Afternoon Breaking Updates with Ben 10/8/2026

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Donald Trump yesterday said he was looking forward to having a phone call with Putin or Putin's birthday and then he made a joke about it with the press. You all want to call Putin, right? You want to call Putin. We're learning more. Not just that the Trump regime is exploring a luke oil deal with Russia's main oil company with their foreign assets, but they're also exploring a lot of deals regarding the Nord Stream pipeline and that's what was discussed with Kushner and with Whitcoff. We're learning a lot about more Trump consultants and Trump orbit people doing consulting work for the Russian-aligned government in Spirskah. Yesterday we learned about Chris Lassevita and others who were involved. There kind of Trump's main consultants and today Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles daughter took this trip to the Bosnia-Pro-Russian Republic of Spirskah in connection with a Washington lobbying firm that she worked at. I mean, you want to talk about these swamp and all of that. I mean, it's all right there. Donald Trump, as you know, promised Zelensky Patriot Interceptors or Interceptor Licenses heading into a Russian autumn and winter offensive. Those were never delivered. Now, Zelensky really doesn't have a lot of capacity to stop Russian ballistic or Russian cruise missiles. Very little. It's also becoming more difficult to strike Russia's Garen-4 and Garen-5 drones and the Garen-5 is more of a hybrid cruise missile. So, Zelensky went from an interception rate on the old Shaheed style drones of 91 percent to now it's under 50 percent and even those Garen-5s are harder to strike down. So, what Zelensky has to do now is use these, you know, older mega airplanes and as these Garen-4s are heading towards major Ukrainian cities like Kiev and elsewhere, the Migs have to shoot them out in the sky and it's very difficult and very dangerous because once you shoot the Garen-4 in the sky the debris then hits the MIG which can then result in kind of catastrophic engine failure for the MIG or other major structural damage to the plane. Let me just show you the only real way that, you know, it's not the only real way but the main way that Ukraine's using to kind of stop some of these new jet-powered drones. It looks like this. Let me just show you. Let's play it. You see how the MIG that has to go through the debris once it blows it up. So, it's very dangerous. Look, every morning here we've been covering the strikes in Ukraine over 25 people were killed in Ukraine in the past 24 hours or so in Kiev, pretty much a total blackout over there, has Russia's been striking the energy grid and energy infrastructure over there and Russia intends to escalate that. Also, some of these Garen-4 drones have Putin's image on them as well to kind of further kind of taunt and terrorize the populations, the underbelly of the Garen-4s, these photos of Putin on it. We may have a photo of that Jeremy or may not. You also have Zelensky striking deep into Russia about 2500 kilometers deep this morning, one of the major Russian refineries, 2500 kilometers from the front was hit. Also, another one about 900 kilometers in Samarro was hit and then a Moscow refinery as well. So, we're going to keep covering everything that's going on there. This morning we woke up to the news as well that Brent crude oil and U.S. crude oil went up about 5 percent. Brent crude was at 105 dollars earlier today with the WTI blend at 93 dollars in both increasing and what we've been reporting now every day and it's been odd because there hasn't been a lot of reporting about this from other news outlets finally until like the past 24 hours. I'm like, Iran striking one or two tankers every day. It's starting to like, not starting, but it's building up where it's one, two, three, four, just in the past eight days there have been 15 tankers that have been struck by the IRGC and the Strait of Hormuz and then yesterday was a big escalation by Iran and that they struck a tanker that was off the coast of Qatar and they struck a tanker off the coast of the UAE in Fajera. So, the one by Fajera about 30 nautical miles east in Fajera, stationary tanker and then a Qatar very close to Qatar. This is significant because one of the ways that Senkham has been trying to get tankers out of the Strait of Hormuz, albeit at a much lower volume. We'll talk about that in a moment is by utilizing ship-to-ship transfers, having smaller ships load up these VLCCs, these very large crude carriers with crude and so you would have a small tanker go to one ship and then go to another ship and they would hug the side of basically the Oman coast and try to get it out through the Gulf of Oman, very shallow water, very dangerous as well in order to try to evade IRGC strikes and what we saw happen yesterday was some of these stationary tankers used as part of that ship-to-ship transfers were targeted by the IRGC and they should look we can do this with impunity. Now, one of the other things that Kepler who monitors this KPLER, they are also suggesting that some of the ships that have been getting out as well may have secret arrangements with the IRGC, basically paying 10 to 20% of the inventory price that's on these carriers in order for Iran to turn the other way, which while these Trump regime escalating economic sanctions were placed on Iran, allowed Iran to continue to have a revenue stream while Iran continued to increase the risk premium by striking a tanker or two and then waiting until this period right before the midterms to then escalate even more once the price of crude was already over a hundred dollars a barrel. So, Iran seemed to really gameplay this about when Trump would not want to escalate before the midterms, how to potentially make significant revenue by cutting deals with some of these tankers, not all of them, still striking a tanker here there and then escalating as we're heading to these weeks before the midterms and then striking lots of tankers and then raising the risk even more and then testing Donald Trump and the message that was sent after striking a stationary tanker in Qatar and a stationary tanker off UAE was Iran was saying now what what are you going to do? Remember what was it about 60 days ago where the Trump regime said we have a tanker for tanker policy. If you strike any tanker in the straight of Hormuz we will strike a tanker that belongs to Iran or we will strike some Iranian asset and then the Trump regime really kind of backed off of that didn't do it. Remember when Treasury Secretary Bessent announced Operation Economic Outcast, what's up with that economic outcast? Iran was invited to the CIS meeting that's from these kind of they call them like the independent former Soviet countries. They all meet as part of this CIS summit and Iran not being a former Soviet country but allied with Russia. They were invited as the special guest and so