Afternoon Breaking Updates with Ben: Trump Trapped In His Own Crisis  — 9/3/26

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They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Welcome. Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Micellis. This is your Breaking News. Overnight, Iran struck hard in Kuwait. This follows Iran striking hard at U.S. military bases, not just in Kuwait, but also in Jordan, also in Iraq, also in the UAE, also in Bahrain, also in all of the surrounding areas. The Strait of Hormuz continues to be under attack by Iran, which controls it to the extent the U.S. is trying to take out tankers. Those VLCCs. These and other ships through the southern Oman route. Iran is not playing around. Donald Trump is playing around. Donald Trump just continues to fabricate and claim, we have so much oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. You're not even going to know what to do with it. We've got 18 million barrels coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. Donald Trump is posting memes, everybody. So, you know, it must be really true if Donald Trump is posting some sort of C-spot run second grade memes. No offense to C-spot run. No offense to second grade. This is how Donald Trump thinks American people think. This is how stupid he thinks he is. Here, put that graph up one more time there, Jeremy. Donald Trump posts a weird photo of the Strait of Hormuz. Okay. Then an AI image of a barrel of oil. Then it says before 20 million barrels a day. Then he posts another graph that says 18 million barrels a day. And that's it. And then, okay, got it. I guess if that thing is saying that, I guess it's true. We know. We know this to be false. We know this is inaccurate. One of the easiest ways to know it's inaccurate is what are you paying right now for your gas? Okay. Like there's a supply shock. Okay. We know the drawdowns of our strategic petroleum reserves, those salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. It's becoming a major, major issue there. The price of gas right now is what? It's going to be $5 a gallon soon. It's creeping up there. The price of diesel, what? Going to go up to $6 a gallon soon. You want to talk? We're going to talk about the paper price of crude. What are we talking about? $96, $97 a barrel. It's going to hit $100 a barrel in the next few days. Besson promised that it was going to have a three or even a two in front of it after Labor Day. Of course, the Trump regime lies about everything. The spot price of diesel right now, you know what it is? It's about $255 a barrel for the spot price of diesel. So you've got $255 spot price diesel. You've got about $100. $100 a barrel, the price of crude. We're talking about both Brent and WTI as well approaching that mark. So your crack spread, your delta between the price of crude and your diesel, often called the 3-2-1 crack spread, the amount of diesel and gas that can be extracted and jet fuel and other types of fuel that can be extracted from that crude, that number is reaching record highs. And basically what that means for you without getting hyper-technical and geeking out on oil prices is your prices are far more expensive. You understand what I mean when I talk about these salt caverns? I just want to make sure we're on the same page. In Texas and Louisiana, but particularly Texas, there's literal caverns. There are salt caverns, like geological salt cavern formations, which over time people realized this could be a good way to store excess oil, strategic petroleum reserves. So it was basically used. It was used in a way that mixes water with the right type of oil, light sour, mid-sweet, but light sour that mixes with the water. And they call it sour and sweet because people used to actually taste the oil. During the big oil barren days, people would taste the oil and go, oh, it's sweet, it's sour. It's sulfur content is what it's rooted in. By the way, that's why Venezuela's oil sat very sour, very viscous, very dense type of stuff, very tarry, doesn't go into the strategic petroleum reserves. It's why Trump's trying to defraud us all and say, ah, that goes in the petroleum reserve. That'll fill it up. Total lie, bullshit, liar, lies about everything. They lie about everything, literally. But we now have so much drawdowns in our salt caverns right now. If you think about it, there has to be a threshold level in order to literally keep the geological formation and the forest. If you think about it, there's a lot of people who are like, oh, we're going to have to do a lot of these things. We're going to have to do a lot of these things. It could literally collapse and like implode, okay? And that's one of the things that people are looking at and going, this is getting very, very dangerous. Not just because we're running out of the strategic potential, but the whole thing could collapse, which could cause a major catastrophic shock, something that no one is prepared for, but we should be absolutely prepared for. One of the biggest tells also, remember back in April with Trump and Besant were telling you and telling everybody? They said in three days, Iran's going to blow up. I mean, it's stupid. These people are like the dumbest people, right? Inject yourself with bleach. They said three days Iran had left because the pipes would get so congested. I don't even understand the science. It's made up stuff. The blockade would cause the pipes to get, you remember this? Get congested and all of Iran would explode late April and then everyone would be wiped out in Iran. And this was coming Iran's way. Remember Trump said this and Besant said this and J.D. Vance said this. They were pushing this. No, no, no. Actually could happen soon in the United States. And again, I think my predictions have been fairly scarily accurate in what's happening right now. If you go back six months ago, what we were saying is going to happen is happening. The salt cavern could collapse. And if it collapses, then even the remaining strategic petroleum reserve amounts, which are at tank bottom, become inaccessible. And then we lose the concept of a strategic petroleum reserve in the United States, in Texas. That could be a big, big deal. I separately talk about things that go on in Cushing, Oklahoma. That's another kind of main hub. And one of the things you can see in Cushing is the oversimplifying it here. But the productivity that's taking place, the high level within which the crude is being transported, demonstrates that the supply shock is incredibly severe. And you look at what's happening in Cushing. And then you look at the salt caverns. It tells us they're separate concepts. But they tell a story of a supply shock like we've never seen anywhere in history. And it's because and it's caused by Donald Trump's