stations in Pennsylvania have reduced their prices probably subsidized by the regime or there's some quid pro quo we don't know about while the American people are suffering.
There's clearly some sketchy stuff going on there. Trump realizes, though, about, you know, about, you know, a lot of people in his base is that you just have to give them something like this. Just, just throw them a little thing and they'll be, oh, but the Freedom Centers. Yeah, but that's not what— that's not happening to your life. That's not happening to you. But Donald Trump said this. Donald Trump.
Yeah.
The guys, the guys The guy's been a loser his whole life. The guy's bankrupted everything. So what do you mean Donald Trump said— stop it, stop it. You know, and I think, you know, it's been, it's been good, I guess, to see that a lot of the country has recognized this fraud. The part that still gets me, you know, is after all of this, how could there still be 30, 32% of the country who's like, I, I think I'm— I love this when objectively they're doing worse, you know. And then it gets to the next aspect of it, which we'll talk about when we come back from the break. They like ICE and Border Patrol torturing people.
They like the torture.
They like the authority. They like being treaded on.
They like it.
They like it. We can think about it. They like that. And that's a— it's a sad, harrowing realization, you know, to, to make that they like And, you know, that's why the rest of everybody else, you know, you gotta, you gotta realize the existential threat because that 28%, 32% block, they're always going to be 28 to 30. They will always be with it no matter what.
And then let me just say this also before we go to break, uh, because we were speaking about the gas prices and, and gas prices are once again rising and, and families are really feeling this all across the country. And so As we've been discussing, you know, Donald Trump is attempting all of these schemes, and we were just speaking about the kind of Freedom gas stations. And one of the things that he's been saying a lot recently is he's also been trying to shift the blame to the gas stations rather than the result of his policies. And he's saying, Mr. Exxon, Mr., you know, this station, that station, lower your prices, stop you gouging our customers. But this is one of those situations where I think it's always watch what they do and not what they say, because this was a little discussed story that happened in the past week as well that I want to flag for you right here.
And that's that—
and you're not going to believe this, but literally Exxon's lawyer is now joining the Department of Justice's Energy Division. Robert Levy, executive counsel at the oil company, will retire from his role and join the federal government later this month. This is from Energy Wire. And I'll just show you a little bit about this because I think it's just such a stunning example of kind of, this corruption that's happening in the background and how they may be saying one thing in the public and behind the scenes they are putting in the people who are fighting for the oil and gas companies, who are fighting for higher prices on people. And so I'll read this for you right here. A senior-level attorney at ExxonMobil is retiring from the oil and gas company this month and joining the Justice Department's newly renamed Energy and Natural Resources Division. I'm excited to contribute to the Trump administration's energy priorities and to our nation's environmental and legal landscape, said Robert Levy, executive counsel at Exxon, in a June post on LinkedIn. Levy said he would depart Exxon after 17 years in the company. His move comes as DOJ last month announced its Environment and Natural Resources Division will now be known as the Energy and Natural Resources Division.
And this comes, of course, as well after we see the Trump administration repeatedly bragging about not using renewable energy, about actually using more oil and gas, even as that strains the energy grid and causes them to issue these emergency proclamations from these same grids that they are hyping up as amazing because they don't have any renewables. And while the United States is doing that, you know what every other country's doing? You know what China's doing? They are in build, build, build mode when it comes to wind, when it comes to solar, when it comes to all of these renewable, uh, energy sources that the Trump administration is saying We don't want any of that. This is America. They don't have that in China. Well, yes, they do. And they are focused on it and that they are growing and they are thriving in large part because they are building the future of energy and more jobs for Americans while the United States is pushing progress away, screwing over the people and screwing over all the people not only who need the energy and we need it more than ever right now, especially with these AI data centers popping up everywhere, but we also need the jobs.
These are jobs of the future that we are just giving away to China. It is the biggest example of shooting yourself in the foot imaginable. And I just wanted to kind of tie it all together for everybody as we were on this topic before we had to break.
Let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder, subscribe to the Midas Touch on audio. For those watching right now on YouTube, there's a QR code up there that'll make the process easy for you to subscribe on audio. You click the QR code, bam, it brings you to the audio podcast. Bam, you hit subscribe. It's free and it helps us. So if you just do that really quickly, that's one of the best ways you can help us, and it's free to help us. All right, um, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
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So, curveball, curveball for this episode.
