Tuesday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 6/9/26

28:41In a phone call with the Wall Street Journal, Trump said the blockade, it's making Iran very poor. We'll keep it in place. I just want to let you know that it wasn't a big deal. It's just an Apache, everybody. The pilots are fine. Yeah, they spent two hours in the water as darkness fell, according to Captain Tim Hawkins. But folks, It's all, I mean, who speaks like this? Who talks like this? I'll show you what they're saying in Iran. Here's what Foreign Minister Aragji says. Foreign forces in proximity to our territory are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plane accidents, or potentially being caught in crossfire.

29:22To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave. We prefer language of diplomacy, but speak other languages too. I mean, so play this out. Donald, you attack Iran, you'll attack more of their facilities.

29:37Ben Meiselas:They respond, they'll attack Kuwait, they'll attack Bahrain, they'll do a 1.5 to 2x what you do. So then you attack and now they attack and then Israel attacks. And here you are again. Here you are again. The markets will continue to plummet. More importantly than that, the American people will now see gas prices continue to go up. And we will be hitting that point, as I've been saying now, every damn day where the oil prices will be$160 a barrel,$200 a barrel. We're just moving towards that. We're moving towards it every day. And I don't want to hear people, don't be an alarmist. Well, your titles are hyperbolic.

30:28Ben Meiselas:No, they're not. You know what's hyperbolic? Donald Trump. Donald Trump is hyperbolic, okay? Donald Trump's behavior. When I see that bright red panicked face of his freak out, and then he goes, don't be a panicking, don't be a panicking, I'm literally watching you panic before my eyes. I'm watching a person, you know, Could you imagine if your pilot in a plane ride was flying and behaved this way? Do you hit a little bit of turbulence? Oh, it's going to be okay, everybody. Don't worry. I'm just going to move to the line. It's like, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? Every day, every damn day with this loser.

31:22And then you have the MAGA Republicans like, why would we pass a War Powers Resolution?

31:27Ben Meiselas:He's doing very powerful and very strong negotiations. What do you mean he's doing very powerful and very strong negotiations? What the hell is this guy even doing? What the hell is he doing? He behaves like a buffoon. He behaves like an idiot every day. I just don't get why. We just can't all acknowledge that. And the whole world is ablaze. And it just, it doesn't actually have to be this way. Like it legitimately does not have to be this way. That's the thing. And instead you want to attack former president Biden because he was old, because he stuttered a little bit. That would act like, like, like, you know, for, for our country that frankly put Biden through that.

32:16Ben Meiselas:I don't want to be like, we deserve it because the suffering that people are facing right now in this country is such that I want to make light of it. No one deserves the pain that most Americans are. No one deserves it. But you get what I mean, right? It's like you had somebody there. If you were a religious person, there's a guy in Biden who attended church regularly, who was actually a quietly religious guy. And be clear, I don't care if you're religious or not religious, right? I want you to be a good person. But my point is like, you got someone who was like a God-fearing Catholic who would show up, who would visit his son at the cemetery, who would, who would showed up at church quietly, didn't use religion as a propaganda tool, you know?

33:07So you had that. You had somebody who was caring and compassionate,

33:10Ben Meiselas:who was loving and would show empathy and emotion, and you mock that. You had somebody who was making strategic moves about semiconductors and chips that led to the semiconductor boom, which Trump just threw in the trash. Where do you think the semiconductor boom came? Maybe the chips act. Maybe the rise in the chips that we've seen that Trump just crashed is because of the chipset. Maybe there was a thing. And maybe just like inflation in the negative way, maybe in the positive way, the light switch doesn't just go on overnight. So it doesn't happen overnight. Maybe it takes successive quarters for the gains to show up, which is what was happening under Biden.

