Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben 9/17/2026

Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Mycelas. This is your breaking news as a result of Donald Trump's weakness, his lies, the fact that he engaged in this catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran. We see war all across the world right now. Donald Trump, who promised no more never ending wars. I'm going to bring peace to Ukraine in 24 hours. Lie, lie, lie, just like Donald Trump saying. Electricity prices would be cut in half right away and grocery prices would all of a sudden go down right away and gas prices would all be $2 a gallon. Just lie after lie. And so here we are. We saw more escalation of Russian strikes on Ukraine, Ukraine responding with strikes deep inside Russia. You have Donald Trump calling into his personal stenographer at Axios Farak-Rovid, one of Trump's propagandists who just literally post whatever Donald Trump says. And he says Donald Trump is now saying total annihilation of Iran. We're back to that. Donald Trump also says they really want to make a deal. I'm not sure I want to do a deal with him, but he's back to saying total annihilation. I have a big decision coming up. Donald Trump tells Farak-Rovid do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? It's a big decision. Anything could happen with me. Keep this posted there for a moment salty because I want to show people what Barak-Rovid did there as well. Let's just talk about what Donald Trump actually told Barak-Rovid. Trump said, "I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not?" But notice what Barak-Rovid put in there. The Iranian regime. Do I want to annihilate them? The Iranian regime. No, no, no. Trump, as he has said before, is talking about annihilating the Iranian civilization. It's not just his words. It's his actions, slaughtering little girls and menops, slaughtering little children in Lamar, slaughtering people most recently at a wedding in Syrac, and the recent bout of escalation that Donald Trump's engaged in before that slaughtering people in Kesham and he recently sold $2.8 billion worth of 5,000 bombs to Netanyahu to continue the genocide. So you don't need to fill in the Trump saying the Iranian regime. I'm talking about the people in any event. Donald Trump is losing this catastrophic war. We're back to annihilate the regime again. Should also be noted. We're seeing the consequences of the war here at home as well. A newly shaped global world order is forming. And we'll talk about that. We'll also talk about how this is impacting the cost of living, of course. It's making it far more difficult for Americans to even survive, get to that. But we see, for example, even earlier today, Prime Minister Karni speaking in front of in Brussels before the European Union Parliament talking about establishing a new global dynamic in this new multi-polar world where Canada and Europe are aligned behind their values and principles, whether that's associate membership status or something that is equally as meaningful, Karni made it clear. You know, we're not really all about nomenclature. We're about doing things, kind of another jab at Donald Trump, who just cares about naming things, Karni's about doing things. And we saw Prime Minister Karni for the first time in history being invited any foreign leader like that being invited to speak in front of the European Union Parliament, delivering a speech following the European Union state of the Union that Ursula von der Leyen delivered in the previous day. He arrived to a standing ovation. We'll cover that. We'll talk about that. Also notable here at home yesterday interest rates increased by 25 basis points to the 3.754 percent range. That's the amount that banks, the interest that banks lend each other, which trickles down to you, of course, the consumer and the forms of your mortgages and all the different types of money that you try to seek when consumers get lent money by banks. So that's all going to be going up. It's going to make housing even less affordable than it already is. But I think it's notable too, right, that Donald Trump tried to criminally prosecute Jerome Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who Donald Trump appointed during Trump's first term. All Biden, it was re-extend the guy's term. But because Trump called Powell too late, Powell because Powell would not decrease interest rates, not only to Donald Trump, bully him and try to push him out. Donald Trump tried to get the guy criminally prosecuted and Powell had to quash all of these subpoenas and efforts by a grand jury that Donald Trump assembled to try to go after Powell. Why? Because Powell would not decrease the interest rates arbitrarily, right? So Trump brings in his guy, Kevin Warsh, as I had been pointing out at the time, I said, "The interesting dynamic here is that Powell's an interest rate dove," meaning he has shown a greater inclination to decrease the interest rates, to bring interest rates down. And Kevin Warsh, historically, was someone who did lots of interest rate hikes and believed in kind of stricter controls on this kind of monetary policy. And that more fed intervention in terms of increasing interest rates. So that was their reputation. Powell's reputation was a guy more likely to lower. Warsh was always a guy, historically, who raised that was like the dove hawk dynamic. So Trump brings in Warsh. And Warsh had actually been saying things, you know, to indicate he was going to raise interest rates. And he raised the interest rates. Not just him. It was the full board of the Federal Reserve. It was a 12 to nothing vote. So I think two of Trump's other picks are part of that 12 in addition to Warsh. I mean, you can say one of them is Powell. But you had, again, overwhelming bipartisan Republican administration picks Democratic administration picks 12 to zero. Why? Because inflation is surging. Why? Because Donald Trump's catastrophic war in Iran and Donald Trump's catastrophic trade wars. Everybody could have predicted this when you tariff the world. And you do it in such a way that Donald Trump did, of course, it's going to cause inflation to search. When you go involved in getting involved in a catastrophic war, everybody could have predicted what was going to happen. Iran would control the strait of hormones. And now we're seeing the secondary consequences where groups allied with Iran like the Houthis now control the Bob Mel Mondob straight, all of Western Yemen and thus the Red Sea. And we see the major damages across the East West pipeline in Saudi Arabia. As Saudi Arabia has its proxies in Yemen. And its proxies have been pushed out by the Houthis. And now you have MBS kind of on the ropes. And that's a big issue for MBS that he's out of interceptors. The way Trump's out of interceptors because MBS and Saudi Arabia, they get their weapons from the United States. So he's out there begging the UK and France and others and Egypt. We need weapons. We're out of weapons over here. And now they're saying, look what the Houthis are doing. The Houthis seem to be shooting drones over Mecca. And so we need to activate the Sunni Alliance over here. And then the Houthis like we didn't do that in the videos you're showing are from 2025 in Medina, not Mecca, tomato, tomato. I mean, it's a different place. And also we're not doing it. And it's just fascinating to me that