Tuesday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 3/31/26

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2:06floor authority for 50 years. 1-800 flowers. Why should you trust 1-800 flowers? They hand-select every stem to insure top quality, and with nationwide delivery, smiles and satisfaction are 100% guaranteed. And right now, when you order a dozen multicolored roses, we'll double it at no extra cost. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Order today at 1-800-flowers.com-slashpodcast. That's 1-800-flowers.com-slashpodcast. This has been on breaking news. I'm Ben Mycelas, and this is your breaking news. We've got a lot to discuss regarding Donald Trump's unlawful and catastrophic war. In Iran, things continue to escalate. Donald Trump and his regime continue to spread disinformation that there are very productive negotiations taking place, and that Iran is totally and utterly obliterated. While Iran controls the strait of Hormuz, Iran's parliament just adopted a law that says that they will officially

3:09institute a tolling system in the strait of Hormuz. And as we speak right now, throughout Iran, they are staging what they are referring to a night of defiance of Epstein coalition air strikes. And so what they are simulcasting, I guess, across all of Iran, are hundreds of thousands of peoples in different cities who are protesting or who are coming out to support the current regime. And again, let's be very, very clear. This is propaganda, and this is intended right here as well to send a message. But when you have one side of the media, the Trump propaganda that's out there that says they're totally obliterated, and people are begging for us to come in, and they want us to make a deal so badly. And when you can observe that the Iranians control the strait of Hormuz, that they're still striking their Arab nation neighbors, where there are American military interests,

4:11when you can observe the fact that there are still, again, huge groups of people in the hundreds of thousands in various cities that are being simulcasted. The poster right there was from a university of Tehran professor. When you see the parliament of Iran meeting and functioning, and yesterday you had the spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry. Hold the press conference saying we did not have any negotiations with the United States. We are, we've stated are non-negotiables and what they are. We need to keep ballistic missiles and Shahi drones. We'll never give those up. We need permanent security guarantees for us, for the Houthis, for his Bola, for the Shiite militias in Iraq. We need full reparations. We need American military bases out of the Middle East. If you agree to our non-negotiables, we can start negotiating. And then we want,

5:12and then we're willing to enter into a sustainable peace agreement. So one of the tactics that the Trump regime is using now to jawbone the market, to manipulate the market. They realize that Trump's social media posts don't work anymore to do that or they work minimally. So now they leak things to the Wall Street Journal and other legacy media outlets to then repost that. Or they'll give a media like an out of context statement. And then the wire will publish from what I just told you about the Iranian negotiating position. It's like Iran says they want peace and they're looking for a peace deal. It's like that gets published over the wire. And it's like not everything else that's in context where Iran says we're not going to agree to anything unless these things are met. And then we can agree that they're sustainable and long term peace. But we control the straight of her moves. We get reparations. We keep ballistic missiles in the future. We enrich uranium. We're recognized as sovereign over the her moves straight of her moves. You agree to

6:18all of that. And they'll be peace. And then like, you know, the media here will be like and they said they wanted peace. Then the market like goes up. And it's like, okay, like the reality is Iran strongly controls the straight of her moves right now. They've instituted a toll system. They're letting Chinese vessels go. Some Indian vessels go. A few Pakistani vessels go having nothing to do with the United States at this point. And they've been very clear. If you try to get through and you don't get permission, we will target you. And they've done that over and over and over again. We see over the past, you know, 12, 24 hours. They struck a Kuwaiti flag ship off the port of Dubai. They hit an oil depot in Haifa. They hit a big infrastructure area in Kuwait as well. The militias in Iraq continue to target American interests there. So I mean, you see what's happening in the region. I'll say this. And I think this isn't getting a lot of attention. I don't

7:23know if you've noticed this, but a lot less strikes by the Iranians in Qatar. Have you know, all the strikes continuing in every other areas in Kuwait, in Iraq, where there are American military bases in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, of course, in Israel and Bahrain, all there, but not Qatar, which leads a lot of people, including myself, to believe that Qatar probably struck a deal with Iran directly. And that's what we're seeing a lot of, right? As the United States security umbrella in the region collapses, a new security umbrella is becoming into fruition, right? I mean, you had President Zalinsky of Ukraine. He did a meeting with all of these Arab nation leaders, right? He met with MBS of Saudi Arabia. He met with Qatar. He met with United Arab Emirates. He took a meeting in Jordan and Kuwait as well. He did all of these meetings in a lot of

8:27them. He inked these long-term security deals where Zalinsky and Ukrainians provide the interceptor drones, the interceptor technology, much cheaper, right? But you have to learn how to strike down these FPV, these first-person viewing drones, the swarms that are used by Iran, the Shaheeds that are used by Iran, the ballistic missiles that are used by Iran. Ukraine has experienced how to deal with all of that better than just about everyone. So Ukraine stepping up, isn't that kind of the ultimate irony, right? As Donald Trump continues to attack Zalinsky, support Putin removes oil sanctions from Russia, allow Russian oil ships to enter Cuba, go around Donald Trump so-called blockade and embargo of Cuba as Russian Duma members, Russian senators are taking tours of our capital building, right? Donald Trump also demanded. Did you see this? Demanded Zalinsky. Zalinsky's