you had Putin meeting with Iran's president, Posseskin describing strengthening economic and strategic cooperation with me. The subtext behind this meeting being Russia was able to utilize the Shahi drones in order to accelerate its attacks on Ukraine then Russia developed the Garen-4 which is an upgraded model with the Shahi base. So then Iran's like, well, look, we hooked you up with the Shaheed, you then made the Shaheed a better drone. Can we get the Garen-4 technology and Garen-5 technology? Let's be real. That's probably the main thing that was being discussed behind the scenes right there. Look, as the Trump regime is led by a bunch of idiots and war criminals, Donald Trump, Pete Hegsith, and others, and there's just this massive waste fraud and yes abuse regarding our taxpayer dollars and what it's actually being spent on with respect to the military industrial complex, right? One trillion dollars and the trillions of dollars previously spent on our military were wasted by the Trump regime in this unlawful and catastrophic war. And we ran out of weapons and now they want $1.5 trillion dollars more to build massive Trump nuclear battleships and Trump nuclear submarines and all of this big stuff, which is not the way modern warfare is fought. So you have Putin investing 200 billion dollars in some of the modern weapons, Garen-4s, Garen-5s, North Korean style, ballistics and cruise missiles, and you have that access working together of Iran and Russia and North Korea and China and they're investing in some of the top military cutting edge stuff. I'm not like applauding them. I'm not trying to say like how great I'm just letting us know the lay of the land from a military strategy standpoint. And by the way, Ukraine's been developing cutting edge modern technology that Donald Trump has basically shunned. Remember Zelensky was like, you want to see what we're doing with the flamingo drones and the flamingo ballistics and cruise missiles? We can help you. Can you help us? It jumps like nah, we don't we don't want to do that. And so Putin's putting $200 billion into their defense and they're building the cutting edge stuff. We're putting $1.5 trillion potentially into old outdated stuff. It's a real big problem that we're seeing unfold. And with the autonomous nature of how technology is advancing to, you know, Donald Trump is posting, if you call AI, AI and not SI, you're the enemy. You know, he's too busy naming shit and naming this and naming that. And I need to name this, you know, and bragging about, I did world peace. I saw date wars. I did this. The world would be obliterated without me. You know, while he's out there doing that, our adversaries are playing eight-dimensional chests while Donald Trump's playing pick up sticks and sticking them sticks in his freaking eyes. I mean, that's what is actually happening in real time. And, you know, today we have the Abraham Lincoln. The USS Abraham Lincoln is returning to San Diego. You know, Pete Hegseth has just been saying and doing the most outrageous things over, you know, I mean, always, but he like ramps it up and, you know, making this all about himself. I mean, today he was talking about public executions, right? That he was bragging about how the United States is now going to conduct a public execution by firing squad of Nadal Hassan. And that would make the United States basically join. I mean, there's not a lot of countries that do public executions anymore, but they want to live stream the execution. And I just want, I mean, it's just absolutely, you know, that that's what you're talking about right now. As, you know, as Matt Bernel, he noted this, does Hegseth really think the consequences of their actions is what stops a terrorist from being a terrorist executing terrorist publicly doesn't give future terrorist pause. It emboldens them because of martyrdom and service of the struggles as the ultimate sacrifice to them. There is a reason we execute our enemies foreign and domestic quietly and unceremoniously disperse their remains never to be found. They don't deserve the ceremony is the theory. They don't deserve what is a hero's death to them, wheeling a paralyzed Nadal Hassan into a room to be publicly executed turns a man that should be forgotten to history as a traitor and terrorist into a video that every single person and every single person in a terrorist training camp in the world watches. So if you're going to go ahead with this, you treat it like every other traitor terrorist and enemy of the state that the nation has executed before, killed in a dingy room in front of a select few witnesses, including any victims that need closure. I mean, you know, my own view, again, even amongst the worst of the worst crimes, I still don't believe in the death penalty personally. We could have that discussion. We could agree or disagree on certain topics. Again, I just don't believe in government execution. Now, if there were to ever be though a death penalty and you were to say, well, Ben, come on. This, like this is one of them where you would say, okay, it starts to, you know, in terms of the execution and a death penalty, you know, versus what we saw in Tennessee and other areas. But I could go on and speak at length about my position regarding why I don't think there should be the death penalty. I just, I want to be upfront with you when I talk about topics so that you know where I stand, you could agree, you could disagree. But I think that perspective over there is one that I wanted to share. But the US, again, will join just a few countries that actually do this like the Taliban in the past. Iran has done public hangings, North Korea, perhaps. The last Saudi Arabian public execution be heading near Riyadh was in 2022 and there hasn't been one since then. Let me just share with you what Pete Hegsett said. And again, like this today should be about our courageous sailors and Marines returning. And it should be about them and how are they? What are they going through? But Hegsett wanted to make it about this and public executions. Here's what Hegsett said. Let's play it in uniform inside the ranks. And so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers as it should be. And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it. That is public because people need to understand that this is a serious consequence for these types of things. I think, you know, people realize there are serious consequences and it's this kind of performative stuff while he, first of all, Hegsett is a war criminal. He slaughtered little children in Manab and Lamar and he slaughters people on fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela and in the Pacific. I mean, he's actually, we're watching a war criminal. And, you know, a lot of right wing blogs have been talking about my position that any future person running on the democratic slate for the presidency should make it very clear that on day one, they will turn over Trump and Hegsett to the