you have the Masad, Netanyahu, you have Sencom commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, and you have MBS. They're all meeting in Saudi Arabia. And one of the things that comes out of it is they said, look, aha, it looks like the Houthis are going after the Sunnis and look they're attacking Mecca. Everybody in the Houthis like we're not attacking Mecca like we're doing it. We're not doing that. And the video that you're showing from 2025 was a strike on Israel and the drones nearby. But that's Medina. And so what are we even talking about here? So I just, I want to cue you in on these dynamics that are happening. I spend a lot of time focused on the morning on global issues. Because to me, it's the most pressing issues that are out there. And it's ultimately impacting what's happening here, you know, in the United States. So I showed, for example, how foreign minister Arrog Ji, Iran's foreign minister, met in Beijing with the foreign minister of China, Wang Yi. Look at them over there meeting together cooperating, talking about coordination with each other. It's interesting, right? Because Treasury Secretary, best interest is like anybody who cooperates with Iran. We're coming after. We're coming after. What are you going to come after them with? Like a grape pupon. What are you going to come after them with a five? We're going to come after you, Beijing with a five course meal. We're going to give you the best damn steak dinner, Donald Trump. We're going to do a tea party for you. I mean, you guys, Xi Jinping coming in next week and all you see at the White House is their preparations. You know, it reminds me of Brigham Tin. What's that show on Netflix? We're doing a ball with Xi Jinping at the White House. And that's going to teach you. You've been naughty Xi Jinping. What's it called? Brighter tin. Brigham Tin. My wife watches this show. We're going to do a ball. And that's going to show you not to do any cooperation with Iran. We're learning more. Xi Jinping did a good report. We didn't need their report to tell us this. That Russian satellites were utilized to help Iran target U.S. bases in the region. But I have access. We all have access to a lot of these, the satellite footage that exists. I show you the satellite footage on a daily basis of what's going on there. I mean, this stuff is actually fairly accessible at there. But anyway, CNN did the report that that helped Iran with its targeting. And then you had at the United Nations moments ago, you had China and Russia blocking, or vetoing, United Security Council resolution that the U.S. backed extending international sanctions against Iran. And so, M.B. Gallebaugh for Iran's parliament leader posted that this is the end of the unipolar order. We're not going back to that. And we're -- and then thank China and thank Russia for that veto that happened moments ago. And, you know, what -- well, you know, this is complicated stuff. I mean, this is complex stuff, right? And so, all of this is going on. You've got Donald Trump, like, out there. What was he doing last night when he came back from North Carolina? He was in Qatari Air Force one, right? Isn't that just a symbol of all of the corruption? He's on Qatari Air Force one. And then he's reading something that says, like, demolish the Kennedy Center. How we're going to -- as you look through the window, and you see it, it says, Kennedy Center demolition right there. And that's what he's fixated on because the federal judge is not letting him change the name to Trump Kennedy Center without Congress. All the judge said is, look, you control all branches of government. Congress wants to pass a law, resolution honoring you to put your name on the Kennedy Center. That's fine. You can't just do it. Can I engrave it? Can I want to engrave it? I won't change the name, but I need to put my name on it. And the judge is like, no, you can't do that. We're not going to let you do that. No. We're blocking that. And then, Donald Trump, okay, well, it's demolished. I'm destroying it. I'm destroying it. Okay. What do you like? A little baby? What are you doing? I'm destroying it. A legal observer who was on-premises yesterday said that she observed a forklift brought on by the Trump regime, just smashing into the pillars. Smash, smash, smash, smash, smash. Like a terrorist. Not like. Trump is a terrorist in my opinion. He engages in terrorist attacks. Absolutely 100% in my opinion. Feel free to have your own opinion. Mine's protected by the First Amendment, as it should be. And so, that's what Trump is engaged in. While you have a very serious global dynamic, that's taking place, right? This is, it is complicated stuff. International diplomacy was very complicated, but the U.S. not only was able to deal with it, we led the post-World War II global architecture that actually benefited the U.S. Whether you like or didn't like the post-World War II global architecture, the rules-based system that existed was kind of a heads-eye windtails you lose if you're the United States. It benefited the United States. People had to park their money into the United States. It enriched the United States. It allowed the United States to focus more on a service-based economy and other things. And it allowed the United States to have things that other countries were looking that they wanted to have, right? And so Trump said that was unfair, though. That system was unfair, okay? So, you know, a new rules-based order is forming. And now, you know, there are some people who debate this with me. Go, what's not rules-based? It was rules-based under the U.S. And now it's not rules-based. And now it's just the kind of the law of the strong, law of the jungle. A part of that may be true, but it's a rules-based. The rules will be rigged in ways that the U.S. rigged the rules before. Now, I think an accomplishment, perhaps, of the U.S. rules-based order, in one of the ways it was designed with the mutually assured destruction type doctrine, was how do we avoid world war? How do we avoid world war three? Not how do we avoid wars, because there have been plenty and devastating and catastrophic ones. Nor do I want to pontificate that the U.S. was this, oh, he's just this great country that did all these amazing things internationally. And it was always so peaceful, okay? Spare me. We should have an honest discussion about intervention and history and other catastrophic wars, not just this one in Iran, but there's a series of them and we can spend 20 podcasts going through that history. But there is a new rules-based order. The rules, though, are just not going to favor the U.S. The U.S. is going to be weaker and far weaker and left out, left out of the club. And, you know, Donald Trump can feel like, oh, look, she loves me and Putin loves me. I mean, you know, their actions are making it very clear where their allies are with each other, with Iran, with North Korea, with bricks. Trump keeps attacking NATO. And so Prime Minister Karne gets the hint, and Prime Minister Karne is like, got it. Understood, all right? EU. And EU is like, got it. Prime Minister Karne. Karne is a very, very, very sophisticated operator. I mean, this is no dummy. I mean, this guy is actually genius. And one of the smartest minds out there, Canada picked right. They picked the smartest guy. The U.S. picked the most malicious and dumbest guy, right? The U.S. picked the bank