Trump Cracks as US Ground Invasion Imminent

0:00Ben Meiselas:From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy goal to relationship fails, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts, included with Prime. Because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is, well, nothing. Download the Amazon Music app today.

0:23Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is panicking as his war against Iran is spiraling out of control, and we may be reaching a phase in this war where a United States ground invasion is imminent. Let me explain to you what's happening, and it is actually reminiscent of what went down during the Vietnam War. So what we learned earlier today, multiple sources telling the Wall Street Journal and others that the Pentagon is moving a Marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East as Iran steps up its attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, according to two officials who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a request from U.S.

1:02Ben Meiselas:Central Command CENTCOM for an expeditionary unit, typically consisting of up to 2 ,500 Marines, to be deployed near Iran, with the Marines to be believed to be coming from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in 29 Palms, California. Now, this is significant because the escalation of the Vietnam War leading to the direct U.S. ground combat involvement began March 8, 1965, with the landing of 3 ,500 U.S. Marines from the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade. And you can take a look how the troop ramp up actually went down in Vietnam thereafter. So this is one of the first steps, I believe, to a potential ground invasion.

1:51Ben Meiselas:One of the things we're learning about as well is, and we've known this now for some time, Putin's significant involvement in helping Iran, China's involvement in helping Iran. Donald Trump gave an interview earlier today with Brian Kilmeade on state regime media, which calls itself Fox. And when Donald Trump was asked, if you believe Putin is helping Iran, Donald Trump's response was basically like, so what, even if he is here, play this clip. You think Putin is helping him?

2:22Donald Trump:I think he might be helping him a little bit. Yeah, I guess. And he probably thinks we're helping Ukraine, right? And you are, right? Yeah, we help him also. And so he says that and China would say the same thing. You know, it's like, hey, they do it and we do it in all fairness.

2:39Ben Meiselas:Now, how treasonous is that? So what? We're doing it, too. Can you act tough? Can you act like the president of the United States? Can you act like you took an oath to protect, defend our Constitution? What are you doing right there? And also, I think it's notable as well that Donald Trump is just allowing Chinese ships and Iranian ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz without any issues at all. Trump is terrified of Xi Jinping because those Chinese ships and those Iranian ships continue to take oil out of the strait while all of the United States allies and the U.S. ships are being blocked.

3:16Ben Meiselas:And Iran says, if you get our permission, you can leave. But Trump's just letting the Chinese ships go shows you how scared he is of Xi Jinping. It's terrible. Here's what Donald Trump said about iranian terrorists he goes they're just bad something wrong genetically with them he goes it's just their genetics it's just their genetics what are you talking about here play this clip

3:36Donald Trump:and say yeah um this is about isis so i mean how do you get into the mindset of this how do you stop it they're sick people and uh a lot of them were let in here they shouldn't have been let in others are just bad they go bad something wrong there's something wrong there so genetics are They're not exactly well. They're not exactly your genetic. It's one of those problems, Brian. It's a it's a terrible thing. And it happens. And it happens. And it happens too often.

4:05Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump continues to refer to his unlawful war as an excursion. And he says they're crazy people. So we had to take this excursion. Play this clip.

4:15Donald Trump:But take a look. We'll take a look at everything. And it's all going to work out. Look, we took an excursion. We had the greatest economy ever. We still do. and we have to do a little excursion to get rid of mad mad people crazy people that have that want to have nuclear weapons if we didn't do the hit with a midnight hammer if we didn't have those beautiful b2 bombers hit them so effectively and the word is obliterate and now everybody admits the word is obliterate in fact they're not even talking about opening that site they were talking

4:46Ben Meiselas:about going to a new site if you can believe it now maga republicans are beating their chest to try to push for a ground invasion. You have Keith Self, a MAGA Republican Congress member, says you can't just do this with air power. We need boots on the ground. Special forces need to be on the ground. Play this clip.

5:07Donald Trump:But look, you do not defeat a nation with air power only. I am not for ground troops, but we need to understand as an American people, you may or may not get regime change with air power only because you don't defeat a nation. You have to put boots on the ground. And I'm not advocating for that. Let me say again, but we may need special forces to go in to do some of the operations on the ground.

