Trump Cracks in WH and Loses Control of War

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1:59Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is cracking under the pressure of his disastrous war in Iran as things escalate. Donald Trump has blinked yet again. He's saying he is now going to remove sanctions from Iranian oil right now as the price per barrel of oil now is hitting$120 per barrel. So now Iran is having sanctions removed from their oil. So Iran is getting rewarded. And Donald Trump is cracking in so many other ways this morning as well. The Pentagon is asking for more than$200 billion dollars in a defense supplemental right now because we're running out of munitions and weapons. Pete Hegseth held a press conference this morning where he says, we need more money to kill the bad guys.

2:54Ben Meiselas:Please give us more money. $200 billion. Do you all remember, as Alex Jacquez explains, that 20 million people saw their health care premiums double because$30 billion to be invested in health care was too much. Now they're doing$200 billion in a defense authorization supplemental. It's what they want the taxpayers to pay. And now we're learning also about the damage that was caused by those Iranian retaliatory strikes on the Ras Lafon industrial city facility in northern Qatar. Remember when the U.S. and Israel launched those strikes yesterday on the South Pars facility in Iran. And Iran said, OK, well, we're going to take out the liquefied natural gas, the LNG facilities in Qatar.

3:45Ben Meiselas:And then Donald Trump's like, oh, don't do that. We had nothing to do with the strike in the South Par Iranian facility. That was all Netanyahu. We didn't know about it when obviously Donald Trump authorized it with Netanyahu. Well, now, according to the Qatar Energy CEO, Saeed Al-Khabib, Iran's attack on the Raslafin Industrial city, damaged facilities that produce 17 % of Qatar's LNG export capacity. Now it's going to take two to three years to fully repair. Three to 5 % of the global liquefied natural gas capacity has now been wiped out in the past 24 hours in these retaliatory strikes. I'll just, let me give you just these data points right here.

4:26Ben Meiselas:Data point number one, Pete Hegseth press conference this morning saying, yes,$200 billion, give or take a few. That's what it costs to kill the bad guys. I don't know, Pete, how about to keep Americans alive? How about we take care of Americans who are struggling to live right now? What the hell is this Trump regime doing? Watch what Hegsitt says. Play this clip. Both what happened with Midnight Hammer and what happened with that as As far as$200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys. So we're going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future.

5:13Ensure that our ammunition is everything's refilled and not just refilled, but above and beyond. I mean, President Trump, as he said, rebuilt the military in his first term. didn't think he'd use it as dynamically in his second, but he had. So thank goodness he did that.

5:27Ben Meiselas:And now if you're like, wait a minute, Ben, they're removing sanctions from Iran? Aren't they attacking? How is that possible? I will show you Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, where he announces, yep, after removing oil sanctions from Russia and allowing Russia to sell its oil, now we're going to do that to Iran. And wait a minute, though, doesn't seem like the oil prices are going down. Doesn't seem like this is working. It seems that what you're showing the market is that you are all panicking right now. And as a result, the price of oil is going up, up, up, up, up here. Play this clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Besson saying after unsanctioning Russian oil, we're now unsanctioning Iranian oil.

6:13Ben Meiselas:Are you kidding me? Play this clip. effort. We had a break the glass plan across the administration and at Treasury. We unsanctioned Russian oil. We knew that there were about 130 million barrels on the water, and we created supply that is beyond the Straits of Hermose. So we anticipated this. We knew that there could be a temporary, and I want to emphasize temporary, choke point there. And there was 130 million barrels of floating storage. In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that's on the water. It's about 140 million barrels. So depending on how you count it, that's 10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out.

7:02That would have all gone to China. In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days as we continue this campaign. Folks, as Donald Trump is panicking,

7:20Ben Meiselas:Iran is like just giving the middle finger and showing you don't faze us. I mean, look what just happened. Iran has just set up what it's calling an approved shipping quarter, a corner or corridor through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is now allowing select vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz along routes inside its territorial waters after prior approval, with at least one tanker reportedly paying around$2 million for transit, according to Lloyd's list. So what they're doing now is they basically offered select countries to have their ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and they're collecting it at like a toll.

