MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 7/24/26

21:34Jordy Meiselas:It's like he's doing everything imaginable right now to drive voters as far and far away from him and from the Republican Party. And I think that's why we're seeing this in all that latest polling as well.

21:45Ben Meiselas:Can I give you my theory of where that's going to go for the Congress and for Republicans in general? It's pretty obvious to me that Mike Johnson doesn't care about working, doesn't care about doing anything for the American people. And so I almost think to a certain degree they're going to welcome it. They'd love essentially to be the party not in charge because it's another excuse for them. Blame the Democrats. Oh, if only we were back in charge, we would have fixed this. Then the Democrats, they took us in the midterms and now we can't do anything. Like the blame game from congressional Republicans, from just Republicans right now in general is insane.

22:18Ben Meiselas:They control all three branches of government and yet they haven't moved a meaningful piece of legislation for the American people. In these two and a half years, Trump has been president. It's ridiculous to me. Also, another thing to note, one of the grossest things that Donald Trump is doing and has been doing, we played the clip here earlier, is how he's comparing the deaths of these military members and our servicemen and women to the deaths of other previous wars. First off, Donald Trump and the Trump regime are only acknowledging these 18 deaths, which is so damn tragic. And everything that we know about the Trump regime is that they lie.

22:50Ben Meiselas:I'm not fully convinced, this is my personal belief here, that the number is actually 18. I actually think that number is probably three to four times higher than 18, just based off of the amount of attacks and our bases getting hit day in and day out at this point. So that's one thing right there. But the way Donald Trump tries to delegitimize the deaths of our servicemen by comparing the numbers from other wars is deeply disturbing and honestly should make everyone's stomach turns. He's basically saying, oh, the death, these 18 deaths, again, the ones that I'm willing to acknowledge is Donald Trump.

23:25Ben Meiselas:It's only 18 guys, guys. It's only 18. Look, look at all these other wars, hundreds of thousands. He puts hundreds of thousands. He just like, like makes up numbers when he references the other wars now too. It's beyond the pale. It is really disgusting. And you would think you would think more people, especially in the Republican party, if they had any sort of backbone would want to stand up to and correct that behavior because it is so disgusting he's like guys it's only 18 it's only 18. but here's the thing too you know those other wars lasted a long time and this five months is a very long time even though trump said it was going to end in a few days then four to six weeks but donald trump is beginning the escalation now i don't know what type of leader or world leader starts spiking the football about the death count right before you're about to escalate and potentially surge troops into the region maybe put special forces maybe do a ground invasion and now you're saying this is like we should remember

24:33Jordy Meiselas:by the way we're seeing right now this build up in the middle east like all things when you look at the kind of just structure of how our troops are kind of positioned right now in the middle least. At least they want the appearance that there's an imminent kind of ground invasion or massive attack. And that's why I think you also see Donald Trump going to the press like the Israeli press and telling Israel's Channel 12 that he's considering a massive attack larger than anything before and says he's close to making a decision. Oftentimes, he's already made his decision about these things before he then goes and does those things.

25:04Jordy Meiselas:But everything right now is kind of lining up as this thing could be today, could be tomorrow, could be the next day, who knows, right? Tomorrow's Friday. Trump likes to bomb things on Fridays, right? Extra hard. And so this thing could escalate to such a point where we do have troops on the ground. In that case, yeah, the casualties could be absolutely massive. And so you're right, he is spiking the football before this kind of major escalation even happens. It's absolutely appalling. And we're already, to Jordi's point, still getting data in about the previous attacks. Now, I remember after the attack on the Jordan base, not you, Jordan, the country, Jordan, that we had heard from sources who knew people on those bases that those attacks were incredibly deadly.

25:50Jordy Meiselas:We got reports from people and new folks on the ground who said that the scenes were apocalyptic on those bases, the images that people saw and were reporting back. And so when we heard the initial reports and CENTCOM was writing on X and things like that saying, nobody was injured, nobody was killed, everybody's okay. And then we were getting those reports from people who had a firsthand knowledge of what happened on that base. And then we were seeing the satellite imagery that showed the bases completely devastated, the barracks destroyed, the containers destroyed. We knew they were lying to us at that point.

26:23Jordy Meiselas:We didn't have the information to say these were the amount of people who were killed or injured to that end, but we knew that they were lying to us at that point. We shouldn't have to worry that CENTCOM is going to lie to us about these types of things. It's absolutely heinous. It's an affront to our troops. Every kind of patriotic American who really does support this country and support our troops should be livid at the way that this commander-in-chief and his regime is handling all this.