Hague for war crimes prosecution. And I seem like, oh, no, I feel that way. I sincerely feel that way about the war criminals and not just them. Anybody who was in the chain of command who was involved in this are war criminals. That's it. I think the ultimate sign of patriotism to your country is that you have to hold war criminals and people who you, my opinion, their traders. It's my opinion. Your opinion can be different. My opinion is protected by the First Amendment. That's what I believe, you know, should happen and they should go to the Hague. They should be prosecuted as a war criminal. So that's how I feel about that. But setting aside, we should never have been involved in these catastrophic words. As I've said, just look from a, pull back. Look at the military tactics. All right. Let's talk about Russia again for a second. Russia is making 36,000, garen-four and garen-five drones and cruise missiles a year. At most, the US can produce, this is according to the US estimate, the most flowerly estimate that they have that we can produce about 2,000 interceptors a year. And so by 2032, the United States hopes to be able to have 10,000 interceptors. Okay. Let's just do some basic math. 10,000 interceptors by 2032. Each year, Russia now is making 36,000, garen-four and garen-fives. So in the next five years or six years, how many does that add up to be? A lot more garen-fours and garen-fives than there are interceptors by far in one year. Okay. And that doesn't even include the ballistics that Russia's building, the cruise missiles and their relationship with North Korea and China. And so first, if we just talk about foundationally, what is the US military budget being spent on Trump battleships and big bulky stuff? One garen-four or two garen-fours can take out the lesson from the catastrophic war in Iran. is that the US tactics were outdated. The US got outmaneuvered. We had exposed bases in the region, whereas Iran's bases are underground in the mountains, not exposed for guarantors or guarantive or Shaheeds to target. And then also from a military tactical standpoint, the Trump regime ran out of weapons. And all Donald Trump's been saying, "We're right. It's about to end. We've got a deal." We're very close to a deal. We're about to do a deal, deal, deal. We're about to do a deal. I'm going to obliterate them. I'm going to obliterate the whole civilization. I'm having very productive conversations, but I'm about to obliterate them. They don't even have a president. Nobody knows who their leader is. We're having very productive conversations. I mean, even if you were supportive of this war, which I would so vehemently disagree with, how are you okay with that behavior from a military strategy? There's no strategy at all. And now we have one aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, the George Washington, which was removed from the Pacific. We have no aircraft carriers at all in the Pacific. They're all gone. We have the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which we'll get to the Arabian Sea by the middle of November. At that point, the George Washington will have been out to sea for a long time. It will probably need to go to Puket, Thailand for that five-day trip or whatever the hell they're doing there. And so then we'll probably just have the Theodore Roosevelt, then what, and then the Trump regime and hegs it, they're bragging about how, oh, you know, this is, we don't even need ground troops. Yeah, we shouldn't be involved in this war at all, but whatever the hell you're doing is not winning the war. You don't control the straight-up or moves. I mean, just stop with the stupid lies over and over again. This is Trump's post. This is what Trump posted this morning. We are having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran, pause, wow. After the price of crude went up to over $105 a barrel, what do you know we're having productive discussions again as the market was tanking? What do you know another one of these posts? That's why my point is even if you support this war, which I don't know how you do, how do you look at this behavior and go, hmm, that's exactly who I want to be the captain of this operation. He goes, I want to make it clear to everybody that. While Iran is in a very bad condition, both economically and militarily, and while the blockade will remain in full force and effect with oil flowing in record numbers of barrels through the Hormuz straight, 22 million barrels last night alone with not one barrel coming from Iran or going to Iran, we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon exclamation point. You said in 2025, you all obliterated the nuclear weapons, obliteration, and here's the thing, Donald Trump's words mean nothing. And by the way, that's what his staunchest supporters say, right? When Donald Trump says it's a small price to pay having this catastrophic war in Iran because Iran will nuclear bomb, will annihilate San Diego and Los Angeles with nuclear bombs. It's a small price to pay. They're like, okay, well, are you encouraging nuclear annihilation of Los Angeles or San Diego? And he's joking. What he actually meant to say is that he's protecting San Diego and Los Angeles from nuclear bombs. What he meant to say was, and here's the thing, this is the presidency guys. This isn't some, you know, like deciphering some weird movie, what he meant to say, what's the subtext? You know, what we're talking about, what the words were. And the words are disturbing. We don't play around with the word nuclear bombs and nuclear annihilation. These are in jokes. These are matters of war and peace. I mean, when he's Paul, when he's saying over here, you know, that we brought in 22 million barrels last night alone, we never brought in 22 million barrels ever overnight. That's not a real number, ever, even at peak, you would bring in 20 million barrels. At most, we're probably bringing in 11 to 13 million barrels a day. I believe the number is less. And the risk premium is that these very large crude carriers, these VLCCs, after the ship to ship transfers, are charging $1.5 million a day. The captains are getting paid $100,000 a month and a $50,000 bonus. And they're likely paying off the IRGC, as well as Kepler, even hypothesized earlier. And so stop with the fake number. If we control the straight-up or moves, you know what we would expect to see? The US ships in the straight-up or moves. That's what control means, not 1,000 kilometers away. And as I noted, and as the title of this live says, there were two tankers hit, 15 tankers hit over the past eight days. And the two that were hit was one off of Qatar, the other in the Gulf of Oman, 30 nautical miles east or so, off of Fugera. But not even to mention the escalation today by Ansarala the Houthis in response to the Saudi strikes on Sana. We've seen Ansarala strike react. King Khalid airport was hit pretty hard. Multiple airplanes were hit and on or on fire. Abba in Saudi Arabia