MORNING UPDATE: 42 U.S. Aircraft Destroyed in Iran War...Shock Report

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0:42Lurie Children's is ranked the number one children's hospital in Illinois with specialists that can handle whatever your child needs. I did feel a sense of safety knowing that she was going there. I don't ever want to go anywhere else. It's like family. Lurie Children's, all for your one. 42 aircrafts were destroyed, costing over$29 billion. And it has been covered up by the Trump regime. Donald Trump is panicking as the true cost of the war is now being exposed. And I think, folks, that is just the tip of the iceberg. I think there are many more planes that were destroyed that are being covered up.

1:26Ben Meiselas:I think that there's a lot more monetary loss than that. Remember when Donald Trump's top generals testified and top military people testified, and they said that the total cost of the war was$25 to$29 billion, this catastrophic war in Iran? Well, now we know that number was actually just the loss of aircraft. The 42 aircraft that we now know were actually lost. And there's a number of developments taking place right now, right by the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf that should be giving everybody red alarms, especially as we've been hearing that Netanyahu more than ever is trying to restart this war because he absolutely does not want any letter of intent to take place between Donald Trump and Iran.

2:19But the United States has never been in a weaker position. We saw this report that just came out from the Congressional Research Service that talks about the U.S. aircraft combat losses in Operation Epic Fury and the considerations for Congress on a bipartisan basis. Congress demanded that there be an investigation into the planes that were destroyed. And so what was determined, this is even preliminarily right now, at least 42 fixed wing or rotary wing aircraft, including uncrewed aircraft like the MQ-9 Reapers were reportedly lost or damaged. Iran seized on this information and within hours, they posted a list of all of these planes that were destroyed from the F-15 East to an F-35 to an A-10 to the KC-135 strata tankers.

3:14Ben Meiselas:Remember those two strata tankers that crashed over Iraq and the Trump regime said, oh, it was over friendly skies. It had nothing to do with any types of air defense systems. Well, it had to do with air defense systems because we're now learning that it was actually Iraqi militias that were firing at the strato tankers, and it forced them to make maneuvers that had them crash into each other. And that's what took the lives of many of our service members over Iraq. And then it was covered up. And then I saw this report that Michael Bay, the Hollywood director, he wants to make a movie about the F-15 pilots who were rescued in Iran, and their story is a story of heroism.

3:58Who are they? Who are these people? Donald Trump would have paraded these people out in front of everybody if they actually existed. I don't want to go down a conspiratorial rabbit hole, but we're just not supposed to even talk about it anymore. And now they're going to do a Hollywood propaganda movie when they said that there were these two F-15 pilots who were saved and they were nowhere near the Isfahan nuclear facility, but they ended up right by the Isfahan nuclear facility. And then the US had to create a airfield and hundreds, if not thousands of special forces were there to rescue them.

4:35Okay. That story makes no sense at all. As I've said before, it's possible that F-15E pilots were shot down. And then that was used as a pretext by the CIA and our intelligence committee to try to go and enter ISFAHAN, the nuclear facilities, to try to extract the enriched uranium there, or maybe the entire story is made up. I mean, it's arguably possible a story is still true, but I just want to say, where are those pilots? And so, as I mentioned, there's a number of other very serious developments. So, we see this massive AIS spoofing activity occurring right now over the Persian Gulf, AIS's Automatic Identification System.

5:17And these AIS signals are the tracking systems required on most commercial vessels. And one of the major warnings of imminent conflict are these AIS spoofing activities. These patterns have repeatedly appeared across the Persian Gulf, particularly northwest of Dubai, people are pointing out. Over the past year, major ghost vessel surges in Persian Gulf tracking data have coincided with or preceded ship attacks, projectile incidents, and military operations. And we know that we see these AIS spoofings to mask vessel movements, create confusion in maritime traffic, obscure operational positioning, complicated attribution and monitoring.

6:04We're seeing that all throughout last night taking place. And that preceded the last invasion by Trump and Netanyahu of Iran.

