Breaking Afternoon Updates with Ben Meiselas 9/24/2026

23:55Yeah, we understand that. But also the national interest of the country can't be viewed in a vacuum or connected to an international system. So if you want to understand why is the price of oil surging, why is the price of gas surging, why is the price of diesel surging, why are treasury yields the way they are, why is the mortgage rates, the 30-year fixed, over 7 %? Why is it that all of this massive inflation is happening? Why does Oracle need to claim a force majeure? Why did all of these Middle East countries have to declare force majeures on certain other critical products that come out of the Middle East, which we rely on here in the United States, which increases the price here?

24:47Why is all of this happening? Why are our ranchers being screwed and our farmers being screwed? Why don't they have export markets the way? I mean, I heard Xi Jinping talking about pandas, but they're still not buying soybeans at the rate they were under former President Biden. So Donald Trump can think it's funny to show Xi Jinping a copy of an auto pen on the Walk of Fame and mock the former president. But under the former president, China was buying double the amount of soybeans. And we have to think about soybeans. We didn't have to think about potash, you know, and Belarusian potash. You know, why are all of these things happening?

25:27It's because the Trump regime has pursued this idea that we can be completely isolated. We can treat all these other countries like crap. We can go and invade places without consequences and repercussions. And there are consequences and repercussions. So when we come back, I want to talk more about that. I want to talk about the consequences and repercussion of the catastrophic war. And now the Trump regime is mulling over. They say they're going to do it. We'll see, but it could be disastrous. An export diesel ban, which sounds like, okay, well, that'll be great. It'll lower the prices here. It'll probably raise the prices, not just of diesel, but of gasoline as well.

26:05And some of the other stuff that comes from a barrel of crude. And we have to understand that. What is a barrel of crude. From a barrel of crude, you get diesel, you get gas, you get jet fuel. How is that made? And why would it be harmful to refineries? I'm not cheering on the refineries here. I'm just saying, if you changed the ability of refineries to reach export markets, and you have the government control that precipitously, and it just happens in this emergency setting, it can have a cascading effect that could result in prices actually going up and then losing long-term export markets because people aren't going to do deals with companies if ultimately the Trump regime or a future presidency is going to say, nope, we're not going to send it over abroad.

26:54All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back. We've got a lot more to discuss now when we're back. I never realized how much I needed a power bank until I actually had one. Now, I don't leave the house without it. Especially with the new phones coming out, your phone isn't the only thing that deserves an upgrade. That's exactly why I've been loving Ridge's 5-in-1 Travel Power Bank. The Power Bank has MagSafe wireless charging, an Apple Watch charger, lightning, and USB-C, every way you need to charge, all in one premium device. Built-in cables mean that you don't have to pack a bunch of extras every time you leave the house.

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29:22Most protein bars, they hurt my stomach. It's so nice to finally have one that's actually clean and includes fiber. And right now IQ bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20 % off all IQ bar products, plus free shipping to get your 20 % off text truth to 64 ,000 text truth to 64 ,000. That's truth to 64 ,000 message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Mycelis, and this is your Breaking News. So what are Trump regime officials saying right now? You all saw, right? Oil, again, is surging today. I mean, we know it was surging, but during the UN, the Trump regime, they leaked to like Reuters and this one and that one, that there were productive mediation conversations taking place and things that there may be a phase settlement that was reached.

30:20The usual bullshit. The usual bullshit. And what happened? There was a slight dip for a moment in the oil prices. It didn't impact us because that's not the way oil ultimately reaches the gas stations that we're at and becomes gas because we're dealing with the price, the futures price. And then we have to look at, okay, from the price of crude, now what are the refiners charging when they send out the refined product, when they send out the gas and the diesel and the jet fuel? The difference, the delta between the gas and diesel and the oil from the barrels of oil that we talk about, right? When we talk about, what is it?

31:0275 to a hundred dollars a barrel,$107 a barrel, you know, is turned into gas and diesel and jet fuel. The difference between, though, the paper cost of the barrel of oil and the refinery price, that's called a crack spread. I've been talking a lot about that now for months to kind of warn you for this moment about what was going to be happening. We'll get there. I want to talk about the export ban and what that actually can mean. I did a whole video on it, which I think was very detailed, where we really broke down, okay, what's in a barrel of oil, and what does it mean? But Sebastian Gorka, top person in the Trump regime, he's been giving interviews, and here's what he had to say.