was also struck as well. And you know, that's just the-- yeah, I just did. And you see a photo like this of what's actually happening in King Khalid airport. In Saudi Arabia, it does what Trump does. They're like, actually, that didn't happen. What really happened was the Ansarala drones were intercepted and the debris fell on elementary schools and medical centers. Nowhere near the airport, I'm like, I see the airport. I see it. And then, you know, look, there's something about Ben. Does that mean you're like cheering on Ansarala? I'm just telling you what's happening. You may not like that, it's happening. Whatever, I'm just giving you the freaking facts of what is happening, by the way. The book is called WTF America, the way out of this hell and back to democracy. I was looking at the calendar. This book comes out in 12 days, but the pre-orders are happening right now. You may have heard about what's happening with-- I didn't really want to do any corporate news interviews. And I told our publisher, and I told the team around it. I don't want to-- I really just don't-- I don't like going on it. I don't enjoy-- you know, I'm very critical of it. So me being on it, you know, is-- you know, anyway. But they said, you know, look, you're promoting a book. This is what people do when they-- and they've been great. The publisher, a shit, they've been amazing. So I was just like, all right. If you could pitch it, pitch it to whatever. And then we heard back from CNN and others, and they were like, nope, nope, we don't want you. We don't-- I told you. Of course, then I got to-- I was not no surprise there, especially with the consolidation. 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After you purchase, they will ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Welcome back to Ben on breaking news. I'm Ben Mycelis, and this is our breaking news. Shout out to my brothers for the ad reads over there. Support our sponsors. They support our show. The discount codes are in the description below. So Donald Trump went to San Diego where he was heckled. I'm not San Diego. He went to San Antonio where he was heckled for good luck going to San Diego. That's where Pete Hegseth is in right now. But he was in San Antonio where he gave that deranged speech. He was heckled. There's like 12 incidents that I counted. I thought it was seven, but I looked back. There was 12 separate heckling incidents that took place. The people who were in the crowd, I don't even want to show it because it's so gross. There's still an aspect that's very much in the cult. The latest Pew poll has Trump's approval, the lowest that they've ever done in either term. It's like 30% is the latest Pew poll. But the people there, it's just so bizarre to watch. You're like, Daddy, we love you, Daddy. It's where to go. I'm like, Daddy, we love you. Daddy, daddy, daddy, Trump, daddy, you're my daddy. I'm watching. I don't even know. I'm never going to be able. We can never get through to somebody who calls Donald Trump their daddy. It's a very, I won't be able to explain the human behavior. We could look to psychoanalyze it. It's really not worth the time. The good news is that by and large, overwhelmingly this country is just sick and tired of this Trump regime. Jeremy, do we have the CNN thing on Ohio, for example? I thought that was an interesting thing from this morning. Maybe we'll pull that up in a moment. But I'll talk first about Donald Trump and San Antonio where Trump says, Steve Whitcoff, he's working on a deal with the Ron. I can't, Daddy, Steve Whitcoff. There should be asking, Steve Whitcoff, we were here in October, the war started February 20. You'll end of the last day of February. You promised four to six weeks. You're still doing this deal. Talk and Whitcoff, who is some scumbag real estate guy in Manhattan. Why, why this guy? Who are these people? Let me show you what Trump said about Whitcoff. Let's play. He's working on the Iran deal and doing very well. I think the deal isn't really something that I want to do, but they're willing to offer us anything to stop. And we definitely, they will never have a nuclear weapon, but he's a great negotiator. He's also a great person. By the way, you know, you look at what Arun's foreign minister, Aron, she said today, he said, look, we conveyed our proposal a while ago, which was a seven day plan, which basically mirrored the terms from the memorandum of understanding that Trump held up in Versailles that the US agreed to. They said that they got responses to it from the United States. And foreign minister Aron, she said, we'll get back to you in a few days. We'll get back to you in a few days. You have one of Aron's top political people as well was mocking Treasury Secretary Besant. And he said, Besant, we think you only have three days left in the United States. You've got three days left to exist. Right. I mean, what Besant and Aron's about to crumble in two days, the governor of the central bank of Iran. Tell Mr. Besant, he only has three days left. And look, I'm trying to paint a rosy picture of Aron like their economy is thriving right now. It isn't. I mean, they're obviously struggling. The economic blockade is hurting. They're producing oil, though, for domestic production. They've been able to deal with serious sanctions for decades. They recognize that the more they drag this on, the more it ultimately achieves their long term objectives of getting the United States out of the military bases in the Middle East, which we've seen pretty much. I mean, if you think about it, I mean, from a projection of power perspective. And again, I think that the Trump regime should never have been involved in this catastrophic war. But the US doesn't have military bases in the Middle East anymore. We realize that, right? They basically all have been destroyed by Iran, like every one of them, every single one of them, Aron's ballistic missiles or drones have basically destroyed. No, there was a new report that was just released in the past few days from the congressional research service. They amended their prior report since May. In May, they said it was like 41 or 42 airplanes that were struck by Iran in the war. And the most recent one from the congressional research service now has it at 82 or 81 or 82 airplanes that were destroyed by Iran. And, you know, look, I think that the damage that's been done is far greater than that. And I don't base that on some like conspiracy. Like I try to share with you the satellite footage of the area that we're able to see, you can see a lot of the bases on the satellite footage that does exist. A lot of the satellite footage no longer is being displayed from the United States, because the US has demanded that all of its companies that or all of the companies here that do this type of, you know, open source work or who licensed their technology to private companies, like planet labs, not be able to show what's happening in the Middle East. But you do