9:28like, certain of our partners have requested or demanded, we stop striking the oil depots and liquefied natural gas facilities of Russia. And then Zalinsky's like, well, once Russia agrees to a ceasefire and stops attacking our energy infrastructure, we'll stop striking theirs, right? Because as Donald Trump has gotten rid of these sanctions on Russian oil, Russia's crude export capacity has been decreased by about 40% to 50% because the Ukrainian first-person view FPV drone swarms have been able to successfully strike the Russian facilities. And so and Trump was trying to stop that. But anyway, you have Zalinsky helping these Arab nations now in the Middle East. You have nations doing one-off deals with Iran, right? You have, you know, as I said, I believe Qatar probably entered a deal. They're not publicizing that though. India doing one-off deals, others doing other countries

10:32doing one-off deals. And then we see, you know, American allies are really former allies at this point. I think they're preparing right now for what a future kind of security umbrella globally looks like. You know, and they're telling the United States, and this is unprecedented. This would never happen before. They're saying the US, not only can you not use air bases or our land, you can't use our skies. We're not letting you over our skies, right? So first, Spain came out and said you can't use our air bases. You can't use the air over us, the air restrictions. But then you had France come out today. And France says you can't use our air space. You had Italy come out and say you can't use our air space. Switzerland has already said you can't use our air space. Spain, you know, notably with Switzerland as well though, Donald Trump also screwed them over by not giving them or by diverting F-35 money that was paid by people in Switzerland

11:41to Trump's need to replenish that and Patriot interceptors. He like took the money of Switzerland and Switzerland's like seriously, you just took the money that we bought for the F-35 and you funnel the to your own Patriot and that's also Trump tried to do that and take existing Patriot systems away from Poland. Poland's like where NATO's eastern flank you idiot? And the Trump regime's like well could we take your Patriot and that system? Like no, do you see what's happening in Ukraine? Do you see Russia's invasion? You realize how close Poland is to Ukraine? We're not giving it back to you, right? And so you have all of these developments taking place. And why do I think these countries you know are saying don't use our air space. They're preparing for what the security apparatus, what a future world checks and balances are going to look like with a very weakened United States. They see how weak the US is now globally, right? The US will huff and puff and they'll say

12:47we're doing embargo on Cuba. Embargo on Cuba. Nobody can pass. Mexico, if you dare pass, we have an executive order. We will tariff you into hell. Colombia, we will have the DOJ and dite you if you dare help the people of Cuba who we're trying to starve to death and attack their civilian infrastructure. Anybody else be warned. Our ships will interdict and attack you. Then Putin's like, I've got my ship right here. You all remember learning about the Cuban missile crisis, right? And what a big deal it was, like the stare down, right? With Kennedy, with the Russians, they stared each other down. Was America going to hold its ground and what was going to happen over there? Was Russia going to be able to even further entrench its influence in Cuba? What was going to happen, right? I mean, you're just all of these historical lessons that took a lot of time to develop. We're doing a fast-forward version, that movie

13:49click without him, Sandler. We're already going through everything and undoing America building up being the so-called leader of the free world and Trump's destroying all of it at once. Russia's like, okay, nice little blockade you got there, but we're going to head in there to Cuba, okay? We're going to look like the good guys and we're going to give Cuba oil because you could have done a Trump and you could have had your allies do it, who wanted to do it, but you attacked your allies. But now, when the country that's providing weapons and money and logistics to Iran to target Americans and to target American infrastructure in the Middle East, you're going to let them go by right, Donald. That Russia's like, we head in right there. They give their oil to Cuba. But then Donald Trump's asked about it and Trump's like, yeah, sure, I'll let them in. I'll assess on a case-by-case basis. Then Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump's press secretary was asked, so what about Mexico? What about Colombia? What about other countries who may want to help Cuba?

14:51And Caroline Levitt's like, yeah, I'm not sure they're going to be allowed. We're going to assess it on a case-by-case basis and we're going to let Russia in. What about future Russia? Can Russia get in with more stuff? We'll assess it. By the way, let me be very clear. I believe that Donald, as much as I disagree and feel strongly that the regime in Cuba, the successors of the Castro regime, while I believe that they're not doing the best for the Cuban people, while I believe that if they were to be replaced by a place that's more representative of the people, people could get up out of poverty. But I disagree strongly with Trump's crimes against humanity and what he's doing to the Cuban people, just because you disagree with governments around the world doesn't mean I think that we should threaten invasion or do invasions just because we disagree with regimes. I mean, there is a global architecture that existed. Alliances are important. We need

