Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben 8/4/2026

23:46Ben Meiselas:And then there's actually been numerous other captains of these nuclear-powered submarines, or commanders rather, who have been let go kind of quietly behind the scenes. We've been following that. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back after this quick break. Before continuing, one quick PSA for the Midas Mighty when it comes to Medicare. Most Medicare agents push Medicare Advantage plans even when they're not right for you because they make more money doing it. That's why we strongly recommend you do what thousands in our audience have already done. Speak with chapter, please.

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26:32Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Mycelos. This is Breaking News. We started off the show talking about foreign policy, or I don't even think you can call it foreign policy as it relates to the Trump regime. You could just call it like foreign events happening, I guess, because there is no coherent strategy or anything. But now Donald Trump is threatening to decapitate Iran if Iran does not make the deal with Oman that Iran wants to make, that it was previously been negotiating. The point that I've been making is Donald Trump can't do deals. He only knows how to rip deals apart, whether it's the USMCA or Kuzma, as it's called in Canada, the Canadian US Mexico agreement, whether it's the JCPOA, whether it's bipartisan legislation that was carefully negotiated when Congress actually worked.

27:21Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump knows how to rip things apart, divide people, call people communists or whatever it is, but he can't build, he can't never, never in his life. He was always a destroyer, always a bankruptor. We talked about speaking of bankrupting. We talked about early on, America is out of interceptors, like virtually all, that was the reporting from Reuters, virtually all interceptors are gone. And, you know, so not only is the Arab umbrella, security umbrella gone, but if you're in Asia right now and you're an ally of the United States, you know, there's no precision. If you observed what happened in the Middle East.

28:01Ben Meiselas:Right now, China knows that it is the dominant force, not just in Asia, of course, but really throughout the world. And I think what we're going to see is a lot of these Middle East Arab nations inviting China to basically replace the United States as kind of a guarantor, if you will, for peace and stability in the region there. One of the big warnings is that the United States is not able to protect Taiwan, is not able to protect South Korea, is not able to protect Japan, you know, and that's in Asia. And then, of course, we've been covering here how back, what, three weeks ago, Trump promised interceptor licenses to Zelensky because there are no interceptors in Ukraine right now.

28:45Ben Meiselas:Trump regime promised that they would give Zelensky interceptors by selling them to Europe, and then Europe and NATO would then give them to Zelensky. but both because the U.S. ran out of the interceptors and because, in my opinion, Trump's a Putin bootlicker, but you may agree. I mean, feel free to feel how you feel. That's my opinion strongly. Donald Trump did not get the interceptors over to Zelensky and did not give the interceptor licenses to Zelensky. And then remember at the end of last week in Camp David, Trump's like, well, we don't want them to use it against us. What do you mean use it against us?

29:23Ben Meiselas:They're interceptors. They're not the ballistics. They intercept. So it would only be used against you if you invaded Ukraine. So are you literally parroting what Putin said? Because for it to be used against, it's used in a defensive posture. It's an interceptor. So it seems like literally what Putin would have said on July 4th when they spoke, saying, well, it could be used against us. So you've got that going on internationally. You've got Saudi Arabia wanting diplomacy with the Houthis in Yemen. And so it's really just a complete capitulation. You've got the market manipulation taking place at home.

30:02Ben Meiselas:You got Donald Trump getting richer by his stock trades. We know 21 ,000 stock trades last year. And then even though you had two Republican senators, Cornyn and Tillis, say they would not confirm acting AG Todd Blanche unless there was a written document rescinding the May 18th and May 19th settlement agreement. The 18th created the January 6th insurrection, anti-weaponization fund, as it was called. The May 19th agreement was the addendum that gives Donald Trump, his family, and his companies in trust full tax immunity. They can't be audited. They can't be prosecuted for tax crimes or investigated for tax crimes.