31:49Let's play this clip. When he sent that first letter to the former Ayatollah, you can't have nuclear weapons. I mean, think about, think about, you know, everybody's obsessing with the price of gas. This is much bigger than the price of gas. And think about what would happen to the price of gasoline if those missiles were nuclear tipped. The idea that you're experiencing problems now would be just absolutely incomparable to what would happen if an islamo-fascist regime that literally has been at war with us since they took our diplomats hostage in the revolution of 1979 since they killed all those marines in the beirut bombing since they supplied the squash head ied technology to the shia militias what would happen

32:42Ben Meiselas:man. I'm just going to say words, Islamofascists. Islamofascists. Why do people even care about this oil? Why do you care? Because we're suffering, man. This isn't a political freaking talking point. People are really suffering right now. People can't afford things. People can't afford rent. They sure as hell can't afford homes right now. People can't afford gas. The price of everything when you go to a supermarket is, again, it's unaffordable. People have had their health care ripped away. And you're out here, Islamofascist, Islamofascist. I mean, you know, Trump and Netanyahu went into Iran, invaded, slaughtered children in Manab.

33:31They're still covering it up, the war crimes. They still refuse to take accountability. It doesn't shock you when it comes to Trump and Netanyahu, genocidal maniacs. La Merde, little children. And by the way, we're slaughtered there at a sports hall. And the US tried a new weapon to kill those children in La Merde. They used these tungsten pellets and this weapon that the missile, right when it's above its target, it opens and it disperses tens of thousands of these like tungsten little pellet balls. And they tried it out on the sports hall in La Merde and killed over a dozen children in La Merde.

34:18And then in the recent escalation about a month ago, they dropped bombs on a wedding in Syric.

34:26Ben Meiselas:Oopsies. I don't know what it's not. These are freaking war crimes right here. And as a result, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, which everybody warned Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. It's not a shock. I heard Marco Rubio saying recently, if Iran got nuclear weapons, they would control the Strait of Hormuz. What are you talking about? They control it right now. They control the Strait of Hormuz now. On Sarala, the Houthis control Bab el-Mandab Strait. They control all of Western Yemen. Today, one of the other reasons why you see the price of oil surging and thus the price of gas and diesel surging is the Houthis successfully struck more sites in Saudi Arabia.

35:11Again, they can do this at will at this point. Kind of really demonstrated how reliant Saudi Arabia is on the United States. And when the United States security umbrella is broken, Saudi's ability to project any strength is severely hampered as well. And it's also, you know, people say this too. It's like, so if you're in the Saudi military right now, like what you're fighting for MBS, like you're fighting for like Netanyahu and a security umbrella based on protecting Netanyahu's roots. Like it's, it's, that's what you're being asked to die for if you're in the Saudi army right now. I mean, and that's, I think, an issue in terms of the morale and what we're seeing in the war between the Houthis on Sarala and Saudi Arabia.

36:04Also, just should be noted, historically and especially now, the Saudi royal family keeps their military intentionally very weak because they're terrified of coups. So they make sure they have a weak military. They depend on the U.S. arms to enrich their royal families. And then that money basically swish swashes back and forth between the American oligarchy and the Saudi royals. And it goes back and forth. And the Saudi keeps a weak military. But the idea is that the U.S. would have protected it. And now we're seeing what happens when you have a Trump, what happens over there. Treasury Secretary Besant, though, he goes on state regime media, of course.

36:49And he says, folks, it'll all be okay soon, he says, because Iran will cry uncle soon. They're going to cry uncle. You're going to cry uncle?

37:00Ben Meiselas:You're giving noogies? You're going to cry uncle? You're going to cry uncle? You're going to give a swirly? You're going to give a swirly? Who the hell is this guy? What do you mean they're going to cry uncle? Why do we have people talking like this? Did you see the video I did on Admiral McRaven? If not, go back and watch it. I did a video of Admiral McRaven's speech at the LBJ Center. It was great. It was a great text. It was a great speech. And he was, I don't even have to ask. I don't even know what political party McRaven is. I don't care. This was an adult. This was a grownup. Did I agree with him on everything he said?

