Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 7/16/2026

29:17And whether it's malice, being an idiot, being a malicious idiot, that is just so damn dangerous that that is your assessment.

29:30Ben Meiselas:Did you not even see the funeral processions that were taking place? Did you not see it? The Iranian leaders tweet. They post on X. I can see their messages and their photos and their video. I mean, what are you talking about? What world do you live in? That's why I say, that's why I say, that's why I say, WTF America. I don't know how else to describe it. WTF. All right, let's take our first break of the show. When we come back, I've got some video footage also of the bridge on fire that was just attacked by the United States in Iran. Obviously escalation right there. I've got some videos of the Iranian Shaheed strikes in Kuwait.

30:12We'll talk more about other developments throughout the day. Talk about some of the hearing yesterday with Blanche. All right, let's take our first break of the show. You know, it's funny what I decided to get picky about. The last time I got coffee, it took me about five reviews before I landed on my spot. But life insurance, well, most of us took the first quote that we got and called it done. SelectQuote is a life insurance broker that does the homework for you. Their licensed agents shop over a hundred policies and find you a better rate for free. With select quote, getting life insurance is fast, free, and easy.

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33:24Welcome back. It's Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Micellis. This is your Breaking News. I just saw even before we took a break, the acting secretary of the Navy posting regarding those flyovers. Flight debrief complete. No reprimands. No firings. No problem.

33:45Ben Meiselas:That's the sound of freedom. Semper file. Hooyah. Hooyah. Hooyah. What are we doing? What are you talking about? Even if there wasn't, why are you bragging about that? I mean, did you see the video? Do we have the video, Jeremy, of it going at all? I'm not sure if we have the video of it, but.

34:17I mean, do you see the children afterwards? Like, why is that something to celebrate? I mean I mean and I and again I like fly I mean it's as you know it's like you know I don't really don't like the UFC it just doesn't I like boxing you know you know the UFC doesn't appeal to me but I I'm not like I don't hate the idea of UFC if you like watching UFC fights watch it I don't know it's just not my thing I like other sports I like flyovers I mean I like cars you know I You know, it's not like, you know, I just, I also, you know, don't think it's ultra woke, you know, when you've got, you know, a baby in the backseat that you have a car seat and you do a seatbelt and you do all the, you know, I don't do that.

34:58Ben Meiselas:I don't brag about, yeah, you know, my 20-month-old no seatbelt freedom. Woo-ha. Hoo-yah. Right? Like, okay. I mean, you know, what are we doing? you know they obviously started with the apaches with a kid rock and they flew the apache right to kid rocks home then they did the apache in south carolina you know then they did this fly over over here okay does it look cool sure it looks cool you know but what happens when they do that and somebody gets killed or there's injuries and then it's like well how did this happen how did you know how did this happen? And it's like, you're encouraging a very corrosive culture.

35:45Ben Meiselas:And they're also firing people who were our top generals and top admirals and people who led with moral clarity. Those people have all been pushed out by Hegseth. And if you look at this Admiral Cooper guy who leads CENTCOM, I mean, this guy's like a MAGA guy now. It's really sad to see. I mean, you know, I mean, I saw that guy at a hearing, Cooper, you know, when he was being cross-examined by Congress Member Crowe and Moulton and other people. And, you know, the guy looked like Baghdad Bob up there. It was humiliating to watch. The head of CENTCOM, Cooper. And I'm thinking to myself, you're supposed to be CENTCOM, man.

36:32Ben Meiselas:What are you doing? And you know what? You have CENTCOM putting out statements right now. The southern corridor of the Strait of Hormuz is open. Tankers, be free to leave. We've got you. And there have been seven tankers that followed that advice and were destroyed by Iran. And so today over the radio, Wall Street Journal reported about this. One of the captains said, go fuck yourself. Excuse my language. They said that to CENTCOM. Go F yourself. What are you doing? Shut up. That's to CENTCOM. A captain of a tanker went to CENTCOM, went to the military and said, F off. Just think about that, especially when you know maritime law, the idea, and for those who have a background in shipping and the dynamics that play out where it's very carefully choreographed laws of the sea, protocols.