30:41Ben Meiselas:As you now know, I don't know if we've reported on this a lot, but what Blanche did instead is he gave two pieces of paper. One was an order that purports to rescind the so-called anti-weaponization fund from May 18th. The other document that Blanche posted was a press release that was referred to as an update or an update on information regarding the May 19th addendum for Trump's tax immunity, but it basically just affirmed Trump's tax immunity. Just says, yeah, he's got it. And then they try to act like, well, we limited the scope. It's not going to waive anything in the future that happens after the settlement agreement was signed.

31:22Ben Meiselas:It just goes back. It's retroactive only. We know that. I mean, that's what a settlement agreement is. You can't waive ever future unknown claims in a settlement agreement. So you've done nothing. And the order that Blanche issued was not signed by both parties. Thus, it's unenforceable. And because It's not a rescission of the settlement agreement. It's just an order regarding another order regarding the anti-weaponization fund. He could just create another order tomorrow. And we all know what he's going to do. But you have Tillis and Cornyn who were very cowardly, very cowardly. I mean, they're out.

31:55Ben Meiselas:Trump destroyed their career. What, are they so worried about being a lobbyist or making money once they leave? And they're worried that Donald Trump's going to make social media posts about them and they won't be able to get the jobs to pay him a lot of money once they leave the Senate or whatever they plan on doing, that this was what they did. And they're like, well, what else can we do? There's nothing really else we can do at this point. We're just going to have to take their word for it. I mean, take their word for it. What else can you do? You could vote against the guy. It's pretty easy.

32:22Ben Meiselas:Just vote against the guy and put in someone normal, put in someone who follows the rule of law. It could be a Republican, although they're mostly all MAGA right now, but put in someone who will follow the rule of law, put in someone who hasn't destroyed the most important foundation of the Department of Justice, which is the presumption of regularity. I mean, federal courts with judges appointed by all presidencies say the Department of Justice has lost all credibility. You know, whether you look at a David Hearn type of case with fabricated evidence that was given to a grand jury there, that was D.C.

32:57Ben Meiselas:Superior Court, whether you look in Chicago of the peaceful protesters who were indicted based on fabricated evidence there, whether you look at the first Comey indictment where Lindsey Halligan shouldn't have been in the grand jury room. We know that grand jury misconduct by these federal prosecutors under Blanche's control, the grand juries have been infected by misconduct. The DOJ has no credibility. It's basically viewed as like a like a crappy, irresponsible law firm. And from a competence, like they miss deadlines. They cite AI instead of like what the actual law is. They don't show up to court.

33:41Ben Meiselas:Their lawyers whine to the judge that they're overworked and that they don't know the facts. They don't know what their cases are about. And then of course, there's the, you know, there's the corruption. But remember, when we talk about this J6 slush fund, as I've always said, that was always the smoke screen. Trump doesn't give a crap about the January 6th insurrection. It's just like on J6 itself. What was he saying? I'm going to go with you. I've got your back. No, he doesn't. He doesn't care about them. I mean, he cares about them purely to the extent they do his bidding. And if they'll protect him, if they'll fight for him, if they'll kill for him, then he views them as a protection racket, but he doesn't really care about anything about them.

34:27Ben Meiselas:As I've always said, this is all about Trump giving himself tax immunity. That's what this whole, the whole thing was about that. Dude doesn't want to pay taxes? That's it. He made$4 billion that we know of, maybe more in the past 18 months or so, or I think the first year he made four bets, probably more than that. Tax day was April, right? Did he pay his taxes? Did he file his taxes in April? But that was tax day. So all that money that was made, right? Tax day was April. I don't know if he applied for an extension or what he did. But if you knew you were going to file, he filed this lawsuit in January, right?

35:05Ben Meiselas:So if you knew you were going to file this lawsuit and do a collusive settlement with yourself and you're Trump and you were going to do this, then what if on his, we don't know what his April tax return says, but what if his April tax return basically says zero dollars, all the money was a loss, it's all losses. And obviously that we know that is not true, but that's what he filed in April, right? The settlement agreement's May 19th. So let's say$4 billion to$6 billion in income. April, he files a tax return and says, actually, that was all losses. He could just make it look blatantly flagrant on the tax return.