37:35No. But I said, that's a leader. That's a grownup. That's an adult. That's someone who leads men and women and people in war and in, you know, and it's like, I'm going to make them cry, uncle. This is Besson. I'm going to make them cry, uncle, is what he said about Iran. Here, play this clip. In terms of constricting and cutting off the financial oxygen to them, and I don't know whether it's going to be a week, a month, or two months, but they are going to yell uncle and the goal here can be one one of three states of the world one the regime turns on each other not impossible two we get some kind of uprising for the iranian people they probably killed 50 000 of their own population so very very difficult and then three to get the iranians to if they want to make a deal to stick to the deal as president trump said at the beginning of august He didn't think the Iranians were ready for a deal.

38:38We gave the MOU a try on June 3rd. And then the Iranians a few weeks later began firing the on ships in the strait and being very aggressive. And this time, if there is a deal, I guarantee you they're going to stick with it. i mean it's the stupidest people these are the dumbest dumbest people that that's the lesson the lesson that you've learned since invading in late february the lesson now september 24th is they're gonna cry uncle if we torture these civilians of iran more and we focus on inflicting pain on civilians, that will make the civilians like us more. You know who says things like that?

39:28The Epstein class.

39:30Ben Meiselas:Predators say, the predatorial people say things like that. If we just inflict more pain, then maybe they'll love me. Maybe they'll like me then. No, you've actually made the Iranian people more against the United States. When you started this catastrophic war and you blew up the elementary school in Manab and the sports hall in Le Maird and picked a number of other sites that don't get enough attention where innocent people were actually killed, and then you beamed your face or Trump's face and Netanyahu's face and said, everybody, we're here. You don't think they look at what Netanyahu did in Gaza and say, we don't want that here in Iran?

40:22Ben Meiselas:You don't think they look at what Netanyahu did in South Lebanon and Beirut in the area and say, we don't want that in Iran? And even if the people are against the Iranian regime, even if they're against them, they're more for them than Netanyahu. And when you bring the people together by torturing the people, you're not building love for yourself. It's the exact opposite. I don't understand how we could be run by literally the stupidest fucking people. Excuse my language, but these are the dumbest fucks in the world. I can't excuse my language. I watch these people and I'm like, Like, why are they?

41:06Ben Meiselas:I go, it's not a Republican or a Democrat or an independent. I'm like, these people are just idiotic. Just give me smart people who can actually be thoughtful and plan and say intelligent things. I don't even know what the hell that even is right there. It's like when they talk about the export ban on diesel, the export ban on diesel, that's going to solve the issue. It's like the stupidest thing you can do. And all you have to do is take one course and show up in your first day to Economics 101. Okay? You show up and they teach you about supply and demand, right? And what happens if all of a sudden you decrease the supply of something?

41:47Ben Meiselas:What will happen to the potential price when there are supply shocks? Hint, hint. when you blow stuff up like you do in a war and you have less of the ability to transport oil and the pipelines are destroyed and the entire Strait of Hormuz is shut down and you have all of this. Hint, hint, what is happening to the price? And guess what? Whether the Trump regime wants to admit it or not, oil is sold on an international market. It's why we talk about Brent and WTI. And there's lots of other grades we could be talking about as well. But there is an international market. And guess who was the president who resulted in the United States making a shit ton of money off of exports of oil or exports of diesel rather.

42:52Ben Meiselas:Who was that? Obama. Obama stopped basically a 40-year ban or a 40-year serious limitation on U.S. exporting diesel abroad and started having the US become a major exporter of diesel. Obama, he didn't have to say drill, baby, drill. It was Obama and it was done on a bipartisan basis at the time looking at the global landscape. And the US accounts for, what, 15, 20 plus percent of the global diesel market, the biggest exporter of diesel out there. So if the US does an export ban of diesel, then what will happen? Well, you will create an immediate supply shock even more than before on the price of diesel internationally.

43:54Ben Meiselas:And guess what? The U.S. also imports diesel, international diesel. So the states that import a lot of international diesel, guess what's going to happen to that? The prices are going to go higher. But guess what also happens as well? Well, maybe we should look at what we even mean when we talk about a barrel of oil. What's a barrel? A barrel of oil doesn't get converted into pure diesel or it doesn't get converted into pure gas or pure jet fuel, right? The barrel gets sent to where? A refinery. What does a refinery do? Refines it into what? Oftentimes it's referred to as kind of a 3-2-1, but you have gas and then you fill up your tank with gasoline, diesel, trucks, and lots of machinery and heavy industry relies a lot on diesel, agriculture, diesel.