6:12Ben Meiselas:So we're paying attention to that. And then earlier in the day yesterday, Iran announced its Persian Gulf Strait, well, it's newly announced Persian Gulf Strait Authority said that it established a controlled maritime zone in the strait of hormuz i'll show you its controlled maritime zone right here and they published look the islamic republic of iran has defined the regulatory jurisdiction for the management of the hormuz strait as follows then it has the line connecting and it just lists the areas this is our territory and then they've worked on this with oman as well and they're just further formalizing their control over the Strait of Hormuz.

6:55Ben Meiselas:And so anybody who says, oh, Iran's going to agree to give up control over the Strait of Hormuz and give up its nuclear materials, they're not. They're not. Iran believes it won the war because it did win the war. None of Donald Trump's objectives were achieved, which usually means you lose. And when Iran gains something, i.e. the Strait of Hormuz, that means you're on top, right? 1-0 Iran. That's just, One could argue the score is even higher than that right now. And just if you take a look across the globe right now, how other countries perceive Donald Trump, especially after that pathetic and weak trip he took to China.

7:34Ben Meiselas:Mind you, his trip to China was preceded by Foreign Minister Aragji, who went to China first, and then Vladimir Putin, who was in China right after Donald Trump. and Putin and Xi Jinping actually signed documents that had a joint statement. There was no joint statement at all between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. And then you had Iraq, Xi and China issue kind of joint statements, if you will, about their support for each other. It just shows you that Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, they're all coordinating while Donald Trump's out there talking about golden ballrooms and reflecting pools. And Donald Trump wants his ballroom to be an empire, drone army, a drone army empire, whatever the hell he's talking about.

8:20Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is claiming regarding his triumphal arch, that there was congressional authority from 100 years ago that allows him to build a triumphal arch. I mean, the most ridiculous and heinous things that are just out of control. And then you have countries like South Korea, The local South Korean paper says, Donald Trump is the taco. Trump ordered military not to carry out Iran's scheduled attacks tomorrow as planned. And they just call him taco there. You've got Donald Trump sending Witkoff once again to Russia, his seventh visit to Russia. He's visited Ukraine zero times. And then you have the Trump regime begging Ukraine to help ease restrictions on Belarus's potash, its fertilizer, very rich in minerals, this potash.

9:13Ben Meiselas:And so Trump's like, hey, Zelensky, you know, man, how you helped with that ceasefire that Russia never reciprocated just for the Russian parade on that May 9th or 10th, May 9th, whenever that was, they call it victory. Can you help us with, you know, how we're lifting the sanctions against Russian oil and we've extended it three times. Yeah. We also want to help Belarus. We've removed financial sanctions against Belarusian banks. Can you help us with their potash? Because we think that's going to help everybody. That's literally what the US is asking right now. Pathetic. So no wonder when we look at the latest polling data, Donald Trump is polling at his worst ever.

9:55Ben Meiselas:Take a look at this new poll from Fox. This is state regime media, folks. Trump hits his lowest approval in either term on the state regime media poll. His overall approval in this Fox poll is at 39 % amongst non-MAGA Republicans, still Republicans, 54 % approval. His approval amongst white people, 43%. His approval among rural voters, 43%. On the inflation, Trump is net negative 52%. On the economy, he's net negative 42%. This is similar in the Quinnipiac poll. Donald Trump's approval is only 33%. His disapproval is 64%. No, overall approval is 34%. On the economy, it's 33%. And overall approval, 58 % disapprove.

10:46Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is tanking each and every day. And here's what state regime media even says about him. They're like, yeah, inflation's really, really bad right now. People are like, I'm paying$5.30 to fill up my car. That's cheap compared to what we're paying out here in California. Here, play this clip right here. The authorization of the use of military force coming up again and again in these votes, he's starting to lose Republicans as they're counting heads here. If you look at the latest Fox polls about the concern about Iran getting a nuclear bomb, that has dropped significantly from June of 25 to now, it's still 56-44.

11:23But the U.S. military against Iran predicting when it's going to be over, many people are saying months now, 38 percent, as they look at the possibilities of this dragging on. Yeah, those numbers are sort of eye-popping, right? Over a third think it's going to last months, and another third thinks it's going to last over a year. And this is the problem. President Trump was finding out it's easy to get into wars, hard to get out of wars. And they also strategically, when you, you know, they started this thing by saying, well, we're just going to take this little detour. It's going to be four to six weeks.