get some of the satellite footage else. You see, it's like very severely damaged. And, you know, in that aspect is being, you know, that aspect is being covered up as well. So you have, you have all of that taking place. Marco Rubio has been in Greece. And, you know, as Trump's talking about Whitcoff, who shouldn't be, you know, anyway, I'm like, well, I'm a Rubio fan, but at least Rubio is the secretary of state. It's his job to be the person who meets with leaders of other countries, not Whitcoff, not some scumbag Manhattan real estate guy. But Rubio was in Greece. And while he was there with Kimberly Gilfoyle, Don Jr's ex-Fiancé, who's now the ambassador to Greece, it was like story after story broke about Gilfoyle while Rubio was there. And it was coming from inside MAGA's orbit that one of these big Trump donors alleged that he was asked by Gilfoyle to pay her amics bill. And she sent the link. And she's like, look, if you just, this is what the allegations are, her lawyer says, essentially, that these are not real text messages. They're not authentic or were missing the context somehow. But it's a big Trump donor, big MAGA guy, who spoke with the Wall Street Journal and was like, yeah, she was basically saying, if I gave X amount of dollars 100,000 here, 100,000 dollars there, that she would help get me on the Tucker Carlson podcast, that she would help have the DOJ launch an investigation into this company that I had a dispute with, that she could help me or help this guy with IRS tax audits and investigations. And then she and the Trump people never delivered. So he went public and spoke to the Wall Street Journal and gave his text messages now. This also follows another story by the Wall Street Journal and others where it was alleged that Kimberly Gillfoil was bragging to Greek officials that because the Romanian government didn't buy certain types of US resources at a premium that she worked with the more pro-Russia party in Romania and another party to topple the Romanian government and to remove the prime minister. That's again what's alleged and she denies all of this stuff but you have that alleged. And then there's also this 39-year-old lobbyist that works for a Greek for a relatively new Greek firm that has a big state contract over there and this guy apparently has been with her everywhere she goes and people thought that this guy was her chief of staff and according to this article again when she denies there were all of these contracts that she would try to steer countries to do with this specific company in this 39-year-old lobbyist who would be very close to her throughout all of these meetings where people thought is this guy working at the embassy or what's going on there? So that's the background of what was happening while Marco Rubik, like why can't you, like none of these people can just be normal. Like okay you shouldn't be the ambassador to Greece it's ridiculous but like you can't even do it in a dignified way like everything automatically has to go there. So Rubio's in Greece then he goes to Portugal and one of the things he was in Portugal was for us to try to get them to buy F-35s. Portugal's reluctant to buy F-35s because whereas normally they wouldn't be because you know Donald Trump has talked about kill switches if you buy the F-35 versus the sweet and greeping you're dependent on American parts and American maintenance and what if Donald Trump uses that as leverage to try to screw you over. Oh they're taking advantage of me we're not going to do maintenance on the F-35s. Like we've seen that the Trump regime has tried to leverage that for example with Denmark after the sale of these fighter jets to Denmark. So anyway so Rubio's going please buy our F-35s they're superior to the greep and he says buy our F-35s and people I don't know but so he's in Portugal really kind of talking that up but as he was in Greece heading to Portugal he was asked about the Kimberly Gilfoil story then I just shared with you take a listen to what he had to say about that let's play. So do you have anything new on that reporting from the Wall Street Journal that and that's their Gilfoil head saw. Yeah guys let me tell you something okay you guys are going to ask me this you're going to ask me getting Portugal I know the game okay the game is someone gives information to a newspaper or a media outlet the media outlet reports it you immediately turn to me and say I need you to respond to our reporting that's not the way this process works like our job is not to respond every time someone decides to give the media something without any advance warning without any chance to look at it and see what's in there that's not the way that's not the way you run an organization and that's not a serious way to conduct the policy of our country so I'm not going to comment on a story that literally posted a few hours ago I get the game okay I've been in this for a long time with an hour some member of congress will write you a letter demanding you answer questions to something we've never seen before I don't even know if it's true or not true so it's just not going to work that way and it most certainly is not going to work that way when I'm sitting in another country all right very late a man i.g. invest I am guys I'm not playing this game with you okay you guys write a story and then your editors tell you make sure you get a comment from him on something we haven't seen okay you guys are not going to be our only source of information in the world I'm sorry to tell you that and so I want you to understand no that's not the way the process is going to work okay what's the game what are you talking about there's a game that's being played shouldn't you know about this you're in Greece this is the ambassador to Greece you're in you're not being randomly asked about it while you're in I don't know argentina which you could still be asked about it your in Greece this should be known about the ambassador is it true is it not true what a responsible grown-up who runs an organization would say is we are aware of allegations being made and we take allegations like this very seriously we're looking into it we're investigating it obviously everybody's entitled to do process but certainly if there was behavior that was some sort of quid pro quo transaction that would be entirely inappropriate but we'll reserve judgment upon a thoughtful and meticulous investigation and we will make sure that it is made public the contents of the investigation but we take it very seriously if you are worried that you know the mere allegation despite the fact that it came from a big Trump mega guy it wasn't like a random person they big Trump mega person who was closer who showed the text messages pretty jarring when you're in Greece probably a big deal and some of the other allegations was that was she strong arming the government in Greece look what we did to the government in Romania pretty big deal you may want to look into it that's