Trump Panics as Ground Invasion Imminent in War!!!

0:00Where's your playlist taking you? Down the highway? To the mountains? Or just into daydream mode while you're stuck in traffic? With over 4 ,000 hotels worldwide, Best Western is there to help you make the most of your getaway. Wherever that is. Because the only thing better than a great playlist is a great trip. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Book direct and save at bestwestern.com. This episode is brought to you by Cologuard. Do you know what's really scary? Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45. The Cologuard test is non-invasive, requires no special prep or time off work, and ships right to your door.

0:43In just three simple steps, Cologuard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening. If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about the Cologuard test. Cologuard is available by prescription only. Learn more or request a prescription today at Cologuard.com slash screen. Some things are just better in person. High fives, hugging your dog, and shopping for Crocs. If you've never been to a Croc store, you're missing out. Sure, you can find us online, but when you step inside our shop, you'll get it. And your feet will feel fantastic with a fresh pair of classic cloths, or cozy slippers, or beach-ready sandals, or even sneakers.

1:20Everything's ridiculously comfy, and you can even pick out Jibbit's charms to personalize your new pair. Go check out your nearest Croc store. You deserve that in-person moment. My name is Mackenzie and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about$10 ,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed.

2:10We had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. This podcast is supported by GoFundMe.

2:30Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is panicking as his disastrous and unlawful war in Iran continues to escalate. Donald Trump is now preparing to deploy elements of the 82nd Airborne Division into the Middle East. Now, this follows Donald Trump deploying the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and 2 ,500 Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit as well. So we have the USS Boxer, the USS Portland, the USS Comstock departing San Diego in the past 48 hours. Add to that a Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Tripoli carrying about 2 ,500 troops from Japan expected to arrive in the Persian Gulf region by late March, and the other ships are expected to get there late April.

3:25Ben Meiselas:And so, folks, things are escalating. We were reporting earlier yesterday how Donald Trump and his military generals and admirals are apparently planning a ground invasion of Karg Island and also the coast of Iran, potentially putting troops there and things are getting very, very escalating there very, very quickly. Here's what Donald Trump posted on social media as well, though, where he tried to act like he wasn't doing what we actually can see these deployments occurring. Donald Trump writes, we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the terrorist regime of Iran, one, completely degrading Iranian missile capability launchers and everything else pertaining to them to destroying Iran's defense industrial base, three, eliminating their Navy and air force, including anti-aircraft weaponry, four, never allowing Iran to get even close to nuclear capability and always being in a position where the USA can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation.

4:31Ben Meiselas:Should it take place five protecting at the highest level, our Middle Eastern allies, including israel saudi arabia qatar and the united arab emirates bahrain kuwait and others the hormuz strait will have to be guarded and policed as necessary by other nations who use it the united states does not exclamation point if asked we will help these countries in their hormuz efforts but it shouldn't be necessary once iran's threat is eradicated importantly it will be an easy military operation for them thank you for your attention to this matter donald j trump so So while Trump is deploying all of these troops to the region, he makes a post where it seems like he's saying that he's going to surrender and then just leave the Strait of Hormuz, which he's now responsible for having become closed by starting this war with Netanyahu against Iran and then Iran retaliating as such.

5:24Ben Meiselas:We'll just leave it to everybody else to deal with. But he's also now deploying these troops. There's clearly there's clearly no actual leadership taking place. It seems like they're just winging it one day to the next. And you want to talk about winging it while Donald Trump is also saying that he thinks his job is done, but while also deploying the 86 airborne and those other troops that I mentioned. We also learned yesterday that the United States, through its Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announced that they are providing a 30-day sanction waiver for Iranian oil on the water loaded before March 20th.

6:03Ben Meiselas:So as Gregory Brew explains, so while the U.S. is trying to bomb Iran into submission or decimate them, as Donald Trump says, it is now permitting nations to buy Iranian oil for the first time since 2019. But it gets even worse than that, because if you read the waiver, as Gregory Brew explains, the waiver actually permits Iranian oil to be brought into the U.S. for the first time since the 1990s. It gives access to Iranian oil into the United States while the U.S. is at war with Iran after the U.S. lifted oil sanctions against Russia. This was one of Iran's big objectives to be able to get the sanctions removed.

6:47Ben Meiselas:Think about it. They've closed the Strait of Hormuz. The sanctions are removed against their own oil. The sanctions are removed against Russia's oil. Russia's making a killing literally and figuratively right now. They're making so much damn money selling their oil. And then they've also got the benefit of Donald Trump attacking NATO all day. Donald Trump was making social media posts yesterday saying NATO is a paper tiger. He called NATO members cowards with an exclamation point because they didn't want to go into the Strait of Hormuz after Donald Trump launched this unlawful and unconstitutional war.