15:55stability in the world, and sometimes doing something creates a worse outcome than containing and doing nothing at all. Clearly, that's what we're seeing with Donald Trump's disastrous war in Iran. That's what we're seeing with Donald Trump globally right now, right? And so, I think what he was doing was a crime against humanity, but at the end of the day, let's not be naive here, right? We all think, you don't think that Russia also with the oil was delivering Shahidrones and FPV drones and helping Cuba arm itself in the event Donald Trump invaded. Like, let's not be naive here, right? And where's the outrage from all of these people who are all about holding Russia accountable? And so the outcome of all of this, the outcome of all of this is now Russia has stronger control over an island that is just miles

16:57away from Florida and that barely registers as a blip, right? On the way the media is reporting on all of this stuff, right? I mean, let's like actually think about what's going on here. Going through some of the receipts of everything that's been happening. And then I want to talk a little bit also about the big ballroom ruling. We're going to talk about that, how a federal judge Judge Leon, and I did a whole hot take on it as well. So I want to talk a little bit more about the war. I want to talk about a federal judge in Washington, DC blocking Trump's $400 million ballroom, blocking it permanently, unless Congress authorizes it. And the judge made such a great ruling. At the end of it, he goes, I got a great solution. Congress authorize it. While we fix the problem, go to Congress, Congress builds your ballroom. They say, okay, private funds can support it. That's the way our system works. We'll go more over. I will go more into this

17:58ruling. I want to also talk about Kristi Nome and Kristi Nome's husband. And I don't want to talk about it in a gossipy way. And when I talk about it in this episode, I don't intend to like, king shame, I think, is that the expression? Like, you know, look, if her husband is into cross dressing, and you know, there's a name for it that they were describing it as, let me just think, see the name of it. It's a type of fetish called bimboification that he's into bimbo foe occasion apparent. That's a name of this fetish scene where you wear gigantic breasts with massive amounts of saline to achieve a Barbie doll like appearance. And he's into that. You know, and again, I'm not here to judge this at all. And I don't like the takes that mock him for this behavior because, you know, what people do in their private lives, what, you know, is their own thing. I'm not, I don't, I'm not here to judge that. You know, if things are being done

19:02safely and consensually, and what people do in their private lives, I don't think government should intervene. And I'm not here to, I'm not here to shame that he likes bimboification. He likes putting triple whatever E or F breasts on himself and, and dancing and speaking to other people with triple F breasts. That's what he's into, you know, as long as I'm hurting anybody, as long as it's consensual, as long as it's safe, you know, I'm not going to judge people's private lives. So I want to be very clear about that when I cover it. And I think we have to cover with sensitivity. That said, where you have people like Kristi Nome and others so hypocritical, invading into the private lives of families, ripping families apart, judging people, being the finger waggers or whatever, these are always the people who behind the scenes are into the bimbofication or what, Lindsey Graham with his, in Disneyland with his bubble wand and he waves

20:03the bubble wand around while he's like, we're going to blow them up to smithereens now. Let me play with my bubble wand, you know, whatever's going on behind the scenes of, of these people, right, whatever's, you know, whatever's happening. JD Vance said he was gay growing up, right? JD Vance in high school gay man said he was a gay teenager. I think that's what he said in his book, right? And then he said he did conversion therapy and then realized he's not gay. And then he became anti-gay. And that's when I just don't be anti, why are you going to be anti-gay when you grew up and you said you were gay and now you're going to tell people that, you know, whatever, you know, and look, if you are into the, if you're, yeah, I just, my whole view of all of this is stay the hell out of our private lives. And these people who pretend to be like, oh, I'm holier than thou and men and women's sports and we can't have these types of people and that people. Like,

21:04they're always the ones behind the scenes who are doing the bimbofication and the disson of that, which would be fine if it makes you happy, but stop ruining all of our lives. Stop whatever you're going through. Stop using, let everybody be happy. The bimbofication community be happy. If JD Vance is gay, you could be happy. You know, I don't know your situation. If you convert it, just leave us all alone, right? Just leave us all alone. Let all of us be happy. Let's stop bullying marginalized communities. Stop using the issue of men and women's sports or whatever it is as a proxy to bully the trans community. We can have rational communications about this. I have lots of trans friends. And when we go out to parties and we see each other, we've have actual conversations that are adult, rational where we say, well, what about this sport? What about that sport? Well, what do you think? And you can actually get at, I think, great conversations. And you could try to figure things out and learn and have an open mind and try to think things

22:05through in ways, but the government getting involved in this stuff and the government, government bullying and the government mocking the trans community and gay communities and other marginalized groups. Uh-uh. And we all need to stand up for that. One of the things that, I know I'm going on a tangent here after talking about the war and I'll loop back to the war. But one of the things that pissed me off after the 2024 election was when people were like, well, I think maybe we're going to have to like do what they were doing on the right wing. I'm like, no, not at all. We need to be there for marginalized groups, whether it's the trans community, whether it's other communities and and be allies. That's it. And we can still have rational conversations. And it just always, it's always fascinating to me when politicians get like tripped up on these questions, right? And it's like, well, I think that just, just be a real human being. Let's start with the very premise that we care about basic humanity, that we care about human beings. And whether we're talking about human beings in Iran, whether we're talking about

