Trump has Disaster Sunday as he Surrenders Again

0:00Hey, Chicagoland. Wayfair's Black Friday in July sale is coming to the Wayfair store. From July 23rd through 27th, you can score up to 80 % off everything home in person. Like up to 80 % off area rugs, up to 60 % off outdoor furniture, and up to 60 % off mattresses. Take home the small stuff that day and get the big stuff shipped fast and free right to your door. Shop the sale July 23rd through 27th at the Wayfair store at Edens Plaza in Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home. Monday.com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders.

0:38Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90 % off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.

1:15This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic, and bursting with flavor. Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yogurt. Build a grazing board with fresh fruit, prosciutto, and artisanal cheese. Then fire up the grill with no antibiotics ever, proteins, and fresh produce. Savor the season. Shop Summer Fruit Fest at Whole Foods Market.

1:41Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is having a disastrous Sunday. Once again, he has shut down the White House to all of the press. He stormed out of the White House to go and play golf today. He arrived at his golf course recently, and he started making posts like this. Caitlin Collins, the CNN reporter, as Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman who is an influencer. And this is Donald Trump trying to both mock Caitlin Collins and Dylan Mulvaney. Donald Trump told this as attempting to do a joke, which was heinous at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Nobody laughed. So now he's posting AI images of Caitlin Collins like this this morning.

2:25Ben Meiselas:He's also posting bizarre cartoons of Bruce Springsteen with a shirt saying, I'm stupid. And then Chris Christie, who's overweight, and he's saying, hey, Bruce, great show. High five, buddy. And he's mocking Chris Christie for being obese. While Donald Trump is making posts like that, there is massive, massive turbulence, as you know, throughout the world. Iranian state media Tasneem News reported that yet another oil tanker exploded in the Strait of Hormuz this morning after striking a naval mine while transiting outside of Iran's designated shipping route. Iran has warned all tankers, if you go outside of our designated shipping route, you are going to be targeted.

3:15Ben Meiselas:And there are also mines out there. This tanker did not heed that advice, and it was struck into this mine. Also, the Jazin refinery in Saudi Arabia, the Aramco facility that was hit by the Houthis about 48 hours ago after Saudi Arabia attacked the Hudada port city. The Jazen refinery is still burning badly right now in Saudi Arabia. You can see it right there. And of course, we've reported that the United States has temporarily paused its strikes on Iran after Donald Trump saying he was going to open the gates of hell on Iran after the United States ran out of its precision munitions. We ran out of our stockpiles.

4:05Ben Meiselas:How bad has it been? Well, the U.S. has burned through roughly a third of its total pre-war stockpile of key precisions, according to ABC in a CSIS analysis. But when you actually look at some of the interceptors, which is key because the Iranian ballistic missiles and the Shahi drones have been able to strike all of these U.S. bases in the neighboring Arab nations, interceptors have been the most exposed. Up to 80 % of the THAAD interceptors, more than half of the SM-3, and up to 61 % of the Patriot interceptors are gone. Long-range strike weapons have also been depleted as well. And one of the things that have been reported also is that Iran has been able to strike many targets, and the U.S.

5:00Ben Meiselas:has not been able to do anything about it just because their interceptors have been severely, severely depleted. Iran's army spokesperson said Tehran will temporarily suspend retaliatory strikes. after the U.S. paused its own bombing because the U.S. has run out of its munitions. But if the United States were to resume any of its strikes, Iran is ready to go. So with all of this taking place, with Donald Trump making those posts, the Trump regime sends in its propagandists to make its rounds on the various media networks. You have Mike Waltz, the United Nations ambassador from the United States, and he blames the Biden administration and Obama for depleting the munitions.

5:50Ben Meiselas:He says, yes, but you got to remember it was Obama and Biden. And that's why our munitions are so depleted. Here's what Mike Waltz had to say. Let's play this clip. Is America backing away from a larger military attack because its military stockpile has been depleted? Well, look, we have to take a step back here in that a lot of stockpiles were depleted, not only from what we gave Ukraine over the last however many years, four or five years, and the administration inherited, the Secretary, Secretary Hegseth inherited a depleted situation from not only Ukraine, but also the ongoing fight with the Houthis under the Biden administration and a depleted military under the Biden administration.