26:52Ben Meiselas:Yeah, and all those other wars involved ground invasions also. Troops were on the ground. And so the lesson should not be spike the football at 18 and let's celebrate the amount, which is sick and disgusting, while reflecting on the deaths of these other wars where there were ground invasion. We had troops on the ground and in the cities. It's to perhaps learn from history, but Trump doesn't want to learn from anything. After this episode, as soon as this episode ends, and we still have a lot of show left, We're going to be on our Patreon. Go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, and I'll tell you what we're going to do on our Patreon.

27:27Ben Meiselas:We're going to talk about WTF America, our new book that's coming out in October, but you can pre-order it right now, WTF America. You can scan the QR code. The pre-orders really help a lot. So don't wait until October if you're able to buy it now, buy it now and pre-order it right now. but we're going to answer all of your questions about the book on the Patreon as soon as the show ends. So Patreon.

27:52Jordy Meiselas:And then I've got a lot of questions about this. So I'll just say it right now. Yes. You could pre-order the audio book. You could pre-order the ebook. You'd have like a Kindle or something like that. And it's all, and there's a hardcover for pre-order and multiple retailers at the link. And it's also available in all of North America for, for those wondering, and we're looking into the other internationals. We've got a lot of requests for the other internationals. That'll probably be closer to release date, but we're on, we're on the case. don't worry and thank you everybody who's pre-ordered already let's take our first quick break actually give me give me one second let's let's just talk a little bit more about this for

28:23Ben Meiselas:all right let's not take our first quick break of the show let's let's let's chat more about you mentioned marco rubio brett um why don't i show you though what rubio had to say because you mentioned how rubio was being kind of clownish rubio was whining about the lego videos and talking about how Iran makes mean Lego videos about the United States. He's upset about a meme. Rubio, it's more than a meme. It's musical Lego videos, to be fair. And Rubio is at the ASEAN conference, the South Asian conference, where the U.S. is participating on the sidelines. He's met with Wang Yi of China, the Chinese foreign minister, but of course didn't answer the question about what Donald Trump did a national address about.

29:09Ben Meiselas:So did you ask Wang Yi, do we have this clip too, Brett, where it's like, did you ask Wang Yi of China, the foreign minister, about Donald Trump saying that China interfered with the 2020 election? Seems like a question that might want to come up if the president of the United States does, I don't know, an entire national address. So Rubio, surely when you were there with China, you said, hey, we should talk about this, right? Did it even come up? Was it a topic? Here, let's play this clip. Was there a second agreement on election interference? We didn't discuss that topic. All right. We'll talk about the lagging when we come back from our first quick break of the show.

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33:07Ben Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors. Links in description, both YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, Let them know we sent you. It's very helpful. Benji, where to next, big bro? What I teased before the break, Marco Rubio, our horrific Secretary of State, talking about stupid Iranian Lego videos. This is what Secretary of State Rubio was saying at a major international conference. Let's play it. Because the price they're paying is very high, despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out. I've never seen them, but they put these things out on social media.

33:40despite all that bravado, they are suffering tremendously and they're going to suffer more until they come to their senses. They're not there yet, unfortunately. Which country is it?

33:48Ben Meiselas:I can't tell you who. The worst liar ever. He's, of course, seen them. He's seen them. He's never seen them. He's probably watched them every night before bed. Also, though, the language, though, you know, with Donald Trump, we're going to open the gates of hell and he's posting memes of himself with that stupid face of his, you know, it's the face of like that. Open the gates of hell. and then you have rubio saying we're going to make them suffer until they do a deal i mean if you look at the language of even how these american leaders speak they speak like terrorists everything that we've said that the bad guys speak like and behave is exactly how the trump regime sounds and talks and what you and what you do is you galvanize populations and resistance against you also.

34:36Jordy Meiselas:Yeah, it doesn't require a lot of editing, right? All they have to do is play that clip of Marco Rubio to their citizens and say, look what they're saying about you, right? All they have to do is show a Donald Trump truth social post that says, we want to annihilate your civilization. And what do you think the Iranian people are going to think? They're going to think, well, screw this guy. This guy's an evil monster, evil genocidal monster. We need to get together and we need to fight this evil. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I feel like When the Western media speaks about these issues and speaks about countries like Iran, it's often as if they aren't even the same species like the people.