Yeah, you didn't see that coming, did you? And also, you might have known, I've been like sniffling. I, I go on mute so you can't hear me when I'm not talking. I've been like sniffling like I'm like Don Jr. this episode. Don't worry, it's not that. I think Brett came to Pittsburgh and got me sick. I'm blaming Brett.
But yeah, You're too hot, you're, you're sniffling. You're—
listen, I feel— I find it important that the audience know where I am each episode.
I think transparency is, is an important thing, George. Look, let's get into some of these topics though, because, you know, with the American people struggling, suffering right now, psychologically tortured by everything this Trump regime is doing, Americans can't afford anything, uh, we're in a massive jobs Great Recession right now. We're losing jobs, really dire economic conditions here. You look at, well, what's the Trump regime focused on? Obviously, this escalation right now. I mean, the more and more that comes in right now, this night seems to be perhaps the biggest night in the war really since it even began. I'll get to more of that in a moment, some of the stuff that we're learning about, but it's grievous what's happening right now in that region. I mean, it is really, really bad. Um, but you, you start making connections here, you know, send me, send me, send me. We talked about Hegseth. You have this escalation which appears to be prepping for an inevitable ground invasion, whether that's special forces plus additional troops or just special forces. We'll, we'll see. But I foresee— I'm just giving you my opinion there— that the setup is happening for that.
If you at what's being targeted right now by the Trump regime and how he goes higher up the escalation ladder. But then we see Rubio release a video and an op-ed today that basically attacks the International Criminal Court, and he talks about how the United States right now needs to abolish the ICC and how it's going to be the priority of the Trump regime right now to destroy the ICC. And so again, when you think about when Americans were waking up today and they were like, can I have some relief so I can pay my rent? Can I have some relief so I can afford gas? It's like, nope, we're going to escalate the war. We're going to now do Reconciliation 3.0 to get rid of more programs that Americans rely on. And then you've got the regime saying, we are dismantling the ICC. ICC. And to basically see the United States, you know, behave in this way in all aspects, it's like, it's, it's, it's horrific. And then so, you know, there's this article that was put out by Rubio, why we're dismantling the ICC, and then he releases this video that says this is a threat to our sovereignty.
This is what Rubio says. Let's play it.
But as we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country. Not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law. When the ICC was born 24 years ago, they told us that it was merely a narrow backstop, a global court that would step in to prosecute only the gravest offenses—things like genocide and war crimes—and only when a nation's courts were unable to prosecute them on their own. But the truth The truth is it was something far more radical and extreme. It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited.
You're describing Donald Trump also. And that's the messaging that they're pushing out.
It's just interesting that they're right now focused on this while they are kind of actively committing war crimes and covering up war crimes. And I think you see really like a lot of the actions— and I think you'll see this continue to increase as we move through the, uh, Trump regime— are that they are going to ultimately realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. So they're going to try to— or that there's an end, is what I'm trying to say here, to, to this regime. So they're going to try to extend that as long as they can and then try to retain power for as long as they can. But they're also going to try to do as much as they can to try to absolve themselves themselves from the consequences of their actions. And we all know they have done a lot of heinous things, a lot of illegal things. I mean, on a daily basis, I feel like they violate a bajillion different laws. Um, and so going after the ICC, I think, is part of that. I think it's also part of defending Benjamin Netanyahu. I believe the ICC has an arrest warrant out for Netanyahu.
And I should note that the Rome Statute— the U.S. isn't even a party to the Rome Statute. Chute, which is the ICC's founding treaty. And so like technically the, you know, we're not even a part of the ICC. I think like Clinton back in the day, uh, you know, signed that we would be joining, but it was never actually ratified by the Congress, so it was never made official. And so right now this just feels like another attempt to try to say, listen, we are a lawless regime here, we do not want to be held responsible anybody else. And we don't want people like Benjamin Netanyahu to be responsible, held responsible by anybody else. We want to be able to kill people indiscriminately. We want to be able to bomb little girls' schools. We want to be able to just really get away with anything. Right. We need to get out of jail free card. And we don't want anybody coming after us because we're going to issue mass pardons right when we get out of office. We don't want anyone else to claim jurisdiction over us.
The timing of this couldn't be more obvious. It's another case in point of the Trump regime just thinking you're stupid and just, and just hoping you are too stupid to care or call them out. I mean, yeah, Brett, let's bomb a little girl school. Let's get rid of the ICC. Actually, we should abolish the ICC. It's so obvious what they're doing here. And it's disgusting to me because, again, it's right in front of your face this whole time. So just like, like, again, don't, don't, don't piss on my face and tell me it's raining. Like, I see what you're doing, Rubio. I see what you're doing, Trump regime. It's infuriating.