45:01Ben Meiselas:So you get from a barrel gas, you get diesel, you get jet fuel, and there's other things that you get, but those are the main things that you can extract. So if all of a sudden you put an export ban on diesel, what's going to have to happen is the refineries are now going to have to adjust because they're now losing an export market. And so they then have to figure out, well, what should we be making in order for us to keep our businesses running here. And so do we now have to decrease because we can't sell this anymore? So why would we make excess? And it's not like this diesel can easily just go everywhere.

45:50Ben Meiselas:It's not like it's just immediately gets to go everywhere else in the United States. So what else has to happen? Well, then if you start lowering the ability for you to refined diesel, it also impacts gas. So what could potentially happen? The price of gas can go up because the supply of gas decreases as well. So it ends up hitting you everywhere, basically. And by the way, you don't have to take my word for it. This is actually a week ago, a week ago or so. Energy Secretary Wright, I think we have this clip, Salty, and he was speaking and Energy Secretary Wright was talking about this exact issue.

46:33And he was saying, look, here is the issue. We'll get that in a second. But in the meantime, while we pull that up, let me show you what M.B. Galabaf posted, Iran's parliament leader. M.B. Galabaf posted this earlier. Happy 5.1 % 10-year America. Celebration emoji. Celebrate. It's the floor two years out.

46:59Ben Meiselas:You wanted Iran dragged back to 1970s? Nobody told you Iran isn't for arrogant amateurs. We'll return you to 1970s rates, plus high gas prices, diesel shortages, and bell-bottoms. enjoy the nostalgia. And he posts this graphic again of Wild E. Coyote. I think on the left, that's that photo of that MAGA meme that's been going around. And it's Besson saying, I'm the house. I'm the house. But what happens is these treasury yields soar. And these treasury yields soaring means the government has to be paying a lot more money to service the debt, right? They have to give a much higher return, a much higher yield on the bonds that are being sold because people don't view the United States as reliable and predictable anymore.

47:56And that puts us further and further into debt. And the 10-year yield is just like a direct vertical lineup at this point. The 30-year yield is a direct vertical up right now. And this impacts you in all of your day-to-day borrowing and makes it very difficult. Then you layer on top of that the fact that interest rates are up as well. And we expect another interest rate hike. And clearly Trump and Besant and this crew of idiots, they just don't have a plan. They don't know what they're doing. They're just fraud fraudsters. They're con artists. And I know you don't like me saying con artists because artists, they're just like cons, they're frauds, and they don't know what they're doing.

48:47And it's like, we just need smart people to come up with an actual plan to get us out. And these people are just dumb. Here's what Energy Secretary, actually, you know what, we'll take our last quick break of the show. Then I'll show you what Energy Secretary Wright had to say. Get your copy of WTF America, right? WTF, what the F is this? What the F is this? The way out of this hell and back to democracy. Did you get your copy? It comes out October 20th, but pre-order now if you can. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be back. I want to show you that clip of Energy Secretary Wright.

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53:10Cash App Green features, savings, direct deposit, roundups, overdraft coverage, and discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app.legal.podcast for full disclosures. Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Mycelis. This is your Breaking News. As I said before the break, I wanted to show you even Trump's own energy secretary. military basically before Donald Trump said, we may do export diesel bans. He was saying what I was saying, you know, and it's not a complicated concept of supply and demand, you know, which is if you ban the export of diesel from the United States, you create a supply shortage and that could run up the prices when we import diesel from other countries and it can cause our refineries to basically slow down, which would also lead to less gas, which can then jack up the price of gas and it could have a cascading effect.

54:08Even if it may provide temporary relief for a very short period of time, in the long run, it could create problems. And I'm all for coming up with solutions. And I think it's important that we actually have these kind of detailed discussions, but they should be fact-based and methodical and calm and not like this crazy shit that we see every day from this Trump regime. So let me show you first what Energy Secretary Wright had to say. This was a week ago. Here play this clip. Some people have watched the supply shock to the American markets and said, well, we need to keep more of the U.S. supply here at home and have advocated for things like export tariffs or export bans.