incompetence. Folks, Iran knows this. Iran realizes this. OK. And they know that what they got to do to establish deterrence is every time Trump strikes, they got to strike hard at the military bases in the region. They need to take. They need to take out tankers each day or as many tankers as they can. And that keeps the overall world economy in a state of paralysis. And Donald Trump's lies make things worse at this point. Donald Trump gets more deranged. What did Donald Trump throw at him? threatened two days ago when he struck Iran. He said, Farhan, if you respond, we're going to hit you so hard. We're going to blow up your whole civilization. So do not respond. What does Iran do? Boom, responds right away. Also, we've talked about this, and this gets like no attention on corporate news, or like a blip. The Trump regime struck a wedding in Syrac, and they killed five people, including a four-year-old who was attending this wedding. About 74 people were seriously injured at a wedding in Syrac. And you may go, it was a slammer missile. We know it was a U.S. missile. It was geolocated by both the New York Times and the BBC. They did a good job covering this with their verify teams that confirmed that the footage coming out of Iran is indeed accurate. The hospital footage is accurate. The area that was hit, it was indeed hit by the U.S. slammer missiles. So there's a telecommunications tower nearby in Syrac. And so the Trump regime, though, in going for the telecommunications tower, didn't just hit the telecommunications tower. It hit the private residential area nearby. And this is why you probably want to have a robust infrastructure to avoid civilian targeting that Hegseth and Donald Trump gutted. When you talk about Manab, the elementary school where the Trump regime slaughtered 168 little girls, or you talk about Le Maire, where the Trump regime slaughtered 17 little children at a sports hall, one of the commonalities is that they're somewhat near facilities, telecommunications towers and other things. But the Trump regime just would go in there and they'd blow up everything, you know, nearby. By the way, a tactic we see Netanyahu use in Gaza with the genocide there in Lebanon and elsewhere. OK, you see, whether or not we feel these telecommunications towers are military targets or not, I don't think the telecommunications tower is even a valid military target, if I'm being totally honest. But you would say, OK, there is something that we view as being used by the IRGC or Netanyahu would say, that's something I believe Hamas is. Just blow up everything around it. OK, and then you just slaughter little girls and innocent people and all of these people and you murder every. You know, I mean, I'm just trying to think of a corollary in my life. I used to live in downtown Los Angeles, right? You live in downtown Los Angeles. And I lived in a tall building, lots of apartments in the apartment that I used to live in, you know, 10 years ago. And I remember there was once a drug dealer in the building. I remember there was a whole story about a drug dealer in the building on one of the floors and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and the drug dealer had fentanyl and it was a whole bad. It was a scary story that someone in the building was doing that. But under the kind of Netanyahu, Hegsith, Trump approach, got it. There's someone right there, narco trafficker, blow up the whole building, murder everybody in it, slaughter everybody in it. And then, oh, we were going after Hamas. We were going after this person or that person. So we just murder everybody. But then I think it gets one step worse because then they just view everybody as a narco trafficker or everybody they just label as Hamas or everybody. doesn't agree with their fascism, all of a sudden gets the label. And in fact, the narco traffickers are the ones getting pardoned by the Trump regime, right? The Orlando Hernandez's and the Juan Orlando Hernandez, the worst of the worst, those people get protected by Donald Trump. I mean, once upon a time, Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela was viewed as a bounty on her arrest. I mean, she was viewed as, you know, in the Maduro regime and all of the individuals that were there were viewed as these people were working for doing the narco trafficking, just like Orlando Hernandez. Also, a lot of the people Trump is installing in these South American countries have lots of red flag links to a lot of bad activity. But this is who Trump's actually promoting because he, his view is you basically create the issue, you create the problem. And under the pretext of the chaos that you cause, the people and that you inflict, then you assert your fascism, you come along and say, I alone can fix it. I'm the one who can save the day. I'm the one who's the savior. I mean, we're going to show you in a little bit, JD Vance's disastrous press conference in the Oval Office when he was playing the role of Caroline Leavitt. And JD Vance is like, it's only because of us that there is not a massive energy crisis in the world right now. I mean, what, what in the hell kind of predator ass thing is that for you to like, you're saying like, you're a bunch of predators, you're crazy people. You created the issue. And now you're like, and we're the only ones who can save it. I mean, they are the arsonists who then say, but we're the firefighters. It's really shameful stuff. And the rest of the world sees it. The rest of the world sees how weak and pathetic the United States is. And just look overnight, Iran attacked last night, Al-Jabbar air base in Kuwait and the Al-Munad air base in the UAE with missiles and drones that follows all the other strikes I was talking about. There was no comment from military officials or Trump yet. CENTCOM responded to Iran's retaliatory operations from the previous day. And if CENTCOM doesn't conduct strikes, it will further highlight how the U.S. military is unwilling and unable to even engage in another tit for tat round. The U.S. is out of weapons. I don't know how many times we can say this. I know Donald Trump wants to post it's treasonous or traitorous to say that we're out of weapons, we're out of weapons, we're out of weapons, we're out of weapons, we're out of weapons because Trump and Hegseth are idiots and they shouldn't have been involved in this catastrophic war. But then they did. And then they did. And then they did. And then they did. And they depleted all of our freaking weapons, our munitions, our thads, our patriots, our tomahawks, which probably could not have tomahawks in the hands of these freaking sickos. But they depleted them. We're out. We're at a very limited level right now, I should say. That makes it impossible if there is, and there is, conflagration wars throughout the world. There