MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/10/26

22:33Jordy Meiselas:The United States has your back. Go protest, overthrow the regime. We gotcha. We gotcha. What happens? They're in the streets. More take to the streets. Tens of thousands get slaughtered by the regime, and Donald Trump does absolutely nothing. Now, flash forward to months later, Donald Trump is bombing Iran basically indiscriminately. Donald Trump bombed a school, and he is refusing to take credit for bombing the school right now, but all intelligence points to that exact fact. We even saw footage of the Tomahawk missile, a U.S. weapon, hit that school. We've seen reports from a lot of independent reporting.

23:12Jordy Meiselas:We've seen U.S. officials even acknowledge privately that they believe that the U.S. was responsible for that strike. But Donald Trump gets out there and he still tries to say that Iran were the ones who fired a missile at their own school. Preposterous. What a heinous, despicable lie. Atrocity denial of the worst kind. And I've noticed in recent days that the Trump administration has been not making a distinction between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people. And they are giving the Iranian regime everything they need to be much more hardline and to have a grip of power much stronger than they ever had before.

23:54Jordy Meiselas:You saw it even just a few days ago. Pete Hegseff, during his 60 Minutes interview, is one of the first clips that they released. they were talking about the Russia situation that Ben was speaking about. And they were like, well, aren't you worried that Russia has now entered the war and Russia is helping Iran to target American citizens? And Hegseth putting on his fake machismo tough guy act said, quote, the only ones who need to be worried right now are Iranians who think they are going to live. As I was saying, not making a distinction between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime, just saying that I'm going to threaten all Iranians.

24:32Jordy Meiselas:And we saw Donald Trump today at one of these speeches, one of these press conferences that he had. Donald Trump, he was asked, they were like, so are you going to still help the Iranian people? You promised them that you were going to help them months ago. And now you seem to be saying that you're okay if you just kind of got out of there and you installed a more hardline leader there. Those people are not free. So you're just going to leave. You don't care about helping those people anymore. And Donald Trump was like, ah, you know, I would love to help them, but they're kind of menacing those people.

25:06Jordy Meiselas:And if they were, you know, maybe not so menacing, I would help them. How could you possibly say that and pretend like you are a supporter of democracy? And how do the people actually think that this is an individual who gives a shit about your lives? And you see the bombing campaigns and you see even just the toxicity of the chemicals right now that are getting in the air because they're just indiscriminately bombing oil. Israel bombed these oil refineries throughout Iran. And they had like a nuclear winter type, you know, smoke. They woke up, the sky was black during the day. It was like dripping.

25:44Jordy Meiselas:These are the people who are actually supposed to be protecting the people. They're giving the Iranian regime all the propaganda that they need right now to go against the United States. And they've actually made this new Ayatollah way stronger. And all they've done was replace an old Ayatollah who was like 86 years old, probably didn't have much time to live with a younger, more hardline Ayatollah. Oh, and they killed like all of his family. They killed a lot of his family members just in case, you know, it wasn't enough already. And the whole thing right now, it's really, it's like a worst case scenario for a situation like this in the Middle East.

26:22Jordy Meiselas:And Trump thinks that at any time that he could just get out of there and then everything would be okay as Americans now and our allies are just being threatened around the world, quite frankly, because of Trump's actions.

26:35Brett Meiselas:It's why you need adults in the room. And I just don't say that. It's why you need adults in the room. It's why elections matter. And it's why I think there's going to be a clear reckoning in this country in the fight about truth and facts and whether we care about truth and facts as a society or we're just going to allow like the algorithms to dictate what you want your idea of the truth to be what donald trump is doing they are so the trump regime is so unprepared for what is happening right now they are evil and they are stupid and that is the worst combination because they're also powerful and they're also dictating what happens to the the people of this country by their actions of what they're doing with more wars.

27:22Brett Meiselas:It's a scary thing when you see how much power the Trump regime is willing to wield and with no sort of like, okay, so what's the rationale, right? Sell it to me. Like, what is the point of all of this? Because to me, there is none. There is no clear point. There is no clear end game. And that is the saddest and scariest part of this whole thing. So when Donald Trump goes out there and says, oh, the war is over now, and you see MAGA media, legacy media, just regurgitate what he's saying, Ben, to your point in this sort of like pseudo-morto manipulation strategy, it's damn near terrifying because someone at some point is going to have to hold his feet to the fire and demand the truth and demand the facts.

28:07Brett Meiselas:So shout out to independent media demanding those things. Right. We're not going to be gaslit by corporate media into thinking that what's happening in this in any of this is normal. None of this is normal. We should all be outraged. I know we the collective we hear certainly are. But like when are more people going to be fed up with this? And I think ultimately we're starting to see a true vibe shift with how just the run of the mill general society and Americans feel about Donald Trump and this regime.

28:36Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about this. Virtually every former president has some quote about how difficult the decisions are over war and peace and how painstaking it is for them to decide to go to war. Let me give you some examples. Dwight Eisenhower said, every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. Abraham Lincoln, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. George Washington, my first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I hate war.

29:30Ben Meiselas:Harry Truman, the only thing new in the world is the history you do not know. James Madison, of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded. Barack Obama, war in one form or another appeared with the first man. But we must begin by acknowledging the hard truth. We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. One of the most powerful from Dwight Eisenhower, I know war as few other men now living know it. And nothing to me is more revolting. Here's what Donald Trump said about war today. Let's play that clip, Brent.

30:13Jordy Meiselas:But, you know, they've said this about a lot of things no other president could do some of this shit I'm doing. No other president. The things I'm doing, nobody else was going to do it. I say, they say it all the time, sir, could you do this? You're the only one who can do it.

30:30Ben Meiselas:I don't care what political party you're from. I hope the case that I just made and compared it to what Donald Trump's view is just shows you this is not normal, what is happening right now. This is not normal, and we can treat it as such. And so many of the problems right now are people normalizing this behavior by this revolting individual in the Oval Office, or in this case, indoor row at his own resort, grifting while the MAGA Republicans are there with him instead of actually dealing with Article I work of the Constitution. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, make sure you hit subscribe.

