Trump Crashes Out in War Presser Conference with Japan PM

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1:17Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump just had a full-on meltdown in the Oval Office during a press conference with Japan's Prime Minister, Takeishi. Donald Trump was asked why he did not tell his allies about the war before attacking Iran. And Donald Trump's like, you know a thing or two about surprises, Japan. Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Now, Donald Trump is just ripping to shreds our alliances in real time. Watch how uncomfortable Prime Minister Takeishi is here. Let's play this clip.

2:17Surprise. Who knows better about surprise in Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? OK, right. He's asking me, you believe in surprise, I think much more so than us. And we had a surprise and we did. And because of that surprise, we knocked out the first two days, we probably knocked out 50 percent of what we and much more than we anticipated doing. So if I go and tell everybody about it, there's no longer a surprise, right?

2:51Ben Meiselas:Okay. Next, Donald Trump talks about how NATO doesn't want to help us defend the Strait of Hormuz. He goes, but now they think I'm being nicer to them. So now they want to help, but I don't want their help anymore. We don't need the help of them. Here, play this clip. But we think of it. We don't use the Strait. We're defending the Strait for everybody else. And then in the case of NATO, they don't want to help us defend the strait. And they're the ones that need it. But now they're getting much nicer because they're seeing my attitude. They're getting much nicer. But as far as I'm concerned, it's too late.

3:30You know, UK wants to send aircraft carriers now. And I said, I want the aircraft carriers before the war. I don't want them after the war is won. They want to send me aircraft carriers after the war. there's practically nobody to shoot at them. You know, their missile count is down. Maybe you could discuss it by about 90 something percent. The drones are way down and the factories are being demolished. Maybe, sir, missile missiles being shot are down over 90 percent since the beginning. One way attack drones down 90 percent since the beginning, which is a reflection of overwhelming firepower.

4:07But you mentioned the most important part, Mr. President, their defense industrial base. If you can't make more of it in the future, then you have a limited supply. And so we're going after all of their defense contractors that make all of their exquisite weapons and ensuring that even if they wanted to rebuild more launchers or more missiles, they couldn't in the future. And that's a level of devastation for their military that they've never seen before.

4:29Ben Meiselas:So we have literally more from Donald Trump here. He says, we expect Japan that you must step up immediately right now because we have that kind of relationship. What are you doing, Japan? As our editor in chief, Ron Filipkowski says, this moron continues to incinerate alliances that were built by far better people than him over the past 80 years. Let's play it. This looks like one of your people. Thank you. Is he good or bad? Is he a good reporter? You know, so so. All right. It looks like it. Go ahead. Mr. President, you just mentioned Japan is stepping up. What kind of support do you expect from Japan in the future?

5:16Look, I expect Japan to step up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship. And we step up with Japan. We have 45 ,000 soldiers in Japan. We have, we spend a lot of money on Japan. So, and we've had that kind of a relationship. So I expect I'm not surprised that they would step up. We don't need much. We don't need anything. I mean, honestly, we don't need anything from Japan or from anyone else. But I think it's appropriate that people step up. In the case of Japan, I hear they get more than 90 percent of their oil through the straight. So that's a big reason to step up. I mean, we've we've demolished that country is close to demolished.

5:59The only thing is the straight. It's very hard. You could take two people and they could drop little bombs in the water and they're holding things up. We don't want that to happen. But honestly, Japan, China, Europe, parts of Europe get a lot of their oil through the strait. We get none. Practically, we're less than one percent. We don't have to be any percent. We don't even I think we do it just to be nice. But we think of it. We don't use the strait. we're defending the straight for everybody else. And then in the case of NATO, they don't want to help us defend the straight. And they're the ones that need it.

6:39But now they're getting much nicer because they're seeing my attitude. They're getting much nicer. But it's as far as I'm concerned, it's too late.

6:47Ben Meiselas:By the way, just take a look at Prime Minister Takaishi's face right here as Donald Trump is saying these things. She is utterly bewildered, I would say it mildly, then Donald Trump says, of course, we're going to need to spend another$200 billion on this war. He says it's a small price to pay so that we're tippy, tippy top. We want to be tippy, tippy top. Here, play this clip. Hophisticated rockets. Every single one of them was shot down with our equipment, all our equipment. It's amazing, actually, how good it is. So we want to be sure. And it's a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy top.

7:29Ben Meiselas:So then naturally the questions are, well, if you're asking for another$200 billion, then clearly this war isn't going to end anytime soon. And by the way, didn't the Republicans say we didn't have$30 billion to ensure that people can continue on with their Obamacare plans and that we don't have any of this money and we had to take away$200 billion from rural hospitals. And now it's all going to this disastrous and unlawful war. But Trump's like, everything was going great. The economy was going great because things were so amazing. Trump says, I decided to take an excursion. We all want this excursion in Iran.

8:08Ben Meiselas:An excursion? You mean a disastrous war, which is now resulting in the death of many of our troops and crushing our economy? Here, play this clip right here. It's all done. Everything was going great. The economy was great. Oil prices were very low. gasoline was dropping to i mean we had a dollar 99 dollar 85 we had great everything and i saw what was happening in iran and i said i hate to make this excursion but we're gonna have to do it and i actually thought the numbers would be worse i thought that it would go up more than it did but we're doing this excursion and when it's completed we're gonna have a much safer world And the prime minister agrees with me on this.

8:51He considers it to be terrible what Iran did. I think every country does. Just about every country does. Iran is a serious threat to the world, to the Middle East and to the world. And everybody agrees with me. I think virtually every country agrees with me on that. So I wanted to put out that fire. And I said, you know, if I do that, oil prices will go up. The economy will go down a little bit. I thought it would be worse, much worse, actually. I thought there was a chance it could be much worse. It's not bad. And it's going to be over with pretty soon.