is a war going on in the entire world right now. Can we all agree? Can we so stipulate that that's actually what's taking place? The U.S. is unable to project strength like it did before throughout the world. It's done. The Asian security umbrella done. European security umbrella done. Of course, the Middle East security umbrella done. Donald Trump just wants to install his little dictators in South America, Central America, focus on exploiting the people there. That's his game plan. That's what he cares about. Meanwhile, Russia prepares for its winter offensive against Ukraine. Trump taps Zelensky along, says, I'm going to give you patriotism. Interceptors or interceptor licenses. Donald Trump doesn't do that. Lies to Zelensky. Makes Zelensky incredibly vulnerable for a Russian winter offensive. Russia, meanwhile, testing the resolve of NATO, seeing NATO has no resolve at all. A drone incident that took place in Germany. Russia struck a ship in the coast of Romania. Russia has been, you know, hitting certain types of targets. I mean, there was areas of Poland which were subject to Russian missile strike in the area that at least went into NATO territory. And with all of these incidents, of course, none of these countries are invoking Article 4 of NATO because it don't exist anymore, folks. Hate to be the bearer of bad news. Trump's destroyed NATO. Trump's destroyed Article 4, Article 5. It doesn't exist. I mean, we can pretend it does. But there's a reason why these countries that have been subject in NATO, they're not going to be able to do that. And NATO to attacks by Russia. I mean, there was an attack in Poland recently where a Russian-backed arsonist blew up a facility linked to Ukraine. I mean, we're seeing this happen. There are incidents almost every day happening where Russia is sending people across Europe in various locations where NATO is based and where there's American military plants. I mean, a Coca-Cola factory was smashed today in Ukraine by Putin. You won't hear a single peep from Donald Trump or Treasury Secretary Besant or anybody in this regime. But Article 4, Article 5 is effectively dead. Instead, Donald Trump wants to spend his time attacking Canada. Canada this, Canada that. We hate Canada. We hate Canada. We're going to teach Canada a lesson. They're going to know. They're going to pay. Prime Minister Carney, we're going to make you suffer. I mean, what are you doing, you freaking sicko? What the hell are you even talking about? It's the most ridiculous thing. I want to give a hat tip, though. Did you all see this moment? I covered it earlier today. Make sure you check all the links in the description. All the morning videos that we did here at the Midas Touch. I try to curate everything for you that is kind of not being covered in other places. After all, Senator Bernie Sanders told me the most important issues, Ben, are the issues that the media is not discussing. I couldn't agree more with Senator Bernie Sanders there. But I believe the guy's name is Admiral Pepero. I think that's his name. And he is the top admiral, top commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Fleet. Did you see this? He was at an Indo-Pacific conference in British Columbia yesterday in Canada. And he was with his counterpart, the leader of Canada's military. And a member of the press asked this admiral, this very decorated admiral, if Donald Trump gives you the order to invade Canada or to strike Canada, are you going to follow through with it? And the admiral, the U.S. admiral, very disappointed. I think that's a ridiculous question. I think it's a very emotional question. And I really don't want to even give it the attention that and the reporter pressed the reporter said well Admiral Paparo I think you're being very disrespectful to the people of Canada by dismissing us that way when you have your commander your commander commander Paparo your command we hate that he's the commander-in-chief but he is he talks about annexation every day he says I'm going to make Canada 51st state he uses the language of Hitler vis-a-vis Canada every day he uses that type of denazification language is the language that Trump uses he uses the language he uses the language of someone who would be invading another country so the fact that you go oh he's not going to do it I think we all know you know I think here's the here's what we know if he could do it he would do it do we all agree with that if he could do it he would do it um he's he he shouldn't do I mean I could go on and on but he he he lost the war to Iran big time not even close Iran wiped the floor with that uh orange blob was it was not even and they're mocking the shit out of him Iran's doing mind sweeper memes against him right now just mocking the hell out of Donald Trump you've got um you've got Iran's parliament leader M.B. Galabaf doing uh memes of wildy coyotes that was a wildy coyote being chased by the roadrunner you know remember and uh you've got he's he's like sorry cutie you're not gonna get either they're calling besant cutie they're calling they're mocking him so much they're saying sorry sweetie sorry cutie you struggling struggling much yeah wily wily coyote wily coyote I watched that growing up the editors are producing wily e coyote um yeah I mean but but it is actually you know I I use that analogy or metaphor whatever you want to call it before that uh uh you know Trump it does seem like it is like wildy coyote out there like you know it's it's a predator it's a predatorial whether it's Canada whether it's Iran whether it's been it's it's predatorial and that image of wildy coyote doing that is is an apt uh is an apt example so you know Trump's making all of these threats so it's a fair question to ask Commander uh Admiral Samuel Papero uh who leads the U.S Indo-Pacific Fleet what what would you do and stop being so emotional with that question how about you tell the freaking traitorous treasonous commander in chief stop threatening Canada well why don't you actually listen to a Canadian's field because Canadians don't just feel it's a trade war that was launched to get him against them Canada feels like it's an actual war it's a hybrid war that was launched against them by Donald Trump because it is it is that's not being emotional release all these people who are being emotional stop with the hyperbolic stop with what world are you living in right now I live in in a world where ice and border patrol Gestapo are killing people in this country where the Trump regime is posting torture videos of Haitians who used to work and live in the United States productively shackled being sent to their deaths back in Haiti that's the world I mean that's the world that I'm living in right now where the Trump regime slaughters children and people attending a wedding in