54:49Why does the administration think that those would not be proper solutions and wouldn't actually lower prices? It's just an amazingly

54:56Ben Meiselas:interconnected network around the world. Fortunately, the United States is in a great position that we're a net exporter. We supply the world with diesel, but often we get gasoline from the rest of the world. We consume a larger percent of gasoline out of each barrel of oil than a barrel of oil yields. So if you said, hey, diesel prices are really high, let's stop exporting diesel from the United States, pretty quickly our refineries would have to refine less because what would they do with the diesel? We could fill up storage in two or three weeks, and then we'd be producing less gasoline, and we'd have more expensive gasoline right away.

55:35So it's a global interconnected system. The thing we need when prices are high is more supply. We need to do everything we can to grow supply. And if you start putting barriers on flows pretty quickly, you will reduce the production and you'll have less supply. We need more supply, not less supply. supply and demand. And if you didn't do this catastrophic, idiotic war in Iran, the Strait of Hormuz would be open like it was before. And Obama had a deal with Iran, the JCPOA, Iran's supreme leader, who we murdered along with his daughter and his granddaughter and his son-in-law and his family while they were having dinner together.

56:20And a little grandkid got killed in this you know israeli netanyahu trump strike um you know we we would we would not be in this there was by the way there was a fatwa against nuclear weapons there was an iranian religious edict a fatwa against uh from ayatollah khamenei against nuclear weapons and there were and there was an international mechanism look you know how easy we like it's it's not a complicated situation right now to actually resolve what's happening in the straight-in from Moos. You want me to solve it? You ready? Everybody, are you ready to solve what's happening in the straight-in from Moos?

57:01You ready? Leave. That's it. It's actually a very simple solution. You take the aircraft carriers that are there, the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington are the two ships that are doing the blockade of civilian tankers and they're preventing Iran from getting food and medicine and things, the same thing that we're doing with Cuba. That's impacting the civilians. We're attacking civilians. We're starving civilians. But here's how you resolve the situation right now in Iran, this catastrophic. You leave, you take the aircraft carriers, and here's what you say. You say, okay, we're calling your bluff.

57:40We've removed the aircraft carriers. We're gone. Okay? Now open up the Strait of Hormuz. Then what you do is you go to the international community and you say, look, we left as a sign of good faith. We're out. And so now we believe that this is what the argument would be, whether you agree with it or not, I'm just giving you an argument. We believe that international law should not allow fees or tolls to be charged. If Iran wants to charge some sort of voluntary fee, that tankers agree that these VLCCs and other things that they can do that, but we don't support that. And we will now go back and rally an international community in the event Iran continues to shut down the Strait of Hormuz while we're gone.

58:28And so Iran would then have to make the decision, okay, well, what do we do? Like at this point, they're gone. They said they would leave. Are we now going to not open up the Strait of Hormuz until we get$13 billion of unfrozen funds. Are we going to stand on that? Or what are we going to do? And I think it would put pressure on them to basically say, hey, well, we're going to open up the Strait of Hormuz for at least three months while we'll negotiate all.

58:56Ben Meiselas:As you know, we can shut it down again, but you left with your aircraft carrier. So the simplest solution is the US leaves. And ultimately, if Iran does what it didn't do, Look, we know what happened before the catastrophic war. The Strait of Hormuz was open. Iran did not assert that it controlled the Strait of Hormuz. So we actually know what existed before. It was when Trump and Netanyahu invaded that Iran said, we're going to control the Strait of Hormuz. So take your aircraft carriers and leave. And then if Iran keeps it closed, then try to, I don't know, actually do the work of what US used to do, rally other countries and bring people together and say, hey, that's not right anymore.

59:37Ben Meiselas:It's actually the simplest solution in the world. And by the way, Iran telegraphs it when they give their speech. They're like, dude, just treat us with respect and dignity. Just treat us like a country. Treat us like we're living people. Treat us like we're part of humanity. I understand you feel X, Y, and Z, but stop saying you want to kill us all and you want to blow up the civilization. We're not going to deal with you. We can't do deals with people who say they want to murder us all and who say, even if we do a deal with you for a little bit of time, we're then going to kill all of you. I mean, it's crazy.

