Rotten Meat, No Milk: Soldier’s Family Tells All to Meidas About USS Abraham Lincoln (Ft. Aaron Parnas)

0:00Ben Meiselas:The families of our U.S. Navy sailors and our Marines aboard the supercarriers in the Persian Gulf are reaching out to Aaron Parnas, who's affiliated with the Midas Touch Network. He also has his own YouTube channel, and they are sharing horror stories with Aaron Parnas. We have text messages from the families of our service members aboard these supercarriers. We also have messages from our Navy sailors and Marines aboard these supercarriers. Let me read to you some of them here. This is some of the messages that Aaron Parnas has been getting. My husband said it's worse than COVID, and he was on the USS Roosevelt when we lost our amazing captain.

0:39Ben Meiselas:Please keep this anonymous. Sailors have lost so much weight, 50 pounds. Some are working 20 hours without breaks, someone else wrote to us. My husband is on board, and he and many others who work shifts have been getting less than five hours of sleep a night for months. It's not just the lack of food, lack of water. It's everything combined. I have been so worried about his mental health and physical health since the war started, and it's just getting worse. More exclusive reporting from Aaron Parnas. He's been reaching out and speaking to service members aboard these supercarriers like the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS George H.W.

1:16Ben Meiselas:Bush, which are currently part of the so-called blockade in the Persian Gulf. Why isn't there any milk? So the supply ship that comes here can't bring fruits and stuff because it can't stay fresh long enough with the time it gets them to get here. Wow. Any idea who's supposed to come relieve you guys in August? So we haven't had anything fresh but meat because it's freezed or frozen. Sometimes it gets here rotten, repulsive. Yeah. Families are just as frustrated as the people on the boat. This is coming from somebody on the Abraham Lincoln, by the way. This deployment is the worst one. And I pray no other boat goes through the same.

1:57Ben Meiselas:Even people that have been deployed a hundred times claim this one to be the worst. And I believe it can get worse than this. The Navy does not care. The mission will always come first. I was talking to some random dude at the smoke pit and he was saying it's an experiment that the government is doing to see how far can they push sailors limits of being out to sea with the worst experience. I don't know anymore. I know my family needs me and the Navy is not being fair right now, taking me away far longer than expected. Worst part, my expectations were already at an all-time low, but as per usual, the Navy beat those two by going lower than hell.

2:40Ben Meiselas:So there's that. Lower than hell is what our Navy sailors and Marines are saying about their experience aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as well as the USS George H.W. Bush. We've got reporting there as well. Also over here, we can see some of these messages from our sailors showing the food that they're eating. Hey, honey, I'm eating cereal right now. Wish there was milk though. Haven't had milk in three months. No milk because the US doesn't have the logistics to bring over milk, to keep it fresh, or to really bring over any food other than some frozen meat. And our service members are not even getting sufficient nutrition in terms of the meat as well.

3:28Ben Meiselas:So service members are losing 10, 20, 30, 50 pounds right now as they are essentially being physically and psychologically tortured by the Trump regime. So hat tip to Aaron Parnas, subscribe to his YouTube channel. I'm going to bring Aaron Parnas in in just a moment so we can hear from him directly about his exclusive reporting. Make sure you subscribe to Aaron's YouTube channel. Aaron's always getting the breaking news, and he's breaking a lot of enterprise stories himself. Yesterday, of course, we reported here, after the Military Times was first to report, how there were multiple sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that have tried to jump from the ship during the carrier's extended deployment.

4:15Ben Meiselas:It's been out to sea for nearly nine months now, over eight months. And the morale is so low that there are many service members, sailors, and Marines who have actually tried to take their lives by jumping overboard right now. I mean, really tragic situation there. We previously reported about the conditions aboard The USS Gerald Ford, which was out to sea for over a year, one of the longest deployment ever, basically, the USS Gerald Ford. Remember, on that supercarrier, it ended up returning sometime around May. But there was that horrible fire that purportedly began in the laundry room, which almost killed 1 ,000 service members.

5:00Ben Meiselas:And it resulted in their beds and their sheets all being burnt. so they had to sleep on the floor. There was also horrible conditions in terms of the food and in terms of the plumbing. There was lots of leaks all over the floor, rotten showers, the same types of things we're seeing, by the way, in the USS Abraham Lincoln, also an experience that we're hearing aboard the USS George H.W. Bush. Aaron got the following message as well. I love your TikToks, Aaron, and I really appreciate the information that you make available. I've been seeing a lot of your posts about the USS Abraham Lincoln, and my husband is currently on the USS George H.W.

5:41Ben Meiselas:Bush. He has confirmed multiple times that they haven't had fresh fruit or vegetables over there. And so while you have people like Hegseth and Rubio who are out there saying, oh, Biden was focused on gender and climate, and now we're no longer woke because you go woke, you go broke. No, you go Trump and Hegseth and Rubio, you go broke. You all went through a trillion dollars of our military budget for$10 trillion since 2016. You ran out of weapons. Our strategic petroleum reserve has hit tank bottom. We're under 300 million barrels right now in our strategic reserve. You have Donald Trump, the so-called commander in chief, a coward hiding in cafeteria catering trucks to escape from the old Air Force One because he was terrified that Iran was going to blow it up.