35:45Ben Meiselas:How much did you make? Four or five? What was your charitable contribution? $8 billion. Just make up the number. I don't know. What's he going to do? And then on May 19th, he waives the liability to it. He waives liability to it. So I hear people who are like, oh, it's$100 million. It's whatever. It's way more than that. It's way more than that. Whether you put the capital gains tax or you put generally ordinary income tax on the$4 billion, it's at a bare minimum, a billion dollars. At a bare minimum, it's a billion dollars in taxes. And it could be as much as$2 billion in taxes that, based on the reading, if he engaged in a felony on those returns and just lied about it, he's not prosecuted for it because it happened before the settlement agreement.

36:35So what are we doing here? I understand that it happened in plain view in front of us, but what the hell are we doing here? And by the way, this morning too, when Treasury Secretary Besant was manipulating the market, he goes on CNBC. We're close to doing a deal. The market rips. NASDAQ crushes. S &P crushes. The Dow Jones crushes. They create the curve. I mean, they create the dip. And then they buy their own dips that they create. Don't you see what they buy their own dips? They create it with their policies. But what you see there, pull that up, Jeremy. That's not the experience of the American people.

37:14Those numbers right there aren't putting food inside people's refrigerators. It's not putting gas in people's cars. It's not putting medicine into people's medicine cabinet that they need to survive. life. It is not giving people health care. That number right there, that's an oligarch number right there. That green right there, the Trump, Epstein class, they love that. They love that number right there. And they're engineering this number while the American people are screwed. And then they fear monger and they go, oh, you know who you should really worry about? You need to worry about the communists and the socialists and all of these people are coming to get you.

38:02Dude, there is socialism right now. It's socialism for billionaires. There is communism right now for the billionaires. That's what exists right now. Don't you all see that? What's more communist, in my opinion, than the way Trump rules? He rules like every communist dictator that's existed. He's got his oligarch crew. He creates a social welfare state for them. He promises everybody everything. We're going to give you this. We'll give you this. You're going to get this. You're going to get rich. You're going to do all of these things. Then as he says, what's great about being a communist, you promise all these things and you don't have to deliver.

38:40Then he doesn't deliver and all his rich people get money. He runs the economy like communist dictatorships, in my opinion. And then you have Besant who shows up on CNBC with that shit-eating grin of his, with that smirk of his of, I'm better than you, I'm better than, you know, you know, this guy's just, again, these are just the biggest scumbags in the world. And you've got Besant right here asked by CNBC as though this is like funny. So Besant, I don't think I need a notepad to show you, but at the Camp David cabinet meeting, Besant put on a notepad$5 to$10 billion for Japanese yen. It said$5 to$10 billion Japanese yen.

39:26And then the media took a photograph of it. And then they were like, ooh, I guess he wasn't being careful with his notes. No, he was doing it on purpose. He wanted you to take the photo of it so that his friends can manipulate the currency markets and make a huge amount of money. That's one of the things that Besant did when he was not the Treasury Secretary. He made a lot of money in currency markets. And so they're out there trading. He's signaling to his oligarch buds what to do. Because I'm sure most 99 % of Americans, when they see something on a notepad that says$5 to$10 billion yen, most people don't know what the hell you'd, oh, you're going to bail out the Japanese yen because they're going to dump American treasury bonds if you don't bail them out.

40:18And the treasury yield 30 year is 5.2, 5.3%. And the 10 year right now is approaching 5%. I mean, people don't know what that, you know, but then they brag about it. This is CNBC, like CNBC purports to be like the bastion of capitalism, right? Like this is the, this is where you learn about the markets. We know the markets, like what they're doing here is straight up like crony communism masquerading as like, you know, or late stage capitalism, whatever you're going to call it. But you watch this and it's one big joke to them. It's one big joke. The war, the market manipulation, the suffering of people.