6:35So they have decided, one, They're going to new types of munitions, cheaper munitions, new technologies, but also with these new defense budgets, rebuilding our great military.

6:46Ben Meiselas:However, then Mike Waltz is asked on the morning shows this morning, OK, well, we're five months in right now. Will this be over by the new year? When does this end? Because you all said this was going to end, you know, pretty soon. You said it was going to end in a few days, then four to five weeks. and we're past five months right now and the american people are suffering this seems like a never-ending war what's going on here uh to which mike waltz responds by saying well we've actually been in the war for 47 years obama and biden were in the war also stop with the obama and biden stuff here's what he says play this clip we are now at the five month mark will this war be over by the new year?

7:33Well, first, this war has been going on for 47 years. These attacks on Americans, not necessarily this intensity, but at some level, Iran has been at war with the United States. I was just looking at old video of under the Obama and then the Biden administration when they had, under the Obama administration, when they had sailors on their knees, when they seized one of our boats.

8:01Ben Meiselas:Then they bring on MAGA Republican Senator Kennedy from Louisiana. And he just said, he's just like, first off, like he compares Iran to chickens and monkeys. And if you kill the chickens, you scare the monkeys. I don't even know what the hell he's even talking about. You got to kill the chickens to scare the monkeys. And then he says, you know, look, we are, you know, the American people just need to be able to endure higher gas prices for a long time. We just got to deal with that. And we should be there for a very long time. Like we shouldn't leave anytime soon. We need to choke them. And the American people need to suffer also with higher gas prices.

8:39Ben Meiselas:Here's what he has to say. Let's play this clip right here. I think we ought to bomb Pickaxe Mountain and try to reach what's underneath it. I don't know about I don't have enough information to know about continuing the attacks. The president likes the daily attacks. He believes that sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys. I don't think that's going to work with the Iranian leadership. These people are more than mildly insane. It's like dealing with Son of Sam or Charles Manchin. But I don't think we ought to just cut and run. If we can stand the pain of the rising cost of energy, we need to stay the course.

9:27At least for a few.

9:28Ben Meiselas:And then, of course, the Trump regime sends out one of its top proxies. You have Benjamin Netanyahu making his rounds on state regime media Fox. And Netanyahu's message was to attack the New York City mayor, Zoran Mamdani, and say, Mamdani is tormenting his voters. I mean, like, honestly, how dare Netanyahu stay the hell out of America? Seriously, you genocidal maniac. I mean, you're right there attacking a New York City mayor on a United States television network. I know it's regime media, and you're saying Mamdani's tormenting his own voters. No, you, Netanyahu, are tormenting the world right now.

10:08Ben Meiselas:You are tormenting billions of people, you and Trump and people just like you. Here, play this clip. He's aligning himself with the criminals, with these murderers. But the worst thing is that he's he's tormenting his own his own citizens, his own voters. No. And then more from Donald Trump's proxy over here, Netanyahu. And he says he's going to be visiting the United States on Tuesday while there's at least this temporary period of time where the U.S. isn't striking because the U.S. ran out of munitions and Netanyahu is going to tell Donald Trump about all the new nuclear capabilities Iran has in order to try to get Donald Trump to begin the massive attacks on Iran again.

10:53Ben Meiselas:Here, play this clip. As far as the nuclear program, we constantly exchange information. Our intel services and yours are working so close together that it's not that I'm going to present new information, but I think it's a good thing to have the opportunity to sit with our good friend President Trump and to hear what he has in mind, because I think in many ways it's his decision. But let me say I find this notable as well, just to kind of study how is right wing media covering everything I'm sharing with you. So here's the headline from it's about what Mike Waltz is saying. Trump is giving Iran talks a little bit of room, U.S.