37:48Ben Meiselas:for a cargo, for one of these very large container ships to go and tell CENTCOM, you know, the George H.W. Bush or, you know, or the other ships that were there, go F yourself, F off, is bigger than just even the headlight. Because that's, no, we're not doing it. Shut up. Stop saying you don't control the straight up or move. And we see with the shipping traffic, it ain't happening. And by the way, when there was the MOU, it was happening. It was happening. And what did the U.S. say? The U.S. said, aha, we got you, Iran. Yes, paragraph five of the MOU says that you are the administrator, but we got a loophole.

38:40Ben Meiselas:We got a loophole. We didn't say we can send ships out through the southern route that will open up with Oman. We never wrote that into the contract. So gotcha, gotcha. To which Iran said, no, look, we will charge a fee around 1%, maybe less. Use the IRGC route. We believe we won the war. You're the one who asked for the deal. We didn't ask for the deal. Well, who asked for the deal? Who declared the unilateral ceasefire? Was it Iran or was it Trump? Go back. Remember the last time Trump said, we're going to destroy your bridges and infrastructure? Who was the one who declared ceasefire many months ago?

39:27Ben Meiselas:Trump. So from Iran's perspective, you wanted the ceasefire. You wanted the deal. You came to us. And look, to be fair, could one have a – I get some listeners and viewers who go, Ben, but paragraph five doesn't specifically say that the U.S. can't open up that route. So how come you keep saying that your interpretation is that – it doesn't expressly say Iran controls the entire Strait of Hormuz. That's a fair point, but it says Iran is to administer it in consultation with Oman and the other Arab nations. So when they're the ones administering it, if the U.S. wanted to open up the southern route, you would imagine that then you would go to the person administering it to say, we'd like to do that.

40:19Ben Meiselas:But that's not how – Trump wanted the loophole. and they, but this is what Trump's done with contracts his whole life where he rips him. That's what he does with the constitution. And so he goes, ha ha, that's my way out to which Iran said, no, no, no, no, no. We'll do warning shots. We want it this way. And then Trump said, okay, well then we're going back to war. We're going back to war. And then Trump started attacking Iran and escalating and escalating and escalating. And here we are where they are destroying the bridges right now. And let me just, I'll show you, I'll, let me show you some of the, some of the latest right here.

40:54Ben Meiselas:This is video out of Iran from their state-owned mayor news showing the aftermath of a U.S. airstrike in Bandar Abbas right now in the Harmsganand province. Let's play it.

41:15Okay, here is a missile hitting the middle of the bridge. A fuel tanker was destroyed as well. It's believed the driver was killed in this also. Part of the bridge is gone right here. And this is a bridge connecting Bandar Abbas to Shiraz that civilians use. Now, the Trump regime and CENTCOM, I'm sure they'll say, well, this is also used by the military as well. But that's also the logic that had the Trump regime kill the little girls in Manab in the elementary school, which Trump acts like, you know, that didn't happen at all. And so this one right here, let's just let's just play the clip, Jeremy.

42:08I'll describe what it is after.

42:21Great. And play the other one now, Jeremy, also.

42:35So the last clip you saw was the Iranian strike in Kuwait, notably Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, all of these other countries. They always go, we shot all of the drones. There was no damage done. That's what Iraq said after Iran targeted Erbil. And that's what the United Arab Emirates says about Fujairah. Oman tries to deny that one of its hotels was attacked by Iran as well. None of it happened. None of it happened, everybody. And it's like, OK, well, we've got videos of what's actually happening here. And then let me show you what Caroline Levitt said when she was asked more about this catastrophic war in Iran today that she returned.

43:27Ben Meiselas:And here she was asked – even the way this question was asked is ridiculous. And it says, can you explain why the American people should think a deal with Iran would be worth it considering they broke it already? Look, as a patriotic American, I still love what this country can be. I love being born in this country. I consider it a patriotic duty to use whatever limited skill set I've been given in order to try to call this out, to call out stuff that I view as anti -American. And the Baghdad Bob stuff that, you know, what's the guy's name? Ali G? What's the? Borat? Or the emperor? What was the show?