35:11Jordy Meiselas:It's like a National Geographic kind of analysis. These are human beings we're talking about. They're not making their decisions. They're not taking actions just based on randomness. There's a reason for it. The stuff that Rubio is doing, and he's a secretary of state who should be engaged in diplomacy. the stuff that Donald Trump is doing, it's only having the opposite effect of what you actually want to do. And if you're trying to actually approach a party, as Ben knows in litigation from his attorney days, in good faith to actually do a deal, you want to do a deal. You don't threaten to kill the other person.

35:49Jordy Meiselas:You try to find areas of agreement. You try to come together. You try to beat out an agreement. By the way, the way they did with the MOU, which was a very bad deal for the United States. But as we said at the time, I thought it was good in general that we were signing an MOU so that we could hopefully get the hell out of this war. But Donald Trump doesn't want to do deals. He wants to string the other party along so that he could continue to escalate and he could be in this just quagmire forever. And just going back quickly to that other review clip too we played before break, how stupid do you got to feel if you're, I guess they don't have this level of self-reflection, but if you're one of the people who Donald Trump holds this big press conference.

36:26Jordy Meiselas:And he says, China has been hacking our elections. And they're like, Marco, you're going to do anything? You bring it up with the Chinese when you were in the room with them? He's like, nah. Why would I do that? Donald. So Donald, you're going to do anything about China? There's pretty serious accusations. Nah, that was them then. We do it too. Who cares? You held a primetime press conference. What do you mean, who cares? How do you go to bat for somebody who

36:53Ben Meiselas:behaves in this way it's pretty evident to me that marco rubio suffers from some sort of pinocchio of the years where every time he shills for donald trump his ears get a little bit bigger he really a little bit bigger marco rubio that loves when i talk about marco's ears marco ruby i i did that real so you know where i was going with that but marco rubio hey what a disappointment this guy was what a disappointment this guy has been and like i didn't expect much out of him at all. But I do think like at large, like if there was one person put in a, you know, position like Marco had been put in now, like, I don't know, people could maybe try to lie to themselves, convince themselves.

37:34Ben Meiselas:He's a, he's a real person. He'll try and do, try and do the right thing. Nope. Total shill, total, absolute shill and clown. And that, that writing has been on the wall for Marco for a very long time now. You know, it was interesting. I often bring this up we were speaking to i forget who but someone that was deep ties to the republican party who then came over and now is like a pro-democracy person and his whole thing was how disappointed he has been in marco rubio and this was back in 2020 i i can't imagine what they think of him now looking at all the shillingness and just uh you know day by day every time he shows the ears get a little bit bigger you kind of remember these story lines and these through lines remember when Rubio, after the MOU was signed, went to the Middle East and people said, so did you talk to these countries about the$300 billion fund for Iran?

38:23Ben Meiselas:Because that's one of the main provisions before you get to even talk about Iran's nuclear file. Surely you brought that up because you've all been saying that the Arab nations need to chip into that$300 billion fund that the American taxpayers are. So surely when you did this meeting, wasn't that what you were here to talk about? no, we didn't talk about that at all. And it was like, yeah, Pinocchio of the years right there. Jordan, it was a good, I don't remember his ears ever. It's a good assessment. Look, his ears are definitely growing several centimeters. Wasn't there a character on all that?

38:58Ben Meiselas:Wasn't there a character on all that? There was a lot of things on all that that I think need deep reflection. Maybe you have an age as well. Okay, well, maybe we'll just leave it there. No, I mean, I've seen all that. You're referring to ear boy. and i was here boy here boy bring up a photo breath there was there was randomly ross perot there was pizza face yeah ross perot was quite the choice for a kid what about what about repair man man man man man there was a lot in that show i i i was having a conversation about your boy this is so millennial coded yeah i was having a conversation about your boy the other day and and i wanted to show i was just having a casual conversation about your boy the other Well, was it in the context of Rubio?

39:40Ben Meiselas:No, it was in the context of shows that I watched growing up. And I just wanted to show my nephews who were of the age when I watched Ear Boy. I'm like, y 'all know Ear Boy? And they're like, no, we don't know. And I'm like, what about Pizza Face? And what about... I go, let me show you what I watched. And then I was showing them. I'm like, this is wildly inappropriate. This show is offensive on so many levels. And so it's funny that, you know, Ear Boy. Two Ear Boy references. The ears are really big. Yeah, that was the boob song. And then, and the story of, just so you remember, the story of Ear Boy.