6:43Ben Meiselas:And you have our service members with an all-time low morale aboard these supercarriers, also incredibly low morale in the bases, which basically all in the Middle East had to be evacuated because they were in these containers. They basically lived in these trucking containers that were just sitting targets for Iran. The treatment at the bases was horrific as well. Then when our service members were injured and suffered traumatic brain injury, the Trump regime said, nah, minor injuries, TBIs aren't a big deal. It is so damn horrific. This should be the biggest story right now. Ever wake up sweaty, freezing, or just uncomfortable?

7:28Ben Meiselas:The temperature in your bedroom can make or break your sleep. That's why I switched to Miracle Made Sheets. They're inspired by NASA technology and use silver-infused temperature-regulating fabric to help you sleep perfectly all night long. Here's the thing. Thanks to their antibacterial silver technology, Miracle Made Sheets stay cleaner and fresher up to three times longer than regular sheets. That means fewer odors, fewer wash cycles, and way less laundry. All that hidden bacteria in regular sheets, it can clog your pores and cause breakouts. MiracleMade's antibacterial design helps you sleep cleaner and clearer night after night.

8:03Ben Meiselas:And they feel just as good, if not better, than sheets you'd find at a five-star hotel, but without that steep price tag. Smooth, smooth, breathable, and ridiculously comfortable. Miracle Made Sheets are crafted with NASA-inspired silver-infused fabric that helps regulate your body temperature. Hot sleeper, cold sleeper, it doesn't matter. These sheets help keep you in the comfort zone all night long. Upgrade your sleep or give the gift a better rest. Go to trymiracle.com slash Midas to try Miracle Made Sheets today. You'll save over 40 % and when you use promo code Midas, you'll get an extra 20 % off plus a free three-piece towel set.

8:41Ben Meiselas:They make an amazing gift and with a 30-day money back guarantee, there's no risk. That's trymiracle.com slash Midas, code Midas at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. I want to bring on Aaron Parnas now who got us that exclusive reporting about what's going on in the USS Abraham Lincoln. Of course, We had previously reported, as did you, and what was going on with the USS Gerald Ford, the fires that were on that ship, the plumbing issues that were on that ship, the low morale before that ship left in May. You've had the USS Abraham Lincoln now going on nine months, the George H.W.

9:19Ben Meiselas:Bush supercarrier is there as well. It had to actually travel south through Africa because they were afraid of moving that one through the Red Sea, given the Houthi presence over there. It's really shocking and sad to read those messages. Aaron, I know you're hearing from a lot of military families. What are you hearing? What else are you learning? Yeah, I mean, listen, I've spoken to numerous military families, specifically the wives of their husbands who are currently on board the Abraham Lincoln. And also now I just, before we hopped on, received an email from someone on the USS George W. Bush who confirmed that the issues are there as well.

9:56I mean, ultimately, right now, our service members abroad are having moldy showers, are not getting detergent, not getting soap. They're not getting fresh fruit, fresh vegetables. Some service members haven't had a fresh meal in months. The only fresh food they get is meat. And while the meat comes frozen, that's the only thing. And the images we're getting from these troops on these ships. I mean, you wouldn't prisoners and American prisons get better meal rations than these troops are getting right now in the Middle East. And it's led, as we've seen reporting today come out, to some service members wanting to essentially jump overboard rather than continue these deployments.

10:38Because, Ben, as you know, essentially military deployments aboard these aircraft carriers, which are massive, 5 ,000 plus people carriers, they're meant to last only about eight months. The USS Abraham Lincoln left in November, was supposed to be done with its deployment back in May. We're now in August. And according to folks I speak to on board, they're being told this is an indefinite deployment. And so the situation is going to get even worse before it gets better. Yeah.

11:09Ben Meiselas:And the posture right now, despite Donald Trump saying, I'm semi-negotiating or I'm just going to low-key it, these service members have to be alert like 24 hours a day. I mean, they're deployed in an active combat zone. And this so-called blockade, as Trump calls it, that's a form of war. I know he doesn't want to say it that way, but a blockade is war. Our service members are on war footing right now. And then they have to deal with all of these additional stressors, like the most basic logistics are not working, right? I mean, this is not a matter of, you know, just some downtime. This is war.

11:48Ben Meiselas:There's a war taking place. That's one of the issues when he's out there saying, ah, everything's going great and things are amazing. There are people on these ships who are suffering. Well, yeah. I mean, just imagine working, because some of these folks are working 20-hour shifts almost every single day. I mean, I know what it's like to be sleep-deprived with a newborn at home. I can't imagine what it's like to be sleep-deprived on an aircraft carrier away from your family in the middle of an ocean. And the USS Abraham Lincoln, as you know, has been targeted multiple times by the Iranians since the start of the war.