44:26Ben Meiselas:The dictator stuff? Right? That we would kind of mock that behavior. You know, we would mock the way, you know, South Park would make movies of Kim Jong-un's dad. Remember that? You know, remember that? You know, we would, as a country, go, oh my God, can you believe like what that looked like? And, you know, that's what we would say. And so to me, when that's happening here right now in the United States, when I hear stories about what was it that, I mean, we knew this already, but that after Trump would invest in these companies, what was the latest story? That he would immediately start to trade within two or three days after he posts about it on his social media platform, which I mean, I think obviously we all knew that that's what they were doing.

45:18And he would start talking about these companies and talk them up when we would know that he was doing these 21 ,000 trades. But anyway, the question here, can you explain why the American people should think a deal with Iran would be worth it considering they broke it already? The moment Donald Trump held it up in Versailles, Trump went to Versailles, Trump held it up, then the U.S.

45:41Ben Meiselas:started breaching the MOU. And, you know, perhaps you could say, well, Ben, if the U.S. was breaching, do you think, though, that it was right for Iran to strike those tankers? And I would agree with you and say, no, I probably shouldn't hit the tankers. But didn't J.D. Vance say that there was a de-escalation cell that would address and avoid these things? At some point, when you have Marco Rubio go to the Middle East right after Trump holds it up, and Marco Rubio starts to say things like, we're never going to give him the$300 billion, we're not talking about it. When you then do an MOU with Lebanon and Netanyahu and basically say that Netanyahu can stay in Lebanon indefinitely in so-called security zones, which is southern Lebanon.

46:32It's not a security. It's territory that belongs to Lebanon and create some concept.

46:38Ben Meiselas:Well, we're going to do pilot zones, then security zones. And then when Netanyahu keeps on striking inside Lebanon, by the way, in residential areas, there's a residential strike today as well, you know, in Lebanon. There have been more murders in Gaza right now. When Article 1 or Paragraph 1 of the MOU says that a true ceasefire in Lebanon needs to happen, when Iranian funds were supposed to be unfrozen, which weren't, the$300 billion were supposed to happen. So at some point, it wasn't like Iran struck the ships right away. It was over time. And so this idea of why would we trust them if they breached?

47:23It's like, no, the US breached. The US breached right away. And the U.S. never had any intention of actually doing the MOU.

47:34Ben Meiselas:The U.S. has no intention of doing the MOU. The U.S. invaded. We know from people inside the Trump regime that Iran didn't have an imminent ability to get nuclear weapons. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA and he consistently lies about it. Trump invaded, you know, and his whole promise was I'm not going to do this stuff. and Trump has said that the Iranian leadership is reasonable. Now they're scum. They're reasonable. They're scum. Don't we realize that Iran is also engaged in propaganda. Let's not be naive. We're not going to be like, oh, everything Iran says is true. Everything you hear on Mayer and Tasneem.

48:20Ben Meiselas:We should just talk. Absolutely not. But I'm in a quest with you for the videos, for the data. Is the Shred of Hormuz opened? Is it closed? What's actually happening? What do the satellite images show? Oh, they actually show that these bases in the U.S. were hit. Are those real? Are those AI? Oh, wait, they're real. We learned about them. We know that that's the case. The U.S. troops have abandoned those bases. Got it. Where are our assets going? Where are the American troops? Oh, wait a minute. There were three medevac planes recently that the U.S. put in Saudi Arabia and nearby. What are those medevac planes doing?

49:00Ben Meiselas:Oh, they're going to Germany? Are they bringing Americans with us? We have to assess it and we can pull apart the noise and we can see what happens. But I'll show you. Well, first, let me show you what Caroline Levitt says here, can you explain why the American people should think a deal with Iran would be worth it? Here, play this clip. He essentially seemed fed up with these negotiations. And can you explain why the American people should think that a deal with Iran would even be worthwhile at this point, given the fact that they broke it already? Well, look at how bad they are behaving. It just proves the president's initial point for launching Operation Epic Fury in the first place.

