Trump’s Weekend Is Already a Disaster…

0:00Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is frantic and flailing and running for the golf course on Saturday morning as the American people are rendering their verdict on him. The worst president in American history. That's what's being reflected in all of the polling data heading into the midterms. And yes, Donald, the midterms are indeed right around the corner. Finally, karma. Finally, accountability. Even Donald Trump's most ardent MAGA Republican Congress members are saying, we have to get over the fact that people don't like this guy. MAGA Republican Congresswoman Stephanie Bryce was speaking in front of a group at a college in Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University.

0:50Ben Meiselas:And there was an audio recording of what she was telling the people in the crowd. The challenge that we have is that we have to get over the narrative. I don't like this guy, so I am going to vote for a Democrat. And what happens is that's going to impact me. They're going to vote for the Democrat. They may split the ticket, but my bigger fear is people aren't even going to go and vote because they don't like this guy. And it certainly isn't helping when Donald Trump says we're going to name Lake Ontario, Lake America, this MAGA Republican congresswoman says in a ruby red district. And not sure there are many ruby red districts heading into the midterm right now.

1:32Ben Meiselas:Because as we've been looking even in South Carolina and Arkansas and Texas and Ohio, these states are turning blue. Pay very close attention to the data shifts that we've been talking about and the overperformance by Democrats to the magnitude of 10 to 20 % overperformance in these races. Because just look at what Donald Trump is doing on Saturday. He's rushing to his golf course in Virginia. He made his sycophantic bootlicker employees there hold up Trump 2028 signs when he arrived. The press pool was shut out of the room, but they saw all these weird people who work for Donald Trump. They hold signs and he makes them clap for him when he arrives.

2:22Ben Meiselas:And while he's arriving in his golf course, just look at some of the stuff he's doing. He is destroying the cherry trees in the other Washington, D.C. public golf courses. Over 60 trees were learning were removed at the East Potomac Golf Links course, even before official approval for renovations was granted in the first place. Preservationists are arguing the plans violate a law protecting the park for public recreation. They're just chopping down the trees. And it was confirmed that we have photos of it. I mean, look at the Beltway Golfer Magazine post. A lot of tree removal happening at East Potomac Golf Course in the last few days.

3:02Ben Meiselas:Several folks sent us pictures, including the cherry tree that was removed near the 14th green, the whole 14th green. Why are you destroying all of these cherry trees? And he's going around while he's engaged in all of this heinous conduct, the catastrophic and unlawful wars. But just every damn day, he does things to destroy the enjoyment of people here in the United States. He's lashing out as he knows his days are numbered. And it's sickening. I mean, look at this other headline right here. Trump administration looks to give a swath of Yosemite to a developer. The proposed land swap would allow easy access to the crown jewel of the national park system.

3:47Ben Meiselas:The proposed details first reported by Notice, the news outlet, calls for transferring a parcel inside the western boundary of Yosemite to a company controlled by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a real estate private equity firm. Kingsbarn wants to build a road and develop two 40-acre parcels it owns near the park, according to documents that were submitted to Congress. Why are we doing this? Seriously. No, just get away. You have the Trump regime continuing to engage in this predatorial behavior. Speaking of which, last night, the State Department, right, which is supposed to be focused on diplomacy, diplomatic relations.

4:31Ben Meiselas:They posted the following image right here, and this was their post last night. It was brought to our attention that Lake America was erroneously labeled as Lake Ontario on our website, the State Department website. We have corrected this mistake and apologize for dead naming the lake. And then they rename it on the Secretary of State website, in the Department of State website. Like, what the hell are you doing? Do you know how weird and infantile and demented you look? The goal here is what? To just alienate every ally, isolate the United States further, harm and cripple the American people?

5:15Ben Meiselas:That is the authoritarian playbook, though. Try to pummel the people so that they'll accept your breadcrumbs. But the people of the United States see what's going on right now and are absolutely disgusted by it. Trump whining while he's in the golf course this morning. CNN is in a death spiral. So is MS now. Nobody's watching either network. Nobody. And then he posts this deranged image of himself with a propaganda rag New York Post. Trump is winning the Iran war. Stay the course. What do you mean you're winning the Iran war? You're out of weapons? We're out of weapons. We're out of interceptors, patriot interceptors, bad interceptors.