31:18Ben Meiselas:Look how quickly we got to 6.1 million subscribers. Let's get to 7 million in the next two months. Let's do it together. We have a lot more show left. You can also, by the way, become a member. You can join right now. You can gift memberships to other people. Also, turn your notifications on so when we release a new video, it alerts you right away. Do that. And store.midastouch.com is where you can get the Midas Touch gear. First quick break of the show right now. We'll be right back after this.

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35:58Ben Meiselas:Benji You know, let's talk about this right now. I'm going to show what Trump was saying in just a little bit, but I'm just reflecting on how his family is behaving right now. While so many Americans are scared and rightfully so, as Americans are suffering right now from the psychological torture that this regime is inflicting. One of the stories that the Wall Street Journal exclusively broke this morning is that Donald Trump's kids, you know, Eric Trump and others are now in the drone business and that they are now behind a startup that will be making drones for the Pentagon right now. Trump's sons back new drone company targeting Pentagon on sales.

36:42Ben Meiselas:It's called Powerus, and it says it plans to acquire Ukrainian drone technology to sell it to the US military. So here's my question. I'm just asking questions, right? So when we asked Zelensky for help to shoot down the Shahid drones, you may be saying, well, isn't that inconsistent? Everything's inconsistent with this regime though, of Donald Trump then helping Putin. And if Putin is targeting our soldiers by giving Iran the coordinates and Trump is taking away the sanctions against Russia to sell its oil, but then we're getting help from Ukraine. So how do you kind of put this all together?

37:32Ben Meiselas:Well, again, I'm just asking questions. Are we taking the Ukrainian technology, holding over their head support so they can help the Trump family make money, right? Once we learn that technology, it then gets utilized by this startup, which now does the contracts with the Pentagon. The Trump family gets enriched instead of the Ukrainian drone companies because we're getting their IP and tech. And then we're helping Russia get richer by removing sanctions. And we're holding this over Zelensky's head.

38:14Jordy Meiselas:I seem to remember a political party and a guy who was running for president who made a big stink about an individual, a son of the president, who was doing business in Ukraine. But they made up a whole lot of stories about that guy and held a whole lot of hearings about that guy. But they now want to actually enrich themselves off the Ukrainian people. And this is okay? Yeah.

38:42Ben Meiselas:Take the drone technology from Ukraine while then releasing Russia from sanctions. while Russia targets American, helps Iran target American soldiers. And while Donald Trump helps China against Taiwan, while China is also providing support to Iran. Just think about that. Trump's granddaughter, Kai, yesterday posted a video, I brought my secret service to Airwan. It's an expensive grocery store in Los Angeles. And she like buys stuff at Air One and like tries the sushi. Like, oh, this sushi is gross. And what I pay for it,$25 for the, I'm going to have to file for bankruptcy. It's like actually what she says.

39:34Ben Meiselas:So that's what she's posting. You had Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump's daughter, right? Kai's a granddaughter. Tiffany Trump, the day the war begins, she's posting, you can't like make this stuff up. She's posting photos of herself in Egypt. I think she previously took this vacation, but she happened to post it that day, I believe February 27th, I believe was the first day, right around there. Doing the thing where she puts her finger on the top of the pyramid, like doing influencer poses right there. You have Melania Trump making posts about her movie and saying, the Melania movie is out right now.

40:12Ben Meiselas:Go and check. Big news. What does she say? She She says, big news, Melania, France, record-breaking film, only on Prime worldwide. You have her making those posts. You have Eric Trump also making posts of himself with a race car team that he's involved in. You have Ivanka Trump. There it is with the race car team. They're out there partying right now. I saw people saying, are they trying to do French Revolution? Like, are they really like, are they putting that out into the world? Right. Like, what are you doing?

40:50Brett Meiselas:Dude, they are living the Trump kids are living their best lives. They are they are partying. They are spiking. They are spiking the football in the faces of the American people right now.

41:01Jordy Meiselas:You know, I think they just realized that, like, the more extreme they go, like the more their cultish followers will support them. And like in the past, it would be like you could do like make a minor transgression and it would be front page news and there would have to be at minimum of an apology or people would be resigning from their jobs or whatever it is, right? But these people, these Trump family grifters, they just know that if they just throw it in your face, my secret service trip to Erwan, I mean, SNL couldn't write that as like more of a fucking parody. Sorry, it's used my language.

41:39Jordy Meiselas:And you throw that in people's faces. But somehow they get these MAGA people to go, oh, that's amazing.

41:48Ben Meiselas:This is the best. Yes. What a great dress you were wearing, Kai. Great dress. It's like they're stealing from you.

41:55Brett Meiselas:It's obvious, right? The way we're talking, Air One is like a super expensive, high-end, like, grocery store in California, just in case people don't know. Because it's that insane. And it's that tone deaf. literally as literally as they're bombing children. She's going there and my secret service trip, Eric Trump posting with race car drivers, Don Jr. I'm doing whatever the Don Jr. does, man. It's so pathetic. They are so pathetic. And they do it at such a rapid clip that, that it, it almost, it's almost hard for people to keep up with. I'll tell you what Don Jr.

42:32Ben Meiselas:I'll tell you what Don Jr. actually posted on his, um, Instagram account. He posted a photo of some of that black smoke that Brett was talking about from the United States and Israel kind of bombing indiscriminately in Iran. And it says black smoke signals that the College of the Mullas has not reached a decision on the new Ayatollah today. And like that's and then Don Jr. goes, not going to lie. This is legit funny. He says this is legit funny. Well, they picked an Ayatollah. It's Khomeini's son, Monjaba, who is now, if this is legit funny to you, but there are hundreds of thousands of people in Revolutionary Square in Tehran supporting the Ayatollah.