7:21While Donald Trump is now purportedly building up the military presence in that region.

7:29Ben Meiselas:Gregory Brewer also makes a great point here I want to share with you. So the Marine force that I just mentioned earlier in this video that's being sent to potentially occupy parts of Iran, a country of 90 million people, is approximately the same size of the force used to invade the island of Grenada in 1983. The island of Kashim, which lies along the north end of the Strait of Hormuz, has a population of 150 ,000 to 180 ,000. The city of Bandar Abbas on the coast has 500 ,000 people. Karg Island has approximately 8 ,000 people. And then Donald Trump's like, we've degraded and destroyed Iranian capabilities.

8:11Ben Meiselas:Interesting, interesting because in the past 24 hours, you can see right here a large fire burning following a direct Iranian drone strike on the U.S. State Department's Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, the BDSC in the Iraqi capital located on the site of Baghdad's International Airport. You can see that right there. You've got other developments as well, horrific developments. Kuwait's largest refinery was hit by Iranian drones. Also, as Iraq declares a force majeure on foreign oil fields, drop site is a good summary. So Iranian drone strikes hit Kuwait's Mina al-Almadi refinery on Friday, sparking fires in multiple units for the second time in 24 hours.

8:56Ben Meiselas:Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and state news agency Kuna said fire crews worked to contain the blaze. No injuries immediately reported. Kuwait's largest, but the refinery is Kuwait's largest, which processes about 730 ,000 barrels per day, had to shut down affected units. Separately, Iraq has officially declared a force majeure on all of its oil fields, operated by foreign companies. Iraqi oil ministry sources told Royjus, do you know what I mean when I say force majeure? That means like a force of God clause, where it's basically invoking a special clause that says it doesn't have to deliver on its commitments.

9:35Ben Meiselas:So it's a way of saying we're not going to satisfy any contracts. Force majeure clause. That's what a force majeure is. The move allows operators to suspend output and export obligations due to the war efforts in several major oil fields in the southern Basra region. Now, that's in addition to what we talked about, those northern oil and energy fields, liquefied natural gas facilities, rather, in Qatar, which about 20 % or so of that field was damaged. That was after the United States and Israel struck the South Par's oil and energy facilities belonging to Iran. Iran also struck Riyadh in the past 48 hours in Saudi Arabia and some surrounding energy fields there.

10:22Ben Meiselas:And as Hala Jaber explains, this is escalating quickly as well, because in addition to all of the places that I just mentioned there, for the first time, Iran is now warning about foreign bases to directly, not just foreign bases, but are directly threatening UAE itself, right? Abu Dhabi is in UAE, Dubai is in UAE, and specifically the area, the Raz al-Kaimah in response to actions involving disputes there. So what Iran is saying is if you're in anywhere in these regions in UAE, get out. Tourist facilities, anything is fair game at this point. We're going to attack because they say UAE has been used by American HIMARS to shoot into Iran.

11:10Ben Meiselas:So we're going after anything in the UAE at this point as well. And so UAE is in a state of utter panic as well. And again, as Donald Trump's like, we've decimated Iran, we've destroyed it, we've decimated it, really, because Wall Street Journal, CNN and others reported yesterday that Iran was able to target the Diego Garcia base with ballistic missiles. That's in the Indian Ocean. So according to the Wall Street Journal, citing multiple U.S. officials, Iran targeted the joint U.S.-U.K. base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean with two intermediate range ballistic missiles, the IRBMs. According to the report, one missile failed in flight whilst the other was engaged by a U.S.

11:55Ben Meiselas:destroyer utilizing an SM-3 interceptor. But a successful interception was not confirmed. None of the missiles hit the base, fortunately, but this is notable as Iranian long-range precision fires have not previously been publicly assessed as having a range to hit such a target as Diego Garcia, as the base is some 4 ,000 kilometers from Iran proper. as benham ben talbu explains iran's operational irbm launch against diego garcia means more defanging that term needs to be done against the iranian missile threat the regime still has new capabilities up its sleeve the timeline to icbm capability shrunk iran officially attacked a uk territory overseas.

12:45Ben Meiselas:And again, one of the things as this one account as the open source intelligence technical account explains the bigger story here, the implied range of an Iranian IRBM from a launch box in central Iran with a range of 4 ,500 kilometers distance to Diego Garcia. Theoretically, this could also target sites in central Europe. And that was an important message that Iran wanted to send. Foreign Minister Aragchi posted this message. Vast majority of British people do not want any part in the Israel-US war of choice on Iran. Ignoring his own people, Keir Starmer is putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran.