all you know as i've said before so much of what we talk about on the Midas touch network and our coverage actually has nothing to do with day-to-day gamified politics as i've said we need a baseline of being serious competent sophisticated highly sophisticated public servants who there's no game this isn't a game i know with trump and rubio and vans it's all a game you know it's a game oh how are you going to get them let's say men and women sport yeah let's get them and let's say they're eating your cats and dogs and it's a game and let's say let's do that let's call it si and not ai and say we're going to prosecute you if you it's a game you know it's a game you know where there'll be a great it'll be a great depression of democrats win it's a game just say these words no this is real life i think one of the biggest most damaging destructive things that Donald Trump has done and that the media has bought into based on perceived ratings is that everything is a reality game it's gamified and it's always had some element of that it's a race their races so but the whole thing becomes a dystopian version of the apprentice where we are all non-consensual extras and words are meaningless and just part of a plot of this dystopian thing that i swear like i just says things no this is real world this is reality and the impact and the consequences are not a game like when Donald trump says oh for the building i'm never heard of that word they hit me with affordability that's not a talking point it is the reality that people's cost of living has gone so far up that people are struggling to survive that's not me being hyperbolic that's the shared experience of most of this country right now while you have these billionaires in the oval office and look i'm not trying to be i won't be rude and describe it while you have the i'll just show you the thing i won't come just show the chisha just show it all right i'll show you what it looked like in the oval office with the billionaires you can form your own opinions about what's happening here let's play this clip it's the one of Susan del Jeremy do we have the one of Susan del or no in the oval office no no Susan del Jeremy yeah i'll show it to you during the break maybe it's better that i don't show the audience that's right there let's take our last break of the show get your wtf american and i'll be right back on the topic of breaking news what if i told you picking the wrong medicare plan isn't just a money problem it could take years off your life that's not a guess i just saw this study out of Yale that shows how picking the wrong medicare plan can really affect your lifespan make sense when you think about it a plan can sound fine or look good on paper until you actually get sick when health issues arise it matters how easily you can access the care that you need and not all plans are created equal even if the plan has a few doctors in network that doesn't mean they will be able to see you when you need it the most that is why you need to talk to chapter chapter is the only national medicare advisor that compares every plan nationwide they look at your providers your prescriptions and what matters most to you and your situation to help you find the best plan for you if you're already on the right plan they'll tell you if not they'll help you fix it your medicare plan shouldn't be the thing standing between you and your best possible life call chapter today at eighty two medicare that's eighty two medicare it's three a.m. you hear a noise in your house? What's your move? Did you freak out with no plan? Are you fumbling with safe keys? Were you just hoping your battery and your safety didn't die? Or worse, is your firearm just out? That's why I started using the stop box pro to safely store my firearms and it's a game changer. Storing your firearm used to put you at risk. Storing a handgun safely shouldn't mean slowing yourself down when you actually need it. Most options for a choice between locked away or left out, which isn't practical for kids, guests, or unexpected situations. I would know I have a little kid. Stop box is built for people who want real protection without giving up speed or control. The stop box pro is completely mechanical. No keys, no batteries, it never fails. The five button interface is designed for muscle memory, so you get immediate access while keeping others out. Your firearm stays secure, but always within reach. Stop box is also TSA compliant, so you can check your firearm safely and legally when flying. Stop box also offers a range of other innovative products, including their brand new stop box you can. Stop box you can use the same mechanical locking system as the stop box pro, but has much more storage capacity. So for a limited time, our listeners get 10% off a stop box when you use the code truth10 at checkout. Head to stopboxusa.com and use code truth10 for 10% off your entire order. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Welcome back to Ben, I'm breaking news. I'm Ben Micellus. This is your breaking news. Yep, as the American people are struggling on a day-to-day basis to afford anything. Everything is up. All the prices are up. I know Donald Trump says he's never heard of the word affordability, diesel, gas, heating oil, all-serging, grocery, surging, everything go into a store. There was a New York federal reserve analysis that said about 2.9% of inflation is directly attributable, like extra at the delta, is directly attributable to Donald Trump's tariffs against the world. And this is before you even get into the catastrophic war in Iran and what that did with the price of oil. And it's the most common sense stuff, like imaginable, right? And I mean, a tariff is a tax on the importer in the United States. The importer has to pay it to the government. And then they raise their prices to try to offset the increase that they had to pay to import it. So then it gets passed to the consumer. It's not, there's nothing to debate. That's when you see some of these shows with the split screen, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. It's being paid by the foreign countries. It isn't. That's just not what it is. And everybody told you, this is what was going to happen. The tariffs didn't bring in trillions of dollars. They didn't bring in any, all they did was make things more expensive. That's what happened. We brought in $21 trillion. You didn't bring in, you didn't bring in $1 trillion. The whole thing is a lie. If you brought in $21 trillion, then wouldn't we expect the total debt that the United States has accumulated to go in the opposite direction, not go up, up, up to over $40 trillion under Trump? Wouldn't we expect the deficit to shrink? Look, look, if the tariffs worked and we brought in this money, and then the debt went from $39 trillion to, let's say, $12 trillion. And let's say the treasury yields were right around 3 percent, 2.5 percent. And let's say the 30-year fixed mortgage was right