ruptured and Canada picked the most impressive central banker in history who also is charismatic to boot, right? I mean, this guy ran Bank of England and Bank of Canada during volatile times, knows how to coalition built and he's showing how he can do that on an international stage, where you have Donald Trump tearing apart the prior rules based order. That's what we're seeing. We need to call it what it is. We need to frame it. We need to have honest discussions. And of course, we have an election coming up. That's a big deal. We'll talk in this episode too about how Donald Trump's approval is plummeting. We'll talk about election. We have to. I mean, it's coming up. But my broader point that I talk about frequently on this channel is that if we just focus on the gamification of politics and election like it's sport, which team do you support, which team don't you support, we fail to understand that we should be focused on America and our role also as citizens of the world and what that means to try to create a more prosperous country, more prosperous world, to try to build bridges, not blow them up or threaten to annihilate for the sake of stealing oil and stealing resources as Donald Trump boasts and brag about. And so we need to have I think a broader sense of what we're doing here. What's the role of governance? Why do we have a politic to begin with? What's the point of all of this? It should not be so that we become non-consensual extras in a dystopian reality show where we wake up and are psychologically tortured by a regime every day. That's not what politics should be period full stop. And I think the American people are recognizing it, but we got to get out of this hell by diagnosing what the generational traumas inflicted have been and how we got here in the first place. So let's just take a look, though, what's going on across the world right now? And I'll show you we'll zoom in right now in Odessa. I want to share with you over the here. So it's horrific strikes on a residential complex in Odessa overnight. You'll see what it looks like as people in Odessa and Ukraine were sleeping. Here's the scene. Let's take a look at what it looked like. Let's play it. That's every night. That's every night in Odessa. That's every night in Kiev. I'll show you. This is the Russian missiles that kept raining down on Kiev one after another. Show you this one. Let's play it. Now we'll take you to Rostov in Russia where Selinsky striking refineries there, striking infrastructure there, striking airfields there. Let me show you what it looked like overnight in Rostov in Russia. Let's play it. Now I'll show you what the air defenses look like over Rostov as well. This is Rostov number two. Let's play the other Rostov clip. Also a busy night in the Yarsavol area where oil refineries were attacked. That's in Russia as well. So Linsky continuing to strike refineries there. Here is one in Yarsavol last night. Let's play it. Now I remember growing up when there were wars, it would be what news focused on it. They would show you the footage. Do you remember that? I mean, and now in this increasingly propagandized media environment, you don't see that. I want to give a shout out to all the open source intelligence community that makes this available online. And it's accessible to me, to the Midas Touch Network. Yes, we have boots on the ground and we hope that we contribute to the corpus of information that's out there, right? I mean, we did a documentary with Ken Harba, Drone Hunters, where he was actually on the. front lines of the war, a minus-touch corresponded it was on the front lines of the war, shooting down Russian Shahi drones with Ukrainian soldiers. Have you seen the drone hunters? You should watch it. So we're there. We can't be everywhere. Then we can't be there all the time. It's also incredibly dangerous to have people there all the time or frequently. But a lot of the stuff's out there. We need to see it. This is what's going on in the world right now. And this is what Trump promised on day one that he was going to solve. That he would end the war on day one. And now he wants to blame Ukraine for the surge in diesel when it's mostly caused by his catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran. But in any event, Trump was the guy who said that he would resolve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. So here he is in September saying it's because of the war, I didn't resolve in 24 hours that I promised that diesels. People aren't buying this anymore. Trump supporters aren't buying this anymore. Magas done with us. Independence are beyond done with it. Democrats have never been with it. But that's really where we are. And then it just seems every day you get a suspicious event like this. And I'm not here to try to throw a conspiracy theory. So I try to be very careful with my reporting. But it just seems there's a lot of F-15s and F-16s and Apache helicopters and black hawks that are like crashing all over the place, right? This morning, a US F-16 fighter jet went down in Blair Township, Northern Michigan near County Road, 633 in Blair Town Hall Road right there. The initial reports were that the pilot remained conscious. But yet another here in F-16, by the way, F-15 was shot down over Yemen, the Houthis posed in front of one of those. We've talked about a number of black hawks and Apache's that have been going down to here and abroad. And go back to May of 2025. Remember when the US was striking the Houthis in May of 2025. Remember the signal gate, the signal chat? That was all about the US strike on the Houthis in Yemen back in 2025. Remember that? Remember all the aircraft that was falling off the ships? Remember that? It was like another helicopter fell off the ship, a plane fell off the ship. And now I think we can reflect on it and go, oh, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened? What really happened there? This regime lies about everything. So why wouldn't they lie about that? I guess for some time we thought, well, it's sent comments this. So they're not going to lie about that. No, they're going to lie about that. They're going to lie about the casualty accounts. They're going to lie about the damage to the bases. They're going to lie about actually every damn thing. Right. WTF America's our book. Make sure you pre-order it right now. It comes out in October. But the pre-order momentum is really, really good. We put our lives work into this. We dedicated to you. And it's based on the Midas mighty. It tells our backstory. Like some people didn't realize my backstory about representing Colin Kaepernick. So I did that interview with Colin Kaepernick yesterday. And people were like, I don't know that you were Colin Kaepernick's lawyer and that you started the autopsy initiative with Colin or that, yeah, Colin was formative in how we started Midas Touch because I saw and was with him when he was leading a people-powered movement then. And it really kind of dawned on me about what that meant. And that was very informative in creating Midas Touch. So it was a very important interview for me to do. And Colin's like family to me. So I give you that disclosure at the outset, my relationship with Colin. But we put a lot of this in WTF America as well. Colin was out with his book, the perilous fight. That's why I was interviewing him. It was a great conversation. So hopefully you've checked that interview out. All right. First break of the show, we will be right back after this quick message. This episode of the Midas Touch podcast is brought to you by our friends at Wildgrain. I love Wildgrain. They deliver sourdough breads, seasonal pastries, and French butter from small independent bakeries right to your door. And everything bakes straight from frozen in 25 minutes or less with simple recognizable ingredients you could actually pronounce. So you can enjoy warm bakery quality goods without worrying about them going stale. And you could customize your box with classic gluten free vegan or protein options and skipper cancel anytime. So if you're looking for an easy way to enjoy bakery quality food at home, I definitely recommend giving Wildgrain a try. The fan favorite apple cider donuts, which are my favorite too. 