5:57Ben Meiselas:Our aircraft carriers have horrid conditions. Our military bases in the Middle East have been crippled. Logistics have to be routed through Diego Garcia because Iran destroyed all of our bases. The price of gas, the price of diesel are at record highs. The price of groceries, record highs. The American people can't afford things. Beef prices, record highs. So now you're, what, importing mystery beef from Argentina or other countries that we may not even know about to undercut our ranchers by 25 percent. Yeah, let's make America. We are definitely winning, Donald. And then he has his regime propaganda, Barack Ravid over at Axios say, the sucker is open.

6:46Ben Meiselas:The Strait of Hormuz is open. More tankers are getting through than ever. Look, it's basic supply and demand, okay? If all of these tankers were getting out filled with all of this oil, we would see the prices of oil drop because there would be a greater supply. We would see the fact that we wouldn't need to draw down our salt caverns where the strategic petroleum reserves are in Texas and Louisiana. We would be able to see what was happening. But y 'all are a bunch of liars. also, we'd be able to see the ships. They're very large. They're called VLCCs. They're very large, a lot of them. Some of them are not as big as the VLCCs, but we can see them on satellite footage, which ships are leaving.

7:31Ben Meiselas:I mean, they treat us all like we're so damn stupid because their goal is to manipulate the market. And Trump's biggest market manipulation scheme right now that I want everybody to be paying attention to. And we need to call it out with clarity here on the Midas Touch Network because corporate news is going to do all of their lies and their propaganda and their shilling for Donald Trump when he's been saying, I just cut the biggest oil deal with Delce Rodriguez in Venezuela. First off, she's the authoritarian leader, Chavista, from the Maduro regime. And he goes, we did a deal with her where the United States is going to get access to 65 billion gallons of proven reserves.

8:17Ben Meiselas:Just take a look right here of 65 billion barrels, rather, of proven oil reserves. Let's look at what the statement that Trump posted from Delce Rodriguez. The agreement will allow for a significant increase in oil production with the participation of private operators. It calls for the development of 17 strategic fields with proven potential of 65 billion barrels of oil, an investment of more than$100 billion and more than$209 billion in taxes for the state. These investments will contribute not only to the recovery and monetization of our industry, Delce Rodriguez says, but also to our country's economic growth, the energy security of our hemisphere and the greater balance in international markets.

9:06Ben Meiselas:Remember what she said that then Donald Trump's post last night. The United States of America has just entered into an agreement with the country of Venezuela on the biggest oil deal in the world. The U.S. will control more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. So let's just break this down again. Proven oil reserves. First off, there's not 65 billion proven oil barrels of proven oil reserves. It's kind of a made-up inflated number. Regardless, oil reserves do not equal production, does not equal extraction, does not equal refining. There's a whole process that has to take place. There's infrastructure that has to be built.

9:50Ben Meiselas:There is a massive amount of investment that needs to take place and people have to spend money. So who's going to be spending this money to make these investments? We know ExxonMobil isn't. We know Conoco yet isn't. Maybe Chevron. Who's going to be spending all of this money to begin with? Oh, and then what? The United States is going to create its own oil company. I mean, socialism, I mean, for the oligarchs, is going to create a Trump company, and that's going to do the business with the Venezuelan company. And if you take a look, I mean, just look at what Francisco Rodriguez says, Venezuelan economist.

10:31Ben Meiselas:Delcy, President Delcy Rodriguez, according to your figures, this agreement will generate tax revenues of just$3.22 per barrel of Venezuelan oil. This represents 4.7 % of the current price and less than half of the royalty rate contemplated in concessions granted by Juan Vicente Gomez. Scott Lincecum explains. So after taking 31 U.S. government equity stakes in private companies over the last year, Trump just announced a major state-owned oil company, a Trump state-owned oil company doing a deal with Venezuela. This isn't even creeping socialism anymore. No, it's not. I mean, it is socialism and social welfare for the billionaires.

11:14Ben Meiselas:And it is how we've seen communism develop in authoritarian regimes where it is controlled by the oligarchs. Matthew Iglesias says, looting Venezuela while using the shell of Maduro's regime as gang enforcers rather than attempting to create a legitimate democratic regime is really evil. Michael Pearlberg says, I seem to remember being told this was all about Trende Aragua, Cartel de la Soles, the narco traffickers and the dictators. So it looks like over 200 fishermen had to be killed, slaughtered by the Trump regime on those fishing boats so Trump's cronies could get an oil deal. As this oil account explains, I keep seeing posts celebrating that oil is about to crash off the Trump Venezuela deal.

