Trump has Catastrophic AM as War Spirals

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2:24Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is having a terrible Wednesday morning. His regime is admitting that this disastrous war in Iran may last over eight weeks. Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, went on various networks this morning and said it's just fantastical media accounts that you're seeing about chaos in the Middle East. Everything is great. The Strait of Hermes is still effectively closed. About 90 % of the ships can't get through. More news about factory job losses in the United States, far worse than expected. Also, a record number of Americans are tapping into their 401ks to withdraw money in order to survive.

3:10Ben Meiselas:And then when Donald Trump looks at Texas in the primaries that took place yesterday where the Democratic Senate candidate James Tallarico ended up prevailing. Jasmine Crockett put out actually a very nice message today supporting Tallarico. Democrats outvoted Republicans in Texas. More Democrats showed up to vote and Democrats made huge gains amongst the Latino community in Texas as well. All of this news and more is bombarding Donald Trump this morning. Why don't we go through it piece by piece as we always do here on the Midas Touch Network. We've been expanding rapidly on the Midas Touch YouTube channel.

3:54Ben Meiselas:You'll see we blew past 6 million subscribers. We're almost at 7 million subscribers. So double check that you are actually subscribed. Click subscribe, turn your notifications on. We'll be giving you breaking news updates throughout the day as we always do here on the Midas Touch Network. So earlier this morning. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said we need to stop these, quote, fantastical media accounts that the region is on fire, referring to the Middle East. That's not what happening. He says it's just somebody on their cell phone taking videos of buildings being blown up. Let's play this clip.

4:32Becky, I will tell you, the region is not on fire. What is happening is that someone someone with an iPhone and look, it's terrible when a hotel gets hit In Bahrain, when there is a drone that hits the airport in Doha, those are one-offs. The Iranian attack capabilities have been substantially degraded. The U.S. is getting stronger and stronger every day. And the most fulsome part of our campaign is just starting. So there are the people in the market willing to look through this. And that's what I think everyone should do, because President Trump has a vision here.

5:12Ben Meiselas:And before that, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, says that all of what you're hearing about is fake news. Yes, tragic things happen, referring to American soldiers dying and being seriously wounded. He goes, but fake news is missing the real story here, which is how great we are doing. This is what Hegseth says. Let's play this clip. This is what the fake news misses. We've taken control of Iran's airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it's front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.

5:59The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.

6:04Ben Meiselas:And then Hegseth, I guess, tries to do this cosplay where he is like a bad actor pretending to be the bad guy in a 1980s B or C action movie. He's like, from the skies, America reigns death on the people of the Middle East. You don't exactly sound like the good guy here. Let's be pretty clear. Here's Hegseth saying that. Let's play it. And fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only U.S. and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it's over.

6:56and Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s, B-52s, B-1s, predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long. We're playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they're down, which is exactly how it should be.

7:40Ben Meiselas:And then the gaslighting from the MAGA's continue. Take a look at what MAGA Mike Johnson said this morning. I'll do a whole other video on it in about 90 minutes. But here's what Maga Mike said, why we're at war with Iran right now. Remember, he previously said the reason was because Israel was going to strike Iran first. And then if Israel struck Iran first, then Iran would strike the United States. So we had to strike first. Remember, that's what he said. That's what Rubio said. Now Johnson says, actually, they declared war on us. Iran declared war on the United States This is what he says. Here, play this clip.

8:15Okay, those are sovereign territories of the US. They have declared war on us. I don't believe in the semantics. We've talked about the language this morning. We're not at war right now. We're four days in to a very specific, clear mission and operation, Operation Epic Fury, which has two components, as you know, that we have articulated over and over. The president has, the commander of the Joint Chiefs, everybody has explained. Two points. We had to take care of these ballistic missiles that they were producing at such a rapid pace that our regional allies could not keep up with. We had to ensure that they can't fire all those barrage of missiles at our people, our troops, our assets, our citizens in the region and our installations.

8:57Ben Meiselas:And then Maga Mike says, actually, this is very biblical and this is about a bad religion in Iran. And so basically, we're just redoing the crusades right now. Here, let's play this clip. We have been, and they say the quiet parts out loud. They wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and they'd like to take us out as well. We're the great Satan in their analogy and their misguided religion, and there was no way to appease them. And to find... Hear what this guy is saying? More from Hegseth, where he goes, Iran cannot outlast us. We will ensure the tempo, and that tempo will be whatever Donald J.