40:18Ben Meiselas:We're showing a picture of your boy right now. He wanted, and it's a sad show because he wanted a girlfriend and like, and then like the cool jocks would be there and he'd go up and go, Hey everybody, it's good to see you. They'd be like, yeah, your ears are really big. And then he'd always go to Ross Perot and Ross Perot would say, okay, I'm sorry. Let me, I'll, I'll stop. I went to a deep ear boy dive the other day. Marco Rubio, though, as part of this press conference when he was at the ASEAN conference would say every day Iran is calling, begging for a deal. They're begging. They're begging.

40:48Ben Meiselas:Let's play this clip. OK, these people who are calling us every day, begging, let's do a deal. They send us messages to other countries, third countries. I mean, they're running out of countries to send. Even I had countries here coming up to me. Oh, I just spoke to the Iranians. They want to do a deal. The problem is every time these people do a deal, they either break it or after they make it, they want to change the deal. So they're probably not ready to do a deal yet, but they will be. They're not ready to make a deal yet. They're going to make a deal.

41:13Jordy Meiselas:What does the statement even mean?

41:16Ben Meiselas:We're running out of countries. I don't even like what word does he even say? We're running words. We're running out of countries. What is that even referring to? How do you run out of countries? You know, if you look at the foreign minister of countries and how they behave versus how Rubio behaves, you know, it is like night and day. You know, he doesn't even understand. I think he wants to be the, you know, he behaves like he's the defense secretary and talks about, you know, all this. But you know who's also been very silent lately as well? J.D. Vance. Like we haven't heard anything from J.D.

41:56Ben Meiselas:has gone notably silent. That was his MOU. But let me say this about JD, because I think he's shapeshifter. I think he's a weird dude. I think he's a bad guy. I think he's a horrible human. And you could potentially say his wife did give birth soon. So perhaps that there's an aspect of that. Although I believe they mocked Pete Buttigieg and other people for taking any time off to be with kids. But setting that aside for a moment. All of my criticism about J.D. Vance, notice, I did not criticize him on the MOU. Because I often get asked, well, do you want to see anything? You can never say anything nice about anybody there.

42:37Ben Meiselas:That's not true. If they cured cancer, you would be against it. No, no, no, no, no. The problem is that they're pro-cancer and they're cut cancer research. So if they cured cancer, I would say they cured cancer. That's great. We can reflect on the fact that this war has been catastrophic and unlawful and caused gravest harm. But we can also say the MOU of all the bad solutions was the best one that exists. It was the right decision. If it was fully implemented, if we complied with it, Iran won the war, they get the Strait of Hormone, they administer it. There was probably a way if the US wanted to open up the Southern route by Oman to do it in a way where the US could have said, hey, you're administering it, We want this route.

43:22Ben Meiselas:Let's work out a solution over the next 60 days to do that. But that's not what the U.S. did. The U.S. immediately, from not having access to the Strait of Hormuz, tried to use the absence of any contractual language in the MOU. There's nothing that banned the US, but it said Iran is the administrator. So Trump, the way he's always dealt with agreements, which is just to break him, goes, aha, it doesn't say that we can then administer it too. It just says Iran administers it. But there's nothing that says we can't do it also in the southern route. And Iran's like, well, it says we're the administrator.

43:57Ben Meiselas:You are the administrator also. So coordinate the rust because it says everything. But anyway, I can go on the MOU breach by Trump forever. But my point is, is that of all the bad solutions, the MOU was actually the right solution for the time. And I was supportive of the MOU. And I complimented not to say, oh, great work. You're the arsonist putting out your own fire. You deserve like lots of applause. But when J.D. Vance was in Switzerland, and it was obvious that Kushner and Witkoff, in my opinion, were just proxies of Netanyahu there and were there for their own self-interest and were the worst people possible.

44:32Ben Meiselas:I'm like, J.D. Vance, he's got a laptop. He looked like me when I was a second year associate working at a law firm. It's like typing things. I'm like, you know, he's the vice president of the United States. It's weird to see him with a laptop on his lap, you know, just given the structure of the United States. But I'm glad the guy's, I was seriously, I was like, the guy's working. I like, you know, of all the bad solutions, I like that he's always trying to reach one I'm not going to knock him for working. What'd you say? I said, I'm not going to knock the guy for working. I'm not going to work.

44:57Ben Meiselas:It's weird that like, I'm like, I was like, that looks like me, my, as a first year law associate you know i've got like a partner by my left i've got like the people not doing the work

45:09Jordy Meiselas:jared kushner and whitkoff like the day before the papers do even now sitting there with my laptop

45:13Ben Meiselas:typing away the settlement agreement you know i've got mediator tony piazza on my left you know they've got that you know i i like very vivid memories of like my litigation days is that a real person Tony Piazza? Yeah. Yeah. Tony Piazza was, so I would do lots of mediations in front of Tony Piazza. He was, he is, he was like the king of mediations. And honestly, a lot of my knowledge of mediations come, he's the guy who mediated the Winkle brothers, Facebook. He's like known as the godfather of all mediations in the United States. And early on, I was lucky to do dozens of mediations with this guy who's been a mentor to me.