Zurich they bombed that what was the their escalation before that was a home in Kesham they and and by the way these sick these sick bucks you know what they do excuse my language these you know what they they test the new weapons on the little girls they test the new weapons they tested on the volleyball Hall in Le Maire this new pellet weapon the first time it was really used that spread these little pellets a thousand or five thousand pellets on the little girls playing volleyball and then they do the same story oh no it was Iran who killed their own people it was Iran who killed their own people no it was it was you you do that was your new weapon this is your slammer weapon that was your new pellet weapon that just explodes these little pellets everywhere and killed the little girls you dropped a five thousand dollar it was it wasn't a mother of all bombs but it was basically like a Moab you dropped one of your biggest bombs on just a on a home in Kesham and you and you killed a family uh you know and and then you you did it of course you slaughtered the little girls in Manab and then and then they go so freaking cavalierly the JD Vance's and all of these freaking war criminals it's Iran that would target their own people we we don't do it no you do you do you do you do you do you are war criminals and JD Vance and Donald Trump and exit you definitely deserve to be tried in The Hague and frankly I don't give a I don't want if a Democratic candidate doesn't say that they will ensure that they turn over these war criminals to The Hague do not elect any of the Democratic candidates unless that's part of their position for real for real they need to say Hague that that's what it needs to be ruthless accountability period full full stop that's it what are you going to do hey what are you going to do with the ballroom destroy it what are you going to do with the money Trump made take it away how are you going to take it away I'm going to go into his bank accounts and I'm going to rip it away if a Democratic candidate isn't saying that then don't run don't run we don't want you get the hell out of here seriously you're not doing deals with Donald Trump I don't want oh we're going to do deals on affordability you're not doing a deal with the guy okay you're not going to do a deal with the guy the American people are psychologically tortured by this regime what the hell are you going to do for the people right now seriously how are you going to hold these war criminals accountable it's Hague or don't run for office it's destroy the gold what are you going to do with the golden ballroom I'm going to demolish it on day one how are you going to demolish it on live TV in front of everybody I'm going to put a ton of dynamite I'm just going to blow it up obviously we're going to remove the people from it we're going to make a national spectacle of blowing up the golden ballroom that's what voters want to see right now period full stop anywhere that Trump's name we're going to rip it off that's what I want to hear a Democratic candidate say we're going to rip it off we're going to broadcast that we're going to live stream it on the Midas touch Network you don't have to be the Midas touch network but I'd love to live stream it here that's what I want to hear a Democratic candidate say if not don't run don't run because the American people have been so freaking traumatized right now by what this regime has done and not just the American people the Canadian people and the whole damn world who just wanted to go on and live their lives with their family and just get on with it and try to make memories and enjoy their time here our short time on Earth without these freaking predator leeches out there just trying to destroy our happiness our solitude the little time we all have together on this beautiful planet these predators want to pollute it they want to put data centers everywhere they want to make people miserable they want to spread diseases they want to spread their diseases it's sick it's freaking sick and so stop acting like this is normal I want to see Ruthless account that's what the forget what I want to see who cares about me the American people want to see Ruthless accountability period full stop end of story sorry I went to the Grand this is what that Admiral paparo had to say let's play it I'm yeah I I find that I find that scenario to be uh absolutely and utterly preposterous uh and so uh I follow the you I follow the orders of the commander-in-chief but uh that is a needlessly emotional question I I don't find forgive my forgive my saying it too is that uh is that uh uh Canada is a close ally I'm sorry I didn't mean to be insulted but no no but uh you you didn't answer the question I'm sorry you didn't answer the question but um I said I follow the orders of the president and I find it to be a uh would you ask me please also what my attack plans are for the Martians yes sir I don't dismiss you I don't dismiss you but uh I do dismiss the question I'm sorry I don't think that's the right approach at all this is a serious question about a serious issue we've had threats of annexation I know it's not I know it's a hypothetical but nonetheless if you've not thought about it thank you maybe you should yeah horrible horrible horrible response and you want to know why the people of Canada hate this regime right now I mean that dismissive answer right there it's like the Martians it's like well you you realize in saying that too then what you also are admitting is that Donald Trump's words don't matter at all which we all know to be the case but when Donald Trump uses the I mean the word annexation you realize that that has a meat if another could you imagine if Obama said annexation of Canada what would be the response why because we have some psychotic orange blob does that change the equation because he was a failed bankrupt reality scumbag that now, oh, he says it. So it's still the commander in chief of the United States military. And that requires that we, I don't know, I don't understand when it was that we don't treat the commander in chief like their words have meaning or matter. I mean, and that's what Trump and corporate news and trillions of dollars in brainwashing, I think, has done, where it's like, hey, this just works. He says annexation, 51st state. He just says he's going to blow up the whole civilization to smithereens. He just posted AI memes of himself bombing Carg Island and engaging in genocide and mass law. It's just a meme of him and Netanyahu building a Trump Gaza hotel and dancing with bearded naked women. Do you remember that one? It was like a bearded naked woman. I'm not sure why the naked women have beards, but dancing with Netanyahu and Trump with naked bearded women in Gaza while they sip martinis. Ronald Reagan