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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 82 Medicare. That's 82 Medicare. Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. Have I told you lately how much I enjoy spending time with you on Ben on breaking news? Now, I love spending time with you when I'm with my brothers. This is like, this is in, this is solo. This is, this is, you know, this is me riffing for an hour with the Midas mighty. So it's great. Although I equally like my time with my brothers and you, remember to check and check it out tonight at eight Eastern five Pacific. And I always try to cover different things and a little bit of a different focus from what the brother show is, what this show is. And so I think you probably have seen that by now. I want to talk about Prime Minister Carney speaking before the European Union parliament. First time that's ever happened in the European Union parliament history comes the day after the state of the European Union by their president of the European Union Commission Ursula Von der Leyen. It should be noted that the EU's been making a lot of moves as well. They've been working on doing the mother of all deals as they called it with India, right, as Trump's kind of shunned India and embraced Pakistan over India and kind of pick that side and did it in a way that was also like giving the middle finger to India. There's a way to thread the needle difficult, of course, given the relationship there between India and Pakistan. But the way Trump went about it, pretty stupid, putting it lightly. But Pakistan did invest in a lot of Trump crypto, world liberty financial. I believe Dodd Jr. and Erick's drone company announced in the past 24 to 48 hours that they got a big memorandum of understanding by Field Marshal Munir of Pakistan. So, you know, that was very important to the Trump family, very, very important to them. But look, Trump's made it very clear in public documents that his desire is to destroy the European Union. That was America's foreign policy plan going into this year, literally said to like destroy the European Union. It's kind of like support groups that want to destroy the European Union. And so, that's what they're going about trying to do. So, you have, you know, these, this tension of, you know, this, this pretending that the US, you know, there are some people want to pretend NATO, especially once they pretend that Article 4, Article 5, will be honored by the United States, which I think we all know sadly. Article 4 and Article 5 under Trump is a fiction. Like, do we actually think that Article 4 and Article 5, Article 4's consultation 5 is joint defense. Trump's never going to honor it. I mean, there was another ship speaking of, you know, as we talked about the headline of this episode, you know, Trump creating World War III, there was a Turkey flagship off the waters by Romania that were struck, likely by Russian Shahid. And there have been multiple ships that have been hit off the coast of Romania. NATO member, like, you know that, right? Like, so, and there have been numerous acts that in normal times would trigger at least Article 4, perhaps Article 5 of NATO, but this is what Putin's been kind of poking and testing and he has got his answer. He's got his answer, right? Donald Trump just so, so happy to see she, so happy to talk about Putin and what's interesting as well. just to give you this dynamic. The House and Senate passed the sanctions bill. That would sanction countries and companies that do business with Russia. It's a second, it's Lindsey Graham secondary sanctions bill. But it's kind of at the discretion of Trump to faithfully execute the law. China's already come up with a statement as has Russia saying nobody should abide by the sanctions decree. And the issue will be how will it ultimately be implemented? And my I suspect while in theory, the sanctions, you know, passed the House and the Senate will Trump actually implement them. I have my doubts given Trump's relations with Putin, given what we just saw with the top U.S. diplomat or someone who shouldn't be a diplomat but who has that title in Belarus. Speaking with Lukashenko over there with what would cough and Kushner are doing. So like let's let's be real here about what's really happening. I digress, though. I'll go back to Prime Minister Karni, zigzagged a little bit there. Prime Minister Karni speaking at the European Union Parliament, talking about how Canada, we are not fair weather allies. We do not pursue zero some deals. And obviously this is a reference to what Trump does. Zero some deals and also fair weather allies would actually be a compliment to Trump. Like if Trump was called fair weather ally, that's really generous here. Play this clip. We are not fair weather allies. Our commitment to the rule of law and our unyielding defense of human dignity, individual freedom and democracy share the same deep roots, the same unwavering dedication. We hold common values for which we have always fought and in whose defense we must always remain vigilant. We believe that a strong economy is not an end in itself but a means to adjust society. We are committed. We are committed stewards of our natural heritage. We believe that our prosperity grows when it's shared these values. This is a sharing of choice, not coincidence. I mean, let's contrast that. Salty, you pick any clip. I don't even care which one it is. Just why don't we just do random clip of Donald Trump from last night? Let's do it this way. I really don't even want to know, Salty. Don't even tell me the clip of Trump we're going to play. I don't want to even know what it is. Seriously, I'm telling the end. Don't show me because they're all going to be the. I'm the greatest. It's all so unfair. We shouldn't do this. We shouldn't do that. You had Prime Minister Karney here. Now just pick any of the clips of Trump from last and you'd ever end them. And I've delivered on every single promise I made and far more than the promise. I may promise. I, I, I, I, me, me. Okay. Now let's show any clip of Prime Minister Karney from his speech and parliament. Let's play him. An alliance that builds resilience for what it allows us to do for our citizens and our citizens to do for themselves. An alliance strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices. An alliance open enough that others can join an alliance principled enough that our strength reinforces international law rather than seeks to replace it. All right. Now pick any Trump clip from last night