Transcript of Trump Panics as War Suddenly Escalates

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Donald Trumps unlawful war against Iran is spiraling out of control. Things are escalating. The United States and Israel are confirming that they've just targeted Iran's large largest natural gas processing facility earlier this morning in southern Iran. Iranian reports indicate that these facilities are affiliated with the South Pars offshore gas field, were struck by Israel. Israel said, we did this with the United States. This is massive escalation, folks. That is how Iran is perceiving it as well. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, they've now issued evacu— evacuation orders for 4 energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates following this morning's Israeli— and we know these were joint Israeli-U.S. strikes against energy infrastructure in southern Iran. And these facilities include the major facilities in, uh, those nations that I mentioned. A spokesperson for Qatar's foreign minister just issued the following statement: The Israeli targeting of facilities linked to Iran's South Pars field, which is an extension of Qatar's North field, is a dangerous and irresponsible step amid the current military escalation in the region. Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security as well as to the people of the region and its environment.

We reiterate, as we have repeatedly emphasized, the necessity of avoiding the targeting of vital facilities. We call on all parties to exercise restraint, adhere international law and work toward de-escalation in a manner that preserves security and stability in the region. Now we're hearing from Donald Trump right now. Moments ago, he posted on his social media platform. Let's see how he is addressing this escalation. Donald Trump writes, I wonder what would happen if we quote finished off end quote what's left of the Iranian terror state and let the countries that use it, we don't, be responsible for the so-called straight, and then he spells it S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T. That would get some of our non-responsive allies in gear and fast. DJT, that's your response to all of this right now? What are they saying in Iran right now? Iran is, uh, their leaders are saying We previously made clear and repeated warnings, uh, that were given to your rulers in Arab nations about entering down this dangerous path and gambling with the fate of your nations. And they say evacuate now, we are hitting your energy facilities.

Wow.

Wow. Wow. Um, we, we now see right now Bloomberg is reporting folks that multiple oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, they've been evacuated right right now as a result of these. They're calling it Israeli strikes, but Israel's saying we did it with the United States. Israel strikes this morning against several energy sites in southern Iran and threats made by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard against these facilities. We're hearing now from, uh, the chief propagandist at the White House, Caroline Levitt. She says, uh, we don't need the Strait of Hormuz for our energy. Well, let's just let the others deal with it. Here's what she said. Let's play this clip.

Has there been any movement overnight on behalf of our allies that has softened their position about going through the Strait of Hormuz?

Not overnight, but the president and his team, especially Secretary Hagseth and Secretary Rubio, continue to be in touch with their counterparts in Europe and, of course, our allies in the Arab and Gulf region to step up and do more to help the United States in securing the Strait of Hormuz. This is to their benefit. Benefit, more so than it is to the benefit of the United States. Thanks to President Trump, we are a net exporter of energy. We don't need the Strait of Hormuz for our energy here at home for the American people. Of course, we want the strait to be open for the global oil market and to stabilize prices and bring them down again. And we have options at— the military has options to continue doing that. But the president is right to call on our allies to step up to do more.

You know, and then Caroline Levitt says, uh, NATO is being very unfair to us right now. Very unfair NATO. This, this is the messaging from the White House right now during this massive escalation as oil's what, it's going to hit $150 a barrel soon and you're attacking, you're attacking NATO here. Play this clip.

You know, one of President Trump's guiding principles is fairness and he has long called out NATO for what, for being what he believes an unfair alliance, uh, for the American people, the American taxpayer and our US armed You look at some of the trade deals with our NATO allies. The president has worked to renegotiate and reset those to make them more fair for the American people and American workers. You look at the fact that the United States has thousands of troops on our allies' and NATO's soil. We're paying these countries billions of dollars, and our troops on their soil serves as a deterrent for them. And the president wants the American taxpayer and our American military to be treated fairly. He feels sometimes with NATO they aren't. Are not. And he's right to call that out. And he's right to call on them to step up and do more, especially when reopening the strait benefits them even more than it does the United States of America.