Look, you know, when Donald Trump was in the Oval Office earlier today, He was asked a question. There are reports about Iranian drones in Cuba. So this is one of the things for months I've been warning about as well, that this is where they would inevitably go, right? The Trump regime has tried to break the Cuban regime with the same types of tactics that they did with, um, Iran, which Iran didn't break. Um, they were able you know, to find someone in Venezuela, in Delsi Rodriguez, uh, who would work with the Trump regime and not actually improve the people's lives in Venezuela at all. And, um, you know, people are doing horrible right now in Venezuela. I mean, you had those two back-to-back earthquakes, um, the death toll continues to rise. You know, Donald Trump was like, well, we're going to give you $160 million after taking making lots of oil wealth in the billions from the nation. Let's be very clear. Has that oil from Venezuela actually translated to you paying less money at the pump? No, it's Trump and his right-wing oligarchs and Delcy and her people are making all this money while you're getting screwed.
Notably, Cuba also, and if you look through their history, Um, Cuba's not going to just tap out and break and say, yes, Trump regime, invade us, invade us. No, Cuba's gonna also kind of fight to the end if, if it comes to that. They've been preparing for that. But as they've said, you know, we have no— like, why would we ever attack Miami? Why would we ever attack? It'd be the dumbest thing in the world for us to do. We don't want to do that. But if you invade us, we're, we're going to— we're going to defend. And so now where they're moving this is Iran is giving the drones to Cuba. So now we have to invade Cuba because there are reports. This is why Donald Trump also wants to control the media. There are reports. And, you know, the report was Carlos Jiménez, a MAGA Republican Congress member from South Florida, I think in the Biltmore Hotel, was holding an Iranian drone and was saying they have 300 of these over there in Cuba. Cuba, and as a result, we need to invade them. So just invade every— I mean, that's the report, by the way.
And remember, that was coming like a month ago. They're going back to this. And here's what Donald Trump said, you know, as the predator that he is. Let's play it. There are reports about Iranian drones in Cuba.
There are concerns about that. Where does the relationship with the U.S.
stand there?
Is military prevention still on the table?
Well, if they do have that, and they might very well have that, we'll take care of it. Marco's just in the other room. And if they do have that, we'll take care of it in short order. We're not going to have a problem. We're not going to allow that to happen. So it could be that they're storing some. We're looking into it now. It could be so, and it maybe isn't, but we'll figure it out.
By the way, if you saw the chyron there, it said that Kevin Warsh, Donald Trump's chairman of the Federal Reserve, is testifying in front of Congress. Congress. Uh, and so, uh, that's— if you're listening to this on Tuesday, he's testifying. Like, so today is shaping up, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, uh, kind of the perfect storm of bad economic situations. You've got the CPI report, you've got Kevin Walsh testifying, and I don't want to say to his credit because, you know, anyone who is in the Trump regime, I have lots of red flags, but he has at least talked about out. He's not going to allow there to be anything higher than 2% inflation. And so he's gearing up to actually raise interest rates. And I think his testimony is going to reflect what's referred to in economist jargon as a hawkish tilt of raising interest rates. I think he's going to be talking about, about that. Um, and, and then you have this catastrophic war. And again, you know, as we've been recording, you hear more and more about I mean, these strikes that, that the United States is doing against Iran are massive.
These, this is some of the biggest strikes in the entire war that are happening right now, um, around, along the coast of Iran. And then separately, Iran has been able to strike a ship off the coast of Kulat, Oman. And also Iran has been able to strike two UAE vessels. The Ministry of Defense of the UAE announced that the national tankers Mubasa and Bahaya were struck by two Iranian cruise missiles while transiting in the southern passage of the Strait of Hormuz in Omani territorial waters as well. Um, according to the ministry, one Indian crew member aboard the Mubasa was killed, eight others were injured, including four with serious injuries. The casualties include six Indian nationals and two Ukrainians. Both vessels sustained damage on board fires, which have since been extinguished. And Donald Trump saying the strait's open, go everybody, it's safe, it's safe. And Iran has been making very clear it's not. We're going to strike those ships. And that's what we're seeing happen there. I mentioned earlier we have Saudi Arabia strikes in Yemen in the Houthis area, the Houthis responding and striking there. We've got Putin launching attacks on Kyiv. We've got Kyiv and Zelensky attacking, you know, Russia.