11:55They sort of set expectations there. And now you can see the president, his argument is, well, look at all these other wars. Vietnam lasted 19 years. We've only been at this, you know, three months. But the clock is ticking. And that argument is, according to all the data, including the Fox poll, is failing among the American people, particularly on the issue of the inflation economy. Harold mentioned that gas prices, I paid$5.30 to fill up my car the other day. I'm feeling it every single day. And his numbers on inflation are as low as I've ever seen for any president. That was a Chicago gas station, right?

12:31Yes, it was. Okay, just checking. What kind of car? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

12:37Ben Meiselas:I mean, hopefully it was a big SUV. Just take a look at this poll one more time. When you look at Donald Trump on foreign policy, he's net negative 24. how people viewed his trip to China, net negative nine, on immigration, net negative eight. I mean, he's underwater in basically everything. You know, one of the things that people are pissed at him about, a number of things, in addition to his catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran, in addition to inflation, you know, it's this$1.8 billion settlement with himself using our taxpayer dollars to pay for the January 6th insurrectionists and also to waive all claims against Donald Trump, Trump organization, and his kids for any tax liability that they may have incurred, saying that the government is prohibited from auditing Donald Trump, his companies, or his family, and that any past tax improprieties or misconduct by Trump, to the extent it exists, of Trump, his family, and his children gets waived, he gets full immunity, and he enters into a settlement agreement with himself.

13:41Ben Meiselas:And his personal attorney, attorney, acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, who was his personal criminal defense lawyer in a case where Trump lost and was convicted of dozens of felony counts. He's the one who signed the deal with himself, like with his client. I mean, this is what's going on. And then he goes on CNN and he has the audacity to say this. Here, play this clip of what Blanche said. It's so utterly disgusting. Play this clip. But wouldn't the average taxpayer respond and say, OK, but why is that now my problem? Why do my tax dollars now need to go to people who are upset about their involvement in investigations?

14:17Well, if you're just upset, you're not getting it done. On the other hand, I think if you said to the American taxpayer that there is a horrible wrong committed by your government, and now you can apply and you can have your lawyers fees back, you can be compensated for what you lost financially, what American would say, oh my gosh, that's terrible? I mean, I don't know. I very much disagree with the idea that the American taxpayer is indignant about the fact that a victim of weaponization, okay, a victim who suffered, whether it was legal fees, lost a job, had their life turned upside down in a way that was not appropriate.

14:51If it was appropriate, there should be no compensation. And that's why we have five commissioners who will take a look at it. But I do not think the American people have issues with that. To the contrary, I think they do want their tax dollars spent on things like that.

15:04Ben Meiselas:Now, I want to bring you insight from what they're saying in Iran right now. And let me share this with you. This is Professor Mirandi. Professor Mirandi is a professor at Tehran University. He travels with the Iran negotiating team. He's as close to the Iranian regime as possible. And here he talks about Donald Trump kind of underestimating Iran. Play this clip. Trump is manipulating the markets. Right now, they're speaking of some sort of agreement, which is so far, there's no indication of us moving in that direction. But even these manipulations at the end of the day, George, they're going to make things worse because when you artificially bring down the price of, let's say, oil, even though it's paper oil, it's not the spot market.

15:57but you are increasing demand. You are preventing, especially when he keeps saying that this is going to end soon, companies who want to invest or increase production, they're going to refrain from doing so. So in a sense, in the long run, what he's doing is he's going to make the crisis even worse when the manipulation no longer works. But I think it's quite clear that if there is war, that it means that he is not in charge. And I think everyone across the world sees him as a weak president. We saw when he went to Beijing, there was no joint statement. We saw the Russians and the Chinese had a joint statement.

16:39We saw all of his claims about what President Xi said in private to be false. The Chinese did not confirm any of the claims made by the Americans. things are not going well at any level. And George, I think that what they do not understand, or maybe they do understand, but this is a sort of a final roll of the dice. They may not comprehend that the Iranians are prepared to suffer. The Iranians are prepared to accept the pain and the hardship of this starvation siege because they know that this is a fight for their survival.