did it and George W. Bush did it and George H.W. Bush and Obama and Clinton and Carter and Nixon and Ford and JFK and FDR and Truman and Eisenhower. We all remember that this was there. No, it's not, folks. Folks, this behavior is crazier than Kim Jong-un. Actually, I don't like when people go, we're behaving like North Korea. Oh, my gosh. No, no, no, no, no. North Korea seems like, compared to us right now, North Korea seems like a place of discipline, right? Despite all of the derangement, it at least appears they're working towards some sort of national interest. I mean, Donald, I mean, truthfully, I'm not saying this to even be facetious. Right now, Trump regime, United States, Kim Jong-un, North Korea, what would I view as having a crazier leader and a more unpredictable and deranged United States by far? I wouldn't even put it close, to be honest with you. I mean, we got a guy who wakes up, starts posting the most deranged memes, makes threats, doesn't follow through with the threats, makes more threats, doesn't follow through with the threats, doesn't follow through with the talks about how he thinks he's the greatest, starts putting his face on money every day and talks about golden ballrooms. And then, I mean, could you imagine what we would be saying about Kim Jong-un if he hid in a catering container? Could you imagine what we, what the world, could you imagine what the world, what we would be saying if we found out, you know, that Xi Jinping hid in a catering container after leaving a NATO summit when he was on the most protected plane but decided to hide in a catering container? Or if Putin did that? Or if, I mean, if any leader did that at all, could you imagine? Oh my God, this is a stuff that's out of the worst types of parodies that wouldn't even, that wouldn't even be believable. And this is the, this is the United States? I don't know. I say this truly as someone who loves this country. I still love the country. I say this believing that this is ultimately what patriots do. I say this believing that this is what patriotism should be about. I, I, I, I mourn what's happening to our service members right now under this reckless Trump regime. As Hegseth says, well, we're going to deploy them to 2027. And Trump says, I don't think they've been out long enough. I mean, I literally, I literally shed a tear when I saw the USS Abraham Lincoln pulling into Thailand and seeing the condition of that ship. And then hearing about the experience of those incredible sailors and Marines who were tortured by the Trump regime, tortured our service members. I've heard, I hear from their families what they're going through. They don't even want to go to Thailand. They want to go home. They want to be with their families. They want to be with their kids. They want to be, they don't want, they don't want to be in Thailand right now either. You know, but this is part of the, this is part of the, this is part of the, this is part of the Trump regime two-step to kind of cover it up, put them in Thailand. You know, who the hell even knows, you know, between Israeli intelligence there and Chinese intelligence and Russian intelligence and the hell's even happening. J.D. Vance press conference. I want to talk a little bit about that when we come back from our first quick break. Have you ordered WTF America, the first one you ordered? You know, there's, it comes out October 20th. I hope you will purchase it. Please pre-order it right now. The pre-orders are really helpful. So pre-order it now. Comes out October. Put in the comments if you pre-ordered it. We'll be back. Let's take our first and only break of the show. Thanks. I used to think jeans were just supposed to be a little uncomfortable. You wear them all day. You're adjusting them. 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So with all of what I said in the first half of this show as background with Iran striking back hard at U.S. military bases in the region and then striking again yesterday in Kuwait in response to the U.S. striking a wedding that was taking place in Syrac. You know, oil prices skyrocketing right now. Treasury yields skyrocketing right now. Iran's parliament leader again mocking the Trump regime and the manipulation that Iran sees at a very micro. I mean, Iran sees it at a very specific level. What's happening? They know very their knowledge is fairly extensive about what's happening here and the U.S. munition situation. And Iran knows just keep this going. You know, what's happening right now is that the U.S. is not going to back down. You know, think about it this way. The Trump regime likes to say we've been at war with Iran for 47 years. It's a ridiculous statement, but that's what they that's what they go with. This isn't a new war. This is just part of 47 years of war. OK, sure. But let's accept that as true. So Iran's been able to survive and build this massive, massive weapons cadre, this ballistic missiles, this drones, the Shahids, all this stuff over the course of, you know, 50 years of the toughest sanctions. So you think that in the next two weeks, they're going to be like, ah, enough, enough. We're out. We surrender. Please. We want to make a deal with you now, sir. Tell us about your terms. Make us submit. I mean, is that in what? delusional, predatory world do you think the response from iran after 50 years is going to be uncle i give up i give up no that's of course they're not if anything they see what we see what people with the brain see which is they've got the u.s trapped they got the u.s stuck you better believe that russia knows that that china knows that that the other bricks nations know that that the nations at the shanghai cooperation organization know that they got to be careful because the u.s architecture still is there it's been pulled apart it's no longer um the security umbrella no longer holds so it's dismantled you can't just if you rip it apart so quickly the fear is that could cause even more global chaos but if you you just like uh what's it like a jenga board or maybe it's not a good example but you just keep on picking at it take another one you take another one while donald trump's like canada greenland putin likes me they just take a little bit more take a little bit more surgical oh oh are we hot are we are we so hot right now nine twenty trillion dollars okay do a little bit of this do a little bit of that they are so outmaneuvering us every damn day it's why i cover the shanghai cooperation organization meetings that's why i cover the trip of xi xingping to egypt right now where he's meeting with el sisi where there were military exercises in egypt the other day heck xi xingping when trump visited beijing talked about the the thucydides trap and when she visited egypt where they just did military exercises together