at random. I have to say you have a little higher you have a higher it's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that it's a little more it's even if it was frankly even it was a lot more but that's going to come tumbling down that's going to be like a rocket ship in reverse. One more clip of Karney and then we'll we'll we'll end this game here. Play this clip. It's these motivations these fundamental motivations combined with our latent hard power mean that we can help to create the next just stable and prosperous world order. A Canada EU alliance would create a beacon for other democracies and alliance to not define by what we oppose but about what we are for. Freedom solidarity prosperity sustainability. And now pick any of the Trump ones. rocket ship in reverse and don't forget they never want to talk the fake news about Venezuela. We took out Venezuela in 48 minutes and and now we have all our big oil companies going there and we're working along with the government of Venezuela very well the relationship is extraordinary we're taking out millions and millions of barrels of oil and I can't get the press to talk about it because they don't want to talk about it because they'd never seen anything like it before when they say to the victor belong the spoils that's one of the greatest cases anyone's ever seen in history we paid back the cost of our war many times over and you watch what's going to happen around it's going to be a really good conclusion it's going to and it's going to happen it's going to I say it's going to be a little bit after the election but maybe not maybe it's before the election and just and I play another one of Trump anyone and if we stop trading with every country that we have a deficit with which is most of them and which would be very easy to do would make at least one point five trillion dollars a year we do that because it's almost like a reflex you get the point you get the point I mean who would you want to deal with right I mean just think about that behavior right there and I don't even view this as a political thing at all I view this as as I first we should establish the floor of leadership as grown-up behavior decency integrity and intention of let's just say grown-up behavior as the floor then from there I hope that we can rise and ultimately have people who are amongst the most qualified become public servants and give back you know I saw this the other day professor Jeffrey Sachs was on a podcast notable professor he was describing the difference between US Trump cabinet and the rest of the world and notice it's very similar to how I describe things and so rather than me just aping what he says let me just show you let me just show you what he says specifically let's play it I think we should understand we have a cabinet of 35 people not one of them is trained in technical skills not one there's one bachelor's degree one bachelor's degree in electrical engineering no other training at all on technical issues and not one single research PhD degree in the cabinet as opposed to China where it's half the cabinet basically is science and technology and research PhDs in other words weren't led by drifters and fools sorry straight out and they're incompetent and they're arrogant and they don't even know how to ask a question it's to me sometimes it says basic as that it says basic as that I mean look when you've lost maga grifter propagandist Benny Johnson when you've lost Benny Johnson this is what he said earlier today let's play it everybody like you just can't I mean just it's just the biggest political swing and miss in my lifetime has been not keeping the two dollar gas that we had in December and January and that's exactly where we that's where we were this were the market where the market was headed was to most people paying less than two dollars a gallon for gas it was the nationwide average was two dollars exactly on I just checked it this morning on December 31st 2025 that was the nationwide average for a gallon of gasoline yeah what happened I wonder what happened you know but then he'll be like I think maybe Trump's getting bad advice. Oh, since Trump is whole life, since Trump is whole life, his whole life has been bankruptcy after bankruptcy, losing after losing, being a sexual predator, being a predator, right? I mean, this is a guy who is a felon, right? He was found in the business records, a felon. This is a person who's a fraud. I heard people say, Ben, don't call him a con artist 'cause it has the word artist in it. And he may like the word artist, I think, I don't know. You know, he's a con, he's a fraud. The whole thing is that, right? And I guess as we look towards the midterms, the world sees it now, the country sees it now, but for me and I'm sure for you, you're like, but how didn't you see it before? He was always the snake. How'd you let the snake in the first time? How'd you let the snake back in? And that's what the world is really saying right now, which is, we gave you a past the first time you let the snake in. You let him in again. And here's what he's, so we're building a new order. We're building a new multi-polar structure to build resiliency. That's a word that we always hear at these big international. Resiliency, meaning resiliency against us. Resiliency against the great betrayal of the country that built the post war to architecture that enriched that country, putting into office a grifter who claimed the ring system, which was helping the architect, the US of the structure was unfair to them. It's ridiculous. Let's take our last quick break of the show, a reminder. WTF America is the book that I wrote with my brothers. It comes out October 20th. I keep on talking about it because I poured my life's work in the journey into this book. And if anything were to happen to me or anything like, this is one of the things I want to be out there to think about generational change, to think about global dynamics, to think about how we got in this mess. And it didn't just happen with Trump. We go back in time and we talk about, we go back in time to the enlightenment and liberal democracy and authoritarianism. We go into all of these concepts as well in the book. So, get your copy now. Let's take our last break of the show. We'll be right back. Saturday nights with my wife and friends, Sunday mornings with my kids. Those are both non-negotiables. Z-biotics pre-alcohol is the small thing I added that made the whole weekend easier. Z-biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to break down acetaldehyde, a byproduct of drinking alcohol. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme that is designed to break down this byproduct. Pre-alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly and enjoy your next day activities. Z-biotics has sold more than 14 million bottles and earn the trust of thousands, including us. For me, it fits perfectly into the routine. 