33:58But as the gains were showing up, people are like, yeah, but he's sleepy. What was sleepy about him he's old yeah but but he had a bad debate okay if you watch donald trump on that same debate arguably trump was just as bad but he's graded he's graded on some different scale

34:22Ben Meiselas:which is if he breathes a plus you know biden did horribly let's not like biden had a good debate but like they both did horribly so so so on that basis we torch the country we torch the country really if you haven't told them i mean i'm just i'm angry at what this guy's done i'm angry that it's it's not like we're not out of it we're we're not even in the middle of it like we all those like the tariff stuff you'll see in the inflation reports this week where that goes the oil shocks as he just stays frozen there in the middle east too scared to leave because i wouldn't want to do a deal worse than obama's deal he's also you know threatens ending civilizations which would be war crime more war crimes and genocide then doesn't do it so what are you doing man what are you doing and that's just what happens when you elect somebody like this the elections have real consequences and we're seeing that play out in the worst way and so it's time to just wake the hell up and i know you watching this and listening to this are woke.

35:51Ben Meiselas:You're woke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If woke means I'm woken up to your incompetence and fascism and horrible behavior. Yeah, yeah, that's woke. Very woke, woke, woke. Oh, can you believe transgenic? They're doing trans mice. Yeah, you know the way that you all allowed the screw arm. Now you want to blame Biden for it. It's transgenic, not transgender mice. I know you just want to bully transgender people with everything, but that's the type of stuff where we do research for Alzheimer's and other diseases that you or people in your family probably have. And you just want to mock it like a weird third grader, no offense to weird third grade bullies.

36:37Ben Meiselas:Oh, they're doing transgender mice. Oh, could you believe it? What I saw, you know, with, you know, with a ratchet up on Fox, Maria Bartiroma and Laura Ingraham, they don't want to call you a mother. Oh, they're attacking the name mother. No one's attacking the name mother. No one's attacking the name mother. Y 'all are deranged psychopaths. This whole MAGA movement, deranged psychopaths that have objectively destroyed this country and it's sickening. Let's take a break. We'll be right back.

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41:38Welcome back, everybody, to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Mycelis. Breaking news and breaking heads on this episode. yeah no i was just i was reflecting in that first half and i'll calm it down on the second half a little bit but i was you know when i do these lives i don't want to hold back you know you know how i feel i think how you feel right so i i i want to channel that i want to channel that because you know we're in this together and you know i see every day you tell me i mean i'm i you i get your messages every day before i sign on i get your messages and so i pay attention to what you're experiencing with so many people i know are experiencing and I just see the hurt out there.

42:41And again, this isn't a Democrat, or it's not like a Democrat, Republican, independent thing. There's a better way than what we have now. And here's the thing too. You look at Mayor Mamdani's leadership in New York City

43:00Ben Meiselas:for all the fear-mongering about this guy and for all the whatever, and you see how he's leading, And I think to myself, imagine like if we had someone like that running the country, you know, who was every day out there empathizing with people, looking in people in the eyes. like if we had like an administration instead of a regime that could like i don't know go give a speech on the commemoration of d-day and not like insult our allies like how do you screw up a d-day commemoration and attack european countries and and and compare european countries to a nazi invasion of Europe and saying that European countries are allowing invasions like the Nazis of immigrants.

44:04How do you screw that up? All you have to do is say to our allies, we appreciate your support and your sacrifice. And we know the United States of America and our greatness is made possible because of great friends like you. And as we commemorate this date, a day when allies came together on the beaches of Normandy and other beaches nearby and made the ultimate sacrifice for democracy against fascism, it is so important to reflect and remember that sacrifice and honor it and do it justice i mean how how hard i i i didn't even know i was going to talk about that i mean that's what you say

44:53Ben Meiselas:because that's what normal people say in a situation like that you don't go the globalists are invading your beaches with globalism dude shut up what are you talking about just be normal Just behave like a normal human being. And then these people have the audacity to be like, liberals are weirdos. They're behaving so strange. It's like, dude, shut up, man. Just shut up. I mean, do you see what you look like? Do you see how you talk every damn day? Do you see the way you obsess over penises and vaginas like all of the time? Like the penis police over there? What are you expecting? What are you doing?