5:32Ben Meiselas:But right now we've got the upper hand. More from Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Whitaker. Here's what he's saying. He says all we can see so far is that Donald Trump's been the best diplomacy first peacemaker. And then he goes on to say that, you know, look, if this is a line that they keep repeating, that if Russia is aiding Iran, they're not doing a good job right now. Here, let's play this clip right here.

5:58Donald Trump:What kind of relationship will it take moving forward now to possibly come back to the table? I mean, I'm curious how you then simultaneously solve the issue with Russia, if we even think they might be helping Iran at this point. And you make an excellent point. If they are helping, they're not doing a very good job. And we're good with that. Yeah, I think, you know, President Trump is a diplomacy first peacemaker. And it's not until he knows there's not a deal to be made that he brings kinetic options to the table. And whether, you know, that is the situation we face right now in Iran or whether it is to try to solve the Russia-Ukraine war.

6:36Donald Trump:I mean, there is always the time for peace is always now. Now, President Trump is always looking for a peace deal, but he's also looking for an American first peace deal that advantages the United States of America and our people.

6:48Ben Meiselas:Now, earlier today, we saw Pete Hegsif giving a speech where he said that all of the Iranian leadership was basically hiding and they were nowhere to be found. But then we saw the Iranian leadership out there. Hey, take a look at what's been going down. Iran's leadership is in no better shape.

7:08Donald Trump:Desperate and hiding, they've gone underground, cowering. That's what rats do.

7:14Ben Meiselas:And here were some scenes so you can see for yourself what the Iranian protests looked like today. By the way, Donald Trump keeps on making posts of what the Kennedy Center is going to look like when he calls it the Trump Kennedy Center. And it's just an AI image of the Kennedy Center. We heard from J.D. Vance as well. J.D. Vance gave speech moments ago and he's acting like the gas prices are great right now let's just take a look

7:39Donald Trump:right here now here's the interesting thing all this conversation happens where joe biden left us in a terrible situation and the reason why gas prices are where they are today is because of donald trump's work to get them lower because in the biden administration they were crazy high The gas prices we're seeing today are nothing like what we saw at the peak of the Biden administration because the president has set us up for energy dominance. And one of the lessons we all have to take away, frankly, every time we get involved in anything overseas, whether it's in the Middle East or anywhere else, the thing we got to take away from it is energy dominance and energy independence.

8:21Donald Trump:Rely on our own people. Rely on our own energy.

8:25Ben Meiselas:And then also you have Donald Trump speaking to Brian Kilmeade saying these are bad people. They shoot protesters in the head. Hey, you want to look in the mirror right there? Here, let's play this clip. How important?

8:37Donald Trump:How important would it be to get out that besieged force? The the thugs that walk the streets and tomorrow that we could do. Are we aiming for them? No, these are these are bad people. They go out shooting protesters. You're a protester. They shoot you right through the head. This is an evil group of people. And if we had them have a nuclear weapon, they would use it and they wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep.

8:59Ben Meiselas:And Trump says at the end of the day, when it comes to Iran, we're being nice. I could take things out within the next hour. Here, play this clip.

9:06Donald Trump:We're being nice. I could take out things within the next hour. We could hang up with it in one hour. You'd be reading about taking out nuclear power plants or power plants that creates the electricity, that creates the water. They have desalindization all over the place. We could do things that would be so bad they could literally never rebuild as a nation again. And we're trying to be nice about it. We're not doing it. Now, they'll go around and shoot civilians all over the place, but we don't do that. But we could take out elements of what they have in terms of infrastructure. They would virtually never be able, time wouldn't matter, never be able to reproduce it.

9:47Donald Trump:And so far, we've chosen not to do that. But we have hit them so hard. I mean,

9:53Ben Meiselas:they have no. And then Donald Trump says nobody has the technology that we have like our tomahawks. Iran doesn't have our tomahawks. Didn't you blame them the other day in saying that they stole our tomahawks and then bombed their own elementary school? Let's play this clip right here.