There are troubles here at home as well. The Department of Homeland Security remains shut down and Mark Wayne Mullen has his hearing. We're gonna hear from him.

More from Caroline Levitt right here. She says, rest assured everybody, there is a plan here. Play this clip.

What is the plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz quickly?

The president is going to continue to talk to our allies, both in Europe and also in the Gulf and Arab region. The United States military has a lot of capabilities, as you have seen play out over the last 18 days. They still do have tricks up their sleeve. I won't broadcast them for the media, but rest assured there is a plan. They're working on it. We have seen some progress with respect to that. But of course, the president again continues to call on our allies to step up and do more.

Nancy.

Now we're hearing from Commodore Ali Raza Tangsiri, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. He just put out the following statement. Um, and he says, uh, your presence on the streets has become our trump card. And from now on, it will lead to new equations in the region with the target bank updated. Hashtag oil facilities associated with America are now on par with American bases and will come under fire with full force. We warn citizens and workers, stay away from these facilities. There's a Senate hearing taking place right now with Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence. You'll recall Joe Kent, who is her number two, resigned based on his objection to the war in Iran. He resigned yesterday. Senator Warner just cross-examined Tulsi Gabbard about Donald Trump saying that he was shocked and surprised that Iran has been retaliating against its neighbors and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, which everybody knew was going to happen. It should also be noted that the Trump regime, based on the advice, if you want to call it that, of Laura Loomer, also got rid of one of their top Iranian advisors as well, uh, in the past, uh, in the past few weeks.

Um, but here's what, uh, Warner says to Gabbard. So do you not tell Donald Trump these things? Because it's pretty obvious to everybody that what's going to happen with the Strait of Hormuz, what's going to happen with the neighboring Arab nations. And Tulsi Gabbard has just been having one of the worst hearings imaginable. I mean, because she's just a liar with everything here. Here's what she says here. Play this clip.

She chose to omit the parts that contradict the president. The president continues to say as well that, you know, he had no idea, was shocked that the Iranians would move to take over the Strait of Hormuz. Did you provide any intelligence that would say that it would be— that it was not likely that the Iranians would try to move on the Strait?

I'm not aware of those remarks, and I think those of us here at the table can point to the fact that historically the Iranians have always threatened to leverage their control.

Why would the president say he was amazed?

I'm not aware of those remarks.

What about the comments the president made that thought he was surprised again, reports, um, that Iran struck the adjacent Gulf states.

Again, I'm not aware of those remarks. We have—

well, let me ask you this. Did you brief the president? Did you brief the president? Did you brief the president if he starts a war of choice that the likely result would be that Iran would strike adjacent Gulf nations and close the Strait of Hormuz. Did you brief him on those two facts that I think had been consistently the assumptions of the intelligence community?

I have not and won't divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions.

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Now, folks, the economic data that's coming in is really bad as well. We got a really bad producer price index readout coming hotter than anybody expected, and that was the pre-war Producer Price Index. So if this war wasn't going on and we got this PPI readout, we would be like, holy sh— you know what I'm going to say next. This is bad, bad. Now you layer it on top of the war, when we get those PPI readouts and those inflation readouts, folks, I don't think it's an exaggeration that inflation will soon be going above 5%. And you can be like, oh Ben, you're saying You're being hyperbolic again. Watch, inflation will be above 5%, I think clearly by the end of this year, perhaps even higher where things are going right now. But here's how they reported on CNBC the new horrible inflation data here. Play this clip.

What does that tell you? I mean, I understand the short term, we're taking the Fed activity out from the 2-year, and that's why you, you see those spreads kind of get compressed. The long end, does that tell you anything about how people are seeing the health of the economy down the road, or is it something else?