at that 4 percent, 3.5 percent amount. And people were affording homes. And let's say that the real wage growth of the American people was going up 12, 15 percent year over year. And all of these factories were being developed. Dude, at that point, you want to call it SI. I'll say, I'll be one of the first superintelligence. There you go. You want to start calling, the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America, I'd probably still be against it. But if people are really thriving, I'll know. These are in games. I'm not doing talking points of like, this is what the Democrats are saying. This is just the reality of the situation. Objectively, what Trump has done at every level, from military, diplomacy, health, economy, preparedness for disasters as we have a major hurricane that's about to hit the southeast of the United States. And we're seeing a lot of refineries now having to shut down. And FEMA has been cut in half. If we are talking about all of this, and this has led to some major growth, there's no, I would just have to report that. That's the reality. That's not what happened if we, if we beat her on in the war, which I would, I was against the war. I knew that this was going, you probably knew. Of course, they're going to shut down the straight of our moves. Like, in the course, they're not going to greet genocidal maniacs like Trump and Netanyahu as conquering heroes. If you beam their images after slaughtering children on the first day of a war, they're not going to want, you know, they're not going to want that at all. But if I was wrong and, you know, and they were right. And all of a sudden, people in the wrong, this is what we want. This is great. Yeah. You know, and the plan worked. And then it was great. And things were whatever. I would be saying, look, here's, here's the report. Here's what's going on. You know, I often get challenged by people. They use the same line. If Donald Trump cured cancer, you would still find a way to criticize. No. If he cured cancer, I would say he cured cancer. Instead, what Donald Trump is doing is he is destroying pediatric cancer research, pediatric oncology. He's shutting down hospitals. He's removed people. He hasn't stopped cancer. If he stopped cancer, that would be great. If he brought in 21 trillion dollars, that would be great. If he did no, never ending wars, that would be great. Right. I mean, but this is just not the reality of the situation. And so, you know, and now as you approach this election, you know, this is what's, this is what's being reported right now. Ready? A migrant caravan of more than 600 people has crossed into Mexico and is traveling north toward the US Southern border, prompting the Department of Homeland Security to issue a direct warning. The caravan began in San Pedro, Honduras on September 20th, and it's grown while traveling north with migrants predominantly from Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Haiti. This is the Democrats fall. You're going, you're doing this. You control everything. Not only that, but you put your stooges into power in countries like Ecuador. So if people are thriving there, why would there even be caravans in the first place? Wasn't your whole thing against Biden that he could have, he couldn't stop the caravan. You would show the images of caravans that were coming in meanwhile. Biden actually was able to come up with a deal that had comprehensive immigration reform, strong borders, expedited asylum proceedings, having a pathway to citizenship for people who are here for a long time, actually treating people, you know, with dignity. And Donald Trump told all the Maga Republicans that it has killed it. It's a winning issue for me to run on chaos, right? I mean, this is who he is. He is someone who is a chaos agent. And so what else was he posting while we were live this? The one's great state of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali immigrants. There's violence, murder, and mayhem all over the state that people in Minnesota must fight back. You have been robbed and abandoned by your state government. Your governor is an incompetent thief who doesn't want to get involved. He just wanted to get out of town. This is just the game that they play except one of the things that he wants. to do is start a race war in Minnesota. It's not hyperbole to say Trump invaded Minnesota. He invaded states. He invaded California. He invaded areas in North Carolina. He invaded areas in Chicago. There's so many other I could do this at all. They invaded mostly all states with ice and border patrol in the stop. They threw people into concentration camps. They spent our taxpayer money on electric gloves that shocked people. Potentially to death, they murdered people in our streets. They built alligator alcatraz concentration camps and boasted and joked about feeding human beings who were not criminals. And even if they were criminals, even if they were criminals, they still get due process, but feeding them to alligators. This is a sick regime. And all the while, they're covering up child sex trafficking rings. They're covering up the Epstein files in such blatant and transparent ways. Hat tip to Katie Fang from the Midas Touch Network for all the work she's doing with survivors under the Epstein transparency. I also had to memorize and democracy defense fund and the work they're doing on the FOIA side. Hat tip to Alice and Gil, who's associated with the Midas Touch Network also. And the FOIA work that she's doing as well. And she's been doing great reports. Give her a follow. She's got to show every Sunday on the Midas Touch Network. But for the Trump regime, this is all part of a power grab. And as I've said before, what we need to be paying attention to are the international forces at play here as well of this authoritarian network. And they see things globally as working with the oligarchs, manipulating the algorithms, brainwashing the masses, exploiting information disparity. Remember what Admiral McCraven said, the biggest threat he said to the United States is the destruction of our education system. It's an interesting thought from Admiral McCraven, one of the most decorated retired four stars that there is that it's the threat to our education system. Why? Because information disparity has been the most fertile ground to the authoritarian historically. Right? And so if you think about the Middle Ages, medieval times, or you go back in time, the kind of feudal, Lord, surf dynamic was built on an oligarchy that had all of the money, the kings and the queens and the royals. And then everybody else didn't even have access to knowledge at all. Now, while it may seem contradictory, while there's all this information out there right now, the flood of poison in the information system that is intentionally being spread by the authoritarians creates this massive, massive education gap and information gap. That's why if Donald Trump does a court case, he always loses or