23:09human beings in Gaza, whether we're talking about human beings in Lebanon, whether we're talking about human beings in Los Angeles or in Mexico. Human beings, dammit. We're talking about humans. We're talking about humanity. These are people who have families. These are mothers. These are children, these are fathers, these are people, you know, and one of the things, this gamification of the war, you see, I told you, I would loop back to it, you know, where the Trump regime is out there, we're going to loiter and reign death upon these Iranians, and it's like, we now learned about another incident early on in the war, where whether it was through our AI, picking another location that was the incorrect one, not the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps building, but a gymnasium where there were dozens of children who were working out and playing, killed them, there's a basic humanity here that Donald Trump has kind

24:09of utterly shattered, and not just Donald Trump, lots of politicians, the media environment in general, social media, a whole host of things, you know, and that's why when I have these opportunities on a show like this, been on breaking news, to not just go, okay, well here's what happened in this case, here's what happened in that case, but when I could talk about, you know, things that really motivate me to do this show, to build the Midas Center, it's basic humanity, right? One person from here is no better from the person than there when we're talking about human beings, and when you find out like, we should all mourn, we should all be mourning for the deaths of people in the Middle East, for civilians, of course we should, it shouldn't be a hard question to answer if we're human beings and we feel, we shouldn't have to do double speak or move around, these are people, these

25:11are people, what do they call it, during the Holocaust, the banality of evil, that evil becomes so common course that it's adopted, and there's no even thinking about humanity. I want the Midas Touch Network to be that shock to the conscience that brings us back to basic humanity and talk through these issues and try to solve problems because I think when you look at it through this lens, you're much more able to address these problems, just very briefly, you had Donald Trump ranting like a lunatic this morning, the country of France wouldn't let planes headed to Israel loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory, France has been very unhelpful with respect to the butcher of Iran, you're the butcher of the U.S., you're the butcher of the U.S., Donald, who has been successfully eliminated, the U.S.A will remember, like why are you even talking like the corneus bad

26:13guy from the corneus Batman cartoon, why do you, that's not even a helpful strategy, you sound like an idiot, you are an idiot, but who talks like this, you know, his other post this morning, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the straight of hormones like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you, number one, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and number two, build up some delayed courage, go to the straight and just take it, you'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us, Iran has been essentially decimated, the hard part is done, get your own oil, you know, anybody my age who's in this chatter was listening, watch Captain Planet growing up, I can't name for you any episodes specifically, but they put their rings together in Captain Planet's form, right, remember like the bad guys in

27:13Captain Planet though were so corny, like Donald Trump's the corny bad guy that Captain Planet fought against, get your own oil next time Captain Planet, it's like who talks like this, or like for people who may be a little bit younger, like the bad guy when they translated like the Dragon Ball Z's, right, and he'd be like, you're gonna get your own planet to right now, because I'm not going to help you anymore, I'm going to build my golden ballroom, like the script is so dumb, and the fact that the media talks about it like it's normal, oh well here's what it's called, abnormal, weird, dangerous, wake up people, let's get the hell out of this mess, I see some of the polling data though that was at least brought some good news to our day today, when you look at the voter ID, since Gallup has been doing their voter ID poll, never has less Americans identified as Republicans,

28:17it's dip below 40%, now only 39% of Americans, according to this new Gallup poll, identify that they are Democrats right now, I mean that's a pretty low number, so when you find out a lot like X amount of Republicans are supportive of Trump, well the Republican base is dramatically decreased, let's talk about that, I want to talk a little bit about this ballroom ruling, I'm going to talk about it from the perspective as a law professor, for those people who don't know, I'm a law professor at USC, when I'm not doing this, I teach law, so I'll break down these statutes for you, so you can understand what the law is, we'll talk a little bit more about Christy Nome and her husband being very sensitive and delicate like I was before, I think that's an important, it's important how we cover it, and then we'll talk about some additional things, how about that, we've got a quick ad break right now, my producers are saying Ben, we need a quick ad break, so I'm telling

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33:25shall we? A federal judge appointed by George W. Bush, 2002, is now a senior judge in the D.C. Federal Courthouse, blocked the Trump ballroom. What's interesting is, if you've been following my ballroom analysis, I predicted this would be the outcome many months ago. But it didn't happen. And in fact, the group that brought the lawsuit, the National Trust, lost when it filed for a preliminary injunction originally. And then I saw some of your comments, and you were saying, Professor, my cellist, you were wrong. You were giving us hope that the ballroom is going to be blocked. You cited all of these statutes, and you told us all of these things. And you were wrong. How do you get it wrong? If you're wrong there, how do we believe you on some of these other things? You remember what I said? I said, well, I said, I don't believe that the National Trust was citing the law that