45:55Ben Meiselas:And so anyway, that's my Tony. I wasn't sure if you're talking about like pizza face. No, no, that's why the show is awfully offensive, you know, and then pizza face and ear boy walk around and then they get made fun of. And that because of the way they, and that's the joke, by the way, the joke is the joke is that they're ugly and that they had pizza face and ear boy. And then the people in defense of this, like of all the things that I've showed you can't defend the show. It is indefensible. It's horrible. There are more offensible offenses from the shows that we watched growing up. From the shows that we watched growing up.

46:29Ben Meiselas:I'm not going to go into it. But I'm saying when I was looking at...

46:33Jordy Meiselas:Hashtag cancel Jordy.

46:34Ben Meiselas:All right. Let's take our last quick break. Okay. Reminder, WTF. What the F are we even talking about right now? WTF America.

46:42Jordy Meiselas:I regret to inform you there's no Ear Boy or Pizza Boy talk in the WTF America. But there's a lot of other really great stuff in the book. I believe the QR code's over there.

46:51Ben Meiselas:But if you are going to get the book, pre-order now. It helps with our planning and what we need to do. Pre-order the book now if you can. Pre-order multiple copies if you want to. It's dedicated to the Midas Mighty. We poured our heart and souls. It's one of the reasons why we haven't even been able to do all that much Patreon. I've just been nonstop working on this thing. So patreon.com slash Midas Touch. We'll see you there after the show. So we've got one more segment left. I promise you we won't talk about Ear Boy, Pizza Face, or any other stuff.

47:28Jordy Meiselas:I'm not a party to this memorandum of understanding. I cannot promise that we'll talk or not talk about Pizza Boy and Ear Boy. All right. Last quick break of the show. We'll be right back. You know what's easier than fixing a problem? Not having the problem in the first place. Your liver is one of those organs that you don't think about until you have to. Supporting it daily is one of those small things that can make a huge difference in how you feel overall, and that's where Dose comes in. Dose for your liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement. This isn't just another capsule or powder.

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50:35Ben Meiselas:Shout out to our sponsors. Links in description of both the YouTube and the audio. Use the links, use the codes. If there's an exit survey, let them know we sent you. Benji, where do you next? Did you ever feel like something is moving fast forward and in slow motion at both the same time? That's how I feel this escalation and this catastrophic war that Donald Trump is doing in Iran is going. Slow motion in the sense that it just feels each move so obviously moving in the direction, So easy to pinpoint the escalation trap, the lies, the mistakes, the fatal errors that are happening that are leading our country into perhaps one of the most catastrophic moments, if not the most catastrophic moment in our nation's history.

51:25Ben Meiselas:I can literally, you can see it happening every moment, every moment, how the buildup is happening, how this vile piece of trash in the Oval Office goes deeper into this escalation trap, how just, you know, how history is often viewed with all of these complexities. but at the most basic raw form, we have someone so unfit, so unqualified, so deranged, so psychotic, so personally caught up, so everything that it's just moving us in this direction. And you have MAGA's in the Senate who are apparently okay with this. Yes, let's do it. No War Powers Resolution Act. You've got such a compliant Congress that's like, all right, Let's just let it happen.

52:17Ben Meiselas:And we all know better. We all know this moment that we're in right now. We know where this is going, but we move closer and closer. And I say we fast forward because it's also happening at this speed where all of a sudden you're right there. And here we are making this recording where it appears that right now in any moment, there's going to be this escalation. It's like we went from MOU mode to Fox doing its Iraq 2003 coverage, but on steroids talking about we're going to pinpoint, you know, they got their generals on doing the strategy. We're going to knock out this facility and this facility and this facility and this facility and that facility.

53:04Ben Meiselas:You look at the radar right now, you could pull up the B-roll just so you see the plane activity that's taking place right now in Europe and in the Middle East. I mean, you see an unprecedented amount of military aircraft that's going around right now. I mean, it's obvious to Iran, it's obvious to anybody that this full-scale U.S. invasion that will make the initial stages of Epic Fury look small is happening any moment, is happening any moment right now. And I'll show you what they're showing on state regime media, which calls itself Fox. Here's what they're doing. Here's their war propaganda trying to rally their zombified base into blowing up, into more war crimes.