43:20Ben Meiselas:And anybody who may have been sympathetic to the United States or just to the idea of overthrowing the Ayatollah are not to be seen right now in Iran. and our intelligence community shows there's frankly very little chance of that rising ever again. There was maybe a small window in January when Trump betrayed them. But even then people thought it probably doesn't have the capability of actually overthrowing.

43:52Jordy Meiselas:By the way, I think that was the subtext behind Trump's remarks today when he basically abandoned the Iranian people. And he was basically like, oh, those people, they're very nasty. At one point he called them nasty people. So the Iranian people are very nasty people. And in another one, he said, I would love to help them, but they're very menacing, very, very menacing people. And I think part of the context or the subtext behind that is the fact that he has learned from the intelligence in the United States that he has actually made these people more sympathetic to the regime by the United States' actions, and that Trump has no chance of actually implementing the regime change that he wanted to implement when he embarked on this war without having any sort of strategy whatsoever.

44:43Jordy Meiselas:He's really only made the problem much worse, and he's made our country much less safe, and he's made the region much less safe, and he's completely disrupted markets. And it's like every possible thing imaginable that kind of could go wrong with a situation like this is going wrong right now. And I think he realizes that.

45:02Brett Meiselas:Well, Brett, because it can never be his fault. It can't be dear leader's fault. Donald Trump, he's the smartest and most brightest and the bestest guy that ever exists. So it's the Iranian people's fault now, Brett. He always moves the goalposts here so he doesn't have to actually see the consequences of his ill planning, of his misjudgment, of his just utter lunacy. That's what it is.

45:25Ben Meiselas:Let me go and bring some of the receipts because I know one of the things you value at the Midas Touch Network is that this isn't a shouting show, right? Where we do the split screen. You trying to say I was getting a little shouty? No, quite the contrary. Actually, I was saying that you were pitch perfect, Jordy. but I was just saying that you know what what what I don't want the show to be about though is just like well I'm not suggesting you did this at all you know I just I want to show people what he said rather than me saying what he said not because I like showing you Trump clips but I think it's important if I were to present my case to a jury right when I used to be a litigator I'd have to support what I'm saying with evidence that's why the catchphrase is let me play you the clip and maybe you don't like when I say that it's like all right just play the clip you don't need to say, play the clip.

46:13Ben Meiselas:But the whole point is, is that here it is. Here's their words. Here's what they're saying. That's it. That shouldn't be Democrat, Republican, independent. It just is what they're saying. So here the reporter says to Donald Trump or asks, on Iran, you called it an excursion and you said it would be over soon. Are you thinking this week? What do you mean by soon? And remember earlier today, Trump said, we're basically complete. We're basically done. So a reporter seeks clarification. What did you mean when you told that to CBS? Let's play it. Yeah, please.

46:46Brett Meiselas:Thank you, Mr. President. On Iran, you called it an excursion. You said it would be over soon.

46:50Ben Meiselas:Are you thinking this week it will be over?

46:52Brett Meiselas:No, but soon. You're talking about days?

46:54Jordy Meiselas:I think soon.

46:54Brett Meiselas:Okay, and with respect to...

46:56Jordy Meiselas:Very soon. Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership. In fact, there are two levels of leadership, and even actually, as it turns out, more than that, but two levels of leadership are gone. most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about so uh it's obviously been very very powerful very effective yeah just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean that people haven't heard of it their foreign minister is the same foreign minister

47:24Ben Meiselas:their national security advisors their same national security advisor their head of their parliament is the head of their parliament their new ayatollah is just the son of the old ayatollah who's more extreme than his dad was. Did you kill a lot of people who were in leadership positions? Yes. Is the leadership structure and the continuity of it in place? Still is. Does Iran still have the capabilities to shoot at the Arab neighbors that where American interests are? They do. So let's, again, just stick with the facts here. That's all.

47:57Jordy Meiselas:That's all I want to do on this show. By the way, you've seen in recent days too, like these talking points. And it's like, I have, you know, Iraq war PTSD from hearing all of these talking points over and over and over again. I can't believe that they use the same comments to try to dupe people and that people believe this stuff. But you see these people one by one going on TV, these Republicans and people within the Trump administration, and they go, well, of course we're going to win. Of course, this is going to be a success. We have far more firepower than they do. They don't stand a chance.

48:28Jordy Meiselas:I heard that in Iraq. I've heard that with Afghanistan. That's what they said during Vietnam. They've said this during every single war that the United States has went into that has been a complete and utter disaster. Yet they use the same freaking lines every time they send American troops out there to die. And I'm sick of it.

48:48Brett Meiselas:Here's the thing though. Wait, one sec, Ben. Just wait until he does the banner thing. I say that not being funny at all. He's going to do the mission accomplished banner thing. He does it every day though at this point, right? Yeah, it's fair, fair. But just wait till the photo op itself. Just wait, because it's coming. It's absolutely coming. Right.

49:07Ben Meiselas:But to me, Brett, I hear you of the similarities, but like to me, it's the difference of like degrees that are so vast that like at least with Iraq, and I'm not necessarily saying this as a better thing. Like at least they tried to present it with intelligent people who worked hard to pretend they were building a coalition and like - There was months and months and months

49:34Jordy Meiselas:of selling that to the American people.

49:36Ben Meiselas:You know, like right now, this is like out of a stupid comic book. Like it's not even done at a level that bears any like intelligent thinking. And, And I'm watching, I'm like, this is just stupid. That's what I said earlier in the show. I don't like propaganda. That's an AI image of the mission accomplished in the background. We're mocking that he's declaring mission accomplished, just so you know. But he said those things, essentially. But again, I don't like propaganda in general. I detest it. But this is like F-level propaganda. You're like, what? What are you talking about? that he bragged about speaking with Putin.