34:30I had said in my video, which was this concept of ultra-virus. It's really a constitutional claim that Donald Trump was acting outside of congressional authorization, and that that wasn't really planned. I thought the National Trust, when they filed this lawsuit to block the ballroom originally, they were being a little too cute, a little too cute. They were being very technical with their arguments, and they were saying, ah, well, it's this under the Administrative Procedures Act, and this is how we block it, and I'm like, it's a much simpler argument. If you remember my hot takes on it, I said, go to the Constitution. The Constitution says this is a core function of Congress, and there's only three statutes that are on point, and these statutes are more persuasive that Trump needed to get Congressional approval, not that he could go around Congress, and so whether it was because the National

35:33Trust hired a new law firm, or they watched my YouTube videos, I like to believe in my own delusional mind that they watched my YouTube videos, and that's what changed their mind, I'll at least acknowledge that that may not have been what happened, but they amended their complaint. They then filed for a preliminary injunction again. The Trump regime was like, well, they already lost the preliminary injunction, so they can file it again. And the judge says, no, there's a change of circumstance. They're bringing new law to my attention, ultra-virus, E-L-U-T-R-A-Space-V-I-R-E-S-Latin, basically, you know, outside the scope of authority. And then the judge, the judge did it. Blocked the ballroom right there. Judge Leon, a, again, George W. Bush appointee, Republican appointee judge, let me just give you the highlights, and you'll tell me if this sounds familiar to you, intent my past hot takes. The president of

36:34the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of first families. He is not, however, the owner. Trump claims that Congress has given him authority and existing statutes to construct his East Wing ballroom project, and to do it with private funds. The plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States claims the president is no such authority under existing statutes, and that a preliminary injunction is necessary to avoid a reprable harm. I have concluded the National Trust is likely to succeed on the merits, because no statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to have, as such, I must therefore grant the National Trust's motion for a preliminary injunction, and the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion. Then the court gives the statutory background and says there are three main statutes under consideration. Might as touch viewers and listeners, does this sound familiar? Through USC Section 105D titled Assistance and Services for the Presidents,

37:34provides for the employment staff members to assist the president and authorizes appropriations for expenses related to the White House administration, but more relevant to this case. Section 105D provides there are, there are authorized to be appropriated each fiscal year to the president, such sums as maybe necessary for the care maintenance repair alteration, refurnishing improvement, air conditioning, heating and lighting, including electric power and fixtures of the executive residence at the White House. So if you want to go above what's been appropriated, guess what you got to do? You got to go back to Congress, and you can't go around it by saying there's going to be private donors who funded the thing, because if that was the case, then what's the point of Congress? Why don't you just create a Congress of billionaires who you can go around Congress and Congress no longer as the power of the purse, which is at the heart of Article 1. Also, it's the authorized wars, which they don't follow. But if you could just go around the Congress's main power, then what's the point of Article 1 at all? It's basically what

38:37the judge said. The judge then pointed out two other statutes, which I've talked about before, for the USC Section 8016 and 54 USC Section 10101. And then finally, what the court concludes is, so where does this all leave us? Unfortunately, for defendants, Trump, unless then until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop. But here's the good news, Donald. It's not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project. The president may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds. Indeed, Congress may even choose to appropriate funds for the ballroom or at least decide that some other funding scheme is acceptable. Either way, Congress will thereby retain its authority over the nation's property and its oversight over the government spending. The national trust interest in a constitutional and lawful process will be vindicated,

39:38and the American people will benefit from the branches of government exercising their constitutionally prescribed roles. Not a bad outcome, that exclamation point. Right, then Donald Trump just flipped out. Donald Trump's like, ah, can you believe this radical extremist groups? Wow, wow, wow, wow, what's his other post? Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergman, I are working on fixing the absolutely filthy, reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. This work was supposed to be done by the Biden administration, but sleepy Joe doesn't know what clean or proper maintenance is. The president and secretary do. I mean, Donald Trump's country clubs, cult clubs, whatever the hell you want to call them. You know how frequently they've like, like the Trump properties, like they're frequently cited for health code violations, all of the times, they're dirty, they're outdated. Despite Donald Trump taking in, you know, millions of dollars from each member, you know, he serves them what always looks like the crap.