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I'm just them trying to think like, if you're watching our system and you're in another country and you're like, oh my god, you Trump, what are you guys doing? And then you're like, after Lindsey Graham dies, it's like his sister who's like, I don't know where Taiwan is. We don't care about that. Taiwan, what is that, a typhoon? You're talking about typhoons? Typhoon fall. People are like, the sister becomes the senator. Like what, explain to me your system. And then you have people who are like kind of, I wanna say it, I wanna be, I don't wanna be grim. People who don't look fully there, like Mitch McConnell. And then because he doesn't know how to vote, 'cause he can't speak and he doesn't know where he is, then they tell him what to vote for. And he's just, I don't wanna do the impression. Just don't do the impression. Don't know, this is not where you do impressions. Do not do it, do not do it, do not do it. Okay, I'm not gonna do it. No one, people tell me, don't do the impressions. Be a serious newscaster. I'm not gonna do a Mitch McConnell, don't do it. Okay, let me show you, let me show you, don't do it. Let me show you the clip of Mitch McConnell, let's play it. >> The question is on reporting the Agriculture Act of 2026 as amended as an original bill, the clerk will call the roll. >> Senator Klobuchar. >> No. >> Senator Bennett. >> No. >> Senator Smith. >> No. >> Senator Durban. Senator Booker. >> Senator Luhan. >> No. >> Senator Warnock. >> May I come back for a little while? >> Senator Welch. >> No, come back for a little while. >> Senator Federman. >> No. >> Senator Schiff. >> No by proxy. >> Senator Slotkin. >> No by proxy. >> Senator McConnell. >> No. >> Okay. >> No. >> All right. >> Senator Hovin. >> All right. >> That's our system for you right there. Okay, but what about the speaker of the House, Maga Mike Johnson, right? What about him? Recess Congress so everybody needs to go home. Nothing, nothing all that important to do apparently right now. Right after a war powers resolution passed in the House. Right after Thomas Massey introduced articles of impeachment against Pete Hegg said. Let's talk about what Maga Mike had to say. Here's what Maga Mike said. Let's play it. >> The House has done its job here. We're on a 48 hour notice to return as necessary. So we're very hopeful that our colleagues in the Senate can send us bills of substance over here so that we can continue to move that along through the process and get bills to the President's desk. We're awaiting that action. So House Republicans are going now back to our districts. We're going to make the case of the American people on what we have delivered on their behalf. The media certainly doesn't do this for us, so we've got to go tell them the truth. And that truth is huge impact when the people are reminded of what we've done. >> Irony is that the media is their biggest friend right now. The media couldn't be helping them more, but the people have been so harmed by what this regime has done that the media controlled now by right wing money can't overpower the people power. That's the reality of what the situation is. The media is not doing a job. No, no, no, it's that you ripped away people's health care. You put Gestapo on the street. You created an SS with ice and border patrol and you put them on the street to hunt down people and throw them into cages and you built concentration camps. And then you got into trade wars against the world, including with our closest ally. I Canada but all of our close allies you lost the trade war against the world. You then started catastrophic wars around the world like the catastrophic war in Iran. You slaughtered little children. You keep on giving more money to the Netanyahu regime to slaughter little children, slaughter little girls. You cover up the sex trafficking of little girls with the Epstein files. You rip away rural health care hospitals. I mean what do you you you want data centers and everybody's backyard. You told us that AI regulation what what what what did the guy you heard what the guy said today? The head of which which one which one was it? Palantir. The Palantir guy he's like regulation of AI like don't tell me to wear condom. What if we don't want to wear condom? Am I going to look at what are you talking about? You're like AI should be unregulated and AI and data centers everywhere if you want to be rich. I mean like we look at what y'all have done. I mean on every issue you've taken your ranchers you destroyed the lives of thick you went group by group like how do we destroy the lives of ranchers? Got it. Let's bring in mystery meat. Let's undercut our ranchers by 25% but let's tell them we love them and let's see if that will convince them what about our what about our farmers. Let's make all the input costs so much higher. Let's get rid of their export markets and let's get involved in a catastrophic war which further increases their inputs costs. Let's let's let's do that. Let's do that. We'll tell them we love them. Manufacturing let's just lie and say we brought in $20 trillion and they're all of these plants being built but let's not actually build the plants but let's just tell them that they're getting richer and then let's crush everybody with inflation. Let's just pick on nurses for the sake of it and just tell them that they're not professionals. What else should we do? Let's spread measles. Let's spread them measles everywhere. That's what Americans are really looking for. Let's keep talking about ballrooms and demolishing the Kennedy Center. Let's take a fork lift and just keep on ramming the pillars of the Kennedy Center. Let's let's keep on doing that. Let's tell people repeatedly that they're rich and living a golden age. Well, Donald Trump flies around in a cattari jet that's for the reason is an Air Force one. Let's cheer on. Let's keep on. Let's just keep this. This is where they know people know. Man, they're like, what do you do? The hell was. Let's get what we should get rid of. What? Weather. Let's get whatever. What do you mean? Let's get rid of weather services. You don't want that? Really? We know we should fire. Fima. Really? How much? How many people? Half of them? Half of Fima? You want to fire half of Fima? Yeah. Why? Why do you want to fire? Half of Fima? Ungrateful. Ungrateful. Excuse me? Yeah. What are you talking about? Yeah, we're going to have to college is two. We're going to go after college is why? Woke? Like which ones? Like all of them? We'll start with Harvard and yeah, we'll go after one by one. Really? What else you're going to do there? Everything is done to inflict. It's like point by point to cause harm to the American. What about greenhouse gas emissions? Spread it. What do you mean spread it? Spread it. Not real. What do you mean it's not real? Yeah. So what? Beautiful coal. Big, big, beautiful coal. What do you mean? Coal? You know, there's a lot of green new energy. Most countries are seeing that's the future. It creates jobs. Yeah. Okay. The American people see this. It's crazy. You can y'all y'all are like lunatics. That's why I always get asked. It's like, ah Ben, how do you do the political messaging? And I repeatedly told you, I'm like, don't ask you that. I'm not a political messaging guy. Okay. If you really enjoyed this experience, then I hear psychotic in my view. Like if you've actually true or you're a small group of people who got very wealthy under Trump, which is is right when all the guard billionaire buddies. But otherwise like if you truly like this, then like you just like you like being like there's nothing I can convince you. You enjoy being treated like shit. There's nothing I can do. But I suppose the good news is that a lot of Americans don't like this. Harry Anton unpacks. We'll do the first one first. How Trump is breaking