1:00:10Ben Meiselas:We're not able to deal with that. So that's the solution. It's actually very simple. It opens up the Strait of Hormuz and it's done. That's it. It truly solves everything. But you got this demented guy in the Oval Office. I mean, you saw this when Donald Trump was with Xi. You saw it with Donald Trump. I mean, you have Xi talking about Thucydides' trap and you have Donald Trump saying she's an expert on stone and he loves he loves the decor outside of the white house i'm like what are we watching here folks what what is this here play this clip

1:00:43we had a great meeting and he has great interest in granite he likes he likes granite he's an expert on stone aside from many other things and he loves good granite thank you very much

1:00:58Ben Meiselas:the hell are we talking about what is that what is that for real that's the United States of America? Yeah, it is. It's sad. I don't know what the hell that is. It's not funny. Sick. He likes granite. She likes granite. Dude, she is out there just punking you. Just punking you. Just thinking about this time period. I mean, the humiliation ritual that we're put through as a nation because of this loser. It's ridiculous. Go back to the UN General Assembly. Let me just share with you yesterday, Iran's president, Pazeskian, echoing what I said. Here's what he's, in addition to holding up photos of the little girls slaughtered in Manab and Lemaire and the teachers who were slaughtered and all that.

1:01:56Here's what he had to say. This is what Pazeskian said. Let's play it.

1:02:02Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force. I truly appreciate your time and presence here. May God bless you all. Like saying it, like just literally telling, this is not actually a complicated situation to resolve. It is because we have these loser idiots in the White House. We shouldn't have done the catastrophic war.

1:02:32Ben Meiselas:You still have Iran's president saying it. You can't see that as an overture? Seriously, you don't realize what he's saying right there? He's saying, just stop saying you're going to blow us up to the Stone Age and you're going to eradicate our civilization and treat us with respect. Stop using the language of bullying. Stop talking like that. And we can try to reach some resolution. He's just saying it out loud. But then you have like Bessett, oh, we're going to make you cry, uncle. I'm going to give you noogies and I'm not going to be satisfied until I give you a wedgie. There's going to be noogies and wedgies and you're going to cry, uncle, and there's going to be swirlies.

1:03:10Ben Meiselas:What are you saying? Why do you sound like crazy people? Just literally, just, you heard what Bessett said. It's nuts. You got Donald Trump, you like stone. It's like we're run by the stupidest people, non-political. These are the stupidest people in the world. I mean, did you, Republican Senator Kennedy, you see his take on all of this? MAGA Republican Senator Kennedy, he's like, they're reptiles. They're like reptile hookers with the same damn dress. They're hooker reptiles. These awesome hooker reptile, reptilian. I'm like, they're hooker reptiles wearing the same dress. I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about.

1:03:54Ben Meiselas:Just take the aircraft carriers and leave the Arabian Sea and let's get oil prices down and let's get treasury yields under control. They're hooker reptiles. We have like literally the dumbest people. These are crazy humans. These are crazy people. Listen to what he says. You're playing. I think that the people running Iran are reptiles. And they're part of a colony of reptiles. China, North Korea, Russia, and as I said, Iran. The chief reptile, the quarterback, is President Xi in China. You can't trust any of them. All four of them are the same. It's like the same hooker in different dresses.

1:04:54They all lie like timeshare salesmen. You can't trust them. I wouldn't turn my back on any of them, even if I thought and knew they were two days dead.

1:05:11I've lost the sentence. Okay. Iran is a reptile. The king reptile is apparently really good with stone. He's at the White House. And Donald Trump makes our Air Force personnel and army apparently bend down on their knees for the king reptile amongst multiple reptiles. And also the reptiles are hookers and they wear same hooker, but different dresses. And they also sell timeshares. So I wouldn't turn my back on these Iranian reptile, multifaceted dress, hooker, timeshare salesman. And thus we wonder why America is declining the way we are.

1:06:05Ben Meiselas:He's good at stone. Is he, GG, he's good at stone. Here, Salty, play that clip of Donald Trump greeting she one more time with the B-1 Lancer. She's like, she has his normal face. I'm like, she has his normal face. And then the B-1 Lancer flies. It's a loud plane, objectively, the B-1. But you arrange the flyover, and it isn't a thing. And then Donald Trump's like, he's stupid. I mean, watching this, I just genuinely don't get what the hell is happening. Like, what is going on? You're playing this clip.