usually loses. Why? Because there's rules of evidence. Here say it doesn't get in. You can't just make up crap. Evidence has to be admissible. And when jurors who don't come from political backgrounds, per se, and each side invader gets to pictures, they assess the evidence, admissible evidence. But outside of that, where Trump and these authoritarians thrive is scaring people and playing to the reptilian primitive fears of people. And they do it with the help of these oligarchs. And then, you know, I think we have the footage of, you know, you look at these people in the Oval Office right here. And again, you can assess for yourself what the hell is happening. And Jeremy, I don't want to play the whole thing. But look at this as they've been talking about these so-called Trump accounts. And they've been talking about them, I feel like every two weeks they bring in Michael Dell and Susan Dell. And they do this exact same press conference. They recycle it over and over again. Here, let's watch it. To every child across the country, these accounts are for you. We believe in you. And we want you to dream big because we know you can make your dreams come true. So parents and grandparents, please, claim your child's account. These accounts are ready. They're waiting for you. And they have money in them. So claim your child's accounts and start adding money to their accounts and preserving a wonderful future for them. Now, we can have a discussion about the best way to do this. And there have been democratic proposals as well regarding providing certain amounts of funds that can be invested in a certain account. The part, though, that takes this into an area of kind of Trump-grift and kind of oligarchical design is now the companies can donate and get certain tax advantages to basically be able to donate shares or to basically push their stocks on their exchange traded funds that prop up their company values while the American people are not having their needs addressed. It props up the stock market, which props up the billionaires. When we could be also focused on a lot of these companies are firing all of these workers and replacing them with AI and they're putting the data centers everywhere and to extend this feeling of an AI euphoric bubble in the stock market that's not helping the American people. It's not euphoric for people who are suffering and who are getting fired and who can't find jobs by any means. This is a way to kind of enable propping up the NASDAQ and S&P and these exchange traded funds that often benefit the big tech companies more than others. That's why they're also the ones that are kind of pushing it. But we should be able to, and you can say, "Well, Ben, okay, but doesn't that still add value?" But we can go back and forth on these conversations, which are fair conversations to have. We should just strip it of the propaganda and let's have real conversations and figure out what's the best solution here. In that same press conference, you have Donald Trump saying that he saved the world from obliteration. Hypothetically, if it wasn't for him, we'd all be obliterated and dead now here. Let's play this clip. Not only should he get it for this year, but there's never been anybody in the history of the Nobel Prize that deserves it more. I did, I settled eight wars and I've stopped maybe the total obliteration of the world because I ran, I'll never have a nuclear weapon. Right, so that should be boom. You're out. In normal times, right? You're out. The same way Jeremy show the clip of Trump talking about San Diego and Los Angeles. Let's play that other clip also if he got it. But you want to see trauma? You want to see problems? When I said it the other day, let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way. Let them hit. You want to see a horror show? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles and you want to see some bad things happen. You want to see a country that would be in free fall. We're not going to let that happen. We protect our cities. Okay, again, out, normal times, out. I'm not saying this from a political perspective. We should have self-respect regardless of your political party. We should respect ourselves and our families and our country and the world and existence enough that when we see someone say that, you're out. You should have standards. What the hell is that? You didn't stop the world from obliteration. What are you talking about? You have caused wars everywhere. You have slaughtered children. Now you're bragging about doing public executions. What the hell are you doing? We should say no. We don't have to have vial, sicko, sex predators who separately have been convicted of dozens of felonies who are on audio tape bragging about sexually assaulting women and then trying to say that's locker room talk and that's just how guys speak. That's not how guys speak. We should not have someone who's bankrupted all of these entities, someone who goes around and says, "Oh, I did a deal. I did a deal. You like my deal." We shouldn't care what political party you're from. We should all say WTF and we don't want this. We don't want that. We don't want that. That's my thesis. That's what I want, you know, the life's work and might as to be beyond this election cycle or that election cycle. I care about elections, but I care about the values and principles that should make elections be so meaningful. And we should not, you know, what's Donald Trump? I'm Dr. Abdul El-Sahed, Mohammed, Mohammed Jihadist. Oh, what do we got? Annie Andrews, Tranny, you know, slurs against the transgender community, how horrific. To Tallahfrico, he's weird. He's doing weird things. He bombets in his mouth. He's a vaguen. He's a vaguen. And he's into weird stuff, Foucai. What are you doing? You're the weirdest person imaginable. You're the strangest, honest, disgusting, or with Democrats, they smell like you literally are putrid. Like, you see people around you? It's all projection and confession. All projection and confession. It's sickle. The book is called WTF America. Go get WTF America. Pre-order it now. It's the book that corporate news doesn't want you to get to be fair. We are very critical of them in the book. It's dedicated to the Midas Mighty. The first page is dedicated. We talk about this community in it. That's the main thesis of the book is you. So go get your copy, hardcover, ebook, audiobook. Thanks for watching. We appreciate you. We got the brother show tonight, 80's, turn five, Pacific. I'll get prepared for that. Her, my little baby crying in the background. We'll say hi to her. So I'll take a little break, say hi to her, and we'll be right back with the brother show tonight. Thanks for watching. We appreciate you. Shout out, minus mighty. Thanks, everybody. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber for our sub-stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Philakowski, add three episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]