You've got Trump threatening war against Cuba. You've got Trump's takeover of Venezuela. You've got Trump putting in all of these puppet regimes in South America. You've got Trump trying to do basically a silent coup in Mexico by turning people in Claudia Sheinbaum's administration into informants against each other to try to topple the Claudia Sheinbaum government there. You've got Trump threatening Greenland. You've got— I mean, so like, let's be clear what's happening right now because Donald Trump is in office, okay? All of the threats that were happening, you know, oh, Biden's gonna do this, Biden's gonna do No, true. This is again the ultimate projection. Trump— all of that is happening right now. There is a war or wars involving the entire world as we speak right now with no end in sight and a scarily a lot more upward ways in the escalatory ladder of what's taking place. But then we focus on what's happening domestically. Of course, at the end of last week we covered covered, Lorenzo Arojo, and he was killed in Texas by Trump regime's ICE. They said— ICE said that they were going after Guatemalans, that they were hunting Guatemalans. I mean, what a sick thing to— you're going after Guatemalan people.
And then you went after a guy, 52 years old, he's been living in the country 35 years, married all that time, raised 3 kids, American citizens were his kids, ran a construction company. He was to work at 6 AM when ICE just goes behind him, rams into his white van, and then executes him and kills him. He was known as the center of the world for his family. I mean, this is exactly the type of person who would be a model person who you'd want a pathway to citizenship, and the Trump regime executes him. So we're seeing that there. Then, uh, today we saw in Maine, 26-year-old Colombian man man, uh, who was here, had a Social Security number, likely an asylum seeker, um, working, uh, same thing. ICE approaches him in his white car, they surround him, execute him, and then we learned that ICE was— didn't even have a warrant for this guy. They weren't even— he was just brown, brown-skinned.
And so, boom, not even, not even the target. I mean, we're, you know, we were just speaking about, uh, you know, the things that Donald Trump is saying about Cuba. And I can't help but think that it's like when, um, uh, Putin described his invasion of Ukraine as denazifying Ukraine. And you see the Trump regime right now coming up for any excuse whatsoever to, uh, just live out their most heinous impulses imaginable and do the sickest things imaginable. And we see that, you know, whether it's saying Cuba has Iranian drones, they're threat that we have to now, you know, take over this island, or whether it's these lies that we keep hearing about these ICE murders— and yes, I will call them murders here— and the stories that we are being told are very kind of Soviet. But I also want to say, make no mistake, this has been going on in the United States of America for a very long time, far before that there were, uh, cameras. I mean, Ben, you know this more than, uh, more than anybody. You took on a lot of these, uh, you know, kind of police shooting cases back in the day, these wrongful death cases.
And I think this is, you know, a continuation of that with these, uh, ICE officers who really are not officers. They are these kind of people who are often in plain clothes, little training, going out there kind of living out these murderous fantasies. And then you have— I think the one difference right now is that you have the president of the United States out there, and the people who's— that are going out out there, and they just are so brazen in the way that they lie about these incidents. And so you've seen the murder that we saw today and the murder that we saw last week. What does the Trump regime tell you? They always come up with some sort of excuse like, oh, the guy was— he was trying to ram an ICE officer. He was trying to kill ICE. They were trying— all BS. Once you end up seeing the video footage come out, the eyewitness testimony, you learn pretty quickly that they just made that stuff up. And I know we certainly have a lot of, you know, listeners who know this all too true in their communities. I've heard stories from Black Americans for many, many years about police setting them up, about police saying that something happened in order to justify heinous actions against them.
And that's what we're seeing right now with ICE. And even just the statement that I saw the Department of Homeland Security put out made me absolutely sick. And I'll read you some of it just so you get a sense of this propaganda that they're putting out. Uh, Homeland Security, uh, recently put out this statement on July 13th, 2026. At approximately 7:00 AM Eastern, ICE was conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal. An illegal alien departed the residence in a vehicle. ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop. The vehicle attempted to flee the scene, and fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon. The driver of the vehicle was struck and emergency services were immediately contacted. He passed away from his injuries. That's a very generous way to describe that they murdered somebody. They murdered a human being. And they try to put this— were illegal alien, this, that. This person was not even the target, not even the target of the immigration operation. I want to be clear about that, number one. Number two, even if this person had been, uh, a target targeted by ICE, or even like the last— this is the second time the same thing has happened, right, and within the past week.