49:38Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. That's why he launched Operation Epic Fury. They have suffered devastating blows to their military and their economy as a result. The president is always open and willing to diplomacy. He is the peace through strength president after all. After Operation Epic Fury, the conclusion of it, we did move forward into a diplomatic phase if you will. But unfortunately Iran has since violated that. They have expressed they still want to make a deal to the president. We're talking to them. But again, the president is not going to allow them to fire on ships in the strait without paying a consequence for that.

50:12And I think just one more point, I think throughout this entire endeavor, the president has proved not just to Iran, but to the entire world that we can hit Iran anytime, anywhere, any place. And their ability to defend themselves has been essentially wiped out because of this president in Operation Epic Fury in the first place. Go ahead. Thank you so much. Welcome back. Thank you. OK, the person is welcome back. No, don't welcome back. Why would we welcome back a liar? Okay. Welcome back.

50:43Ben Meiselas:That's why the press corps is so broke. Welcome back. Please, please tell us more lies that we can broadcast. Please. Welcome, welcome, welcome back. And again, so I have to now assess, and you have to assess, okay, on the one hand, I have the Trump regime saying Iran's ability to defend itself is completely destroyed. Okay. On the other hand, I see Iran saying, here's how we've responded. Here are the satellite image of where we've hit. Here, I have videos of what's going on in Iraq and Kuwait and Bahrain and in Qatar and in the United Arab Emirates. And I see what's happening in Yemen. I also see Saudi Arabia attacking the airport, the Sanaa airport in Yemen.

51:36I see things escalating there. Okay. If you say Iran's ability to defend itself is completely destroyed, that's a bold statement. That's a bold, and it carries with it, meaning, right? So I'm assessing, is what this Trump regime told me true? And I go, no, that's an absolutely false statement that she's making. Now, if you wanted to say, we're hitting Iran hard, and then try to explain to me the plan, why are we hitting them? What's the plan? Is anybody going to try to explain this? I don't even know why we're there right now, but okay. Even when Trump tries to speak about the nuclear stuff, he's like, no one can reach it.

52:26Ben Meiselas:Nobody can get it. It's impossible. We obliterated it in 2025. Okay. But if you want to say, hey, we've hit here, here, and here, and that's part of a plan. I'll listen. I still think that this is a Trump regime of war criminals. I then see Iran's responses, and they still seem to have a pretty significant ballistic missile arsenal. They seem to have a Shahi drone arsenal. They keep on responding on a daily basis. And so also, if Iran doesn't have any capabilities, why do you need to strike their civilian infrastructure? That seems to be a pretty desperate move if that's where you're going. And then you get something like this.

53:11A Sky News reporter said, what's the latest on Manab right now? Where the U.S. killed, slaughtered 168 people, mostly little girls. Let's listen to what is responded, how Caroline Levitt responds. Let's play it. 120 children dead, 26 of their teachers. A Sky News investigation released today points to all this being a tragic mistake by America, by the US military. So could you explain please why the president is repeatedly saying it wasn't America when he hasn't actually, he says also that he hasn't even seen the report. I can't speak to the Sky News investigation respectfully because I have not read it.

53:54All I can speak to is what the president has said.

53:59Okay. So where are we? So what's the answer? And then she goes on to say, ah, you know, it's actually nothing. And we're still investigating it. You know, the only thing that I would say when Sky News says, you know, it was a tragic mistake. You know, someone in my family has said, you know, mistakes often just don't happen. Mistakes are made. And when the Trump regime invades a country with Netanyahu without planning and you are focused on the quantity of targets, it's not just like, oh, mere negligence. Oopsies. Oopsies. No, no, no. I mean, to me, it is a intentional war crime that was committed.

54:55you know if i was applying criminal law standards it would be a recklessness that would rise to the level of intentionality there was an invasion and you know if if if you think about it in terms of um you know criminal law if you will right if you punch somebody and you intend to punch them but you don't intend to kill them and they and they die you can say oh that wasn't murder you If you go into a war and you intend to kill people, which is what the U.S. intended to do, and then you kill and slaughter children, you don't get to say, oh, that was an accident, in my view. And then Donald Trump refuses to take hand, but we'll never know who did it.