the last few weeks he talked about the new security architecture in the middle east which is also implicitly saying u.s out china in but china's pitch is not we're going to do what the u.s did china's pitches create your own structures arab nations and then lean on us to have your back but you take control what do you think the mecca pact is really about it's about the new security architecture with china leading the world that's what the mecca pact is about and trump like i like the mecca pack good work good work really i mean i i said just a you don't realize what's actually happening here i mean it's not like xi xingping isn't saying it he said there's a new security architect he used the words new security architecture for the middle east during his cairo visit with el sissy shouldn't this be the main story like on on the news right i mean i mean i guess i guess i am the news so it is my main story it is our it's our collective main story what happened at the g20 summit that took place in asheville north carolina this past week well in addition to the trump regime inviting russia russia's finance minister was there uh china blocked the u.s resolution on the strait of hormuz it would have been just a symbolic resolution anyway but china blocked it with the u.s vision for the strait of hormuz and besant's like well i think that china actually gets what we're doing i think that they really understand and they are on our side like as stupid as people are it's like the dumbest it's the dumb it's dumb and dumber and dumber dumber and dumber dumber dumber dumber dumber and dumber dumber dumber dumber dumber dumber dumber for i mean what are you what are you talking about they're on your they're on our side what world are what we're they're pursuing a long-term plan that they just pressed fast forward on that has a geopolitical vision of a world order structured around china's hegemonic leadership multipolar the u.s being one of the weaker poles and china's ascendancy and they're very closely allied with russia and north korea and iran and iran got a hero's welcome at the shanghai cooperation organization in beshesk in kyrgyzstan iran was treated like a hero when iran goes when poseshki and iran's president and iraqi go to these world summits they get standing ovations right now because the whole world sees that they beat the united states remember when trump would be like the whole world was laughing at us before me no no no they are now they are now that's that's for sure you invited the russian finance minister over at the same time that russia met with iran in kyrgyzstan putin met with poseshkin and said we are economically supporting you they literally said that he goes we are here to economically support iran and then donald trump will be like well i think that putin and russia love me and they're and and they are helping me and they are they are great allies but i'll tell you who's really bad canada nato i mean you know so so when our admirals out there paparo being like that question's ridiculous and may have been ridiculous 10 years ago if you were asked such a question when obama was in office or maybe a ridiculous question when biden's in office it ain't a ridiculous question you know and when you say that paparo ask the canadian people how they feel ask the people of greenland how they feel you may be living in your ivory tower or you're living in your delusional world that's disconnected from what's happening on the ground but the people in canada the people in the united states the people across the world truly view trump's statements as a threat as a threat of war i think people recognize trump's loser and that he's lost to iran so if trump even dared try to invade canada trump would get his ass kicked a thousand times worse than what iran's doing that's for sure that's for sure but i think people take the threats as threats let's take a look at what jd vance had to say jd vance what's your advice to the iranian people right now this is what he said during his press conference he filled in for caroline levin let's watch what he said let's play it started so my advice to the iranians is stop acting like crazy people and stop shooting at commercial shipping and in the meantime we've got to do what we've got to do despite what a foreign country is going to do in the straight of one move stop acting like crazy people around that's you are acting like crazy people you invaded their country they didn't invade your country you invaded their country what are you talking about they're supposed to do nothing they should do what delce rodriguez did they should do what venezuela and by the way the people of venezuela are pissed they just just subject themselves to a humiliation ritual and and that isn't even a real deal but it's just announced like it's like literally the venezuela deal is literally just trump is such a predator he wanted to announce submission of the other he wanted to see them just behave so obsequious he needed it because he was getting his ass kicked so badly in the rest of the world it ain't a real deal i've gone over it a million times it ain't gonna it ain't gonna put oil in our strategic reserves it's not the way oil works it ain't gonna be refined anytime soon it's not the way oil works um that's trump for you that's why he's bankrupted most of the things he's touched a reporter goes and asks jd vance on iran will the war be over by the midterms fair question will the war be over by the midterms let's let's let's watch what jd has to say let's play with iran will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections well caitlin again i i don't i wouldn't call it a war right now there is no active shooting i recognize there is there have been places where this is flagged and there's been places where this is flagged and there's been places where the war has been cleared up uh major combat operations again major combat operations lasted for about six weeks and since then we destroyed of course their nuclear facilities with midnight caitlin i wouldn't call it a war i would just call it a uh what are you talking about i mean this is clowns no offense to clowns jd vance on iran when will the iranians stop shooting at ships i don't know the answer to such a question usually things that happen in war scourmish play this clip but when you ask when will this end you're asking me a question like when will the iranians stop shooting at ships i think the reality is i don't know the answer to that question you would have to ask the iranians when will the iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets? And the answer is it has less effect day by day. So what we're going to do is not depend on the Iranians behaving responsibly or negotiating in good faith. What we're going to do is use the tools that we have