9:22Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump says we've demolished Iran. The only thing left is the Strait of Hormuz, which we know is false. We know that even today, Iran hit an American F-35. We know that Iran just struck the Haifa energy plant. We know that Iran struck the liquefied natural gas plant in Qatar the other day and Riyadh. I mean, Iran's capabilities have actually been improving and their ability to strike targets has actually been improving. But here's Donald Trump lying. You can hear him lie for yourself here. Play this clip. The straight. So that's a big reason to step up. I mean, we've we've demolished that country is supposed to demolish.

10:06The only thing is the straight. It's very hard. You could take two people and they could drop little bombs in the water and they're holding things up. we don't want that to happen.

10:15Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump passes when asked another question on the Strait of Hormuz. Let's play this clip. $4 billion.

10:32Ben Meiselas:What about you coordinating all of these attacks with Netanyahu, Donald? Have you talked to Netanyahu about attacking the oil and gas fields and Donald Trump's, I did. And we won't do that. We all know that Donald Trump coordinated the South Par's attack in Iran with Netanyahu. We can play this clip right here. I don't blame him. Thank you, Mr. President. You talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu about attacking the oil and gas fields. Yeah, I did. I did. I told him, don't do that. And he won't do that. We didn't discuss, you know, we do. We're independent, it get along great. It's coordinated, but on occasion he'll do something.

11:10And if I don't like it, and so we're not doing that anymore. And the last one, if I could, the next Donald Trump is

11:16Ben Meiselas:asked about Jerome Powell and Donald Trump starts saying that Jerome Powell is under investigation because he's building the Federal Reserve building and it's too expensive for Donald Trump. It's too wasteful, he says. Here, play this clip. And the last one, if I could, the Fed chairman told me yesterday that he plans to stay until a new Fed chairman is confirmed. He also plans to stay on the board until the investigation and federal is done. Well, he's under investigation because he's building a building for hundreds of billions of dollars more than it's supposed to cost. The building you see over there is under budget and ahead of schedule.

11:54That's the ballroom. The ballroom is a much bigger building. It's a much more complex building than what he's doing. and it's at a fraction of the cost. Something is going on, whether it's contractors. That's what I do. Best in the world, I build. I build great buildings. I've always done it. And I build them under budget and ahead of schedule. They could have$4 billion. This is a renovation job.

12:18Ben Meiselas:Another question is asked, which is, if the war is almost over, so then why are you spending$200 billion? A reporter asks a similar question. And Trump's like, we want to have vast amounts of ammunition, which we have right now. but it's being taken down by Ukraine. So he finds a way to attack Ukraine here. How despicable is that? Let's play this clip. If the war is almost over, why is the Pentagon going to ask Congress for an additional$200 billion? Well, we're asking for a lot of reasons beyond even what we're talking about in Iran. This is a very volatile world. And the military equipment, some of this weaponry is unthinkable.

13:02You don't even want to know about it. Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to. But we are being very judicious. But we want to do, don't forget, Biden gave away. I rebuilt the military my first time. Biden gave away so stupidly to Afghanistan a lot. He didn't want to move it. He was too lazy, too stupid to move it. But it was a very small amount. It was a lot, but it was very small relative to what I purchased and what I built. We want to have a good, we want to have vast amounts of ammunition, which we have right now. We have a lot of ammunition, but it was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine.

13:44Ben Meiselas:Then Donald Trump says we can take out the island anytime we want. I call it the island that sits there totally unprotected. What the hell are you saying? Play this clip. We can take out the island if anytime we want. I call it the little oil island that sits there. So totally unprotected. We've taken out everything but the pipes. We left the pipes because to rebuild the pipes would take years for, you know, for them to do. But we are, I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule. Now, earlier today, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson was talking about removing sanctions, not just on Russian oil, but apparently rewarding Iran and removing sanctions from Iran.

14:27Ben Meiselas:Let's play this clip right here. We had a break the glass plan across the administration and a 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 Hermos. 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.

15:17That 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.

15:31Ben Meiselas:So we then heard from Pete Hegseth earlier in the day as well, where Hegseth talked about, we need$200 billion to kill the bad guys. Yeah, to kill the bad guys. How despicable is this guy? Here play this clip. Both what happened with Midnight Hammer and what happened with that as well. 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 our folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future. Ensure that our ammunition is everything's refilled and not just refilled, but above and beyond.

16:12I 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. And an investment like this is meant to say, hey, we'll replace anything that was spent. And now that we're reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom and cutting deals like our great deputy secretaries here is doing.

16:31Ben Meiselas:And then, you know, as the Tennessee holler says, so which country is the extremist theocracy again? Because throughout Pete Hegseth's entire press conference that was right before Donald Trump's press conference, Hegseth was like, may the almighty God continue to bless us in this war. May Jesus Christ and the church's support. I mean, it's like, just like, listen to this guy, what are you doing? Stop invoking religion right now as you engage in this disastrous war. Frankly, whether you're religious or not, this administration is the most hateful and despicable regime, which any religion, it would violate its basic precepts.

17:12Ben Meiselas:And regardless of religion, It violates basic humanity and dignity with these despicable clowns in Washington right now who have ripped away our health care, ripped away your futures, ripped away basic life, sent people to die in Iran. And then they go up there and they do this. Seriously, these are the worst pieces of trash imaginable. Here, play this clip. And I say the same to every American who wants peace through strength. faith. May Almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again, to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.

18:00Ben Meiselas:There you have it, folks. Let me know what you think about this all. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. And thank you all so much for watching. For a sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Falkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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