12:19Thankfully, the service members have not been hit yet. But all it takes is one missile to get past air defense systems, to get past America's military, to hit the ship and ultimately cause a much greater issue. And when you have sleep deprived sailors aboard, the chance of a mistake goes up exponentially. And I think something that people are missing in all of this is the war can end today. Let's say we get a deal done today and there's no more fighting with Iran. That doesn't mean these service members are coming home because the United States military is still going to maintain some sort of military posture in the region, whether it's in the Red Sea or in somewhere in the Middle East.

12:58And many of these service members are preparing for an even longer deployment aboard this aircraft carrier, which right now doesn't have an end date.

13:06Ben Meiselas:This is a logistics issue, right? I mean, as well. I mean, you know, it seems that, you know, Trump and Hegseth, they like the memes. They like using the Pokemon memes and the Taylor Swift music and the Grand Theft Auto imagery of the explosions and the bombs and all of that. A lot of military is about the logistics. When you think about issues in past wars, a lot of the deaths were from malaria and mosquitoes and supply chains and some of the boring stuff that you actually need to do the day-to-day stuff. And it seems that that's often overlooked by the whole Trump administration and just lots of things that they do.

13:50Ben Meiselas:He comes up with the flashy name, Epic Fury. He loves the social media post, we win. But then it's like, hey, you know, how are you going to get the food? How are you going to get the mail? How are you going to get the stuff to the troops? When you abandon those bases in the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and other areas, that was one of the areas that would route the stuff to the ships. And now because you don't have the interceptors, Iran's able to strike there, which has these third and fourth level consequences of, well, then how do you get the food and the mail and the supplies to our troops who are out there?

14:22Ben Meiselas:You can't just keep them there. And it's like, Aaron, they don't think about it's like they don't think about that. And they just go, if we're asked about it, it's a PR issue. It's a people issue. The PR issue of you lying, you could do it once, but the people are there. They PR is lives. Well, Ben, just imagine if the president wasn't Donald Trump and the president was Joe Biden. Imagine if the secretary of defense wasn't Pete Hexeth and it was Lloyd Austin. I mean, if you had these facts come out, just one of these stories, let alone dozens and dozens of service members experiencing the same thing.

14:52Imagine one service member tries to jump off an aircraft carrier under the Biden administration. Number one, we'd never hear the end of it. Fox News would be running it on 24-7. Jake Tapper would have written another novel. But number two, Congress would have opened up investigations by now. They would have hauled Lloyd Austin up to Capitol Hill. They would have asked military leaders to testify. James Comer would have opened up an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. I mean, this is as bad as you can get. This is a dereliction of duty. And I asked Governor J.B. Pritzker today whether or not he believes that Trump is essentially fit to command our troops.

15:24And he essentially says, no, he's not. Right. He has mental health issues. He has possible dementia issues. And now it's a complete just mess as our service members aren't getting the necessary resources abroad. So it's it's bad. And unfortunately, it's not getting the coverage it deserves.

15:41Ben Meiselas:You know, people are focused a lot and they should be on Donald Trump cowering into the catering truck and sneaking away from old Air Force One. But to me, this is worse than that. I mean, you know, but it all tells a story, right? Strategic petroleum reserves hit tank bottom. Our ammunition, our interceptors, our THADs, our ATACMs, the HIMARS, the Navy destroyers with the SM2, 3s, and 6s depleted. You look at our alliances across the world, they're broken. You look at the morale on these ships at an all-time low because the supplies aren't getting to them. And like this is, you can run the Ponzi scheme playbook and say, we won.

16:29Ben Meiselas:It's great. It's amazing. You can do it. And you can manipulate the paper markets for a little bit. But it all catches up to you. As I've said, you know, the reflecting pool, you could paint it blue for a little, but the algae always comes back. I mean, you can only paint it so long. Aaron, what do you want our viewers to know and our listeners to know and your listeners to know before we go? And it's incredible that lots of people are reaching out to you and sharing their stories with you as well. And you're getting stories that other people aren't getting just because the trust they have with your day-to-day reporting.

17:03Yeah, well, I think the main thing that I want folks to know is that my DMs are open. Please reach out to me. Please keep sending me stories. Let's keep highlighting what's happening on these ships abroad, on all my platforms, on my YouTube, on my Instagram. Just Aaron Parnas, please reach out to me directly. And I think the biggest thing is we're not stopping, right? Right. This is the importance of independent media in this moment. We don't have big bosses and overlords above us telling us what we can report and how we can report it. Where I'm going to continue on this beat because our service members deserve better.

17:33So, Ben, we're not we're not stopping. And I know you're not stopping. Not now, not ever.

17:37Ben Meiselas:Aaron, thanks for your reporting. Everybody, please subscribe to Aaron's YouTube channel. It's heading to one million subscribers. He's got a bajillion subscribers on TikTok. Y 'all subscribe to him on TikTok. make sure you subscribe to Aaron's YouTube channel because he does longer form breaking news there. So after this video ends, go subscribe to Aaron's YouTube, put in the comments that you saw this video. Aaron, thanks for all your hard work and for getting us this exclusive. Thank you, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe here. Let's get to 7 million here. Breaking news right now. My brothers and I wrote a book.

18:08Ben Meiselas:It's called WTF America. And well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre-order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below.