at our disposal to ensure that the American people, one, never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program, and two, that world energy markets are properly supplied. I'm going to go out on a limb here. So forgive me going out on a limb here. Iran is going to stop blowing up ships in the Strait of Hormuz when, you ready for this, J.D.? Can you handle it, J.D.? When the U.S. leaves the Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. Wow. Oh, my gosh. Perhaps when you invade something, somebody, they and say we want regime change and kill their leaders and slaughter their children, maybe they respond and they get angry. And maybe they say, well, we don't want more of this. Maybe they say, we see what you did in Gaza and in southern Lebanon. We know what you're going to do here. We don't want that here. We want our way of life. And that may be different than our way of life, J.D. But believe it or not, there are other nations who have their own national interests and identity and religion and beliefs and history. And I know it's so crazy and so crazy, but why don't you just get out of the area? And then you can follow the MOU, which says that Iran and Oman, control the Strait of Hormuz. Why don't you maybe work out a small nominal fee to pay Iran? Because you started the war. You fix it. It'll be far cheaper than what's happening right now by the magnitude of possibly trillions of dollars. So pay him the small fee of $10 billion or $12 billion. It's fine. You lost. Pay him $12 billion, maybe more. It's cheaper than what's happening. Get out. And guess what will happen? Prices will start going down again. We can fill up the strategic petroleum reserve. That's going to be the outcome anyway. It's going to matter what. That's what's going to happen. So what are we doing? Just stop wasting our time. And then J.D. Vance goes, but if you look at the Iranian ability to disrupt the lives of American people, it's quite limited, he says. Very limited. Here, play this clip. You know, if you look at the Iranian ability to disrupt the normal lives of Americans, I think it's quite limited. It's not zero, but it's quite limited. I'd be much more worried about cyber attacks from other actors. But again, we're doing everything that we can to stay ahead of this stuff. First off, they were able to successfully hack Minnesota, possibly Michigan's water systems and in the UK. But Trump hates Minnesota, so he's not going to do that. He denies that they did it, even though we know that they did. But of course, our lives are being impacted by this war. It's being impacted because Trump and Netanyahu launched this never-ending war that nobody wanted. And they responded, but look at the price of oil today. Look at the price of diesel today. It's at record highs right now. What are you talking about? Things are getting worse. You know, when they were doing better, J.D., I know this is going to blow your mind. It's going to be a crazy concept. After the MOU was signed, and we can all read the words in the MOU. And yes, the MOU was a document of defeat that the United States signed. You can't win at all. You lost. You shouldn't have done it. You lost. But paradoxically, the U.S. was actually getting rewarded for it in terms of lower prices for losing. And you're such, you're so bad even though you were getting an undeserved W by losing. I mean, just think about privilege here. Seriously, think about privilege, like crazy privilege, the craziest. It's like game genie privilege for those who played Nintendo growing up. You lose the war. You sign a surrender document in the MOU. And then you get rewarded with the markets going up and prices going down. It being viewed as the right decision. And the only people who were railing against the MOU were your usual neocon warmonger suspects, right? Your Mark Levin, your Netanyahu's, your Marco Rubio's, your Brian Kilmeade's on Fox. There was a group of people who always want these never-ending wars. But even though we lost, they were getting rewarded. It could have even going into the midterm. This is what a kind of crazy country we live in sometimes. It actually could have stopped the bleeding for what these MAGA Republicans are going through in the midterms had they just gone through their loser document. It would have been viewed as a win. Crazy, right? Even though it was clearly a loser document because people didn't want to be there. So it was like, all right. And once again, Trump could have potentially have gotten credit for being the arsonist and then pretending to be the firefighter and lighting a smaller fire. I mean, think about it. Obama did the deal. JCPOA stopped Iran, also deterred North Korea. Let's not forget the JCPOA had a dual purpose of being used as a template for international coalition against North Korea. And when Trump ripped it apart, a message to Kim Jong-un. It sent a message to other world leaders. Got it. We need nuclear weapons. By the way, that's the message being sent now to every world leader. We need nuclear weapons or else. So Trump couldn't even take the, he's such a loser that he couldn't even take the dub from being the loser. It's kind of crazy. He's so pathologically crazy that that's the case. And then JD Vance says, but for the leadership of Trump, we would have had an energy crisis because the Iranians refused to stop acting like terrorists. Dude, you're the terrorist. You are the terrorists. You are. It pains me to say this. You think I like being part of this regime of like being in this country where I'm led by a regime of terrorists, but that's just, that's just, that's just the reality. You know, again, I hear so many people talk about it this way about, you know, okay, the political messaging, you know, what could they be messaging? What do you mean messaging? We're run by terrorists. We're run by people covering up a child sex trafficking ring right now, the Epstein file. We're doubling down. Message that. Message that. Don't message that. I really don't care. But we all know that that's what's happening. Like, like, this is a crazy, this is crazy. Listen to what JD Vance says over here. Let's play worldwide energy crisis. I can't repeat this enough, but for the leadership of president Trump and the hard work of our troops, we would have had an energy crisis because the Iranians refused to stop acting like terrorists in the Strait of Hormuz. We have an energy crisis now, but for the actions of your regime, you caused the energy crisis. You caused it. But for you, we would have been in one? No. Before the war, 20 million plus barrels a day were getting out of the Strait of Hormuz. Before this, I didn't even know how to pronounce the Strait of Hormuz. I was calling it the Strait of Hormuz because I never thought about it. Maybe that's because I'm ignorant. Maybe