9:34Ben Meiselas:Trump tells us to do, whether that's eight weeks or longer or shorter. Donald J. Trump sets the tempo. That's what Hegs said. I mean, it's like the most embedded. You guys are a bunch of idiots. I can't believe our country is run by these people. Watch what Hegs said says. Here, play this clip. Do that. Iran cannot outlast us. We're going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight. That's why stories and speculation about different things that try to make it look like we're limited in what we can do.

10:11The only limits we have in this is President Trump's desire to achieve specific effects on behalf of the American people. And that's why we don't talk about, you know, you can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three. Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we're going to keep him off balance. and we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend, that difference gets wider and wider every day. While everyone else is promising to hit the gym more in 2026, I'm focusing on something that will actually stick, better nutrition for my kids.

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12:40Ben Meiselas:While Hegseth was doing that press conference, we learned and Reuters was first to report that the Defense Department is demanding an emergency munition supplemental. They want an additional$50 billion from us, from our taxpayer money. They want$50 billion to now fund additional munitions, even though Donald Trump said we're not running out of munitions. We've been warning here on the Midas Touch Network, even before this war started, that we could quickly be running out of munitions. And that's exactly what appears to be happening. Let me just show you what some of these scenes in Tehran look like right now, though, as the United States bombards it.

13:21Ben Meiselas:I mean, apocalyptic scenes in Tehran. So I'll show you what the US and Israeli strikes on Tehran look like. And then I previously have reported on the Iranian strikes of the Dubai consulate, the U.S. consulate in Dubai, the U.S. building, the CIA building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Al-Udeed air base in Qatar, lots of other U.S. interests being struck. But no doubt Tehran is being hit really hard. Here play this clip.

14:06Ben Meiselas:I don't want to ignore what's going on in the domestic front right now. I think it's important that we talk about our economy, the things that we were talking about as well before the war, because Americans are struggling. The war on Iran is causing gas prices to surge. It is causing chaos in the markets. Wall Street Journal reported earlier this morning a record number of American workers are pulling money from their 401ks to cover financial emergencies. A record share of Americans are tapping those retirement savings. Six percent of workers with plans run by Vanguard Group, for example, have been making hardship withdrawals.

14:46Ben Meiselas:Also, factory job losses have been worse than we thought. Wall Street Journal reports as well. Take a look at the U.S. manufacturing job loss chart. Not good, but we know this. If you work in a factory, if you work in manufacturing, if you work in construction, if you work, okay, if you work generally and you're not a billionaire or a deca-millionaire, you know what the economy is like. You are not gaslit by this regime. You know that prices are going up. You know that wages are stagnant or going down or there are so much job losses taking place because of AI and this terrible economy. I mean, we are in a jobs recession right now and prepare to see inflation surge even more.

15:33Ben Meiselas:Rick Scott, MAGA Republican senator, making his rounds on the various networks this morning, saying clearly oil prices are going to go up because of this war, but it will be worth it because of freedom in America. Yeah. Here, play this clip. What do you think the American people should be prepared to bear, prepared for to bear in terms of costs here? I mean, gas prices have already gone up. They could rise even more. What's the cost that you think the American people should be prepared for? Well, I think short-term, clearly oil prices are going to go up as short-pairs, right? When Iran and their proxies shut down the Strait of Hormuz, that's what's going to happen.

16:16But long-term, what we're going to see is we're going to see the world's a better place, no different than getting rid of Maduro. The world's a better place. It's a safer place for Americans.

16:24Ben Meiselas:and what we're going to do. Yeah, well, if you really were patriotic, I think that you would focus on ensuring that Americans have health care, ensuring that Americans can live and can have jobs and Americans can live productive lives and have good education. But, you know, people like Rick Scott, they're part of the Epstein class, right? Rick Scott was involved, you know, you know how he launched his political career? Lots of these magas do. He was involved in one of the biggest Medicare and Medicaid fraud criminal enterprises. in American history. He invoked the fifth over and over and over again.

16:57Ben Meiselas:He took a golden parachute from the company that engaged in all this criminal conduct while he invoked the fifth, used that money to run for office and to help more Epstein class people. I could go through all these MAGAs. They're all like that. And then they use their money and resources to try to manipulate the people and pretend that they're the ones fighting against the bad guys when they are the bad guys, the worst of the worst, the Epstein class. That's who they are. Although this was a good sign when you look at what happened in Texas, that it seems that the people were waking up there.