55:39We'll never know what happens. We'll never know how it happened. And it's like, no, I mean, so if that's your positioning on that, if you still claim that the reflecting pool was destroyed by vandals, if you're going to go and do a presser tonight and you're going to say the 2020 election was stolen by the Chinese while you're like a Xi Jinping bootlicker, if that's what you're going to do, then I don't trust you. You have zero trust. It's all lies coming from the United States, and it's a sick and sad thing. That's what I talk about in WTF America. Pre-order it right now. Let's take our last one.

56:19I don't know if you can hear it in the background. So my baby girl's in the background, and she's got that bunny that you wind up, and it goes and she wants my attention, so she's got the bunny right there. and she keeps playing the bunny right there while I'm doing the show. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. While you're here, I got to tell you about CarShield. I don't know about you, but there is nothing worse than seeing a warning light pop up on your dashboard and immediately wondering, how much is this going to cost me? I've had those surprise repair bills before and they are never cheap.

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1:00:02Welcome back. Learning that some networks, NBC, ABC, saying that they are not going to be airing Trump's address tonight, which I think is the smart decision where Trump's going to lie about the 2020 election. I think that there can be coverage of it, like afterwards, to make sure you fact check the lies. We're going to have to fact check the lies. but I certainly would never, ever want to play any of that live. You know, and it's the same thing. You know, when you go to these, you know, pressers over here by Caroline Levitt, I mean, the question is, you know, we're used to spin, which is not good, but we know spin, but then there's just outright lies.

1:00:57And that's what Caroline Levitt, you know, does. So during her presser as well, she talked about Tuesday's Consumer Price Index report, and she says it confirmed what Trump predicted. Let's play this clip. Turning now to the economy. Tuesday's CPI report confirmed what President Trump predicted. Prices are falling and this administration's economic policies are working. Inflation dropped 0.4 % last month, beating expectations and marking the largest monthly decline in more than six years. Prices fell, including for gasoline, electricity, non-prescription drugs, car insurance, medical care services, and hotels, delivering relief for American working families.

1:01:45Okay. Let me ask you, everybody who's here, and I mean this objectively, Do you feel relief right now? Objectively, do you feel relief? Do you feel that you're in a better position this month than you were last month? I mean, just an honest question. I'll look at your comments right now. And if you do, we'll tell the truth. Do you feel better right now, honestly. And whether you hate Trump, despise him, like him, I mean, I don't know why you would like him, but are you in a better position? I'll tell you my view and maybe you get mad at me for it or whatever. I was never hopeful because with Trump, you know, he's always going to make the wrong decision.

1:02:37And I root for the country, even if you have a disgusting regime in charge. So with the memorandum of understanding, with the hope of, you know, maybe this guy who's horrible because he is focused on the midterm so much, just maybe at least from now until November. Maybe he just focuses. You knew after the midterms, especially if and when Democrats take control of the House and maybe the Senate. I knew we'd be back to war then. And I wasn't naive because I saw the MOU was doomed for failure from the outset. But there's always a 2 % of me that would hope because I want everybody to do better. Come on, let's bring these gas prices.

1:03:31Come on. And if the MOU is working for a few days, which it really never did at all, is that relief good? And when you see a lower than expected inflation report, but still inflation is up, the report said year over year, inflation is now at 3.5%. So it's 3.5 % higher than last year's inflation. and that's what was last year's inflation close to 2.8, 2.9, 3. So 3, 3.5, so you add them up basically and you go, okay. So Biden, they would always attack. So we're 6.5 % if you add up both Trump years so far over Biden, Trump over Biden by about increase when Trump said he was going to decrease the prices.

