Rep. Gomez Discusses Trump's Disastrous War in Iran

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2:34Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is panicking as his unlawful war against Iran is spiraling out of control, folks. We just learned from U.S. Central Command that they are aware of a loss of a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft. The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury. Rescue efforts are ongoing. In the KC-135s, there are six crew, and as of this recording, those six crew are still missing. There were two aircraft involved in this incident. The other aircraft was another KC-135, which was able to land safely. One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq. The second landed safely. According to U.S.

3:21Ben Meiselas:Central Command, which unfortunately does lie about a lot right now under the Trump regime, this was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire. We will keep you posted there. At the same time, drone attacks from Iran have now struck a French base, a joint Peshmerga, France base in the Makhmor region in northern Iraq. This is according to a statement from the Erbil governor based on what just took place. We have video of it as well, of these Iranian drones hitting a French military base near Erbil airport in Iraq. This injured six French soldiers. So I believe there are six American crew that are missing from the KC-135.

4:08Ben Meiselas:Six French soldiers have been injured as this war is expanding. And we're learning that one of the main beneficiaries of this is Vladimir Putin, who's basically making hundreds of millions of dollars every day right now from selling oil. Should also be noted that the Strait of Hermoz, while closed by Iran, remains open, though, to Iran and China. Donald Trump is panicking, according to multiple sources from NBC and elsewhere, that the market is turning against him and that high gasoline prices pose a political danger to him. You think so? Donald Trump's posting. Where's the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Tulake Powell today?

4:52Ben Meiselas:He should be dropping interest rates right now immediately, not wait for the next meeting. Donald J. Trump. Well, inflation is surging. So I think your ability to drop interest rates right now would probably be one of the most disastrous things. Everything this guy does is the most disastrous thing ever. And now you have Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. He's been giving interviews saying we need an international coalition to protect ships in the Strait of Hermos. America doesn't have the capabilities to do it alone. Well, as we wrote on the Midas Touch Network, guess the America alone strategy isn't working out too well right now.

5:29Ben Meiselas:Should also be noted, Donald Trump is panicking right now as Gulf states, with all of this going on, are having very serious discussions about engaging in new regional security arrangements, not with the United States, but with Iran, as they do not believe that the U.S. is able to protect them anymore and that this U.S.-Israeli war has brought instability to the region and that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's doing. Reuters reporting that, yes, U.S. ignites this Iran war, but the Gulf Arab states pay the price. We know they've been doing all of these quid pro quo deals with Donald Trump, believing that they would get protection if they put money into this Trump company or that Trump company or Trump's ridiculous Board of Peace thing that he was doing.

6:20Ben Meiselas:But actually, Donald Trump has demonstrated that even with the most powerful military ever, an unprepared kind of idiotic person like Donald Trump who went into this thing without congressional authorization, does not know what he's doing and exposes the limits of U.S. security guarantees. I mean, we have a reshaping of a world order taking place right now. And Donald Trump still thinks that Vladimir Putin is his friend. He's meeting with Yushikov and Dmitriyov in Miami with his special envoys as Russia is out there supporting Iran against the United States, as China is supporting Iran against the United States.

7:01Ben Meiselas:Trump is praising Xi Jinping right now. As Donald Trump's praising Pakistan, Pakistan saying they stand in solidarity with Iran. I mean, you have a statement from Modi in India saying, I've had a conversation with Iranian president, Dr. Pazeshkin, to discuss the serious situation in the region, express deep concern over the escalation of tensions and the loss of civilian lives, as well as damage to civilian infrastructure. The safety and security of Indian nationals, along with the need for unhindered transit of goods and energy, remain India's top priorities. Reiterated India's commitment to peace and stability and urge for dialogue and diplomacy.

7:40Ben Meiselas:Seems like India having a very sympathetic view, actually, towards Iran right there. You have the Iran Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larajani saying Trump says he's looking for a speedy victory while starting a war is easy. It cannot be won with a few tweets. We will not relent making you sorry for this grave calculation. Hashtag Trump must pay. And the Iranians have launched the social media campaign against Donald Trump where they're calling him like the Epstein leader or the Epstein president. And they've been mocking him with these AI videos. And meanwhile, you have Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump's chief propagandist saying that ABC's story that Iran poses a threat to the United States is absolutely false.