50:18Ben Meiselas:I mean, just think about it. If American president, Putin is out there right now trying to kill Americans. Putin's sworn enemy, the United States of America. Putin is working to destroy our country, all of Europe, other than, I suppose, Orban, and trying to destroy Ukraine, which I consider part of Europe, of course. he hates us. He literally wants to see America dead. But Donald Trump's like, yeah, I had a good call. Good call with the guy today. We had a good call with him. And by the way, the way we found out about this was from the Kremlin originally. So when the reporter was asking Trump, it was for confirmation about what the Kremlin published.

51:07Ben Meiselas:Watch for yourself. Let's play it.

51:09Jordy Meiselas:Do you approve of Iran's new supreme leader? And secondly, can you tell us more about your call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today? What did you discuss? Yes, I had a very good call with President Putin. We had a lot of people on the line from our side, from his side. We were talking about Ukraine, which is just a never-ending fight. And when, look, there's tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky. I can't seem to get it together, but I think it was a positive call on that subject. And we obviously talked then about the Middle East and he wants to be helpful. I said that you could be more helpful by getting the Ukraine-Russia war over with.

51:54Jordy Meiselas:That would be more helpful. But we had a very good talk and he wants to be very constructive. That was really a Helsinki kind of moment for me. Like if that were a first term Trump comment, that would be like the top headline for a while. Russia wants to help us. They actually want to help the war. It reminds me of after that Helsinki meeting when he was like, oh, well, Russia's actually, Vladimir Putin actually says that he's actually, he was actually very strong in his denials. And the Russians actually want to help us with our cybersecurity. So we're actually going to now, we're going to join forces actually.

52:26Jordy Meiselas:And they're going to help us with our cybersecurity because Vlad D.C. tells me he wants to help you guys. You know, he says he wants to help and I believe him.

52:34Ben Meiselas:Yeah, I'll just show you. I mean, we know that Russia is providing data to Iran to kill our soldiers and to blow up our military interest abroad. That's an undeniable fact. It's an undisputed fact. In fact, the Trump regime doesn't even rebut it, right? The Trump regime's line to it. And Brett, do we have that like the spokesperson, you know, one of the State Department spokesperson, that lady who says it just their line is, well, if Russia's doing it, they're doing a bad job. Yeah. Tammy, Tammy Bruce, the UN ambassador. Tammy Bruce, let's just play this. Their line is not to deny it. It's to say, well, they're not doing a good job.

53:17Ben Meiselas:What do you mean they're not doing a good job? we've had like our drone reapers destroyed our cia cia facilities in like uh saudi arabia

53:27Jordy Meiselas:i have the full clip which is kind of long if i want to play the whole thing we don't need to play

53:30Ben Meiselas:the full clip then it's fine she says that but and that's repeated over and over again by trump regime officials there and it's like what dude and china is helping iran right now and trump's like well, I'm just trying to do my best to help China. Help America. Why didn't you help America? So a reporter then asks Trump, a video appears to show a Tomahawk missile likely destroying the Iranian girls' school. There's video of it. You can see the Tomahawk in the video. And then from the satellite image, you can see the craters that are formed from the Tomahawk missile. And you can see the nearby areas that were also hit.

54:15Ben Meiselas:And it has a pattern that was utilized that is clearly consistent with the U.S. Tomahawks. The U.S. is not selling Iran Tomahawk missiles, okay? And not a lot of countries even have these Tomahawk missiles to begin with. And I'll show you what Trump's response is to this atrocity. And look, it was very hard for me to report on this. It's sad for me to report on atrocities like this, but it's my job as a reporter. And there were lots of people who were even denying it when we were reporting on it early on. And they were saying, no, that's just Iranian propaganda. I'm like, it really happened. We know it happened.

54:58Ben Meiselas:And now it's been confirmed across multiple intelligence agencies. We know that's what happened. And now the Trumpers are like, we're doing an investigation. Well, here's what Trump said when a reporter asked him about it. Let's play this first.

55:12Jordy Meiselas:Go ahead. There's a footage that shows that an American missile strike and a Tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girl's school. So will the Americans, will the U.S. accept any responsibility? Well, I haven't seen it. And I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries. You know that. and whether it's Iran, who also has some tomahawks, I wish they had more, but whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a tomahawk, a tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries, but that's being investigated.

55:50Ben Meiselas:Okay. Current operators include UK, Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands. There's not a generic tomahawk, like a generic medication. It's not ibuprofen. ibuprofen. You know, it's just, you know, when, when someone does a lie like that, that's such a big lie, right? If someone watches that, you're like, wait a minute, what part of that was a lie? Every aspect of it. So they don't have tomahawks? No. But what about the generic? No. What do you mean he hasn't seen? No, he's, he's seen it. He knows, he knows that the United States did it. He knows the United States killed 150 little, girls on the first day.

56:31Ben Meiselas:The question that needs to be answered, although the answer doesn't bring back to life these little girls who were massacred, is was it autonomous AI that did it? Because there were Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities nearby, but this facility's been existing for a long time. Did the AI mix up the facilities? What happened there? but we did it. That's what happened. So a reporter then asks him another question, like, so are you suggesting that Iran has used a tomahawk on itself? Is that the suggestion to kill the little girls? Like, that's what you're saying? Here, play this clip.

57:14Jordy Meiselas:Mr. President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a tomahawk and bombed

57:19Brett Meiselas:its own elementary school on the first day of the war, but you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked,

57:26Jordy Meiselas:standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this? Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But tomahawks are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly, whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report.

57:49Ben Meiselas:Does that even mean you're willing to live with the report? we massacred 150 little girls. And you know that's his concession that we did it. I'm willing to live with it. Okay, you're willing to live with atrocities. We know that about you. But why should we, the people in the United States, live with this regime? This is where our taxpayer dollars are going to, while your healthcare is being ripped away while you can't afford homes, while you can't afford basic necessities in life, while you are not getting paid with dignity, while the Trump regime launches what they're calling an anti-fraud crusade against our veterans, basically accusing our veterans of defrauding the VA.