1:04:25Ben Meiselas:3.5 % means inflation is rising. But if it's a cooler than expected reading, great. But what we all know is that Trump escalates the war. We all knew that it was going to be just part of a market manipulation scheme, which it was. And right now, I'm sure you are feeling what I'm feeling, which is the price of gas has gone up to right now. It's right around where it was during some of the worst moments of the war. Ain't no sign of it coming down anytime soon, especially when I'm a broken record talking about crack prices, strategic reserves, right? What's going on there? And so stop selling us shit.

1:05:12Stop the lying.

1:05:14Ben Meiselas:And the Trump regime, they do the fraud in a lot of ways that I want to. I talk about that. You go, okay, Ben, stop talking about the book. Stop talking about the book. I'm proud of the book. That's why I talk about it. And it's inspired by you. So that's because I wanted to get these ideas out there. And I hear you. If you're like, Ben, stop promoting it all the time. It's honestly when I don't mean to be morbid, but it's part of what I want to be a legacy, not just for me, but for what we've all built together. That's why I'm proud of it. And we just announced it. So you'll have to deal with me talking about it a little longer because I'm proud of it.

1:05:57But I talk about the schemes and the scams. Okay. And let me highlight some of them for you right now. As my daughter, she's got the bunny like right there wound up as I'm doing all of this. And so imagine doing a newscast and in the background, all you hear is the bunny jumping right there. Okay, a few things. Trump will go out and say, I brought in$19.1 trillion,$19.1 trillion, right? Okay, well, if you brought in$19.1 trillion, then why do you have to do reconciliation 3.0, right? That's what they're talking about, where they want to take away more of your taxpayer dollars or increase our debt even more than it is right now, right?

1:06:46This past year, we've added about$3.5 trillion in debt. Just think about that. The debt is going to hit$40 trillion soon. And that's being caused by the fact that Donald Trump hasn't brought in$19.2 trillion. So one of the scams is, I've brought in all of this money. I've brought in all of this money. And that's like a Ponzi scheme, right? Bernie Madoff. Record returns. You've never been better. You've never been richer. You come up with a big number and just keep on repeating it all over and all over again. And what's it also to cover for? Well, y 'all told us, the MAGA Republicans, the big, beautiful bill was going to cover everything, right?

1:07:27Ben Meiselas:But they've ran out of money on the big, beautiful bill despite looting from all of us and taking away our healthcare and taking away Medicaid and taking away all of these things, right? So then they did reconciliation 2.0, and now they need reconciliation 3.0. What is that? Classic Ponzi scheme behavior. I used to litigate against Ponzi schemes. I would be appointed by the SEC when it used to function. They would appoint a receiver, and the receiver would appoint people like me, and I would bring cases and litigate cases in California. Billion-dollar Ponzi schemes. What would they do? special purpose vehicle one, special purpose vehicle two, special purpose vehicle three, four, and so on.

1:08:12Ben Meiselas:And then two would pay one, three would pay two. And then the people who were involved in the scheme would take the VIG. They take it for themselves as they would go from special purpose vehicle one, two, three, four, and so on. And so reconciliation 3.0, it's a very familiar thing for me in Ponzi scheme language that I used to litigate against because it's just special purpose vehicle three. They ran out of money on one. They ran out of money on two. This is three. And then they throw up$19.1 trillion and say, aha, look how rich we are,$19.1 trillion. But they're looting from you. Also, where's a lot of this money going to the military industrial complex, which is Trump, Trump kids, Trump friends, the right-wing oligarchs, the data centers, which Trump says he loves the data centers.

1:09:07Ben Meiselas:They're the greatest. Well, we all know how wrong he is. He goes, the data centers create energy. No, they take up the energy. He hates the windmills, but loves the data centers, right? The windmills, they're hurting our energy. The data centers, liquid gold, that's what's helping. No, the opposite. So what other scams are they pulling while they're looting from you? Well, then they'll say, okay, okay, Walmart has a sale, 10%, 15 % off ground beef, right? Or whatever it is. And then they'll try to act like, look, we brought down ground beef prices because Walmart did a sale. Okay. That's like saying like Cyber Monday sales are reflective of decreasing inflation.