40:42It always looks like when he serves them food, it's like, it's like a little tiny piece of steak that's like not even cooked, and it's like, well, this is what your million dollar membership gets you. I mean, I guess, I guess it's about access to him, and I guess it's about the grip right there. And by the way, I can connect that grip and access, though, to some major issues that are happening in this catastrophic and unlawful war, you know, in Iran, you know, one of the things that's being reported right now is that you've got nations like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and others in the region, you know, who are basically telling Donald, you better not leave us here with Iran still controlling the straight of horn moves. Like, you realize we gave you a lot of stuff like, you know, Qatar gave him the jet. Saudi Arabia, all of the Trump properties, he or they're investing in Kushner, UAE giving hundreds of millions of dollars. If not more to world liberty financial, Donald Trump's like crypto thing, you know,

41:49quid pro quo pay for play, we pay, you're supposed to play, but what they found out today, what they should have known though, yesterday, and a long time ago is, look what Donald Trump's done his whole life, he's a lifelong loser. He's bankrupted this casino, that casino, this casino, he has a loser pathology, and he is also like the gambler who doesn't leave the table until everything is lost. And then he would have daddy to bail him out, he would sue everybody and sue the banks and sue people, and he wouldn't give a crap if he destroyed his lenders or harm construction workers or other contractors. As long as he made off fine, he would move to the next grip, like a virus jumping from one vessel to the next, infecting, infecting, infecting. That's his whole life was a loser. Like, you realize that, right? He never actually like one things or did

42:52things good. Like, he bankrupted that casino in that casino, and he was like, daddy, I need your help, daddy. And then he would still bankrupt it anyway, right? If there was a Guinness Book of World Records on being a loser, he'd actually be pretty much at the top. I understand what things happened. He bankrupted something once. I get it, stuff happens. Maybe you bankrupted something twice, okay? He's a little bit of stick to it and this is, but everything that he's broken over and over and over again, and you see why? I mean, you see the pathology, right? Like, like, it's sick, and I don't want to make excuses by getting into like, you know, for this purposes of here, being like, ah, he's actually ill. I mean, but like, it's, there is a, there is a malignant narcissistic sickness that he's only satisfied until everything is like destroyed and ripped apart. And you're one of his presidency tariffs against the world, betraying our allies, ripping apart the state department, ripping apart critical infrastructure

43:52here, firing all of the key, you know, generals and staffers and the big competent leaders, either forced to resign or fire, right? You all of that. And then, you know, he, you know, does this catastrophic invasion of Iran? And by all accounts, by all accounts, let's just say it ended today. Let's just say right now it ended. Do we realize that with the supply shock that's taken place on liquefied natural gas and Qatar energy, you know, which produces 20% of LNG globally, you know, 20% of that has been taken out for the next three to five years. Helium production, fertilizers, not to mention crude, not, you know, it's not like you can turn back on these factories right away and be like, hey, we're turning it back on, you know, helium's used for MRIs, right? fertilizers needed for our farmers, right? liquefied natural gas is critical

44:57and essential, right? For functions throughout the entire world, you know, of course, you know, the price of crude, we all feel the pain, price of gas right now over four dollars a gallon, the sharpest increase, you know, that there is. And we haven't gotten, you know, the February inflation numbers, the March inflation numbers, you already had catastrophic economic indicators before this disastrous war in Iran, inflation was already on the rise. What do you think it's going to be in the future? You know, and I always appreciate when people are like, when people are like, Ben, you predicted this or you predicted that or might as touch, you predicted this or that or in the case of the ballroom, you were wrong, you were wrong, but I was right. We got it right in the end. We predicted what was going to happen. But it's like, we just need to follow the facts, right? We need to just open up our eyes and see what's happening. When Donald Trump says, I decimated Iran, it is utterly obliterated. Okay, well, that's the statement. Let's challenge

46:00the statement by looking at the facts that doesn't mean I'm not patriotic by looking at what's happening in Iran and saying, actually, the parliament's functioning, the foreign minister, their press secretary gave a speech yesterday saying no negotiations. There are millions of people out throughout Iran right now protesting what they're referring to as the Epstein class. We have all of these statements from Iran saying what their non-negotiables are. Again, I see that the straight of her moves is still controlled by Iran. I don't see anything that's actually materially changed. Donald Trump keeps on lying. I mean, what, there was an Iranian account, social media account that was like, Donald Trump has declared victory 17 times. He said we won 18 times. He's danced 11 times. And nothing has changed. And that's actually accurate. There is no. If anything's changed, things have gotten worse. And that's not me being doom and gloom. It's opening up my eyes and saying, here's what's actually happening. It's just telling the truth. All right, one quick ad break right now. And then we're going to finish strong on this episode. I got one more

47:04quick ad break. Have you all subscribed to Scott McFarland's YouTube channel? If not, subscribe to Scott McFarland's YouTube channel. Now let's get that channel 200,000 subscribers. All right. We'll be right back. Last quick break up the show. We're right back. If you're like me, instead of learning to skateboard, you wish you were learning to write code. Instead of scraping through college, you wish you bought Bitcoin at less than a cent or secured a few Navidia shares before they boomed. We might be the FOMO generation, but don't miss out on protecting your future. For around the same price per month as one of your streaming services, you can break our generational cycle and secure your and your family's future by finding life insurance at selectquote.com. If you're new to life insurance, you're not alone. Thankfully, I found select quote. For over 40 years, select quotas help more than two million Americans understand their options and get the coverage they need over $700 billion in coverage and counting. As a broker, their mission is simple to find you the right insurance policy at the best price. Select quote takes the guesswork out of finding the right life insurance policy.