45:36Ben Meiselas:Gives a shit. Just let people live, but worry about you. I know a lot of these Republicans are probably obsessed about this stuff because of things that they struggle in their own minds to come to terms with about themselves maybe. But what do you, what do we, I mean, do you see they call in a witness today? Alveda King. This is a real. Jim Jordan calls a witness to testify on Capitol Hill today. Who says this? SPLC is using. Okay. My question is about the one proposed by Todd Blanche. It's a yes or no. I will not answer. I think they need to stop killing the babies and cutting the penises off.

46:23And so any slush fund. I have limited time. Money in that is the problem. Mr. Banger. That was a witness that the MAGA Republicans had, a hearing today about the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's where their focus is on right now, attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center. And even though the Southern Poverty Law Center worked closely with the FBI and local police to get the extremist groups, now the trump regime that's pardoning the extremist groups are going after the southern poverty law center and saying you help the extremist groups that the trump regime is helping those extremist groups and so they did a hearing on that and somehow the maga witness started talking about penises cutting off baby's penises i mean why you can't make this stuff up you can't make this stuff up do we have the video of uh james comer who heads the house oversight committee on epstein and so you have james comer who's asked a pretty basic question okay pam bondy was supposed to testify under oath she didn't she refused to even take an oath she was not on video and then she had the audacity with the doj lawyer sitting right next to her to make the following stipulations she's not going to answer anything before 2025 that's off limits.

48:10I'm only going to testify beginning when I was the AG, February 2025. Okay. So let's ask you questions, Pam Bondi, about your communications with Donald Trump. Did he ask you to cover up the files, other people in the executive branch? What'd you say to this person? What'd you say to that person? Yeah, I'm not going to answer that. Why, Pam Bondi? Why are you not going to answer them? Executive privilege. I'm not going to answer that question. Okay. So you're not going to answer anything before February 2025 because you say that's outside the scope. You're not going to answer anything February 2025 or later that involves your communications with other executive branch officials, which is basically the whole purpose of this deposition.

48:56Okay. Well, what about, are you aware, not your communications, are you aware if the DOJ did searches to try to identify Trump's name on the files in order to delete or destroy whether Donald Trump was in the files. That's not a communication. That's not before 2024. It's you at the DOJ. Did you all create some sort of protocol to destroy Trump's name from the files or to flag Trump's name in the files. I don't recall. I don't recall. You don't recall? You don't recall that? That's not a material event in your life. You don't, could, could have happened, could not have happened. We may have instructed everybody to destroy incriminating records that have Donald Trump's name on it, but you know, I, I don't, I just don't, I don't recall.

50:01okay so do you know why a lot of the epstein survivors names were leaked when the one thing that was supposed to happen was that that not be the case i mean that was one of the key things and then you leaked their survive do you know why that happened you're gonna have to ask todd blanche he didn't okay but you were the ag he was the deputy at the time so you're saying he would know that you have no clue yeah i don't know okay sounds good so you don't know anything you're not going to testify anything and that's the that's what you're going to do that's literally what happened in the deposition i tell you i've been a litigator for i was a lit i don't litigate anymore I was a litigator from 2010, 2011 to 2023.

51:06Slow down a little bit, 2022 as Midas was growing. I've never seen that level of obstruction in a deposition ever. But what do you do when the people who are supposed to be the good guys, the DOJ, are complicit? What do you do? What do you do when a system that's based on adversaries, the DOJ good, the other side is supposed to be presumed innocent but adverse? What do you do when this side jumps the V, this side versus this side jumps the V, and says, we're working with this team? It's like when Donald Trump partners with Del C. Rodriguez. That's not impressive.

52:02Ben Meiselas:The United States, we could always align ourselves with an authoritarian of a country and become their partners. The way I described it, I did an interview, I'm not sure if you saw it, with Chris Voss. He kind of came off like he was a Trumper, which surprised me a little bit. I should re-interview the guy, Jeremy. Let's get that guy back on because I was telling him back in April how horrible of a negotiator Trump was. And he was trying to tell me, no, no, no, no, no. you'll see you know it's like when you do a negotiation with a bank robber and you can't can't give all of he's giving some bank robber negotiation and i told him i said but chris you were an fbi hostage negotiator when you were negotiating with the hostage taker the bad guy did you ever tell the hostage taker the bad guy hey you want to become partners with me and then we can both take the hostages?