8:01Ben Meiselas:They're now making money from this war and further entrenching their control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now, you would think that the commander-in-chief of the United States should be someone very focused right now, very focused, sharp, strong. No, here's what Donald Trump's posting this morning. Rare Trump sneakers listed for$180 ,000 at SneakerCon in Riyadh. I don't think they're doing sneaker con in Riyadh anytime soon or anytime in the future, Donald. I mean, I just want you to think about how deranged this post is. Imagine you're in Riyadh. You've engaged in all these pay-for-play schemes with Donald Trump.

8:44Ben Meiselas:You've enriched his family. You do the buildings for him. You help his sons. You just give them all of this money because you believe you're paying for the play of protection. And then during the war where, by the way, Iran struck energy facilities in Riyadh, right? I mean, who the hell is going to go to Riyadh? Who's going to Doha, Qatar anymore? Who's going to Abu Dhabi or Dubai? These countries are destroyed long term. By the way, you want to take a look at a long term forecast? You think these countries are going to invest in the future in private equity companies in the United States? Or do you think they're likely going to invoke force majeure clauses?

9:23Ben Meiselas:And they're not going to, you know, the startups in the United States that would get this Middle East money. They ain't getting that money anymore. Let me be very clear what's about to happen. You're about to see a lot of more force majeure clauses invoked. But now, during the war, when you're like, hey, Donald, we paid you all this money personally, you and your family. You going to play? You going to help us right now? Well, remember the sneaker con in Riyadh where we sold those Trump shoes for$180 ,000? Yeah, Donald, I think some of those buyers were hoping to get some influence. And now, yeah, boom, you destroyed the entire Middle East.

9:57Ben Meiselas:What else is Donald Trump posting this morning? He's posting about windmills. He goes, from Douglas McKinnon, this is a photo yesterday on the drive from LA to Palm Spring, hundreds of these pieces of junk windmills. No surprise, the president, but only 10 % of them working as we drove past. Eagle and bird killers, which suck the taxpayers dry. My best to the president. What are you even talking about? By the way, I live by those. I'm close enough to those windmills over there. And you look at them. Do you guys even understand the way the windmills work and why some of them are off and some of them are on?

10:30Ben Meiselas:I don't even want to go into this, but why are you posting this right now when you're seeing the Middle East descending into a series of strikes on oil and gas facilities? as a result of this disastrous war in Iran. I mean, just look right here at this map. You see following the U.S. and Israel's attack on South Parish, but Donald Trump's like, I had nothing to do with. Look at the facilities that were hit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, right over there, then in Qatar. And now, guess what? Good luck trying to get a long flight in the future, trying to catch flights in the future in general. Airlines, Times is reporting, Airlines have been warned to expect cancellations and some jet fuel rationing starting next month due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

11:13Ben Meiselas:Long-haul flights may be most affected as airlines could have trouble securing fuel for their return journeys. And look, I know that we've been talking a lot about oil, liquefied natural gas. We talk a lot about the price per barrel. But we should also be talking about fertilizer because a lot of fertilizer comes from the Middle East. We should be talking about helium as well. A lot of things that are critical to our day-to-day existence, which we take for granted right now, those supply chains are about to be utterly destroyed. They are utterly destroyed. And we're going to start feeling the ripple effects soon.

11:48Ben Meiselas:While Pete Hegseth says, eh,$200 billion, what can you do? Then Pete Hegseth attacks our allies in Europe, he goes, all of our ungrateful allies. Here, play this clip. The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump. Thank you. Let's hear from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Cain. Hey, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth keep on saying that Iran doesn't have any ballistic missiles, but we keep seeing ballistic missiles and Shahid drones strike the Arab neighbor. So do they still have ballistic missiles, General Cain?

12:30Ben Meiselas:Listen to what General Cain says. Hint, hint. The answer is yes, of course they have it because we see it. It's not AI, okay? It's not AI slamming into the LNG facilities in Qatar or in Riyadh. It's not AI hitting the facilities in Bahrain. We see it. Here, play this clip right here of what General Cain says. Let's play it. Came into this fight with a lot of weapons. This is why we continue to be as aggressive and assertive as we can against their ballistic missile capability, both their medium range ballistic missile capability and their short range missile capability. So we are continuing to hunt and find them and kill them and we will continue to do so.