8:26Ben Meiselas:Caroline Levitt said this ABC story should be immediately retracted. It's unverified. And she says, to be clear, there's been no such threat from Iran to our homeland ever. It never existed ever, she says. Well, that's quite an admission because weren't you saying that that was one of the pretext for the war right here. And just so you see what's going on in the region, we've been pointing out how ships in the Strait of Hermoz have been blown up by the Iranians, how oil depots, whether it's Bahrain or UAE and Kuwait and Iraq have been targeted by the Iranians. Here's what's going on in Kuwait, just so you can see right here as these kind of residential areas where it's believed that there may be American military presence or just commercial centers are being targeted by Iran.

9:17Ben Meiselas:Let's just watch this briefly. This, this is from a drone.

9:21Rep. Gomez:It came in from across the sea out there, just across the sea is Iran. And look at all the debris you can see on the ground down here. This has all come out of this civilian apartment building. This is what government officials tell us, civilian apartment building, two civilians injured here, have been taken away for treatment. Multiple attacks on Kuwait last night, attacks on the air.

9:46Ben Meiselas:Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Jimmy Gomez from California. Congressman, these things that we're seeing, it's horrible to see, but these were all things that were very foreseeable. These were things that Trump was warned about by people like you and people in Congress and by his military leaders. He was warned about this from these Arab nations that now want security guarantees from Iran, not from the United States. Trump was warned by NATO. But Donald Trump, you know, just one night was like, you know what? Netanyahu's calling me up and saying, I guess he's going to attack Iran first.

10:22Ben Meiselas:So I guess I've got to do it as well. Let's do it. No one was prepared. Our State Department wasn't prepared. The Arab nations weren't prepared. And this is the result. What do you make of it all, Congressman?

10:33Rep. Gomez:I think it's a complete and total mess. Everything from his justification of why he launched this attack, why he launched this war has shifted. In the first 72 hours, it was regime change, supporting the protesters, going to knock out nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, even though his own intelligence shows that ballistic missiles weren't going to be able to reach the United States until 2035, and that Iran was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Then he said it was about retribution. Then it said it was because they needed to retaliate against Iran before they hit us because Israel hit them first.

11:13All of it is just out of control.

11:17Rep. Gomez:And the reason why this is a big deal, because if you don't have a clear mission, then how do you know that your strategy and your tactics are going to achieve the goal that you set out? And if you're completely lying to the American public, then how are you going to be able to rally them to support any conflict that might be necessary in the future that is more a defensive war? This is a war of choice. He's lied to the American people. There's no exit strategy. And then he's downplayed the risk. We knew from the very beginning that people could die or men and women in the universe can die, but also hundreds more could be injured, sustained brain injuries and have life altering incidences where they ended up being crippled or ended up being damaged so that they couldn't live their lives normally in the future.

12:07Rep. Gomez:So this is a complete and utter mess.

12:09Ben Meiselas:And, you know, Congressman, we're used to seeing propaganda, you know, come out of the White House and there's varying degrees, you know, of it. But like what we're seeing now, this propaganda is also like so cartoonishly bad and evil at the same time that like the lies are so easily exposed. And I just feel like it just makes America internationally just look so much weaker right now. Oh, absolutely.

12:39Rep. Gomez:One of the things is you can't build a coalition of the willing when everybody thinks that you're lying about what you're trying to achieve and how you can actually get it done. You can't bullshit your way out of a war. It is something that occurs in real time. And then the consequences of that war is something that everybody feels. Everything from high gas prices, the shutting down of the Strait of Hormuz, the fact that they're using ballistic missile interceptors to basically shoot down these missiles. Then all of a sudden you don't have those weapons for other areas of the globe. So you can't bullshit your way out of it.

13:21Rep. Gomez:It actually is comical, but at the same time deadly. We've lost seven individuals currently, more than 150 have injuries, and people just don't trust this administration to follow through and that they're giving it to them straight, not only our allies, but also our adversaries. Right.

13:42Ben Meiselas:And when you watch Donald Trump's speech in Kentucky and he struggles to put together sentences and he says, we won the war and that there's no danger in the Strait of Hormuz and that this is great. You know, look, that still may play to 30 percent of the population here. And Donald Trump has Fox, which basically functions as a state regime media here. Lots of other corporate networks have, you know, been kind of co-opted by Trump and MAGA. But like internationally, this is playing not just bad, but like atrocious. And everybody's looking at his speeches and his and just the way he's talking and the way Hegseth talks.