1:06:55Ben Meiselas:My God. Salty, do we have the video from moments ago when Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, This guy who like goes on state regime media all the time, he goes on Fox and he's like, he's always like, we're going to blow up Iran. We're going to destroy the Iranian regime. We're going to destroy the Iran. Because every, every day he's like, it's like, okay, I get it. You want to destroy the Iran. I get it. I get it. You want to bring us into endless. I understand. We understand. So this guy, he walks up, everything's like a gimmick. It's like some weird shit, you know, and, and, you know, he, he, he walks up with a Starlink in his hand to the Iranian delegation or to the Iranian ambassador to the UN.

1:07:40Ben Meiselas:He's like, you want a Starlink? I'm trolling. You want a Starlink? And the Iranian guy is like, not even looking at him. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Seriously, what is this? And by the way, this kind of sums up everything in a way it's like what are you doing why are you provoking why are you going up and doing that what and it doesn't look strong it just looks freaking it looks weird and deranged and predatorial here watch what just happened moments ago let's play it i thought it's appropriate to give you the starlink if you are the prime minister it can be very useful for you to allow the iranian people to get their freedom after what you did to them So you want to take it and deliver it back to Tehran?

1:08:31It can be very useful for you in Iran. We love the Iranian people, and we pray for the regime change there. It will come that day.

1:08:43That's what you're doing? Like, that's what you're doing? And then you have Netanyahu devoting his speech to attacking Mamdani. you saw that and he calls new york city mayor mom donnie anti-semitic mom donnie this and mom donnie that mom donnie mom donnie it's like mom donnie is a popular mayor he's delivering for the people of new york city like i didn't hear a single other unless you did tell me for real and and and then you wonder why you know people walk out of netanyahu you wonder why i mean obviously in addition to the genocide in Gaza and slaughtering people in Lebanon, but it's like,

1:09:28Ben Meiselas:you know, you came into the United States. You're in our country. And what about America first? You're in our country. Understand? You're in the United States of America in New York City, a proud city. You're in New York City. No other world leaders out there attacking the New York City mayor. The hell are you to attack the New York City mayor and then say the New York City mayor is anti-Semitic when the New York City mayor is not anti-Semitic and inject anti-Semitism into the New York City mayor this or that because the New York City mayor stands against genocide in Gaza? And by the way, even if you think this way, Netanyahu, about Mayor Mamdani, which you're wrong about, you come into our country?

1:10:20Ben Meiselas:I mean, could you imagine if Xi Jinping was like, you know who I really don't like? Mayor Bass of Los Angeles. You know who I really don't like? I don't like this governor of whatever. I don't like the governor. It's like, well, you're not from our country. You have no right to stay. Whether I like the mayor or don't like the mayor or whether it's a Republican or a Democratic. You're a foreign leader. This is America. Don't come in and lecture me about the leader. Who are you? To me, even if you don't like Mamdani, you should not want a foreign leader, whether it's the leader of Israel or any country, to come in here and attack other people in the United States who are not in the world fora like this, right?

1:11:21The hell is this? Here, watch. I'll show you one clip of Netanyahu saying that. Here, play this clip. You refuse to condemn any of that. You falsely, repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Mr. Mamdani, you try to stop me from coming here. You try to silence me. Well, you can't silence me. You can't silence the truth. And here's the simple truth.

1:11:58Here's the simple truth. Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide.

1:12:10And that's exactly what Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies would have done to us. had we not stopped him.

1:12:20Ben Meiselas:Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies? I mean, who the hell are you? The hell are you to come into New York City and attack the New York City mayor and defame the New York City mayor like that at the United Nations? And then you wonder why you're despised? Amongst a lot of other reasons, but that's your behavior? And didn't she, I mean, isn't it just so interesting, perhaps not the right word, when you looked at like fat Elvis, Javier Malay, the Argentina leader. I hate the, I mean, the guy's looks like he's out of, you know, you saw the way that guy like looks. He's got like the hair that looks like he's got some like, you know, he came out of a bathtub with a toaster oven in it.