You, you can't be judge, jury, and executioner. And that's what this administration, that's what this regime, the Trump regime, wants to be. They want to be able to say, you are in this country illegally, therefore we can kill you. And, and that expands now also to, you will look like somebody who maybe should not belong in this country due to the color of your the way you speak, we have the right to kill you and then we will lie about it. And this is heinous. It is disturbing. It is disgusting. And this is what an authoritarian government looks like. And these people, these officers, I mean, of course, you know, we should learn more, see what's going on. But this behavior, as I know it, as I see it, in my opinion, this is murderous stuff that we're seeing and we're seeing it over and over again. So if you thought, oh, Mark Wayne Mullen, things are going to be new the Department of Homeland Security. Uh-uh. We're seeing the same people, the same murderous people who do not deserve a single penny of funding, who do not deserve the support of— who have— do not have the support of the people and do not deserve the support of any more dollars or anything.
They do not deserve to exist. They have proven themselves not only incompetent but dangerous and, and quite evil and have no place in a, uh, in a society like ours.
Exactly. And look, again, when I walk down the street, when I read these stories, when I see the videos of what's going on out there, I view it through the lens of good versus evil, humane versus inhumane. And just to recap here, ICE murdered another person today. Witnesses out there described it as an execution. This is a week after they murdered a 52-year-old father who had been in this country for decades. This is a paramilitary force at the direction of Stephen Miller Killer and Donald Trump. We have got to abolish ICE. If I have to put it in political terms so like all the political people could understand it, I mean, that's the centrist take at this point. This is already so out of hand. And just think about how many people have already been murdered by ICE in the last 10 months. Like, what has to happen? What has to happen here? A reminder, ICE didn't even exist exist prior to the early 2000s. It was created as part of this, like, massive federal government reorganization which followed 9/11. It was officially formed in 2003. So lose me on this idea that this is like some American institution or beacon of US lawfulness.
Every one of these ICE thugs who has committed murder needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This is insane. Brett.
I, I agree. Look, ICE is a terrorist organization in my opinion, and what they're terrorizing people in this country, they need— and it needs to be abolished. And what's going on is just beyond unforgivable. Every day just going in and exacerbating situations and making it worse and committing the crimes, and it's, it's horrific. It's horrific to watch. Much. And my heart goes out to all the families who have lost loved ones as a result of ICE and Border Patrol. It's, it's tragic. And I think most Americans feel that way as well. All right, on that note, we will, uh, you know, continue to cover what's happening with this war. Um, it continues to escalate and spiral out of control right now. Um, and of course we'll be covering it all day.
Benji, can I give you a quick compliment? Your coverage on all of these updates. It's always excellent. But I just, again, I'm always a fan of giving people their flowers when they could smell them. And Benji, your coverage has been incredible. Not just like, I'm not just trying to glaze you here, but the information that I get that I know this community receives from you on like a 90-minute basis here when we're doing our reporting, when you're doing your reporting, when all the editors are working behind the scenes to get this reporting out. Shout out to the whole team. Shout out to all the editors. Shout out to Salty and Remy and Sydney, every one of them. BP, all of them. Thank you for making sure that these updates are getting out there, because in this time when corporate media has so bent the knee, I— big bro, I am grateful for you. Oh, I think—
I mean, like, Donald Trump's out there saying Iran doesn't have weapons, and we're seeing massive strikes by Iran in response to the U.S. invasion, you know, against all of its neighbors. They have a lot of weapons. They probably have more weapons now than they did before Trump and Netanyahu invaded in February. So it's like, what are you— what are you talking about? They have no weapons. Like, why do you— why— I, I can't even have a common sense, like, debate with you or discussion if that's— if you're gonna go there. Then that's not what's happening in this world. Like, we have to, we have to live in the real world about what's happening, right? And understand it. And so anyway, that's what we'll keep on doing here. So thanks everybody for watching. A reminder, um, subscribe to The Midas Touch on audio, um, right over there. You could hit the QR code Other side, other side, man.
Other side.
No, it's not other side. That's the side. So it really helps us. It's free to subscribe on audio. Thanks everybody for watching. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Jordy, take it away.
Shout out to the Midas Mighty.
We will get it right whenever.
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On today's episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast, Ben, Brett, and Jordy discuss the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham and the fallout across Washington and Tehran, Trump's renewed strikes on Iran and his move to reimpose a "blockade" of the Strait of Hormuz with a 20% cargo fee, and the surging oil and gas prices hitting Americans as a result. They also dig into yet another murder at the hands of ICE, a bombshell federal court order sanctioning Trump's lawyers in the IRS lawsuit, the Trump administration's push to dismantle the ICC, and much more.
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