58:43Ben Meiselas:That was their big initiative that they rolled out today, going after our veterans. While they're doing that, our money is going to drop bombs and kill little girls. But you think about it, this is the Epstein class, right? What is this war also about? Covering up the fact that this is a regime of predators who committed atrocities against little girls. So it doesn't shock you that the people who are predators against little girls are predators against little girls. and can live with it, can live with it.

59:20Jordy Meiselas:I can live with that. And people, I'm begging people to not reflexively engage in this atrocity denialism that exists. And it happens a lot in these situations. I think we saw it so much in Gaza when schools were bombed and hospitals were bombed. The instant kind of reflex of a lot of people and the instant propaganda push to try to cover for those bad actions were to say that they did it to themselves. were to say that these missiles were actually misfired by whoever. And you could acknowledge that the Iranian regime is a very evil regime that is very bad to its people and has killed tens of thousands of its people in the past few months alone who were protesting for their freedom.

1:00:05Jordy Meiselas:And you could also say that it is absolutely reprehensible and unforgivable that the United States killed over 150 little girls bombing a school. And then, you know, the excuses just continue to mount from there because I've been seeing these online. I see how the propaganda works. So I just want to call it out quickly. You see people say, well, why are they building these schools so close to military bases if they don't want to be hit? Let me tell you, because I looked it up. There are more than 160 public schools located on US military installations. So are you saying that you would be okay if another country bombed a school in the United States and you'd write it off?

1:00:47Jordy Meiselas:Well, they shouldn't have had it that close to a military installation. That's not even accounting for the schools that are in the perimeter of these military installations and bases. So no, it's not okay. And I think we have to drop any of the sort of like equivocating when it comes to something that requires our moral clarity in moments like this. We need to hold this administration's feet to the fire when it comes to this, because we should not be okay, as Ben said, with our tax dollars being used to bomb and kill innocent children who have nothing to do with any of this whatsoever.

1:01:23Ben Meiselas:Let's take our last quick break of the show. A quick reminder, make sure you're subscribed to this YouTube channel. Double check, because you may think you're subscribed because you look up the Midas Touch videos every morning, but you may not actually be subscribed. So double check that you're really subscribed. Also turn your notifications on so you get alerted every time a Midas Touch video is released, which we do quite frequently. And also become a member if you can, and you can gift memberships to other people as well. That helps grow this independent media platform. If you want to take a look at some of the Midas merch.

1:02:01Ben Meiselas:You can go to store.midastouch.com there. Our sub stack is midasplus.com. You can check that out. Last quick break of the show, a really big audience here today. When we come back, we'll discuss moving forward what we expect to see happen in this disastrous war, and we'll talk about more. Let's take our last quick break.

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1:06:55Ben Meiselas:So after Donald Trump manipulated the markets today, used CBS as his conduit to put out a message that he wanted to end the war soon, then did that deranged press conference that was all over the place. About an hour ago, he posted the following on his social media platform. if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back as a nation again. Death, fire, and fury will reign upon them, but I hope and pray that it does not happen.

1:07:44Ben Meiselas:Just pause there for a second. Brett, to your point, he's also lumping once again the Iranian people into this as well and saying death, fire, and fury will reign upon them. Just think about that language. That's the language of Hitler, right? That's the language of like Mussolini. That's the language.

1:08:10Jordy Meiselas:The language that he's saying right now, there's another comment that he made, like the map of Iran is going to look very different after all this is done. He keeps threatening the country of Iran, not just the Iranian regime, which is the biggest gift that he could possibly give to the Iranian regime for them to hold and strengthen their grip on power on the Iranian people. I mean, the Iranian people don't want see their country get destroyed. They don't want to see their borders shrink. They don't want to see their country go away. Okay. A lot of them may want new leadership, but Donald Trump right now is doing everything he can possible to ensure that the most hardline people are the ones who remain in power there.

1:08:53Brett Meiselas:Ben, I want to ask you this, and I'm sorry to ask you and interrupt you there, but like, if you could get in his head and I know it's a scary thing. Why do you, why do you think he is using this type of language? Is it like this machismo, this strong man, this frankly authoritarian dictator type of language? Do you think he's doing this because he thinks it's going to like invigorate his base? They're like, oh yeah, this is our guy. Like why is he using these words?

1:09:15Ben Meiselas:Because it's how weak men behave. It's a weak people behave like this, right? It's the opposite of what Sun Tzu describes in the art of war, right? About how you should portray when you're strong and what you should portray when you're, it's clear that Donald Trump's behavior indicates to anybody who's analyzing him how weak he is because strong people don't need to behave like this. This is how desperate people sound. And a lot of the time when people are like, oh, you're anti-Trump, anti-Trump podcast, that's what I mean. The bottom line is that if it helps more people watch this, you can say anti-Trump podcast.

1:10:01Ben Meiselas:But it's not. It is a pro-democracy, pro-humanity, pro-leadership, pro-decency, pro-the values and principles that we talk about. The way Trump's behavior is and all of his life is that of a predator, someone who threatens and takes and steals and destroys and bankrupts and defrauds. That's how he's always been, Jordy. So his behavior is consistent with that, right? Who covers up child sex trafficking rings? Who's best friends with Jeffrey Epstein? Who says they grab women's vaginas because you're rich and you do that when you're rich. That's what Donald Trump says. Who says that you buy beauty pageants to inspect girls naked because when you own beauty pageants, you get to be their doctor or their inspector and they have to let you do it?