13:16So they still retain some

13:17Ben Meiselas:capability. And now we also saw this video this morning as well. This is the moment Israel targeted British journalist Steve Sweeney in South Lebanon. He survived this. Him and his camera crew were injured as a result of this strike the day before he was reporting how Israel is targeting journalists in Lebanon and in the surrounding areas. And I just want you to watch what happens. He survives this, but just watch what happens here. Play this clip. Further rocket attacks were reported against Naharia and admitted.

14:01Fucking hell.

14:02Ben Meiselas:I'm going to do another video on this this morning. Tulsi Gabbard, after testifying in the Senate yesterday, is now testifying before the House of Representative. Shout out to Democratic Congress member Gomez for his questioning right here. He did some really great questioning. I'll highlight this more in a longer video that I'll put out this morning. Here, play this clip. Director Gabbard, last year you testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Do you stand by that statement? Yes or no? Context matters with that statement. Yes or no? Iran had all of the materials and capabilities to do so.

14:38Mr. Chairman, I reclaim my time. It's an easy answer. You either stand by what you said last year or not. It is a serious question that requires the totality of the information available. Director Dabbard, I reclaim my time. I reclaim my time.

14:55When President Trump was asked about your testimony, he said you were wrong. Were you lying or not? I stand by the intelligence community's complete assessment.

15:07Ben Meiselas:And while Israel's out there attacking journalists and trying to kill journalists, Pete Hankseth here in the United States, you know, he's doing this shtick where he's like, and we are all of the Trump deranged syndrome media. I'm speaking directly to you, the people, and I'm telling you how good things are right now. Here, play this clip. And into the soul of a grateful nation. I stand here today speaking to you, the American people, not through filters, not through reporters, not through cable news spin. A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing. We know this at this point to downplay progress, amplify every cost and call into question every step.

15:59Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail. But you, the American people, know better. Yes, there are reporters in front of me, but they are not our audience today. It's you, the good, decent, patriotic American people. You, the hardworking, taxpaying, God-fearing American patriots. the media here, not all of it, but much of it, wants you to think just 19 days into this conflict that we're somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire. Nothing could be further from the truth.

16:48Ben Meiselas:And then Hegseth is like, Iran is an energy rich country, but they spend their money on their military and not on their people. And that is why they are such a dangerous regime, because rather than investing in their people, they spend their money on weapons. Okay, Pete, you may want to, are you talking, are you also talking about the United States? Because right now we are in a never ending war in Iran with things escalating right now, With our soldiers dying and being injured, with our economy in freaking shambles right now, the markets are destroyed as a result of your behavior. People can't afford things.

17:31Ben Meiselas:You guys are destroying everything. And this is what you're saying? Here, play this clip. To that point on capabilities, Iran is an energy-rich country, could be, should be. Instead, like so many other places driven by a radical ideology, they've spent that money instead of investing in their people. That's why you had millions of Iranians protesting, because they felt like their condition, quality of life didn't match what it could be or should be. And what was the Iranian state? There's a reason we call Iran the number one state sponsor of terrorism, because they took the money they make and they invest it in tunnels and they invested in missiles and they invested in launchers and UAVs.

18:08And we are destroying and degrading that in historic proportions. But it doesn't mean they won't still have some and try to hold people at issue, which is why we're fighting every single.

18:17Ben Meiselas:Well, there you have it, folks. And oh, the message from J.D. Vance, though, is don't worry. Other nations have it worse than we do. That's their message. Other nations have it worse. Here's what J.D. Vance had to say. Let's play. We actually worked with a lot of our allies all over the world who are suffering from this, frankly, more than we are. Because unlike the United States, where we pursued an energy dominance agenda, you've got a lot of people all over the world who have focused on a lot of green energy scams, and they're hurting a lot more than we are. So as much as we've got, we got to focus on getting these gas prices down.

18:52The reality is overseas, they're feeling it far worse than we did because we've taken the steps to protect.

18:59Ben Meiselas:There you have it, folks. We'll keep you posted every step of the way. Hit subscribe. Oh yeah, I'll give you this data point as well. National debt just hit$39 trillion. It was$38 trillion in October,$37 trillion. Basically, where a trillion every two months to national debt is being added by Trump and these MAGA goons. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks, everybody, for watching. We appreciate you. 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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