13:32Ben Meiselas:Iran will exercise its right to self-defense. So putting the people of the UK on notice as well. I mean, you see how utterly weak and pathetic Donald Trump looked yesterday when he held that press conference on the White House lawn. I did a whole video of his meltdown, so I'm not going to do a whole shtick where I show you all the clips again because I showed you those clips yesterday. But here, Donald Trump's like, remember during COVID, Donald Trump was like, like a miracle, COVID's all going to go away. It's all going to magically disappear. Well, now he's doing the same thing with the straight of Hormuz right after Donald Trump engages in this unlawful and disastrous war against Iran with Netanyahu.

14:14Ben Meiselas:Iran responds by closing the strait of Ramoos, although Iran is also charging$2 million tolls to its allies that want to pass. So China and India and other countries can pay Iran. Now, Iran's actually making a lot more money and the U.S. is lifting sanctions while they're at it as well. Donald Trump's like, at a certain point, the straight will open itself. Remember, was it last weekend where Donald Trump posted that he had assembled an international coalition that he was going to reveal? And all these countries agreed that they would be joining Donald Trump's coalition. And he said, I'm not going to leak the names yet because I want to keep it a surprise, right?

14:55Ben Meiselas:And now it's like NATO's a paper tiger and the straight will open itself. Watch what Donald Trump said yesterday. play this clip. It's a simple military maneuver. It's relatively safe, but you need a lot of help in the sense of you need ships, you need volume. And NATO could help us, but they so far haven't had the courage to do so. And others could help us, but, you know, we don't use it, you know, at a certain point, it'll open itself at a certain point. But we've defeated the enemy and they are an enemy. They're a sick group of people. The leadership is gone. The Navy is gone. The Air Force is gone.

15:36The anti-aircraft equipment that they have, the radar they have is all gone. Everything's gone. The strait itself, the actual strait, how are you? The strait itself is, we're doing a good job, but it would be nice if the countries, including China, if the countries that use it china uses it 90 of their energy japan is 95 of the energy it would be nice if

16:02Ben Meiselas:those countries would get involved and then a reporter says so like do you have a plan on any of this stuff or are you literally just winging this and he's like if i had a plan why would i even tell you here play this clip you know i may have a plan or i may not but how would i ever say that to a reporter if i said meanwhile donald trump is crashing our markets yesterday the markets closed the dow at 45 000 the s p at 6500 the nasdaq at 21 000 each of those were down and nasdaq was down about two percent the s p was down about 1.5 the dow was down about one percent the markets have absolutely been crashing as adam kobayesi explains in a southern in a sudden turn of events, the U.S.

16:52Ben Meiselas:12-month inflation expectations have surged to 5.2%, the highest level since March 2023. In just three weeks, markets have gone from pricing in rate cuts to rate hikes. Around$1 trillion was wiped off the U.S. stock market yesterday alone as these major indexes dropped 1 % to 2 % amid escalating Mideast tensions, and those were dropping even more before this week. But Donald Trump continues to say that he believes he won, that the war is over, and that he won. But we're also sending troops, but we're also withdrawing troops. And we also have all these allies who want to help us in the Strait of Hormuz, but also we don't want their help, and also they're not helping.

17:39Ben Meiselas:And also Donald Trump and his regime are a bunch of complete idiots covering up child sex trafficking rings and getting us into endless wars while the American people can't afford anything. And while people are suffering, struggling, starving, and can't pay their rent here. So here, play this clip of Donald Trump saying, we won, we won. Here, play this clip. What did you mean by that? He said the war was militarily won in Iran. What did you mean by that? Oh, I think we won. We've knocked out their Navy, their Air Force. We've knocked out their anti-aircraft. We've knocked out everything. We're roaming free.

18:10From a military standpoint, all they're doing is clogging up the strait. But from a military standpoint, They're finished.

18:18Ben Meiselas:There you have it, folks. Let me know what you think about this all. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thank you all so much for watching this. 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.

19:15Transcription by CastingWords with their newest coffee flavor. This all-in-one nutrition shake delivers bold, authentic flavor crafted from premium decaffeinated Brazilian beans with 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, and so much more. Treat yourself to the flavor and nutrition your body craves. Go to cachava.com and use code NEWS. New customers get 15 % off their first order. That's K-A-C-H-A-V-A.com, code NEWS. This is not a drill. Wayfair Spring Cyber Week is here. Right now, get up to 80 % off everything home at Wayfair, plus amazing flash deals. Now is the time to score Cyber Week size deals on all your springtime essentials, like outdoor furniture, storage and organization, and patio picks.

20:01Plus, get fast and free shipping on everything right to your door. Shop Wayfair's Spring Cyber Week now through March 23rd, and save up to 80 % off everything home. Wayfair, every style, every home. Whether you're solving murders during breakfast, cracking cold cases on your commute, or playing amateur detective at bedtime, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts ad-free, included with Prime.