53:04Ben Meiselas:And because we control where the money is, we can then split the funds together and keep the hostages? Or was your goal as the hostage negotiator to neutralize as best as you could the hostage taker and save the hostages? Oh, wow. I didn't think about it that way. Yeah, we could always, if we wanted to ally with the bad guys, Think about what Trump's, you remember going back to the catastrophic war in Iran for a second. You remember what Trump's first deal was that he wanted? I put deal in quotes. He wanted to do a joint venture with the Ayatollah. So if you're Iran and you hear him say that, you're like, dude, this guy is a lunatic.

53:52Ben Meiselas:He wants to JV with the Ayatollah. And Trump thinks that everything is some like transactional New York City real estate that could – let's just split the Hormuz tolls. You take that. I'll take the air rights over Tiffany's and you can take the – do you think that's the straight of Hormuz? And then he picks Whitcoff and Kushner to people who aren't even appointed to negotiate on behalf of the United States and two really dumb people to handle these negotiations. These are dumb. These are dumbos. These are dumb idiots. I can try to sound smarter, but they're like dumb people. Jared Kushner had one thing that he was focused on with daddy's money during Trump's first term.

54:52Ben Meiselas:It was 666 Fifth Avenue. And he bought it for billions of dollars and ran it into the ground. Then he needed a bailout from the Qataris through a fund that helped him basically bail out. Couldn't run a single building. whitkoff had a reputation in new york as being a sleazy like sleazy sleazy sleazy new york real estate as sleazy as you get which is why trump liked the guy like like that was what he was known for the the scummy and sleazy sleazebag whitkoff that's like that was his reputation in New York, in my opinion, from lots of people who did dealings with this guy. Those are the guys who are negotiating.

55:41Ben Meiselas:Your plan of how you were going to bring peace of Russia's invasion of Ukraine was to have Kushner and Whitcoff. And then you notice the guy, who is the lieutenant general guy that they had there, who is the original negotiator, who was the envoy first to Russia and Ukraine, and then they pulled the guy out because Putin said we don't like Kellogg. Kellogg. And to me, the big problem with a guy like Kellogg, who's actually a smart guy and a qualified guy, who should have been the guy in the negotiations, is that a guy like Kellogg then debases himself and then publicly accepts this situation and has to praise Donald.

56:35Ben Meiselas:And it's like Kellogg. I forget if this guy was a three-star general. This guy was imminently qualified to be the right guy. His whole career was like, I think Biden would have picked someone more qualified, but you would put Kellogg on a list of people, objectively who could be in a room to have these discussions. Putin said, I don't like him there. Why do you think Putin said that? And then basically he became this kind of feckless, powerless, rudderless thing who would show up to Ukraine eventually and get nothing, you know, and get nothing done. But now you have Kushner and Witkoff who were in Pakistan handling the negotiation didn't even know anything about nuclear weapons i mean like did you see the reporting from last week they had to go to like uh they had to go to like nuclear weapons school they had to go to like a facility and meet with nuclear scientists to learn about nuclear dilution like they had to learn about it last week for the first time and it's like what is this you know like uh it's like uh what's the guy's name like a it's like a jackie chan tucker chris tucker movie like you know is this like uh like an arnold schwarzenegger danny devito movie right is this like what are we doing here you know and and what happens when two zany guys have to negotiate a peace deal with Iran and don't know a thing about nuclear weapons.

58:24Ben Meiselas:They go to nuclear schools like Billy Madison. No, it's shampoo that's better. No, it's conditioner that's better. Oh, you know what I mean? That's like what our country's reduced to. It's like Billy Madison going through grades and has to learn, no, Penguin, no. I mean, that's Kushner and Wyckoff. This is real life, and I make light of it just because it's a coping mechanism to deal with the sheer rage that I feel about these idiots sometimes, just the gallows humor of it all, I suppose. but it's like they're going to new. I have a wild idea. Rather than send Kushner and Whitcoff to nuclear school for three days of learning what nuclear material is like and what enrichment is and dilution and all of that, maybe you just bring in people who are appointed and confirmed by the Senate who have an ability to negotiate this.