1:11:10Ben Meiselas:Who says these things? Who behaves these ways? Who takes a social media company like Donald Trump's? When you have that position and lose$700 million and only make$3 million in revenue, such that you have to merge with a fusion company, which then has government contracts, so your social media entity is actually a fusion company, who lives in a home that is the site of child sex trafficking. When all these people are like, well, what does the Epstein files show about Donald Trump? Okay. Child sex trafficking took place at his home. Shouldn't that be a pretty big red flag, right? Virginia Giuffre, when she was under age, was recruited by Epstein for his sex trafficking ring at Mar-a-Lago, the place where Trump lives and the place where he is conducting this unlawful war is an area where Epstein partied.

1:12:26Ben Meiselas:Who calls it Operation Epic Fury as though it's some game? I shared with you those quotes of former presidents because matters of war and peace should be the most painstaking decisions that are made for any American president. It should be the hardest thing you do, and it should keep you up at night, and it should bring you a sense of moral responsibility to have everything buttoned up. But the thing is, I'm not anti-Trump because he's This guy, I don't, his qualities and these characteristics are now resulting in so many people suffering. And then he's found this cabal of deeply weak people who are, who like get off on this stuff too.

1:13:23Ben Meiselas:I mean, do we have Lindsey Graham? I said this before on videos and I truly mean this in my opinion. whatever Lindsey Graham is hiding about his sexuality or his personality or who he is, I don't know. I want to be, I don't know. I don't know his background, but whatever it is that he is unable to deal with or grapple with or whatever that may be. And again, I don't know. In my opinion, whatever he's dealing with, I think that he truly gets aroused And I'm not saying this to be funny. I actually think he gets off aroused by talking about war. I've never seen any human talk about war in this way.

1:14:16Ben Meiselas:And again, I'm just giving you my opinions on this. And I want to be clear to make that distinction that this is opinion, First Amendment observations that I'm giving you my opinion on. But take a look for yourself at Lindsey Graham so you can see here, play this clip. President Trump is in the process of doing it.

1:14:35Jordy Meiselas:They're going to lose and we're going to win. Israel and the United States, you just wait to see what comes in the next two weeks.

1:14:43Brett Meiselas:The next two weeks meaning what?

1:14:46Jordy Meiselas:We're going to blow the hell out of these people. This regime is in a death row now. It is going to be on its knees. It's going to fall. And when it falls, we're going to have peace like no other time. We're going to have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine. Peace brings prosperity. You can't do it by talking. The Democrats criticize this operation. They didn't do a damn thing.

1:15:10Ben Meiselas:These men and women in the military should make us all proud. Remember when, again, you would see like a Baghdad bob. Like to me, what I'm seeing there, Jordy, to your point, why these are weak, weak individuals. So now take a look at. And this is hard for me to even wrap my mind around. So I look at the foreign minister of Iran and I'm thinking to myself, is this person going to be out there doing death and fury will rain down upon you? And chanting and all of the stereotypes that our media tries to propagandize. And I'm trying to like, I'm seeing Trump saying, death fury will rain down. And these people don't even know the tomahawks, they tomahawk themselves.

1:16:02Ben Meiselas:Red, you know, all of that. OK. And then I'm watching, you know, OK, well, what are they saying on the other side right here? So play the foreign minister, Aragchi. And here's what he sat down and told American media. Let's play.

1:16:17Jordy Meiselas:Well, let me ask you, because what conditions would Iran accept to bring this war to an end?

1:16:27Jordy Meiselas:Well, actually, we are not at that point yet. Obviously, this time is different from the previous time. Last time we accepted the ceasefire. But, you know, this time is quite different. And the reason is obvious. You know, last time they attacked us, they made aggression against us, they killed our people, they destroyed our places, and then asked for a ceasefire. And we accepted out of good faith because we were only exercising the, you know, the act of self-defense. And when the aggression was stopped, we stopped too. But, you know, it didn't bring about peace. and now this year they again started to attack us and again they have you know they are killing our people they are killing you know girl students uh you know they are attacking hospitals uh you know fresh water desalination you know refineries uh you know everywhere people have been killed places have been destroyed and now they want to ask for a ceasefire again well this this doesn't work like this so there should be a permanent end of the war and unless we get to that i think we need to uh you know uh continue fighting for for the sake of our people so then she asks him well what do you think about donald trump saying which is that's framing what do you think about

1:18:05Ben Meiselas:about Donald Trump saying that it was actually Iran that bombed its own elementary school. And that's how she frames the question. Donald Trump said, react to what Donald Trump said. And watch what he says here. Here, play this clip.

1:18:19Jordy Meiselas:Let's move to the strike on the elementary school in Southern Iran. It killed more than 170 people, including many children. President Trump said Iran is responsible for that strike. What is your response to what the president said?

1:18:39Jordy Meiselas:Well, it is, you know, funny. It is our school. These are our students, our girls. And they are attacked by an American fighter, a jet fighter. And they have been killed. Why? Iran is responsible. Have we started this war? Have we attacked our own people? No, we were negotiating with the United States. And in the middle of negotiations, in the middle of diplomacy, they decided to attack us. And they have attacked so many places, including schools and hospitals. And there are all evidences that this school is attacked by an American, you know, jet fighter.

1:19:23Ben Meiselas:And then I'll just show you one more because I'm like, OK, who I see the American Trump regime people. speaking, right? So he's one of the people they have out there. Iran also has this guy, Kamal Karazi, the foreign policy advisor to the supreme leader to their Ayatollah. And again, I'm like, okay, so is this guy going to be out there, you know, talking about death and fire and fury? Like, is he out there going to be doing what we hear the Trump regime is doing? Is he going to start saying those things? You know, we're doing suicide bombs. Is this what they're going to say? hey, here's what this guy says.

1:20:01Ben Meiselas:Let's play it. Iran has a new supreme leader. What does that mean for your military effort and the confrontation with the United States and Israel?

1:20:10Brett Meiselas:That means the system is quite functioning.

1:20:13Ben Meiselas:So the United States says it's drastically degraded the Iranian military, the capabilities as far as missiles is concerned, drones is concerned. How much longer can you do this?