I do think that there is part of that reflected in this as well. It's almost the worst of both worlds. I guess stagflation would come close to describing the situation. We're probably not going to see Fed easing. And the long end, well, part of it is weakness. We've had a spat of some fairly weak numbers, and then you put in the fact that we are on the PCE, you know, 3% handle on some of the Fed's favorite metrics, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out today, it would be very difficult even for some of the recent appointees to think that easing could even be on the menu at this or even very close subsequent meetings down the road.

Here's what they were talking about on Fox. Here, play this clip.

The Dow Industrial is down about 16 points. Again, we are waiting on the Producer Price Index out any second here. Sheryl Kusoni with the numbers.

Sheryl, these numbers are much hotter than expected, guys, for February PPI month over month, a 0.7% jump. Street was looking for a gain of 0.3%. Year over year, we came in 3.4% annualized basis. The Street was looking for 2.9%. That's the reading that we got the month prior. So again, hotter than expected. We got 0.5% for core month over month. The Street was looking for 3/10 of a percent to the upside. And then we came in core year over year, 3.9%. The Street was looking for 3.7%. There's— and there's the markets are reflecting what we're seeing here as far as these numbers. I'm going to get to the report. I want to see what the government is saying here about where this rise was, because it wasn't energy last month. I can tell you that from, from memory. What they're saying here is, okay, so for final demand goods, We saw an increase of 1.1%, biggest rise we've seen since August of '23. 40% of that is final demand goods, 2.4%. Energy and final demand goods less food and energy also increased. So that's where the story is here as far as these, these numbers.

Also, they're talking about final demand services. There was a 5.7% drop in prices for travel or accommodation services. Food, alcohol, wholesaling, dealing, investment advice, all in this report. I'm getting the wrap signal, Maria, but there's a lot to go through, a lot to talk about.

And I think you're spot on there, Cheryl, because remember, in the month of February, services prices were going higher. And we've talked about that. Services prices were going higher. There were a handful of commodities like what we were talking about— gold, we were talking about silver. All of those things were going higher in February as well. Putting oil aside, related to the war on Iran. Joel Schulman, your reaction to these numbers? I should point out we haven't seen such a significant impact on markets. Dow and Dow Jones were negative going into it, still negative.

Yeah, this is not good. We're going to see the markets off today. You know, your guest mentioned that he thought the rates would be dropped in December. I thought they'd be earlier. This is pushing things back at least a couple of months. So this is going to be negative for the markets. And we're going to see— we're going to probably see the markets ticking down even further. you know, next couple of days. So this is not good news, and we know that the next couple of months we're going to see elevated prices because of, uh, energy.

All right, we are an hour away from the opening bell, and the Dow Industrial is now down 105. Joe, good to see you. We'll be back with the—

Now folks, during the St. Patrick's Day parade over in Ireland, they rolled out their Epstein float. You can see the Epstein float right there. The entire world mocking the United States. For covering up a child sex trafficking ring here in the United States, which is what the Trump regime continues to do. And more news about that coverup coming from Jason Leopold, who is on the front lines, frankly, of reporting on Epstein files. Jason's been an incredible reporter over at Bloomberg, and he says a document, a 69-page target profile prepared for the DEA by the Department of Justice's now defunct Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force was released in January. And it talks about the money laundering and drug trafficking schemes that Epstein used. It was a target profile. And this target profile has been blocked by Todd Blanch from the Department of Justice, Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney. Is not allowing a 69-page target profile regarding the money laundering scheme and the people who were helping Epstein with the money laundering alongside the sex trafficking and the drug cartels that they were involved in as well. There's a heavily redacted document and Blanchett saying, uh-uh, that document doesn't get released.

I'm going to do a whole other report on that, folks. The cover-up continues. The cover-up of child sex trafficking ring continues here in the United States, and Donald Trump escalating things in Iran. The price of oil is surging, and you see what's happening right now with our economy. We'll keep reporting throughout the day. Now hit subscribe, help us get to 7 million subscribers, and thank you all so much for watching the Midas Touch Network. You may think you're subscribed, just double-check and turn your notifications on. Thanks for watching, everybody.

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