1:09:55Ben Meiselas:At the same time, did you catch what they did late last night? They tariffed Brazil 25 % after the Supreme Court declared Trump's tariff authority illegal. Trump did something called a 301 investigation and then impose 25 % tariffs on most Brazilian imports. What's going on there? Well, Trump is working with Jair Bolsonaro's kid, Flavio Bolsonaro. And Flavio Bolsonaro is running for president against President Lula in Brazil, who's currently in charge of Brazil. This is part of the Trump regime's dominance over the Western hemisphere and regime change. So what they're trying to do, in my opinion, is basically shake down Brazil and say, if you vote for Flavio Bolsonaro and then get Jair to be pardoned and removed from prison, because he's their insurrection as president, I will remove the tariffs and Brazil's economy can do better.

1:10:58Ben Meiselas:Because even though we pay the tariffs here, it is a trade barrier to stop Brazilian goods from coming in. And so it ends up still hurting Brazil. It hurts us as the consumers for things like coffee and all this other stuff. But it hurts us as well. And by the way, we have a$400 million trade surplus with Brazil. But that's what Trump's doing, harming us even more with more tariffs against Brazil in order to do a regime change there, basically, and help the Bolsonaro family. In my opinion, that's easily what's going on. By the way, are you hearing this covered anywhere? Pretty big deal, huh? You know, I mean, maybe other people, I don't know, but it's a pretty big deal.

1:11:41Ben Meiselas:And then Trump will say, look, I've got Freedom Gas Centers, the Freedom Centers, and they're charging$3.47 a gallon. Well, it's these like right-wing friends of Donald Trump who are doing this gimmick, losing money likely on the gas at these 15 Freedom Centers. There's 150 gas stations, 150 ,000 gas stations in the United States. So he points to 15 and says, look,$3.47 there. 10 % discounts in Walmart,$19 trillion. Here I go, here I go. Reconciliation 3.0. Let me snatch your money. Comes from the taxpayers. Saddle us with more debt. The debt goes up to 40 trillion. Typical Ponzi scheme behavior while the strategic petroleum reserves.

1:12:30Ben Meiselas:decrease while Iran's about to shut down Bomb El-Mandam Strait, while we're in a never-ending war, while Donald Trump engages in 21 ,000 stock trades every last year, while Donald Trump's teleprompter guy was betting on calci, on what words Donald Trump would say because he saw the speech. He was placing bets on freaking Kalshi while Don Jr. is on the board of Kalshi and a Kazakhstan mining company that the U.S. has been giving a lot of money to while the American people are suffering. So that's what's going on. That's what's going on right now. All right. Now, of course, the bunny stops. The episode ends, the bunny stops.

1:13:24Ben Meiselas:I'm going to plug the book one more time. I saw that the person was like, I'll buy the book if you stop promoting it. Okay. But that's kind of mean. It's a passion project for me. And it's something I poured my soul into. And I talk mostly about the Might is Mighty community in the book being the inspiration for everything that's out there. And there's a lot of shitty books out there. And there's some good books out there. But I want it to do well. Just like I want everything to do well. So you'll have to listen to me say it one more time. The person says, Ben, push the book, my man. Plug away.

1:14:07Ben Meiselas:I'm grabbing my guy. You never heard the bunny. I heard the bunny the whole show.

1:14:15Ben Meiselas:you know the bunnies that jump when you go to the mall it was one of those it was right and she put it there and then she walked away like she knew exactly what she she was doing she's like come on papa hey her new thing there was um we play doctor we play doc doctor doctor play doctor play doctor anyway here's the here's the book right here wtf america um in the, in the description below, you can get a link to it, check it out, pre-order it. We have, we have a message. Someone says, ignore them. You promote, you promote it. Be passionate. Be proud of it. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not immune to comments.

1:14:56Ben Meiselas:I'm not impervious to criticism, you know? Anyway, thanks everybody. Thanks everybody for watching. appreciate you watch the brother show tonight watch that there's going to be a lot of updates on the show thank you all so much love you shout out my just mighty have a good one want to stay plugged in become a subscriber to our sub stack at midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from ron philkowski add free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at midasplus.com

1:15:34Thank you.