53:53Ben Meiselas:into, you know, like, I mean, I mean this, I mean this seriously. It almost feels like this is the propaganda of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. And, you know, like right before they were going to go into Poland or right before they were going to, you know, go into France and, you know, right before, you know, that, that they would, you know, that, you know, it would be a version in the, you know, in the 1940 version of it, you know, it'd be like, and then here, you know, it's always that weird voice, right. That they, that they did back then. I forget what that, what that voice is, you know, called with the inflections, but like to, to me, this is a variation of that with this, with the regime media out there.

54:38Ben Meiselas:So, cause we're, we're going to go here. We're going to go here. You know, this, this, this is, this is it. Let me show you, let's play it. So let's take a look at the power plants and places that we might be able to hit. Lucas, as you see these as targets, what do you think we might hit first? Well, I don't know if we'll hit it first, but the Damavad plant supplies 40 percent of Tehran's electricity. The Bashir nuclear power plant, probably not likely a target. The Russians built this. They still supply Iran with low-enriched uranium. Because, Lucas, we should say there's a risk to blowing up a nuclear plant.

55:09There's no question. Now, the South Pars gas field, this sits on the largest natural gas field in the world. Israeli forces hit this on March 18th in the beginning of the war. Iran responded by hitting the Qatari side of this natural gas field. In terms of targets. But let me ask you here. This is the straight. Yeah. So we want to send a message in the straight where they're hitting ships in the straight. Wouldn't that be a place we go? It would. The only question is, what would be Iran's response? We've seen Iran hit back in Qatar's oil field, natural gas oil fields in the UAE. That's the big thing.

55:44You mean they'll have a like response if we hit a power plant? That's been this tit for tat the whole time. That's what's notable about the Israelis. They use disproportionate responses. Probably one of the reasons that Israel hasn't reentered the war. Iran has not attacked Israel since early June. And your assessment of how we're doing it now, do you think we're doing disproportionate? Or do you think we could be doing not doing disproportionate? It is notable that U.S. forces hit an Iranian barracks after an American barracks was hit, of course, in Jordan. And that's what killed those three U.S.

56:15Army soldiers. So this is the power plants that we could be doing.

56:17Ben Meiselas:Really sick. I mean, it's, it's, it's, those are, they're talking about war crimes. So cavalierly, they're talking about. It was like a football play or something. Yeah. So maybe we're going to take that power. These are civilian. We'll cut off the electricity to Tehran. Seriously. I mean, it, it, it, the, the, the, this is, these are war crimes. This is sick. They're talking about the idea. If we want to send a message to the Strait of Hormuz, we could blow up the Bushir power nuclear plant, but it does come with risk. That you're going to blow up a nuclear. Do you know about Chernobyl? You're going to blow up a nuclear power plant?

57:02Ben Meiselas:Do you know your fucking history, you idiots? Excuse my language. Do you know your fucking history? You're going to do a Chernobyl over there. Are you going to blow up a nuclear power plant to send a message in these straight-up removes? Have all these people lost their fucking damn minds? And again, excuse me, are these people crazy? I mean, are these people lunatic? That's why I say it's like we're slow walking into nuclear annihilation, also at a warp speed at the same time. What are we doing here? And again, I hate to curse. Excuse my language. But as I watch that, I say to myself, if they're saying it on regime media, that's the advice that Donald Trump is getting.

57:52Ben Meiselas:He gets his advice. He's watching that right now. He's watching.

57:56Jordy Meiselas:Let me take it one further. You may say these are TV hosts. They call themselves an entertainment network in chorus. It's Fox News. Well, let me remind you, where did Donald Trump pull his defense secretary from? Fox News. He's the guy from that network. That's the guy who is making these decisions. These are the people that guy hung around with. And those are the conversations they have. And this is why Donald Trump picked that individual to lead this department. It ain't just TV. This is real life. And Donald Trump has merged the two together in the most heinous fashion imaginable.

58:32Ben Meiselas:The Pentagon removed the names of the four service members who died in Jordan from their official list of casualties. They explain that this is because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a ceasefire in the war in April.

58:53How sick.

58:55Ben Meiselas:How sick. I mean, honestly, how sick?

59:06These are not normal times.