12:06Ben Meiselas:Nothing changed. Reserves do not equal production. So when they say that they have reserves of 65 billion barrels, that's paper. By the way, it's not 65 billion barrels. It's a made up Venezuelan number. It's not even true. The deal is a reserves headline, no immediate barrels. Arranco extra heavy crude, the crude you get in Venezuela is biodegraded, low API, high asphaltine sludge. It's viscous. Our refiners, even in the United States, can't refine this stuff. So you have to build out a whole new refineries. And that's going to, if you were to even do this, it would take decades, decades. So you're like, well, then why are they doing this?

12:50Ben Meiselas:Because it is a market manipulation play. Because this true situation is the Strait of Hormuz is closed right now. That's the reality. And these supply of oil is diminished. And so the Trump regime has been trying to do everything in order to manipulate the paper price of crude when the reality on the ground is that this is a supply and demand basic economics issue. So they tried to do the market manipulation by making by claiming fake deals. Remember the fake deals. They push this deal. We're so close. We're so close. And they would try to keep the oil, the price of crude low. And now part of the manipulation is saying, we're getting all of this oil out of the Strait of Hormuz.

13:36Ben Meiselas:This is incredible. Things are moving amazing. And then they're announcing this, this 65 billion proven reserves of barrels underneath Venezuela. When it's like anybody who knows anything about crude and refining and the way this works knows this is just all like this whole thing is BS. And it's dangerous too. It's both a fraud. It could be both at the same time, both a fraud and dangerous. Francisco Monaldi explains, we need to know the details of the oil deal announced yesterday to evaluate it properly. But the amount of taxes to be collected as announced by this interim government by Rodriguez is unusually low.

14:20Ben Meiselas:So$209 billion for 65 billion barrels represents$3 basically per barrel. And if the amount is in nominal terms brought to the present value, it's like nothing. The lack of transparency is problematic. Now, it's deeply problematic. And then you remember those Freedom Fuel gas stations, those Freedom Fuel MAGA gas stations that were also trying to manipulate the price? and Trump would be like, we support Freedom Fuel. It was like, okay, well, who's behind Freedom Fuel? A new lawsuit is alleging Freedom Fuel gas stations touted by Trump are selling stolen fuel, according to Politico. The stations around Philadelphia and New Jersey had raised questions about how they were able to undercut rival retailers.

15:10Ben Meiselas:Now, the company KRSM Inc. denies the allegations, but here's what's being alleged against them. They're being sued by Mansfield Oil Company, which is a distributor engaged in marketing and distribution of petroleum products in certain states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And Mansfield alleges that it had a contract with KRSM, and KRSM was supposed to pay for the oil that it got shipped to its stations. And those were the Freedom Stations. Defendant failed to make payment to Mansfield for such fuel and therefore it owes plaintiffs $3 ,998 ,868.46. KRSM, it is alleged, was able to sell such fuel for such low prices and garner such publicity because it never paid for such fuel.

16:04Ben Meiselas:Iran's foreign minister, Aragji, posted, Our intelligence shows major efforts to game energy markets. U.S. government elements use gullible media to influence prices for personal gain and keep POTUS, Trump, mired in a losing war. Israel-aligned actors also promote war with rosy assessments. U.S. consumers feel the real bottom line. Also, Foreign Minister Aragji of Iran says, had creative discussions with the prime minister, foreign minister of Qatar. Putting diplomacy back on track isn't impossible. It hinges on U.S. understanding one simple fact. Pressure doesn't work. The U.S. should build trust, speak respectfully, acknowledge our rights, and uphold commitments.

16:51Ben Meiselas:Finally, this is from an article that broke recently about the Venezuela deal. The Guardian reported, it's a land grab, a massive land grab, said one well-known opposition figure in Venezuela to the Guardian, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivities of criticizing the US. It's revolting because this is not the United States one would have expected. This is not the United States of the Marshall Plan. This is a rapacious, mafioso United States. By the way, if the US is going to create its own oil company and do this deal, it has to be approved by Congress. You can't just make up your own oil company, the Trump oil company, to do a deal with Venezuela.

17:36Ben Meiselas:And again, I want people to think critically about what this is, why they're announcing this. It's bogus, it's dangerous regardless, and it doesn't actually do anything to bring down the price that you're paying at the pump. That's why I'm repeatedly trying to explain that. Thanks for watching. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Appreciate you all so much for watching. Get your copy of WTF America. Before you go, our book, WTF America is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description.

18:15Let's do this. Thank you.