41:04It's like a joke. It's like a joke to them. Watch Bessett. Let's play it. I just got to ask you, you're a sly dog. When you wrote that down buy 5 to 10 billion. And the printing looks so big. You've done this before, haven't you, where you know people are looking over your shoulder? Did you need to be reminded of things to do, buy 10 to billion, 5 to 10 billion in yen? Tell me what was really going on there, Mr. Secretary. Well, I just wanted to make sure that all the reporters looking over my shoulder also knew the symbol JPY for the Japanese yen. Okay. Instead of shorthand to yourself. Yeah.

41:44You know, I was going to finish the list. You know, the rest of the list was, you know, like, go and have lunch with the Supreme Leader, play tennis with Putin. You know, but I thought I would just leave it at the buy five to 10 billion agenda. What do you think these people talk about at their country clubs? What do you think? That's what they talk about when the cameras are on them. playing tennis with Putin. And that was so funny to the host that he snorted. He snorted like a pig because that was such a funny, I'm going to play tennis with Putin. That's funny to you? I don't see the humor in it.

42:29I think that I like jokes. I like jokes, kids. I like humor. I don't see what's funny about playing tennis with Putin while you're talking about manipulating the markets and you're part of a regime that promised you would end the Russia war against Ukraine in 24 hours and it's only escalating and you're not providing patriot interceptors to Zelensky that were promised. Why is this a funny thing? Oh, you sly. You sly dog, you. Did you hear? You sly dog. What a sly dog you are. Notice, amongst that group, the Epstein class, sly dog. Oh, I am a sly dog. Oh, you are a sly dog, Scotty. Oh, I am a sly dog.

43:18I mean, that's what the F is going on there, right? Right. But Mom Donnie and other people, they're viewed as, oh, that's the threat. How dare they? They just make up things. You're going to have to have a license. You're going to have to have a license if you want to go to the grocery store. That's Mom Donnie's policy. No, it's not just made up. Where's that news coming from? Polymarket. Oh, really? Polymarket? Polymarket and Kalshi. That's the news source on Elon Musk's platform that Mamdani is forcing people to have a driver's license to go to a grocery store, which is not true. So Mamdani bringing down a violent crime in New York City to the lowest levels in history, trying to find ways to make life more affordable, freezing rent through the rent stabilization board to actually deliver on a campaign promise.

44:17That's not different than the one that Trump promised, but Trump freaking lied about. And Trump wouldn't even sign the housing affordability. On the one hand, that's viewed, Mom Donnie, radical, crazy, dangerous. Sophie Cunningham somehow is involved in, I'm not sure how, WNBA, we're angry at that, or we're supposed to be angry at that. But you sly dog, you manipulating the markets, you sly little fox, you sly fox. I'm watching, I'm like, what are you, you're talking about manipulating currency markets, you're doing it in front of us while the people are suffering. It's crazy, it's crazy stuff.

45:03By By the way, I'm going to plug the book. Don't get mad at me for plugging the book. People are like, oh, you plug the book all the time.

45:09Ben Meiselas:WTF America addresses the stuff that's not being talked about. Pre-order it right now. It comes out in October. The publisher says the pre-orders are super helpful and there's huge momentum. But we talk about concepts like that. The WTF concept and the thesis is we got to take a step back here. I know tonight there's big election in Wisconsin. I get it. I get it. There are some great candidates. There are some great candidates. And it's an important election. I don't want to downplay it. Okay. But we have to step back and we have to reflect on the whole system, right? What corporate news and what the oligarchs try to frame as radical or like far left.

45:58Some of this stuff is not radical at all, like giving people healthcare, getting people education, getting people jobs, making sure there's not massive wealth. These are not radical concepts. What is radical to me is Project 2025, ripping away people's healthcare, having Trump do 21 ,000 stock trades, fuck doing golden ballrooms, engaging in never-ending wars and having fake negotiations in your mind like the kid on Sixth Sense, I see dead people, I see the Ayatollah. That's something you want to talk about radical stuff. What I'm watching, that's radical. But the people with the power structures and then their corporate news, they want to frame these things, heads I win, tails you lose, before the game even begins.