59:12Ben Meiselas:So he's now saying, Ben, just to be clear, it's not 18, it's 14. That's what we're acknowledging here is the Trump regime. But then think about this, Jordy, to your point. What about, do they count special forces? Exactly. I mean, I think the issue is because service members have families back at home, it's not easy to fully cover up all of these casualties when you have family at home, right? Because people are going to say, hey, what's going on if you don't hear from somebody? or, you know, not necessarily, but we know that Iran has attacked multiple CIA sites that they believe were dark sites that Iran very much knows these were CIA sites, right?

1:00:03And we also know

1:00:06Ben Meiselas:that Iran attacked, like the area Iran attacked in the Al-Sanf area, Syria, Jordan border area was special forces barrack. And, you know, I think it's easier to cover up special forces casualties. So, I mean, I don't believe we - You know, it is also - And here's the thing too. Here's the thing too, real quick, B, is, I mean, it could take months to hear back from folks over there fighting. Yeah. You know, we, my wife is family serving right now and we go long stretches of time without hearing, you know, an update on how they're doing. And so with the Trump regime, again, you just have to be skeptical about every single number that gets put in front of you.

1:00:50Ben Meiselas:I mean, I'm reacting to that news live. I've just learned out and learned about that along with everyone here. Trump is essentially taking a mulligan, like he's cheating in golf because he's trying to correct his scorecard to be better in his favor. I'm using terms that like how the pathological lunatic that is Donald Trump, how he's viewing this, the deaths of our servicemen and women. It's like, don't count those four. Yeah, Donald, tell that to their families. Tell that to their families. You know, I try not to be all that self-referential, you know, self-referential is a term when I'm just like, you know, when I say, well, this is what I said then, this is what I said then.

1:01:29Ben Meiselas:And the only reason why I say that, though, sometimes is because the force sometimes, Jordy, of which the criticisms take place against the platform, you know, of like, I I did a video a few days ago, Trump cracks over war and tries to hide the casualties. And, you know, I got a lot of criticism for that. And, you know, and ultimately, I think it was proven to be, you know, stuck on Jordy. It was like, I was looking at Jordy, Jordy was channeling my, my narrative there. But that way, you know, and then sometimes the criticism is you're making this up or like, you're whatever. It's like, no, like, that's, like that's happened.

1:02:10Ben Meiselas:They're hiding the casualties that's in the numbers. And, and, you know, the New York times is two or three days late and they report it. And I'm glad when they report it, a general says, you know, maybe, maybe they need, you know, to get the source here or the source there to me, the sources, I see it, I see it in the region. I don't need the general to tell me or the admiral to tell me or the, I can, I can see what's happening, you know, over there. And so then I report it based on satellite footage and the like, and the medevacs and the numbers that I see.

1:02:41Jordy Meiselas:And I actually have, I have the clip of you from a few days ago, you reporting that they had changed the casualty count quietly from 18 to 14. This is reporting now being confirmed by the New York Times that they were reclassifying these deaths because they don't view them as war deaths because Donald Trump technically said we were in a ceasefire at the time. So they don't count, right? If you don't test, they don't count. Here has been a few days ago.

1:03:05Ben Meiselas:This is the military website that reports out U.S. military casualties. Official website. And at first, on the website, the casualty total for Operation Epic Fury was updated in the defense casualty analysis system. So if you looked at KIA killed in action, there were four soldiers added who were killed in action because that's what was reported in the past 24 to 48 hours. And then the wounded in action increased by 20 to 447 from 427. But then at around 11 PM last night, that changed and the defense casualty analysis system removed the four killed in action and the 20 wounded in action. Again, just look at the website.

1:04:00Ben Meiselas:Yeah.

1:04:01Jordy Meiselas:That reporting now being confirmed in a news story by the New York Times. You heard it here first on Midas Touch. And you know, it's, you know, like something like that comes directly from Donald Trump. Like that's only somebody as sick as Donald Trump would think of doing something like that. And we know because every time he goes out now to what Jordy was saying earlier, he's constantly comparing deaths. This is just a scorecard to him. These people aren't people with lives and families and friends. These are numbers on a chart. And he thinks that the higher the numbers go, the worse he looks.

1:04:31Jordy Meiselas:And we've been for months now, since the beginning of this war, we have been speaking about the comparisons to COVID of this. And this is also just a spot on comparison between the war and COVID. Because what did Donald Trump constantly say? In addition to saying, if we don't test, there won't be many cases, which is the logic that he is applying to here. Trump also said that he wanted to change the classifications for the way deaths were calculated during COVID. So if somebody had a preexisting condition, even if they died due to COVID, that shouldn't count because they actually had these other preexisting conditions.