1:20:21Jordy Meiselas:That is one of the false narratives

1:20:26Ben Meiselas:that the United States government is producing. Iranian military is quite strong, as you see,

1:20:37Brett Meiselas:because they have the motivation, they have the arms that they need,

1:20:46Jordy Meiselas:which are produced in Iran. As a matter of fact, we are not dependent on any other country for weapons and arms.

1:20:55Ben Meiselas:So your side is ready for a long war if the United States and Israel choose that. Do you consider this an existential threat to the Islamic Republic? It is an existential threat to the Islamic Republic and therefore we have to stay with full might as we are doing now. One thing I want to say before turning it over to Brett and Jordy, CNN is at its best when they do that type of reporting. And to me, if I were running CNN, I don't need to because I run the Midas Touch. I want to do more of that here on the Midas Touch Network, especially as we build out our international presence. That's what they should be doing.

1:21:38Ben Meiselas:They don't need to be doing shows with Scott, whatever that guy's name is, Jennings, and having people yell. Just get the facts. That's good reporting right there. we can all judge for ourselves, right? We can look at the body language, the statements, we can compare it to then what's happening on the ground, and we can form opinions about the war when we're given a data set, just like members of the jury can do that at a trial. To me, that's what journalism should be about. That's why I do play the clips. More of that is what they need to do. And more of that is what I want to build here at the Midas Touch Network.

1:22:20Ben Meiselas:And I'm showing it to you not to spread Iranian propaganda or to say, here's what they're saying. I just showed you what Trump's saying. I'm showing you what they're saying. And you could make a decision if you believe that that Iranian regime is about to surrender, if they plan on giving up, if they look fearful or disorganized or all over the place, you can judge for yourself, Brett and Jordy.

1:22:48Jordy Meiselas:Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately, it's an indisputed fact that the Trump regime lied us into this war. And we know from third parties who were trusted third parties of the United States who said that Iran had come to the table and that they had conceded to the Trump administration far more than they have given to any other administration in history in the United States, even going beyond the Iran deal that Obama cut was how they put it. But Donald Trump refused to take yes for an answer in that case, and Donald Trump brought us into war in the middle of those negotiations. So we are dealing now, and I'm not saying far from it, I'm not saying our government has never lied to us before, because I would say probably just about every single president out there has lied to us.

1:23:39Jordy Meiselas:We've been lied into wars before. We've been lied about what's happening in wars before. But the level of lies that we are seeing right now and just how in your face they are about these lies, it's so much just demeaning to your intelligence that they go out there. And so I think it's important that we do have that split screen, that we are able to share the raw data. And I think as we reflect also on what this Trump administration has been doing for the past year or so, the way they've gone and just tried to completely gut any of President Biden's successes that he's had under the guise of America First, they've actually done the opposite.

1:24:20Jordy Meiselas:They've actually left America all alone, and they've actually made the United States of America far less prepared for emergency situations kind of like this. And I'll give you one quick example, energy, because we've been speaking about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, right? Something like 90 plus percent of the ships right now unable to go through the Strait of Hormuz. We've been seeing these massive fluctuations in oil prices, which obviously benefits Russia and Vladimir Putin, as we discussed earlier in this episode. But you know what would help with that? from the administration that has constantly talked about, we're energy independent now.

1:24:57Jordy Meiselas:This is what energy independence looks like. No, we're not. And we're seeing that we're not right now. But you know what would have helped with energy independence? All of those clean energy projects that Biden was working on, all of those clean energy initiatives that were already built or that were underway, that were also providing Americans all across the country with thousands of thousands of jobs, all of those clean energy projects that Donald Trump axed when he got into office, I think we would actually be doing a lot better right now if we actually had a stable source of clean energy right here in the United States than having to rely so much on foreign oil supplies.

1:25:35Jordy Meiselas:And we're seeing the ramifications of that right now. We saw one of the Wall Street Journal headline yesterday probably sent a chill through Donald Trump's spine and everybody in that administration because they compared the energy crisis that we are in right now to the energy crisis of the 1970s. You even saw Donald Trump commenting on that today. You know, it was like Jimmy Carter had a big energy crisis back then. Didn't work out so well. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening right now under you. So when you talk about clean energy and initiatives like that, it's not even just that it's a good thing for the environment.

1:26:10Jordy Meiselas:It's also a strategically smart thing. And that's why Donald Trump, when he continues to set us back, he's actually making the United States of America less safe. And I think we need to connect the dots on those things. There was even a comment today, for example, because in the midst of this war, what does Donald Trump go to? He goes back to the greatest hits. He starts ranting about wind energy and windmills. I'm not making this up. This is what he was speaking about today during his speech. And Donald Trump said the following, and I'll quote him here from this clip. Donald Trump said, try finding wind farms in China.

1:26:43Jordy Meiselas:He was basically saying, and you can't find any wind farms in China. Here's a map of all the wind farms in China. For those listening, there's a dot where there are a bunch of wind farms. The entire map has a lot of dots. There are a ton of wind farms in China. China is the world leader in wind farms because China doesn't view this as a political battle where, oh, we need to help this industry versus that industry and its political donations. They just view it as a strategic thing for their country because they know how important it is strategically. But Donald Trump has completely destroyed any strategic advantage we may have.

1:27:21Jordy Meiselas:And he continues to do it up to this very minute by making comments like that. So I just wanted to point that out as well, how ill-prepared Donald Trump has made us to handle such a disruption to the markets like this. And of course, everything else Donald Trump has done with the tariffs and everything. There's gonna be so much inflation as a result of all this. and so much instability. And it's really the effects of it aren't even going to be felt until, you know, you're already seeing it at the gas pumps. But the effects of, like, as a holistically speaking, it's going to keep coming. Like, this is going to keep showing up on reports and things are going to get more and more and more expensive.

1:28:01Jordy Meiselas:And the Trump administration is completely unprepared for what's next.