14:26Ben Meiselas:We're going to rain down terror and death and lethality. And people are from whether it's the NATO, Asian nations, Arab nations, they're looking at this and saying, this ain't it. What the hell this is? This this stuff's demented. We've been used to it. Congress. We see it every day. Now in this international, they're like, this is demented stuff.

14:46Rep. Gomez:Yeah, no, it's absolutely. One of the things is that they ruin the credibility of the United States. Your allies start questioning your word. They actually question your motives. They question if you're doing it to protect them or to protect the pocketbooks of the Trump family. And it also puts into question what happens if something happens in their region, in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, is the United States going to step forward? Are they going to continue this kind of belligerent behavior that we've seen? Everything from talking about taking over Greenland to the stuff that's going on in the Caribbean and Latin America.

15:26Rep. Gomez:That's what people are concerned of. Yes, we have the largest military on the face of the planet, but how you use it matters and undermining people's trust and the word of the United States makes everybody worse off and it's going to be expensive, not only in money, but also in lives.

15:44Ben Meiselas:And that brings us to domestic issues, because if you and I were to do this interview before February 27th, America was already suffering. You know, you're a Congress member from California, Los Angeles area, but the entire country suffering, healthcare being ripped away, prices surging, people unable to find jobs, jobs recession. I mean, there was a lot of things that were going on already. Now you add this and it is, there really, it really is unprecedented. I know sometimes that word is thrown around, but like we are truly in unprecedented, catastrophic economic times. And unlike some past great recessions or depressions, this one was fully man-made, manufactured by Donald Trump and MAGA, gift wrapped with the middle finger to the American people.

16:38Rep. Gomez:absolutely this this president said he was going to end all foreign wars that he was going to put america first that is going to reduce the cost of living that he was going to drain the swamp he became the swamp republicans are the swamp in washington dc backed up by billionaire backers and the establishment now and they basically said to the american people we don't care how much we spend on the middle east war and we don't care how much you have to pay for it We're going to keep going because it's in their interest. It's in the Donald Trump interest to continue. And that's what's insulting. It's not only the fact that they're spending so much money, but it's the fact that he campaigned on it.

17:20Rep. Gomez:And there's people within the Republican base are saying, what happened? It's no longer MAGA first. It's Trump family first. It's the billionaires first. It's the status quo that gives him more and more power, more and more money. That's what's first, but not working class people in this country.

17:37Ben Meiselas:You know, Congressman, one of the things that, you know, you're also focused on on a bipartisan basis as well is the Congressional Dads Caucus, which I also just think is a very important initiative as well. Because what I try to talk about on the show is just doing our best to exhibit qualities of leadership and, you know, focusing on things like family and everything like just being a good dad, which also means being a good mentor and setting the right example. And so much of what I see, frankly, from the Trumps and the Hegseth to me is just anathema to just being a good person. Like the policies, as we talked about, catastrophic, but like, let's be decent humans to future generations.

18:22Ben Meiselas:And I think one of the initiatives that deserves more attention is the Dad's Caucus and the initiative, because it's like, let's be good fathers. So before we go, talk to us about that.

18:31Rep. Gomez:Yeah, the Dad's Caucus, there's about 50 members now. We have everybody from Ruben Gallego and Andy Kim to Brad Schneider and Stephen Horsford and myself and also Rashida Tlaib and Brittany Patterson. And what we're saying is that we can't just be against something. We have to be for something. We can do it both. We're going to fight Trump every step of the way. We're going to call out his hypocrisy and his lies. But we're going to say, you know what, if we take power, this is what we're going to fight for. And one of the things we're fighting for is making life affordable, making sure that people can actually buy a home, raise a family afford child care and then if their parents suffer from old age or from a stroke or something that they can actually afford to take care of them because that's what we're dealing with American people don't want to see billions of dollars spent on foreign wars and supporting other governments what they want to see us is to really fight for the American people and restore confidence that the the government can actually work for them and that's why we're on the The 17th of March, we're hosting the first ever National Summit on the caregiving crisis, because we want to say this is what we're going to fight for.

19:42Rep. Gomez:Caregiving, paid family leave, affordable housing, housing that's affordable, all of it, because we need to do something that just not what we're against, but what we're for.

19:53Ben Meiselas:Congressman, appreciate you so much for joining us as always. If everyone knows to go back, what, four years ago, Congressman Gomez was on the Midas Touch Network when I don't think we even had a million subscribers. I remember doing that. I think I was still a practicing lawyer at the time and I was in my office doing that interview. But anyway, thanks so much for joining us. No, thank you for having me. And everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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