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49:08and save more than 50% at selectquote.com slash Midas. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash Midas today to get started. That's select quote.com slash Midas. This episode of the Midas Dutch podcast is brought to you by Graza, makers of crazy fresh olive oil and other delicious stuff made with crazy fresh olive oil. Graza's got everything you need to roast, toast, grill, and garnish with flair and flavor, upgrade all your favorite recipes and maybe even try something new. I've been obsessed with Graza since way before they were even a sponsor. There's extra virgin olive oil for cooking and dressing, frizzle, high heat cooking oil for grilling and frying, and brand new olive oil mayo for dipping and spreading. It's top shelf stuff for everyday enjoyment. Graza makes my olive oil of choice. It's top notch olive oil at an affordable everyday price. Their olive oil is always fresh, never blended and made from the world's best olives and you could actually see the harvest date on every bottle. They've got sizzle for everyday cooking, sauteing, marinating, roasting,

50:12drizzle for finishing like dressing salads or dipping bread, and frizzle for high heat cooking like baking, grilling, and frying. And if you're a foodie like me, you could really taste the freshness. It's everyday olive oil but done way better and you can literally see where and when it was harvested right on the bottle. Plus, new in stores only, Graza mayo and Dioli, original, fancy, and garlic. So head to Graza.co and use Midas to get 10% off your first order of olive oil and be sure to look for Graza mayo the next time you're at your local grocery store. That's Graza.co and use code Midas to get 10% off your first order of olive oil, M-E-I-D-A-S. Welcome back. Ben on breaking news. I'm Ben. This is breaking news. Breaking some news. Trying to make a lot of stuff. Shout out to my brothers for those great ad reads and I know sometimes it may be like Ben, lots of ads. You know, they're good ads though, right? I mean, they're good products and they're good discount codes and you get to see my brothers

51:16and they help support the show. So that's like a trifecta. That's like a trifecta. A reminder as well, scheduling note for everybody. A good one. We got the Katie Fang show coming up right after. So after this show ends, we'll bring you right into see Katie Fang. Wasn't her last week show incredible. Every Tuesday, Katie Fang goes live now on her YouTube channel between Scott McFarlane, Katie Fang, legal AF, Aaron Parnas, Adam Mochler, Tennessee Brando, so many great channels here on the Midest Touch. Now we keep on building. We keep on growing it. Shout out Katie Fang and her show begins right when this show ends. We'll send you. It goes, we'll send you right into Katie Fang. Over the break, we heard from Iran's foreign minister, Aragji, and he said the following regarding

52:19potential peace talks with the US, quote, we do not have any faith that negotiations with the US will yield any results. The trust level is at zero. That's the latest public statement from Iran's foreign minister. And I believe that there are messages being exchanged. The US wants out. The US wants realizes that in a war of attrition, Iran can see this thing through and cause a lot of economic pain. There was a Wall Street Journal report last night. I talked about that Donald Trump said, yeah, I'm willing to conclude, willing to conclude operations by what they say called operations. It's a war. It's an unlawful war. I'm willing to conclude even if the straight of Hormuz is still controlled by Iran, we'll deal with that later. But we're willing, we're willing to leave right now. Iran's point though is is like, we can't agree to a ceasefire

53:25with you. We don't trust you. So the moment we stop striking the Arab nations without security guarantees, we pause. You're just going to do that to build up your munitions. Like, you know, one of the problems where you stereotype people and you don't actually observe their behavior, you make very big mistakes just based on judging cultures by not actually recognizing that regardless of the fact that the Islamic Republic and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, they are repressive regimes. They've done terrible things in the past so stipulated. Tehran University, the university system there, the Iranian people are very proud people of their thousands of years of culture, of Iran, the country, even if there are disagreements or even though

54:35there's repression from the regime, the people feel cultural pride. It's a very sophisticated, tech savvy population. It's why when Russia needed equipment because it was getting decimated by Ukraine, Russia went to Iran and built out that alliance as well. And the technical engineering, the hacking capabilities, cyber hacking by Iran. And when our media or Trump or whoever or magas want to portray the Islamic Iran generally has like, there are a bunch of lunatics and maniacs. You almost get this very racist portrayal that in Iran, they're like in caves and screaming Allah Akbar all day and it's like, you know, that's the image that they try to give and that's not what's actually happening. It's a sophisticated society. They have this mosaic style