1:13:10Ben Meiselas:He's like, I hate the United Nations. This globalist scumbag. You know, you've got like that guy saying that, right? You've got Netanyahu behaving that way. And then by the way, Javier Malay was also saying yesterday, like, I love being in this club with like Israel and the United States and Argentina and, you know, and you've got Trump. We need to stop globalist organizations like UNESCO, like the United Nations, like Scientific Research Arm. We want all of you to make sure that you get out of the terrorist ICC. The International Criminal Courts are terrorists. Meanwhile, we learn here more cover-up deaths in that people killed in action in Trump's catastrophic war in Iran.

1:14:01Ben Meiselas:We learned that there were eight suicide attempts on the USS Abraham Lincoln alone. You have all of this, all of these hacking incidents taking place here. You have our country, you know, suffering, you know, in the United States on a day to day basis. And this is what Trump's doing and what. And having she here and rolling out the red carpet and making our service members go on their knees and talking about the stonework and then freaking talking about hooker reptiles. reptile hookers, a condo salesman, a timeshare salesman, and then NetYahu attacking Mom Donnie. That's why I called the book WTF America.

1:14:43I mean, these people are lunatics.

1:14:47Ben Meiselas:And WTF, how did we get here? And how do we get the hell out of here? And I do think there's a way out of here. And I think the way out of here, though, is understanding that this ain't a game. This ain't reality TV. And when politics is framed as this team and that team and who's going to win, winning doesn't matter if the winning side is another version of the other side. Winning doesn't matter if you're going to win temporarily and then go right back to a worse version of what existed than before. If you're just catapulted to the status quo and then politics is treated like the Mets versus Yankees or the Lakers versus Celtics.

1:15:29Ben Meiselas:That's deeply problematic. And that's at the root of the problem because we no longer think about any of this as values and principles. And we have to get back to that and understand the more existential question about why do we even have politics in the first place? And what's the goal of all of this? It's not for us to be non-consensual extras in a dystopian reality show where we're all feeling like, who are these people? stop doing it. It feels like we're in an escape room at this point, and we're all just trying to get out of this madness while the Trumps and the Javier Malaes and the Netanyahu's and all these crazy lunatics are out there inflicting suffering.

1:16:10Ben Meiselas:What's so notable is I've been able to have conversations and interviews with people from other countries far and wide, whether it was inside Iran or inside Yemen or inside Canada or in Europe or in South America, or I've had conversations with people in Ecuador and all over. And what we recognize is that we have shared humanity. We really do. And people want to just be able to live with other people, I think at its core in peace, but we have all of these demagogues and hateful, disgusting weirdos and lunatics out there who keep bringing us and dividing us and putting us on these paths. And we saw that in a display like, I think this week we see it more than ever.

1:16:55Ben Meiselas:What I hope in this election, what I hope the message it sends more than this political party winning or that political party winning, which is important though for a system of checks and balances. But I hope the message that's truly being sent is that we aspire to some core values and principles beyond the gamification of I win, so you lose. I want us to win. And when I say us, not just as Americans, as people who share this earth together for a short period of time together, so we pass to the future generations a better world. That's it. That's what this is all about. That's what it's all about.

1:17:32Ben Meiselas:We have to recognize our collective agency, what we can accomplish. And that's what we'll be able to do together every damn day. I don't say this to sound corny. I truly believe in this to my core. And this doesn't get talked about enough, but I know that this is how you feel. I know this is the feeling how most people are, right? Whether you're here in the United States or Canada or in Yemen or in Iran or in Asia, whether you're in China or South Korea or North Korea, whether you're in Mexico or Ecuador, whether you're in Greenland or whether you're in Nigeria or South Africa, or I could keep on going and name every freaking country.

1:18:08Ben Meiselas:But the point remains, I think we genuinely want to live in peace. We want to smile. We want to have hobbies. We want to actually live productive lives. That's what we want. We want to get out of this hell. We want to get out of this madness. Anyway, that's... Will you watch the show with my brothers tonight? We'll focus more on some of the news we missed. But the book is called WTF America. Go get it right now, The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. It comes out officially October 20th. But if you were planning on buying, which I hope you are. Do the pre-order. The pre-orders are really important and they help a lot to plan.

1:18:49Ben Meiselas:Are we going to travel here? Where do we go to? So please pre-order now if you can. Tell others about the book. I want to keep that momentum going. It's almost October 20th. It's wild. Anyway, I'll see you tonight with The Brothers Show, 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific. Grateful for you as always. Thank you. Love you. Shout out Midas Mighty. Thanks everybody. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.