17:30Ben Meiselas:More Democrats than Republicans voted in Texas. 2.21 million Democrats voted to 2.12 million Republicans who voted. James Tallarico went on to beat Jasmine Crockett. And you now have Cornyn and Paxton still in a runoff against each other while Tolerico is able to go around Texas and make the case. But it's hard to overstate, as my friend Tom Bonier says, how rare it is to see Democratic turnout in a midterm primary election exceeding not just Republicans in Texas, but exceeding that of a presidential election. So you take Zapata County, for example, turnout in the Democratic primary yesterday was 143 % of the total number of the vote Harris won in the 2024 general election.

18:20Ben Meiselas:That's wild. Bonnier points out, here are four districts that the Texas GOP and Donald Trump gerrymandered to try and gain seats in November with the Democratic and GOP primary vote. Democrats far outvoted the Republicans in every one of them fueled by the Latino vote. A few other data points I want to point out. You know how the Trump regime views Argentina as their model of an economic miracle. You know how we gave$40 billion to Argentina, Javier Malay, their MAGA leader there, is like a close ally of Trump. Trump has his little MAGA leaders, right? He's got his MAGA leader in Ecuador. By the way, you know we're at war in Ecuador right now.

19:05Ben Meiselas:You know, we have ground troops in Ecuador. Donald Trump and the Ecuadorian leader, who's a MAGA guy, are doing joint military operations against so-called narco trafficking inside, boots on the ground types of stuff. I just wanted to let you know that that's going on. But anyway, now we have our Honduras, our Ecuador person. Trump has his little authoritarian in Venezuela. And by the way, that's what he wants in Iran. He doesn't want democracy. He doesn't care about the people of Iran. Donald Trump wants an Islamic Republic leader who likes Donald Trump more and is corrupt with Donald Trump. And they could funnel money to each other.

19:41Ben Meiselas:But anyway, here's the Javier Malay miracle in Argentina, the second largest decline in the world. 2 ,436 companies have closed down with 73 ,000 jobs lost because this whole MAGA thinking about everything is failed and flawed, and it always leads to disaster. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson was asked, though, about job losses, about the jobs recession that's taking place right now. And in such an arrogant way, I think the entire Trump regime is vile, so I don't know who's the worst. But this guy, Besson, is like one of the worst human beings, I think, that exists. You know, just the level of arrogance that he puts his head up and he goes, oh, the effect of the illegal aliens.

20:29Ben Meiselas:That's what's causing people's job losses. This guy lived in a pink Barbie mansion. He lived in Charleston, South Carolina, in a, swear to you, a replica of Barbie's Malibu mansion in Charleston, South Carolina. This is the guy with his head up. Let me tell you what's, I despise this human. Here, play this clip. The government saw a large net contraction in 2025, and we saw private sector jobs created. The other is the effect of two and a half million illegal aliens leaving the workforce. So the monthly jobs number does not need to be as high for that. And we are at the lowest level as a percent of the total workforce for government jobs since 1966.

21:20Ben Meiselas:And he goes, and we are going to put more tariffs against, even though the Supreme Court ruled against us. More tariffs, more tariffs. This guy's a billionaire Epstein class guy. Here, play this clip. Mr. Secretary, the president has said that he will raise the global tariff to 15 percent. I believe it still stands at 10 percent today. Do you know when that change will be implemented? Becky, that's likely sometime this week. And again, that's under something called Section 122. And that's 150 day authority. And during that time, during the 150 days, we will see studies from USTR on Section 301 tariffs from Commerce on Section 232.

22:05And it's my strong belief that the tariff rates will be back to their old rate with them.

22:14Ben Meiselas:One other thing to point out, too, in that press conference, Hegseth acknowledged, and we've seen the footage of it as well, a U.S. Navy submarine torpedoed and sank the Iranian Navy frigate, the Iris Dena, off the coast of Sri Lanka. 30 people survived. I think 180 people were on that frigate. They were doing a joint mission in India. then they were in Sri Lanka then they leave they left Sri Lanka and the United States launched a torpedo and killed every basically killed 80 people or more on that boat that was leaving that was right off the coast of Sri Lanka this is the first time that a U.S.

22:58Ben Meiselas:submarine sunk an enemy warship since World War II with the torpedo so I guess that's I guess America right yeah Yeah. Why the hell are we in this regime change war? What are the objectives? What the hell is going on? Seriously, what is going on here? This is an unlawful war. Regardless of how hot, we can hold both concepts that the Ayatollah is terrible. The Islamic regime is horrible and repressive and the atrocities they commit is awful. Here in the United States, we're doing regime change wars. No one's explaining what's going on. Maga Mike's talking about biblical political crusades, and Americans just need healthcare and need money to live and be able to survive right now here in the United States.

23:43Ben Meiselas:Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks for watching.

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