I should have thought about it more because when I learned my history and I learned about what took place in the late 80s, I learned also that under the Reagan regime, under the Reagan administration, the U.S. shot a commercial plane filled with Iranian innocent people and then boasted about it and gave the commander an award when we put ships in there. Maybe I was, you know, we all can learn more. We all can learn more is the truth. But I was in my state of, you know what, I'm focused on this. This is my lane. Here's what I'm. Focused on. Like, I never focused that much on salt caverns. Right. I wasn't Mr. Salt Cavern guy or Cushing, Oklahoma guy or light sweet versus very sweet crude guy or sulfur ratio guy of the crude. You know, I didn't I didn't do I didn't do deep dives into treasury yields and the 30, the 20 and the 10 year and the two year. That's not you know, I was a litigator. You know, I didn't I didn't do deep dives into treasury yields and the 30, the 20 and the 20 and the two year. That's not you know, I was a litigator before all of this and did trials and deposition had to learn a lot of material quickly and I was a I would get thrown into depositions in different cases. And so I'd have to learn a lot of things. But it wasn't really a political thing. And then I think I took for granted a lot of these things, a lot of these geopolitical events in the world, like logistical hubs for our service members. I never specifically knew the importance of the logistical hub in Bahrain and why not having logistical hubs in the area is a disaster for our troops and why having the only logistical hub in Diego Garcia is deeply problematic. I wasn't thinking, you know, I wasn't, I'm sure I knew a little bit about this stuff. But when the Trump regime, but there were experts, there were people. I think a lot of the way I think I coped with or dealt with the ignorance is at least some general view that I could be an expert in this area, the law mostly, and an expert in adjacent areas. But that there would be experts. There would be experts in this area and that area and that area who I could trust to implement very basic and complex functions in governance and generally. But seeing the destruction of experts and seeing the destruction of facts and truth and all of these things, for me, knowledge isn't simply power. Knowledge is survival. And this YouTube channel and this network of knowledge and getting the knowledge out there, not in a gamified political way, but getting out the knowledge of how these things are connected, how these things are manipulated, how these things are executed. Is truly critical and become matters of life or death. No hyperbole, no exaggeration. And so that's the moment that we're in right now. And that's what I think we're all duty bound to be doing here. Anybody and everybody that's affiliated with the Midas Touch Network is that. That's our mission. That's our collective mission with you as well. It's getting out good data. Good information, truthful information. Because these propaganda forces are deadly. And you got people like J.D. who go up there. Psycho, chameleon. Just we said, whatever. There would be an energy crisis if it wasn't for us. We saved you. We saved you. We're saving you. Truly crazy, crazy stuff. So here we are. September. 2026. We made it this far. Seriously. We made it this far. They've thrown everything at you. Literally everything. This, you know, remember when we would think about during the first Trump term? What if, what if that would have happened or, okay. We are at a point where all of. Those most dangerous and deranged things that would be floated in Trump one are thrown at us already and we've had to fight it. We've had to maneuver and there have been people who have stepped up private life, public life, internationally. There have been people who have folded, but here we are and we look ahead. To the midterms to 2027 to 2028. And we think to ourselves, we got to hold on. We got to, we got to lean on each other right now because we could get through this. I truly think we could get through this. I think we will get through this. I'm confident we will. But I also know that it's going to be very, very difficult. Because. These demonic forces and I mean that I'm not being hyperbolic. I believe demonic forces, the evil, this evil that's on this earth. People like Trump and JD and Hegseth. They're not going to give this up easily. They have a design. They have a vision. The way they view the Strait of Hormuz and Iran. The way they view Venezuela. They view humans as things to be subjugated for their own domination and their own perverted gratification. They're sick. They're sick. It's, it's not about anything. It's not about anything other than them and how sick they are and how they want to take and take. And so they're going to pull shit in the midterms. No doubt about it. They're going to pull shit in 2028. No doubt about it. They are with the male, the male ballots. We have made it this far. If you study authoritarianism, you know that almost all authoritarian regimes take over in the first 100 days and break the people's spirits. And Trump broke a lot of people in the first 100 days here. A lot of institutions fell. But the people rebuilt, whether it's independent media. Whether it's some of these incredible organizations that have brought these lawsuits. Whether it's just the people who show up to know kings or the people who have spread the word of truth. And that's the force that they didn't anticipate. But just as we see their fascism, they see the power of the people. So they're not done yet. They're going to keep on throwing wave and wave. And wave and wave of hate and venom our way. So we have to stand strong together. And we will. And we'll prevail. And by the way, when we get through this all, it's going to feel like we met the generational challenge. And it wasn't preordained that we would. So thanks for watching. Please preorder. WTF America. It's the book I wrote with my brothers. Check it out now. I just did a video as well that just dropped on the YouTube channel. Check out the video that just dropped. After this ends, go check that out. Check out the video. Check out the show I'm going to do with my brothers later, please. 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific. But make sure you get your preordered WTF America now. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate you. We're grateful for you. We'll see you next time on Ben on Breaking News. Have a good one, everybody. Preorder it now and check out the video that we just dropped on the YouTube feed. Thanks, everybody. Have a good one. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add three episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com. We'll see you next time.