10:08Donald Trump:Look, nobody has the technology or the weapons that we have. And the patriots are an example of it. We have the tomahawks. We have the pages. We have stuff that nobody's ever been able to produce and they can't produce it like us.

10:20Ben Meiselas:And then earlier today, when Pete Hegseth was holding a press conference, he's like the Strait of Hermoz is open. It's definitely open, except for the fact that the ships are being shot out by the Iranians. Otherwise, you can use it. I mean, this is just breathtakingly stupid here. Play this clip. I want to emphasize what the chairman said about that.

10:39Donald Trump:The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that. Now, there's a reason why we chose as one of our primary objectives, destroy the Navy. We understood the ability to interdict shipping is something Iran has done for 40 years. It's key terrain. They've used it as leverage. The world is seeing what they'll do to fight back in that context. And so we've heard them talk about taking various measures and we're planning for all of them. So we have a plan for every option here. We're working with our interagency partners.

11:13Donald Trump:And that's not a straight we're going to allow to remain contested or with a lack of flow of commercial goods. So we're aware of that. We're laser focused on our military objectives, but also want to make sure our

11:26Ben Meiselas:partners across this government understand we're working with you to make sure that energy flows. We're seeing other ramifications in the Middle East as well. Bahrain had to cancel its Formula one race formula one canceled the grand prix in both saudi arabia and bahrain signing the ongoing conflict in the middle east for the move uh french president emmanuel macron spoke moments ago and said um you know just in a statement of like why the hell is the u.s removing sanctions against russian oil right now when in fact russia is working with iran like what are you doing macrones like in no case should anyone be removing sanctions from russia what what are you doing watch what french president emmanuel macron said he also met with zelinski earlier today let's play

12:15Donald Trump:this clip in no case should an increase in the price of oil lead us to change our position with regard to russia that is the position of the g7 and of course that of france and europe you also

12:28Ben Meiselas:We also have Brooke Rollins, Donald Trump's agriculture secretary, talking about a new bailout for farmers as a result of the fact that fertilizer prices are going through the roof right now as a result of the war. A lot of the fertilizer comes from the Middle East. So I guess the plan is to what, just keep bankrupting people and then bailing them out? I mean, is that what this plan is right here? Let's play it.

12:54Donald Trump:Yes, we'll take questions. Just to start, are you considering another bailout for farmers who are concerned about the rising price of fertilizer given the war in law? Yeah, so I appreciate that question with what's happening in Iran, what that means for specifically nitrogen urea, which is one of the key components of fertilizer. Our farmers are moving into planting season right now, so the president is very aware of these challenges and these issues. We are very close to having an announcement on some solutions on what that looks like. We're looking at every potential avenue to keep the fertilizer costs down as these farmers are going into planting season.

13:32Donald Trump:No big announcements yet, but it is coming. I have been in conversation with The Hill on that as they're looking at additional funds for our farmers. So at this point, everything is on the table. This president is convicted. He is resolute. He will stand with our farmers. He knows that his national security issue and we're on it. So more to come on that.

13:53Ben Meiselas:And we heard more from J.D. Vance about started talking about Christy Noem. And I guess he just talks to us like we're all stupid right now. Show you what went down here.

14:02Donald Trump:Play this clip ship to hasten that delivery of resources to the people of North Carolina. A lot of people in the media have said that, you know, the reason why we made a change at DHS is because the Trump administration is backing off of its illegal immigration enforcement policy. That could be further from the truth. The reason that we're making this change is because Kristi Noem has a great opportunity to serve in this new shield of the Americas position. I think she's going to do a great job. And on the other hand, we think it's useful to have somebody come in and focus on some of this disaster relief and recovery stuff.

14:35Donald Trump:And that's exactly what we're going to do. But I appreciate Michael bringing that.

14:38Ben Meiselas:Really, that's why you think Kristi Noem was gone, so she could work at the Shields of America? I mean, for real, that's what you think is going down? Well, we'll keep you posted every step of the way. You know, obviously, this seems to be one of the first steps towards ground forces there. And make sure you hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks so much for watching.

15:07Ben Meiselas:add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.