46:53and they frame it. Oh, we're fiscal hawks. We're fiscal concern. You ain't fiscal hawks. You run up the debt more than anybody. We're China hawks. What do you mean you're China hawks? You gave China all of our classified semiconductor chips and then you gave UAE it as well. And then they gave it to, they're likely going to give it to China. What do you mean you're a hawk? You're a hawk? You ain't a hawk? You're running up massive deficits. The debt's 40 trillion. Donald Trump's responsible for like half of it, like 47. You ain't hawks, fiscal hawks, but I'm a fiscal conservative. I'm a state's right.

47:27You ain't state's rights. You ain't fiscal conservative. So one of the thesis in WTF America is, yes, it is. Yes, I get it. This election's important. Midterms are important. But we got to step back. We got to understand how the game is rigged at a generational level. That's what we have to call out. That's what we aspire to do here. Of course, I got to do rapid response videos. I got to talk about what's happening today. What's happening here? Here's what happened. Here's what happened. Here's what happened. It's breaking news, but we have to step back and see the bigger picture. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

47:58We'll be right back.

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51:29Ben Meiselas:Welcome back, everybody. You know, as we think about the Michigan primary, I think I may have said Wisconsin, I'm in Michigan. We talk about the Michigan primary tonight and we talk about the elections coming up. I mean, it's critical. It's critical. It absolutely is. And so I certainly don't want to downplay the importance of primaries. I don't want to doubt. In fact, I want to make sure I always emphasize the importance of voting, participating, getting your voice out there, joining local community groups and ensuring that your vote is heard, protecting the right that you have to vote. What I want to focus on WTF America, what I want to focus on sometimes here is that it seems obvious that the people who rigged the game, the oligarchs, the people who are pouring in the hundreds of billions of dollars, they set up constructs that are traps for fights to happen along almost gamified kind of framework.

52:43Ben Meiselas:And that it's this team and it's that team and it's this team and it's that team. And I get naturally when we talk about elections, there's going to be this team. I get, you know, someone's going to win. There is a competition to it, right? There is. That's just part of it. But what you got to pull back and also recognize is that we are on the American team. And what we have to recognize is who is screwing us over? Who is causing us harm? What is the purpose of governance? What are we actually trying to accomplish in an election? Who is representing our interests? Who is calling out the injustices here and abroad?

53:24Ben Meiselas:Who's going to be delivering on an agenda that actually helps the people? And what I think is, again, very, very important is we don't lose sight of the very fact that sometimes we can fall into traps that are already being created by the people who are working on behalf of powered interests to create disunity when there's actually a great deal of unity among the American people. And I firmly believe that there are a lot of issues that are 70-30 and 80-20 issues that most Americans agree on. But then you'll always have the power structure try to divide us into camps or tribes or religions or races or throw in immigration or culture wars.

54:19Ben Meiselas:because the more divided people are, the less people will agree on the same 70-30 or 80-20 or 80-20 issues. I want to go back though, you know, because, you know, even CNBC, you know, after you had those Besant appearances, like even they recognized what just took place on their own program. They're like, oil moved pretty drastically over the interview that we just took. Let me just show you what they, even they acknowledge that what just took place on their network was market manipulation. They don't call it, but literally they just created the economic situation that they then just reported on by bringing Bessent on to manipulate the market.

55:06Ben Meiselas:And the broader issue, as we talk about broader concerns, is the lack of confidence in the indexes, the lack of confidence in, you know, that the markets actually will function. And the long-term credibility, predictability, certainty of the United States, that gets called into question now because of of the breakdown of these systems, the tearing it to shreds by Trump, by a compliant corporate news. Here, let's play this clip. Oil moved pretty drastically on what the secretary was saying. He said that we could see an opening. He believes we'll see a deal potentially today or tomorrow to reopen the strait.

55:56As a result, take a look at oil prices, WTI moving pretty rapidly. We had been at$82 a barrel earlier this morning. At the top of that interview, we were trading at$80 a barrel. Now it's off by$3.55 to$76.79. That, in turn, has impacted the futures pretty rapidly as well. The Dow was up by about 300 points earlier this morning. Now you're looking at the Dow up by 513 points. S &P had been negative. It's now indicated up by about 5 points. And the NASDAQ is up even more than it had been earlier at 227 points. We've also got Treasury yields that moved on this, the 30-year in particular. We were looking at a 30-year yield of 525 when the show began at 6 a.m.