1:05:05Jordy Meiselas:And so the COVID might've killed them, but it shouldn't count towards his numbers because they had something else going on. This is the sick pathology of Donald Trump. And so you see it now directly infecting our military and the data reporting, which is why I don't honestly trust like any of the data reporting coming out of the White House, because he's doing this everywhere. Well, remember, what if Dr.

1:05:25Ben Meiselas:Fauci, rather than saying what Dr. Fauci believed was the scientific information at the time, ultimately did like Admiral Cooper, right? You've got Admiral Cooper, the CENTCOM guy, you know, is out there behaving, you know, basically, you know, if this was a health space, like RFK Jr., but in the military, Like the head of CENCOM is out there saying the craziest stuff also and is complicit in this. And all the top generals and admirals were purged. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I did a video on it this morning, C.Q. Brown was purged back in February of 2025 and replaced with a three-star general.

1:06:08Ben Meiselas:And this guy, Dan Cain, who had to get a waiver because he wasn't qualified to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He didn't have the positions. He didn't have the qualifications as currently the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. We got rid of the most qualified guy because he's black. That's why Pete Hegseth and Trump got rid of C.Q. Brown Jr. And they got rid of other top people either because they were black or because they're women or because they were supportive of promotions of black people in the military and women. That's why other top generals and admirals were purged out. Hegseth didn't like that.

1:06:44Ben Meiselas:Hegseth wants his gender-affirming testosterone injections, and he thinks that helps lethality. I mean, did you see what a sweaty mess he was when he was testifying before? That did not go well for him at all.

1:07:05Jordy Meiselas:And by the way, he was so unsure of himself, and they used all of his words against him, all the things that he's been saying throughout the entire war, because all of a sudden you have to answer questions under oath and you were saying the war was over three months ago. And now you got to explain, okay, why not? And he tries to be competitive, but you could even see during that moment, it was like he was like in his shell. It was like he was actually didn't quite know what to say because he didn't want to perjure himself, yet he still wanted to try to put on this macho persona. And I got to give it up to the Democrats in that hearing.

1:07:33Jordy Meiselas:I thought they did a great job questioning him, of grilling him, of ensuring that they're getting the information or at least having him confront the reality of the situation. I thought they did a really effective job during that hearing.

1:07:49Ben Meiselas:I agree. Look, covered a lot. I want to go and do the Patreon, talk about the book a little bit over there. I want to thank everybody for watching. Obviously, we'll continue to give you the breaking news as it develops throughout the day. We're really grateful for you. Hang in there. We're going to keep on fighting with you, for you, together. And in WTF America, it's dedicated to the Midas community. And the North star of this book is you. And one of the big conclusions we make in the book is that authentic communities that form can become the difference maker. And we talk about how this is a generational project.

1:08:33Ben Meiselas:Also, we have to respond day to day, but we also have to think generational. Fox was basically created with the Roger Ailes Memorandum and Manifesto in the 1970s. And it didn't come out of nowhere. It's kind of what I was saying before, how things could happen in slow motion and fast all at once. And so we're six years since Midas Touch was created as compared to almost 60 years since this idea of Fox became right-wing radio, which became Fox, which you now see there is encouraging nuclear annihilation of the planet, basically. I don't know how to describe what it is that we just saw right there.

1:09:10Ben Meiselas:I want to give a shout out to all the hard working team members, which is everybody who works at the Midas Touch Network for their great work. And I want to thank all of you. Even watching this, I know, it's enjoyable to spend time together, but I know sticking with this information, it's heavy, it's hard, but it's life.

1:09:31Jordy Meiselas:And shout out to all the mods who work on the live chat here and do such an incredible job at moderating the live chat. We love you, mods, and everybody watching.

1:09:38Ben Meiselas:All right. Pre-order WTF America now. If you want to ask us questions about what to expect in the book, we'll see you at the Patreon. If you're thinking about, should I pre-order it or should I wait until October? Do the pre-order now. Click the QR code. It helps a lot for us to focus on how we better promote or promote more or promote less or promote here or promote there, but we can see what the pre-orders look like. So pre-order it right now. And what cities we may go to in the future if we had to do some events. It does help to get the data, too, of where the books are being purchased. Okay.

1:10:13Ben Meiselas:Thanks, everybody, for watching. We appreciate it. We'll see you soon. Patreon.com slash Midas. I'm so excited to talk to everybody. It's going to be fun. We're going to join that. Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

1:10:22Jordy Meiselas:The Midas Mighty is standing strong.

1:10:31Jordy Meiselas:Against the fascists, we sing our song. We will get it right whenever we go.