59:30Ben Meiselas:Now, let me be very clear. Marco Rubio, I think, is one of the worst human beings imaginable right now. I think he's horrible. Because of his experience in the Senate, before he took this role as this Trump stooge who now goes to the UFC matches, whatever is stupid UFC fights. He was a guy who at least had the qualifications, clearly not the temperament anymore because we saw how he handles all of this. But if there was one person to probably be at the negotiation who at least because of his foreign relations experience being in the senate and i'm not trying let me be clear i'm not praising rubio so don't don't go there with me i'm just simply saying out of anybody there he at least had the most experience to be in the room in pakistan when these negotiations were taking place and he was was technically there by being in the UFC fight during the Senate hearing.

1:00:49Ben Meiselas:You're supposed to be the chief negotiator. You're supposed to be the State Department head. You're the Secretary of State. It's quite literally what your job is, right? So we have JD, this is what JD Vance said earlier. Let's play this clip. You say very close. How soon could the deal happen before the midterm elections? Oh, absolutely. No, I think we're going to know a lot before the midterm elections. Look, I think the deal could happen in the next week, but the deal could also happen months from now.

1:01:25It could happen tomorrow. Might also happen never. That's the thing.

1:01:33Ben Meiselas:And again, have you ever heard people talk so much about the word deal? deal deal deal deal i'm gonna do a deal you like this deal i made a deal i did this deal dude either just do the deal or shut the f up seriously enough talking about a deal i'm a good deal maker i i've met in my life good negotiators and actual deal makers i can assure you that they've never ran around saying, I'm a deal maker. I do deals. I'm a deal guy. You want to do a deal? I'll do a deal with you. You want, oh, I do powerful deal. What's a powerful deal? What does it even mean? It's a deal. It's a powerful and strong deal.

1:02:23Who even talks about a deal like that?

1:02:26Ben Meiselas:A deal, a negotiation is a good faith bargaining where each side tries to find common ground. That is the very essence of a negotiation. It is not destruction. It is not obliteration. It is not surrender. It is good faith bargaining to try to reach a compromise. That is what a deal quite literally is, which differs from a surrender. Even a term of surrender, as we've seen historically still has various forms of compromise, right? We should study history. How did we get into World War II? Well, because the literal terms of surrender in World War I felt so humiliating. I'm oversimplifying the causes to be clear.

1:03:24Ben Meiselas:But were so humiliating to Germany and to others that the anger festered and festered. And then you got a fascist like Hitler who promised that he alone would fix the problem and have to avenge the humiliation. So post-World War II, we recognized perhaps in a surrender negotiation, surrender involving Germany, Italy, Japan, and others, that we develop a compromise that actually allows dignity in defeat so that we can support a post-World war ii structure that avoids world war iii so that was the thinking even in a surrender negotiation the post-world war ii negotiating framework was one still of dignity for germany italy japan and the losing sides of the war.

1:04:47Ben Meiselas:So fast forward. And again, I'm oversimplifying, but I think the point is appropriate. Trump's view of the negotiations with Iran are not negotiations. Trump's perspective is total annihilation and total surrender, perhaps even worse than a World World War I post-Germany defeat treaty for Iran.

1:05:21Ben Meiselas:And America did not win the war against Iran. Iran's perspective is if you want to, read the statements, like read what Aragji says, read what Ghalibov says. Here, pull up Ghalibov. We have Ghalibov statement. Pull up what Galiboff is saying. That's why we need to be culturally sensitive to what other people are saying. We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments and we'll switch to what we speak best. You ride the horse, you saddled. Okay. By the way, he's a PhD. He is a accomplished person in Iran who's been rising through the ranks, who is at that position, not by happenstance, you know, and, and he is kind of a quantitative, qualitative intellectual and you make oh ben you're praising i'm just telling you what it is i'm just explaining to you guy that that objectively he is a very intelligent and deeply uh deep thinker who does a lot of planning and doesn't act arbitrarily and capriciously and picks his words carefully.