records. Talk about Trump. Record breaker. Harry Anton does a good job explaining it. Let's play it. I want to congratulate Donald Trump, the president of the United States, because he is breaking records. He is literally breaking records. Yesterday, the Marquette University Law School poll came out and take a look here. Trump's worst net approval rating on inflation minus 61.61 points underwater. That is the worst that Donald Trump has ever pulled on inflation. And not only is it the worst that Donald Trump has ever pulled on inflation, it is the worst that any president ever has pulled on inflation. This is literally the worst net approval rating on inflation for any president. It is truly record breaking. Congratulations, president. Trump. You're breaking records, but perhaps not in the way that you wished. Worse than Carter. Worse than Jimmy Carter. Worse than Reagan. Worse than Reagan. Worse than Biden. Worse than Biden. He is worse than all three of those. And he is worse than any poll he has ever had himself with this minus 61 points literally the worst of all. But literally, how isn't it minus 99? I mean, who goes around and goes, I think the inflation is good right now. I'm just curious. By the way, Trump's own guy, Kevin Worse, who was picked to lower interest rates. He said inflation is bad. That's Trump's literal inflation guy. It was like, yeah, this is really bad. This is really bad. It's so bad. We are unanimously raising interest rates by 25 basis points to 375 to 4.0 to 4%. Who's the who's the who's the who's that other core group of the remaining 39 is like, you know what? This is the golden age. This is it. I mean, I see some of them at these events. You know, it's like they're cheering for, you know, Shamu, you know, in C world, you know, as he, you know, does the jerk off YMCA dance? They'll go, they're doing the jerk off dance. Look at him doing. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy stuff that there's, you know, still a group of people who will be with them through the last pump. It's really just been through a while. But fortunately, most most Americans are like, yeah, that's like actually a psychotic human. That's like a lunatic. That's a sexual predator. Like that's a real deviant right there. That's just that. Just what about Hegsitt? What do people think about Hegsitt? Let's play this clip. Where is his, where is Hegsitt's popularity right now? You know, we start off the title slide asking who hates Hegsitt? And basically everyone, if you're in the American public, no wonder, no wonder the speakers sent everybody home because just take a look here. Okay, Hegsitt's net approval. You know, back before the Iran war started back in January of 2026, right? It was minus nine points. You think that's though. Look at this. He's more than twice as unpopular, nearly three times as unpopular now and his net approval rating minus 25 points. How about among independents? You think that minus nine is about minus 20 before the war started. You think that minus 20? So how about minus 43 points among independents now? No wonder, no wonder, no wonder, speaker Johnson did not want his Republicans representatives to actually have to vote on this because if they voted with the president, they'd be voting against the American public because the bottom line is Pete Hegsitt is hated by basically. Yeah, just think about it. Our Congress is not working because they're working with Trump to cover up child sex trafficking and to block the impeachment of the Secretary of Defense, who's a war criminal who should be tried in the Hague undisputed. I mean, the guy is a war criminal. He is up there with every major war criminal period full stop. The blood is on his hands. And I believe in my opinion that it is disqualifying if you're going to run for president in 2028. If your position is not, I'm going to tear down every building with Trump's name on it and I'm going to put it on live TV on day one. My view, if that's not part of your position, you should not be allowed to run for the office of the presidency in 2028 and win in my view. The other one is, I think you have to commit to a lot of accountability. But number one on that list or right up there is to hand over Hegsith to the Hague for war crimes prosecution and all of the other generals, whether that's Brad Cooper, whoever it is, who's ever determined to have engaged in these war crimes in the chain of command, who slaughtered the little children. They need to be held accountable for it. They need to be there needs to be a reckoning with the war crimes. We have to, if the United States wants to begin a process of trying to, will never be the same, but to begin the process, there has to be real accountability. You know, it's interesting, right? The way Orban will was a template for Trump's fascism, to some extent, Magyars response, at least as it relates to Orban, and Orban's regime, perhaps is a little bit of a template. But the US has to do that on a grander scale. We have to think deeper about these issues because this is not normal politics, Democrats, Republicans, this behavior that has existed by Trump and those around him are heinous. Absolutely heinous. That's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree. Everybody should be asked that. And by the way, the Midas Touch Network, do we have the stats salty of where the Midas Touch Network is on the podcast charts right now, just so people can see. And this is thanks to you right here. Number one, beating every major podcast out there. And I don't say there's just the boast, I'll look for number one, number one. This to me is a reflection of a lot of the broader trends we're seeing right now out there of Donald Trump's decline in people looking for the truth. So I think that's a good sign. But I say this because we want to host the presidential, at least one presidential debate, at least a primary on the Democrats. We're working towards that. And I think we will be able to do that. But I'll tell you one of the first questions that are going to be asked is that, you know, they're going to be a lot of questions like that. And the candidates are going to have to answer those questions. Not wishy washy, right? Is there a genocide in Gaza? Yes or no? Will you tear down the buildings on day one? Yes or no? Will you ensure that war criminals are prosecuted? Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no? Data centers and people's backyards. Yes or no? There are just some, there are, there are certain questions that just need to be asked that we need to know. And that I'd like to see all the candidates on stage and I'd like to see what they respond. I don't, I don't want to see, eh, well, you know, it's been, it's been, it's been, actually, it's, it's, it's, that is a stop. We're being like, we're in a, it's like, we're in a different, and by the way, we're in a time period also where a lot of these things are not, this is a democratic issue, this is a Republican, we're, we're, we're, we don't want these wishy washy politics, eh, you know, this, I don't want to be spun. I have no, I have no, I have no interest for that. I have no interest for that. So I think that's what the debate will look like. And then there'll be lots of other questions, tough questions, but I look forward to hosting presidential debates in the future at the minus touch now, so we'll see. Let's take a look at what Maga Republicans are doing cutting ads right here against Donald Trump. You have Maga Republican Congresswoman Salazar from South Florida. She promised her constituents that Donald Trump was not going to target immigrants unless they were the bad oom brace, she said, unless they were, unless they were actually violent criminals, she promised. In fact, she said that she spoke to Donald Trump about pathways to citizenship for people in our community. She told them, vote Trump. So she told her he's got your back immigrants. Listen to her ad right here. Let's play her ad. That's a president. Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who help you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. You can be for immigration, what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. I am Maria Elvira Salazar and I approved this message. It was interesting. I saw some people in the chat actually say, you know, Mark Kelly. I've interviewed him a few times. You know, I think we're in real serious times. You know, I think whoever it's going to be, and I don't, you know, this is not my area. I think it's going to require just real serious people who are going to come with serious proposals. And they're going to say, here's very specifically what's going to happen. And there's going to be ruthless accountability. That's who I think whether it's him or they, I see a lot of names out there. A lot of names, but a lot of people in the chat just put that out. So it's fascinating to, but also the very fact, even that, you know, you'll hear names, whether it's the Asafs or the Kamala or the Buttigiegs or the Kellys or the Newsoms or the Shapiro's or, you know, AOC and, you know, you have a whole, a whole list. I could keep going down Pritzkers and, you know, keep going down. But the very fact that this conversation starts to feel a little bit more serious now, starts to tell me, as someone put in the comment, I'm just sick thinking about the destruction of our country. But we are starting to get to the point where we can think about rebuild. And we get, we get starting to now feel, got it. The days are taken where there's going to be a midterm. The Supreme Court made the right ruling on the Malin ballots, which was good. Shout out to all the AGs. States brought those cases, right? It was important. It was important stuff. But it's starting to, starting to feel like what we've all worked for, which is really accountability more than anything. Like it's starting to feel, let's keep on going. But, you know, just like, you know, and all these things at the end, that's when these forces on the right, these mag, they're going to push extra hard towards the end. They're going to get extra desperate. So we've got to hold the light. I'll leave you with this though. I want to show you what Salazar said after Trump won the election, sadly, in November, I think it was November 11th of 2024, is this clip. So shortly after, but this is what she was saying to her constituents. And she's Cuban, her family, her family left her whole thing to her through the Cuban population, to the Venezuelan population there was, and to immigrant populations, is that Donald Trump's looking after you. And he's going to bring democracy to Venezuela. He's going to bring democracy to Cuba. He's a democracy. That's going to bring freedom. Let's take a look at what she actually said though in real time in 2024. Let's play it. So when if I may, I know our time here is limited. I'm asking about the potential deportation of hundreds of thousands of people in your community. The deportation is going to be among those criminals who are the gang members, the gutterways, the trendier agua. I am sure. Not all 200,000 undocumented in your communities. Is that what you're saying? I am sure that we're not, that the Trump administration is not going to be targeting those people who have been here for more than five years that have American kids that don't have criminal records that have been working in the economy in paying taxes. I am sure that they're going to hone in on the criminals who arrived less than four years ago, because I wrote the Dignity Act. And I am the first one who understands that you have to give some type of dignity to those who have been here for more than five years. People who have roots in the country. Not people who are coming. You saw, I mean, it's deeper than just betrayal. You killed people. Congresswoman Salazar, you have blood on your hands. You truly do. You lot. Because when Trump has engaged in these nasty portations, not of the bad oombrays as you and he were saying, which by the way, deserved to process and still we still have processes and procedures. Which under Trump went by the wayside. But you know, one of the things that we're going to have to have a reckoning with is how many people were killed by USAID being destroyed and food being burned that didn't get in the hands of starving people. How many people and little children contracted HIV and got AIDS and died because we took away their medicine. The Trump regime took away their medicine. How many people who were asylum seekers got murdered when they returned to their countries or other countries where they were sent by the Trump regime. Sometimes it is random places. We're going to have to have a reckoning with what that actually was and we're going to find out that the number is going to be staggering. It's going to be staggering. So believe you at that. Get your copy of WTF America. If you can pre-order it, don't wait until October 20th because as our publisher says it's really important for us to figure out where are we going to travel to? Where do we give to? We can see all of that based on the data. So if you can pre-order WTF America now we'll put a link in the description. We have the QR code that you can scan. You can also Google WTF America. It's by Hashtet is the publisher and grand central over here. People were asking I did do the audio. All three brothers did the audio and so we take turns in the different chapters but the audio is us and it was actually a very long experience doing the audio. We went into the studio with all the work that we're doing went into the studio and you know we had we we did it we don't each brother took sections of the book and so I think you'll like the audio it's read by us. It was important that it be read by us despite how busy we were running around doing all these breaking news hits. I wanted to make sure we did the audio ourselves and so it wasn't somebody else's voice so you'll hear that. Oh I just released a video and at the video is on what just took place at the United Nations where China and Russia vetoed the US sanctions on Iran so give that a watch. As soon as this video ends give that a watch and then what I can't wait to see you when I do the show with my brothers tonight at eight Eastern five Pacific. So we covered a lot of ground watch the other video it's loaded. I'll see you tonight at eight Eastern five Pacific. Shout out minus Mighty again the books called WTF America seriously WTF but we'll get through it as the book says we'll get out of this hell and back to democracy back to sanity. See you later. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber for our substack at Midas+ dot com you'll get daily recaps from Ron Phil Kowski add three episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at Midas+ dot com.