11:37Ben Meiselas:ambassador to the United Nations says. And that headline that Trump's giving Iran talks, a little bit of room, says Mike Walz, was overwhelmingly covered by right-wing media. If you look at the percentage of how the various media biases have been covering this, right-wing media, 52%, so-called center, 35%, left-wing media, 13%. And what this tells me, setting aside the labels right, center, left, you know, though, is that the right-wing keeps injecting this propaganda into its viewers that, okay, Donald Trump's got a plan. He was going to open up the gates of hell like he said he was about to, but he just wants to give talks a little bit of room.

12:22Ben Meiselas:No, no. What that real headline is is what we're talking about. The United States ran out of munitions. The same way Donald Trump, the loser, the bankruptor, bankrupted all of his companies throughout his life. He's bankrupted our military. Like we're literally out of munitions and interceptors. And so the United States has to now make decisions. OK, are we going to strike this ballistic missile or this ballistic missile because we're out of munitions and we don't have enough Patriot interceptors and that interceptors? So I just find it fascinating that that's what they're pushing. The talks are going to be productive.

12:55Ben Meiselas:Don't worry. We have this is what they're saying, that Oman is involved in the mediation with Qatar and Pakistan and others and that they're seeing if they can do a deal. But when you hear what they're saying in Iran, they're saying, let's be very clear. We will agree to what we agreed to in the MOU. And that means we control the Strait of Hormuz. Until you recognize our control over the Strait of Hormuz, there's absolutely nothing else. We're not talking about nuclear file. We're not talking about like literally any other topic. Strait of Hormuz, you recognize our control and then we can have conversations.

13:34Ben Meiselas:And Iran's not budging from that. That's not going to change. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I want to give a hat tip to the fine folks over at Ground News. I use that research tool every morning before I do these videos because it helps me stay objective with my reporting. Ground News is an app and a website that pulls in thousands of articles from around the world and organizes them by story to show you how is it being covered by the left, the center, the right? How are they framing the story differently the way I just shared with you right there?

14:08Ben Meiselas:And I can see, okay, right-wing media was pushing this narrative that, okay, Trump is giving Iran a little bit of room when the reality is it's something different that the U.S. ran out of its interceptors. And Ground News has its dedicated blind spot feature that I use every day, which highlights stories being disproportionately coverside by either side of the political aisle. I believe in Ground News so much. We're going to offer you 40 % off the same Ground News Vantage plan that I use for my research. So just go click the link in the description or go to ground.news.mtn or scan the QR code up here.

14:43Ben Meiselas:It's one of the biggest discounts Ground News has ever offered. If you want to support this channel and get a clearer understanding of the world, try out Ground News. One more time, that's ground.news.mtn or scan the QR code right there. Going back to MAGA Republican Senator Kennedy for a moment, one of the things that he also spent time doing this morning is bashing Bernie Sanders and people who are focused on things like health care and affordability and the American worker and not being involved in a never-ending war in Iran. And here's what MAGA Republican Senator Kennedy had to say here. Let's play this clip.

15:24I may end up with a sombrero on my head by saying this, but we all know the president. He exists loudly. He grows anxious when he has an unexpressed thought. He's not always disciplined in his messaging. I'm not saying he should stop talking. He's the president. I'm not. But I would put Rubio and Cain and Radcliffe and Hedgeseth out there, either in a speech or in a long press conference to explain what's going on in Iran, why we went in, why we're still there. Now, the Democrats, I listen to Bernie. Bernie wants to just come home. He wants to turn out the lights, make sure the cat's inside and go to bed.

16:09That would be a huge, huge mistake.

16:13Ben Meiselas:Well, it's interesting. Now, contrast that to what Bernie Sanders was spending his time talking about this morning. Like, the contrast could not be any clearer. You've got MAGA's all out there, bloodthirsty. We're going to go to war and gas prices need to go up and the American people need to suffer because we need to attack around him. Bernie's like, look, we need to fight for the American worker. We need to give everybody health care. Just can you see the contrast right here? Here's what Bernie Sanders just said. Here, play this clip. Establishment like Rahm Emanuel, who are dependent on billionaire campaign contributors and want to maintain the status quo.