1:06:54Ben Meiselas:That isn't me praising him or the regime. I'm just letting you know we have to understand this. Similarly, Foreign Minister Aragji in his post today also was very similar, echoing the same language about speaking the language of diplomacy, but speaking the language of war more fluently if that's really where you want to go. And so what Iran is saying and signaling is, look, we're not afraid of you. If you want to invade and attack us, if you think that the path to a better deal is a path of escalating the war, Iran is saying, do it. Go for it. We have our plan. You attack us. We know you'll cause us pain.

1:07:50Ben Meiselas:You have already, and you will cause us pain. But we're prepared, and we've got our missiles, our arsenal trained on American bases and American interests nearby. We're ready for that. Based on the current way the war went down, this is a negotiation that is a partial surrender by the United States. That's the dynamic. You may not like hearing this from me, but if I'm to be actually patriotic, although that term has been so warped now in our country by MAGA, you have to identify the reality. America lost. Is it like a full surrender? No. No. Did America cause damage? Yes. And also committed a lot of war crimes where I believe those who did it need to be held accountable in the future, especially as it relates to Manab killing the little girls in the elementary school.

1:08:57Ben Meiselas:But America must negotiate a partial surrender because that's the truth. That's the dynamic. So what does a partial surrender mean? I've given this deep thought. A partial surrender means you have to allow Iran and Oman to assert at least symbolic control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now, if you want to change the equation by escalating the war, then be prepared for the consequences of that. And perhaps you and CENTCOM and our military change the equation. And if the equation has changed, maybe you have enhanced bargaining power. I don't believe so. I think you'll have even weaker bargaining power at this point.

1:09:50Ben Meiselas:And you've depleted so much of your missile stockpiles. And further escalating will result in, I think, a depression that's of a scale that's significantly greater than even the Great Depression. I'm not trying to fear monger. I just think that that's where it goes. If you escalate this, where we are teetering on that, I think we are clearly heading in that direction right now. But if you want to change the dynamic, you think of the negotiation, where it's not a partial surrender. You escalate, they escalate. You play that out for the next two years, and then we see where we are. The current equation, we have to look at it real politique.

1:10:38Ben Meiselas:The current equation is Iran partially won. The United States partially lost. It's a partial surrender, not a complete surrender. A surrender, though. So that needs to be negotiated. So what has to happen? Iran gets to control the Strait of Ramoos. I think there's a way to structure it though, where they symbolically control it. And I think they and Oman, rather than us attacking Oman, because Oman's an ally or a neutral party, I think you create a structure where Oman and Iran technically control this thing. There is some sort of environmental duty or tax that has to get paid. It's not daily tolls, but it is some sort of payment, which can be done in terms of unfreezing funds to Iran that can be framed as an investment in the Strait of Hormuz, environmental impact.

1:11:36Ben Meiselas:Frame it that way if you want to save face a little bit. Okay. I think you frame it that way. I think you invite other Middle East countries to have some stake in this architecture. It's tough because UAE has kind of fully aligned with US and Israel. And so Iran's very suspicious of them. Saudi Arabia, Turkey have more of a neutral-ish position. So maybe you don't include the UAE in this for now, which will piss the UAE off, especially after all their quid pro quo deals with Trump and Kushner. They thought they were paying for things that they're not getting right now. So there's that. That's what happens when you violate emolument clauses and you put your personal worth ahead of the countries, which we're seeing.

1:12:26Ben Meiselas:But I think as part of this deal and dynamic, maybe you bring in Turkey, maybe you bring in Saudi Arabia, maybe you bring in Bahrain. Tough to do Bahrain also because their Abraham Accords, but you bring them into this board. That could be the new Strait of Hormuz board. Okay. And then you unfreeze the funds for Iran. We have the Strait of Hormuz open. Now, concurrently, we go to our allies, former allies who we've dissed and insulted, but then we go to UK and France who have been working on this. They've got a 40 plus, 50 plus country coalition that's ready to do post-war mine sweeping and post-war recovery.