1:28:05Brett Meiselas:Exactly. The Trump regime completely unprepared for what's next. I fear too that the legacy media and the MAGA media and all those entities are also ill prepared for what comes next. If they're not going to be willing to hold his feet to the fire on the little lies, then what about the big lies? Are they going to hold his feet to the fire on any lies? Ben, you bring up such a great point. That CNN segment, it was a good segment, a solid segment. The CNN fight show, I genuinely believe that that's bad for the country, that show. That level of brain rot is just horrific we have just got to get to a place in society where facts and truth and data win the day that's what i'm most proud of with what we the collective we hear are building with the midas touch network because facts look people will inevitably let you down but facts data the truth if those could be your north star your core ethos your values well that's a pretty good place to start and point yourself at.

1:29:05Brett Meiselas:And so as we continue to grow, Ben, I'm excited to bring people more facts, more more data, more receipts, more videos, because ultimately, like it's us and independent media against everybody else right now. And corporate media, quite frankly, is failing. They are not meeting the moment and someone's going to have to hold their feet to the fire. Yeah.

1:29:28Ben Meiselas:Yeah, you know, and we've been very focused on international reporting, not just in launching Midas Canada. That was the start of our international expansion. Shout out to Charlie Angus and make sure you all subscribe to the Midas Canada YouTube channel, by the way. But almost every day, I either do a report on Ukraine or a report on international news. And I've been doing it every single day since the November election and the horrific results in that election. And if you've been watching Midas Touch, you've been seeing all of these geopolitical developments play out and the shifting world order that's taking place as Trump is weakening the United States of America.

1:30:18Ben Meiselas:So in many ways, Trump's unlawful war against Iran really is part of the confluence of factors that are the perfect storm for destroying America's strength forever, basically, because we tariffed the world, we pulled out of trade deals, we gutted the State Department, we threatened our NATO allies. Donald Trump has empowered China and Russia, which in turn has empowered Iran to build the Shahid drones for Russia. We have collectively abandoned, the United States has. Here we are. Abandoned international institutions, Trump's Board of Peace grift, trying to make these Middle Eastern countries pay him tribute in return for protection, but then actually causing the biggest crisis for these Arab nations that are going to perpetually weaken them.

1:31:33Ben Meiselas:We've seen Donald Trump's complete support of the atrocities being committed by Netanyahu going all in. We've seen all those Netanyahu visits to Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere. You know, we saw when Donald Trump posted the memes, remember Trump Gaza, what they called it, Right. And like you would think that that would get like a lot of attention, but it barely got attention. He posted Trump Gaza, which was him and Netanyahu, like dancing with like like girls in bikinis and AI partying in Palestinian land. You know, remember he did that? Fake ceasefire in Gaza. By the way, more people are getting killed by Israel and the IDF, innocent people in Gaza.

1:32:30Ben Meiselas:You know, every day that's, there was never a ceasefire in Gaza. It was always a fake thing that they just said. Anybody who knew there really wasn't a ceasefire that took place. Hundreds, if not thousands of people have been killed since they announced the fake ceasefire. And every day, journalists, women, children, Um, that's, you know, you take all of these factors together and then you have this mediation between the United States and Iran. U.S. picks the mediator, the foreign minister of Oman. A breakthrough is reached in the mediation. Uh, we think that peace is on the horizon. Wow, did Donald Trump do this deal?

1:33:15Ben Meiselas:and Iran is going to agree to things that were even stronger than the deal that Obama got. If Trump was able to get that, I'd be skeptical. But if he really did it, I would say that great, great work. You did it. We should all, if he did the deal, we could separate a good deal from all the horrible deals. But that's what was announced that Friday. We all remember it. Our own handpicked mediator the foreign minister of amman said so on public tv no one no one rebutted it as oh that's not true and then that night netanyahu told donald trump israel is going to invade iran we're attacking iran so you're either with us or you're against us what is it donald pick right now and trump goes oh i guess i gotta do it i'm not that's what rubio said happened i'm not i'm not making this up i'm literally basically trump basically said it again by the way in another interview today.

1:34:06Ben Meiselas:They're all saying that's what happened. And now here we are in this situation where now the way Trump is dealing with Russia and China, providing aid to Iran, supplies to Iran, coordinates to help kill American soldiers and to go after American assets is by not denying it, but just saying, well, if they're doing it, they're not doing a good job, I guess, and then calling Putin and saying that he had a great call with Putin. Put that all together. Those are the facts. We need to live in a world of facts. What you do with those facts, you do with those facts. But I gave you the undisputed facts of what have occurred.

1:34:55And that's what we'll keep on doing here every single day at the Midas Touchdown.

1:35:00Ben Meiselas:A reminder, make sure you hit subscribe. Our network is growing every day thanks to you, which is great because we're getting more facts in front of bigger audiences. So share this with as many people as possible. Hit subscribe, turn notifications on, subscribe to our audio podcast, search Midas Touch there. Even if you don't like listening on audio, it helps us. So five-star review there. Check out the merch store.midastouch.com.

1:35:34Brett Meiselas:Don't forget. Remember, if you were, that was a good burp, Ben, because I'm outing you on your burp. That was a good burp timing because 15 % off. Use code Midas at checkout store.midastouch.com.

1:35:44Ben Meiselas:You were able to see that burp? I thought no one could see that. Everyone saw it?

1:35:46Brett Meiselas:No, everyone saw it. All 20 ,000 people watching live saw that burp. It was great burp. Good burp. You kept it to yourself, concealed it. It wasn't gross.

1:35:53Ben Meiselas:Sometimes my best closing arguments just involved me

1:36:00Brett Meiselas:belching yeah it's great yeah it's great love it anyway code midas at store.midastouch.com get 15 off your entire order benji you want me to say it no okay you say shout out to the minus mighty

1:36:17Jordy Meiselas:standing strong

1:36:22Jordy Meiselas:against the fascists we sing our song We will get it right whenever Want to stay plugged in?

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