16:54Then you have a progressive movement, which, by the way, what is getting these guys nervous is we are winning all over this country. It's utterly Mamdani in New York City. It's in New Jersey. It's in Ohio. It's in Colorado. People are sick and tired of the Rahm Emanuel's and the Democratic establishment and the Republican establishment, they are asking simple questions, Margaret. Why in God's name are we the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right? Pretty simple question. Canada does it. Europe does it. Somehow we can't do it. Why do we have an economy in which one man, Mr.

17:28Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom half of American society? Why do the economists tell us that in the richest country in the history of the world, our kids will likely have a lower standard of living than their parents. The American people are tired of a rigged economy, a corrupt campaign, finance system.

17:46Ben Meiselas:They want real change. And I think it's notable as well, some other developments this morning. Lloyd of London's Marine War Insurance, the top Lloyd of London's Marine War insurers, have told brokers they're going to stop selling war coverage for Saudi-linked cargos in the Red Sea because, as you know, Houthis control Bab el-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. You've got in Iran, they control the Strait of Hormuz. And now the Lloyds of London Marine War insurers are saying to brokers, we're not covering you anymore in Bab el-Mandab in the Red Sea. The exclusion covers any ship with Saudi touch points, including foreign flagged vessels that were previously called at Saudi ports.

18:31Ben Meiselas:Saudi Arabia is now being lumped in with the US, UK, and Israel as high-risk jurisdictions, a serious blow given Riyadh's growing reliance on Red Sea exports via Yambu. Yambu was hit by the Houthis while the Strait of Hormuz stays largely closed. And I'll leave you with this as well. You had Mike Waltz on CBS, and he was asked a question about the US nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and saying, how does this make any sense? You're going to give Saudi Arabia nuclear material and allow them to build a nuclear program, but you're saying that Iran can't. And then Mike Walts is like, well, Saudi Arabia is not a state sponsor of terror.

19:18Ben Meiselas:I mean, Saudi Arabia had more people involved in 9-11 than any other country in the world. And also, this regime just lies about the way enrichment works. It's like if you're going to be building a nuclear facility, even for civilian purposes, there's going to be enriched uranium. It's just what level it's going to be and whether it could one day become weapons grade or not weapons grade and what the controls are there. But then even after they announced the deal, then Donald Trump's like, well, we'll only allow the deal if when the deal was announced. The next day, Trump's like, well, now Saudi Arabia has to join the Abraham Accords and become allies with Israel.

19:58Ben Meiselas:and saudi arabia is not going to do that they've made it clear they're not going to join the abraham accords it would bring down the kingdom of saudi arabia if they join the abraham accords while the genocide was going on and while there's no recognized palestinian state that's what that's what saudi arabia said before but in any event here is what waltz had to say here let's play this clip there was some criticism as well that the president then posted the next day oh well now it's going to be dependent on saudi arabia joining the abraham accords Well, I mean, it shouldn't surprise anyone. The president's been talking about the Abraham Accords, having the Saudis, having the Saudis join.

20:35And, you know, and the president has made that part of this agreement, which is he's absolutely right to do. Number one. And number two, there was also these kind of odd comparisons to Iran. How can you have the Saudis having nuclear power when Iran's trying to seek the same thing, which is just ridiculous? I mean, they're burying it under hundreds of feet of granite. They have kicked out in Iran. They have kicked out the inspectors. This is the largest state sponsor of terrorism year after year, decade after decade in world history. Completely different issue. It's actually all of the things that Iran is violating, which is why we are stopping and seeking to stop their pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

21:16Ben Meiselas:So that's what's going on this morning. Donald Trump right now is at a golf course posting memes of Caitlin Collins as Dylan Mulvaney and Bruce Springsteen while all of those developments are going on in the world.

21:48Ben Meiselas:or click the link in the description below.