56:37It's now trading at 521. And, in fact, the entire complex had been yielding higher. It's now lower across the board. The 10-year is at 465, and the 2-year is at 422. How's the Dow? The Dow's up 500 points. It was up 300 before. Yeah, I saw that. Well, I saw it was up 500. Oh, you were. No, it just. Oh, no.

56:57Ben Meiselas:What the hell is that? I mean, seriously, what that means. And those are the people, by the way, who will call out policies to help people get health care, to help people get paid with dignity for hardworking jobs that they do, people who fight for making sure that there's fair tax policy out there. that it's a bit unfair that why is it that the rich folk get all of the benefits and get all of these loopholes? They buy a sports team. Did you know that you can write off the purchase of a sports team? It's 100 % write-off and you can write it off over the course of, I forget if it's 10 to 15 years.

57:43When you buy the sports team, you can write it off to all your other

57:50Ben Meiselas:businesses. It's a write-off. It's the craziest thing. So while the value of the team increases, you can then write off, I think it's like 10 or 20 % of it every year. And so it becomes like basically a free purchase of the sports team. You can write off your private jet. I mean, all these, I mean, the deductions you can take are crazy. And then people are just struggling to get by. I mean, you've seen the show we've been highlighting Pennsylvania because it's a swing state, but in Northeastern Pennsylvania, for example, I mean, you've got a MAGA Republican Congress member there, Ryan McKenzie, who is in Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district.

58:29Ben Meiselas:And, you know, he's out there with Donald Trump voting for the big, beautiful bill, which is everybody knows is a disastrous bill. They're out there continuing to loot and pillage from the American people. And you can see what's going on with the regular people in Pennsylvania is seven. I mean, and to me, it's a bellwether for what's going on in the rest of the country. I mean, people's health insurance is going up. Donald Trump may bring, I brought your prescription drug prices down 800%. People aren't stupid. You're bringing up healthcare costs. You're bringing up costs in just about everything as well.

59:05Ben Meiselas:I mean, you're seeing people who have to ration their medication to be able to afford the rise in health insurance costs. and you've got people struggling to pay rent. Let me just share with you a story. This comes from our friends over at Fight for Progress. And I love how they're just focusing on these stories of regular Americans, regular Americans who are just struggling to get by and who have been harmed by the policies of the Epstein class, of the right-wing oligarchs, of people like ryan mckenzie and there are people like this is probably the story that i'm about to show you is probably a story that is either something you experience or that you know somebody who experiences this is what the american experience is right now as a result of trump's disastrous policies let's play it if ryan mckenzie is fighting for us i haven't seen it Prior to the Affordable Care Act, I did not have insurance at all.

1:00:08I would, like, save pills so that I could have some in case. I always tell people, like, it saved my life. The House has narrowly passed a Republican health care plan, but without extending Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to expire. There were tax credits that were helping keep our premiums lower. President Trump told reporters yesterday not to, quote, waste their time extending the subsidies. My insurance went from$400 a month to$700. Some of the things that I did to afford that, renegotiated our internet, stopped buying beef, stopped going out. I can't afford it, so I need my health insurance.

1:00:50My rep, Ryan McKenzie, who says he cares about people's health care in the Lehigh Valley. Oh, I care about health care. And I signed off on a discharge petition to renew the ACA subsidies, except that he waited so long that his signing off had no effect. He knew it wasn't going to get passed. I don't see how anything that he's doing has benefited me in the slightest. If anything, he's made my life harder and worse.

1:01:20Ben Meiselas:Everybody go check out Fight for Progress's YouTube page. search fight for progress you can watch the full story as well and go in the comments over there when you go to so you search on youtube fight for progress watch the they're putting some great videos some great contact content out there and then say ben says hello over there but to me i just want to share stories like that because you know the the headline on yahoo finance may be The stock surge to record high, as Besson says, deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is near. It was open. It was open. It was open before this. It was open before Trump and Netanyahu did this catastrophic war.