17:26Ben Meiselas:And then he talks about this disastrous trip that Donald Trump took to China. This is how they feel about him in Iran. I mean, this guy is as close as you get to M.B. Galiboff, the main negotiator for Iran and Aragji. He's with their crew. And here he is on George Galloway's podcast. Let's play this clip. Right after the Iranian foreign minister's trip, and then right before the Russian president's trip, I think says a great deal. First of all, it shows that the power has transitioned already to Asia and that Trump is clearly not the equal of the Chinese president. But second of all, it shows that the Chinese are in full coordination, or at least they're highly coordinating their efforts and their positions with the Iranians and the Russians.

18:23And that should be something that the Americans think about a bit more carefully. The United States is losing ground. And if they start another war, it is going to get much worse. And it's going to get much worse, much faster than before. George, if the United States attacks Iran again, Iran will be relentless. And if the United States runs out of ammunition, they shouldn't expect Iran to stop fighting. The Iranians will stop fighting only when all of their objectives are achieved. The same is true with Yemen. The same is true with Iraq. And the same is true with the resistance in Lebanon.

19:12Ben Meiselas:And then you had Colonel Douglas McGregor, and he was just on Daniel Davis' podcast. He got two military guys talking here. And I want to share this with you because McGregor is a former Fox guy. He's a former Trump guy. I think Trump appointed him to be the ambassador to Germany, but his application was withdrawn. This guy was super close to Trump. and you'll see how critical they are of just how bad Trump has handled everything, but specifically, you know, this war. And they make it clear that the U.S. presence right now, Donald Trump has demonstrated that U.S. presence in your country is now a liability, whereas it used to demonstrate strength and offensive capability that most of these other countries actually want us gone.

20:03Ben Meiselas:And this guy's a, I'm just showing you this because this guy was a Trumper. You don't really get, I mean, not anymore, but he was. Here, play this clip. Iran is de facto winning the war, whether we like it or not. Right. Now, there's something else, though, and this is very, very important, and your audience needs to understand that. Bases like this are very important to the Department of Defense. I'm sorry, Department of War at the moment. And that's because forward presence, the presence of U.S. naval, air, and ground forces far from the United States is always being part of the this notion of forward defense, that the best way to prevent wars is being as far forward as possible and making it impossible for the enemy to rapidly overrun everything.

20:48Well, those days have been over for years. This kind of thing, I and others have talked about this repeatedly. If you put something forward within range of all of these missile systems and unmanned systems given overhead surveillance, you're going to lose them. Now, if you lose all of this overhead and, excuse me, all this overseas structure, you also lose all the general officer and flag officer positions in the Navy. Well, guess what? The Department of Defense doesn't want to give anything up. We're about to be thrown out of Germany. Once we get rid of this Chancellor Mats and eventually the Alternative for Deutschland, the AFD, takes over and they have a chancellor, we're going to throw us out of Germany.

21:39And by the way, the Koreans are already pushing to throw us out of South Korea. They're being polite about it. That's effectively what they'd like. And the Japanese are not far behind because instead of being a source of defensive capability, instead of being there to protect these countries, we are now seeing we're now seen as being a magnet for conflict, a catalyst for war, frankly, because if they're a target because they happen to have U.S. forces on their soil, what's the point of having us on their soil? And, boy, have we been, what's the word I want? We've been exposed, I guess, is the best way to put it.

22:23And what a shame and embarrassment it is, all this bravado, really. Well, this is what happens when you overstay your welcome anyway. But right now, it's matched by technological change that has fundamentally shifted the advantage in warfare. The advantage in warfare strategically, and I would argue operationally, is now defensive. And we have built everything that we do on the basis of offensive action. expensive. We had better start thinking about how we're going to defend the continental United States. And we better start thinking about it quickly. There you have it, folks. Let me know what you think.

23:03Ben Meiselas:Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. And thank you all so much for watching. New Midas merch. Head to store.midastouch.com today and get yourself the best pro-democracy gear and show your support. That's store.midastouch.com.