1:13:19Ben Meiselas:So what you do is you say, okay, look, you can symbolically control the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to invite in other countries. We could have rotating leadership to empower sovereignty within Arab nations so that they all have a piece of it, because there's other countries that border the Persian Gulf also, right? So it can't just be, yes, you two control the strait, but let's invite other Arab nations into this. Then separately, let's have our coalition go outside. So if the strait of Hormuz is closed again, now we have a coalition and we We have multilateral support for this. Even Obama and the JCPOA had to bring in China and Russia.

1:14:02Ben Meiselas:It's tough given Russia and Ukraine's dynamic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But you have to bring in China to help be a guarantor of this as well. And to me, the Islamic Republic remains in power, obviously. um i would start doing symbolic things to show a little bit more good faith with uh iranian soccer football help some help some more iranian football people get here before the first game um i'd make moves there just just symbolic goods goodwill stuff and open the straight and try to build like you know okay you're like well ben netanyahu's never going to allow that i hear you so we got to deal with that but you have to tell him no you have to tell him you're going to go it alone we're not supportive of this you can't get that get out of lebanon yeah you can't you can't do it and then if they do that and hezbollah continues to attack or hamask and whatever, I mean, then you can say, hey, look, they're not in Lebanon.

1:15:12Ben Meiselas:They're there. And we can start establishing this, you know, a structure again. So that to me, the only way a deal, and I've been thinking about this, as you can probably tell, but that's what a deal looks like. That's how it has to happen. There's no other path. Other than that, then you escalate it, and you try to negotiate after you escalate it, which I don't want to see. But then Iran escalates it. And they have weapons. They have a Navy. They have soldiers. They have people to do it. So they're going to strike back. But that's the equation now. And the problem is, and I'll just go back to where we started.

1:15:53I'll go back to where we started. Jeremy, show the crowd of Madison Square Garden booing him. Let's show you this. Let's play it.

1:16:19Okay.

1:16:19Ben Meiselas:Now show Donald Trump on the tarmac saying that he received applause and that he was like loved and that he got lots of applause there. Let's play that clip. if we've got that one on the tarmac. I think we got it, Jeremy. Just take a look. Oh, we don't have that one. Take my word for it. He did. I'm pretty sure it's in the stack though, Jeremy. But he said, I wasn't booed. It was great. Things are amazing. They love me. So when you don't understand the equation and you create your false realities that aren't the shared reality and you live constantly in this perpetual fraud, this is what we see.

1:17:10This is what we see. And now America is just a Trump Ponzi scheme company. That's what America, and that's what made me really upset when I was starting the show today. And I was just like, I don't want to be some extra in this weird reality show. I want all of your families to be doing well. And I want you to be able to have a job that you feel respected in.

1:17:38Ben Meiselas:And I want you to be able to get the health care that you need. And it literally causes me pain to see what you're going through. And don't worry about me. Just to see what you're experiencing and to hear your stories. And I wish I could do more. I mean, I'm so proud of Katie Fang suing the Trump regime. She's a host on Midas to get the Epstein files. you know i try to do everything i can every day to to put it out there just every day in this moment but like i literally like i you know i i show up for the show and i'm like okay i gotta i gotta go live and i'm you know i objectively like i'm i can't hide how i feel i'm objectively get sad and upset at the pain he's causing you and i want to i wish i could just do more.

1:18:37Ben Meiselas:I really do. This is what I can do. I'll create this network and just chop wood every day. Pop, pop, pop. Keep putting these videos out. Keep building the network and keep it going. Just keep getting out the truth every single damn day with you. That's all we can do right now in this moment is stay together and fight together and keep growing this. keep supporting democracy. That's what we'll do. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. I appreciate you all. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.

1:19:34Thank you.