1:02:05Ben Meiselas:It was open before this. This is really what we're doing. And the market's like, yeah, we're doing it. Here we go. It's going to open again, really this time. And And of course, Iran denies it. Iran's like, no, what are you talking about? We just struck your base in Kuwait last night in two tankers. We're negotiating with Oman. That's what we're doing right here. And then you look at what's happening here in the United States. Donald Trump focusing on tax immunity for himself and his kids and his company so he doesn't have to pay taxes while he makes billions of dollars in quid pro quo deals, trading the Oval Office to make himself wealthier, making the United States far weaker generationally, far weaker generationally.

1:02:53Ben Meiselas:You got him focused on the reflecting pool, which they did a fabricated prosecution blaming David Hearn, a two-time U.S. Olympic canoeist of vandalism that admitted it was a fabrication. But then Trump says, no, Jeanine Pirro, my own Justice Department. Todd Blanche, who oversees her, they got it wrong. Todd Blanche oversees her too, by the way, bud. Helipads breaking down. So, well, they got to redo the helipads. You got the White House looking like a literal junkyard. It looks like a literal kind of mass waste disposal facility. Have you ever seen the White House or D.C. look grosser? They're gilding.

1:03:38They say

1:03:39Ben Meiselas:they're re-gilding, but they're gilding the bronze statue's gold. So that's not re-gilding. You're taking a bronze statue and you're painting it gold for millions of dollars. First, it's bronze. It's not gold. Why are you making it gold? And why are you doing it? We don't want any of this. We just want healthcare. And then they have the audacity to say, what's really radical? What's really radical is fighting for free healthcare. No. What's really conservative is our budget bills and the ones that have racked up massive amounts of debt. I mean, Trump's responsible for like$17 trillion of the$40 trillion in debt.

1:04:28Ben Meiselas:makes you fiscally conservative? These are the hawks? These are the hawks? Yeah, y 'all could have run the military. We're out of interceptors. We're out of fads. We're out of Navy destroyers. We're out. We're out. The United States military is out. They got rid of all their top generals and admirals. They got rid of the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, four-star General CQ Brown Jr. last year. He got rid of him because he's black and the Trump regime is racist. And so they brought in a white guy because they liked his nickname, Raisin Cain, Raisin Cain, three-star. He had to get a waiver because he didn't have the qualifications for the job.

1:05:17Ben Meiselas:To be fair of a lot of the people who are all bad, King's probably better than most of the awful people. Like I've showed you Admiral Cooper of CENTCOM, who's just been a disaster. Oh my God, that Admiral Cooper guy, when he testifies, I cringe every time that guy talks. CENTCOM. How did this happen to CENTCOM? We control the Strait of Hormuz, not Iran. And then the American people are like, enough, Enough, enough, enough. Anyway, we're going to focus on, we'll report on the Michigan primary tonight, of course. Tell me in the comments, I'm just curious, who are you looking to see prevail in the Michigan primary?

1:06:03Ben Meiselas:I'd love to just read your comments and just see where the audience, where our audience is on the Michigan primary. I'm just interested. Obviously, the primary is the midterms crucial. I'd argue the midterm is the most important election yet in American history, probably. Probably 2024 was a bit more important, but we screwed that one up. But other than that, that's this one. And then 2028. But I do think it's important that we think more broadly about how we got here and how we get out of this hell. And that's a major theme of WTF America. How we get out of this hell. How do we get into this hell?

1:06:48Ben Meiselas:How do we get back to democracy? How do we get back to sanity? So order, pre-order. Our publisher says there's great momentum for the pre-orders. So let's keep it growing. Tell me in the comments if you've ordered it. write WTF. All right. I got a lot of videos I'm going to make and a lot of work we're going to do. Appreciate you all so much. Shout out Midas Mighty. Thanks for watching Ben on Breaking News. Really grateful for all of you. 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 free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

1:07:39Thank you.