55:42leadership structure that's very complex. Each leadership position has five to seven successors who are already in line. It's very systematized what they're doing while Donald Trump is out there. And frankly, while Pete Hegseth, you know, was out there this morning saying in the name of Jesus Christ, that talk about religious extremism. It's what I saw during that ridiculous Hegseth press conference this morning. And even the Pope, Pope Leo the 14th has said, stop talking about Jesus or God when you, when you launch wars like this, your, your invocation of God and Jesus is hereby denied is basically what Pope Leo the 14 said. But, you know, Donald Trump's like winging it, right? We've, we've pushed out lots of our top generals and admirals and military infrastructure, the people who are there who are smart are being overruled by Hegseth and Trump. Although they're trying, you know, we still have some really top not military leadership, the guy who runs set

56:45in comms is a real serious guy. But it's hard to operate when you're at the whim of Donald Trump, when he lets, when he rewards Russia by removing sanctions when Russia's providing the weapons and logistics to Iran to strike the American military bases. How do you think our AWACS, the century, those big reconnaissance airplanes and the KC-135s were destroyed with precision? Who do you think is giving Iran this help? Russia, possibly China, likely, definitely Russia, Russia and Iran are saying it and then we have the Russian Duma members chilling at the Capitol building, partying it up with Maggar Republican Congress members in our state department. I mean, you've got the Trump regime trying to cozy up to the far right wing AFD party in Germany, the Putin puppet party over there, while they're like, we want America out of Germany. Like, unless the goal here is how do we prop up China and Russia and weaken the US forever,

57:47then you can go, okay, got it, there's a clear plan here, right? Because that's the only thing that makes sense. But otherwise, everything that's being done by Trump is like winging it. I'm going to tweak this. I'm going to post this. I'm going to tweak this. I'm going to post that. We can have lots of very valid criticisms, critiques, hatreds for the Islamic Republic. You name it. All true. All fine. But let's not act like the Trump control. These are just a bunch of lunatic crazy people who want to die right away. There's universities, there are gyms, there are children, there's people, there are dentists, there are doctors, there are lawyers, there are parliament, there are engineers. It's a 90 million person society that actually has, you know, sophisticated institutions and they are planning things out and they are playing chess with it at a high level. And whereas we should be, if you're

58:51getting involved in this, we shouldn't be involved in this at all. Let me be clear. But like, even our propaganda is horrible. Like even the way they're doing it. And again, I think that these crimes against humanity are horrible. So I'm not trying to make light on it. But it's like when you're out there, Trump saying this that and the other, all you're doing is projecting weakness. Number one, not strength because Iran knows what's being said or not being said. Sometimes Trump is giving away actual classified information, in my opinion, when he's spewing things out, then he shouldn't be spewing out. And he's also handing over propaganda moments to Iran. So the Islamic Republic, go to its people and go see. This is what we told you about the Americans. This is how they behave. They say they're loitering over the skies to kill you. They're saying they want to decimate Iran, not the regime, all of Iran. They're coming to kill you. Look at Donald Trump's post. He says he's going after electrical grids, desalination facilities. Look what he's

59:54doing. He's saying he's doing it everybody. He's saying he's doing it. And he is saying he's doing it, right? I mean, you have, you know, you have Donald Trump social media posting war crimes. And then social media posting whining that he's going to leave the straight of her moves and leave it up to other countries to fix. And he goes, we don't need that oil. Yes, you do because you're an idiot. And the way oil markets work is that oil markets and shock to oil supply impacts American oil, American made oil. Do you think that I want to know the difference between WTI oil and Brent crude? Did you think I ever had to think about that in the past? No, I never had to think about a lot of these things. Do you think that in the past, I really dumbed deep to learn about the importance of two year treasury note yields compared to 10 year treasury note yields and the 20 year and the 30 year and why if it goes above 4% and 5%

1:00:56the level, I mean, I'm sure I could have, I'm sure maybe in college I learned about it, maybe in the law school class here or there, I learned a little bit about it. But I wasn't that I was naive in the past. It was that we had functioning people who did the jobs that they were supposed to do. And I could spend more of my time wondering how Duke lost before getting into the final four and why you can't pull that off. I could spend more of my bandwidth focusing on what going out and watching movies with my family and thinking about other things, right? Because there were competent people doing their jobs and I didn't have to think, whoa, whoa, maybe I need to actually learn to be a pilot because this plane is being flown into the ground. And that's what I think a lot of us feel. And I think there's some positive aspects of it, whether it's with no King's protest, whether it's with the polling data, as Trump, what the latest Amherst UMass, you gov poll has them at 33%. You know, as there seems to be karmic justice, right? I mean, you have

1:01:58Christina whom tortured so many people who otherwise, so many people who mock so many people who destroyed people's private lives, right? We learn that her husband is into bimboification and loves wearing triple E breasts and cross dressing and dressing that way. And I'm not saying this to mock him at all. If you watched my earlier segment, the reason that I brought this up was actually to say, what you do in private, if you're into bimbofication and behind the scenes, you're not hurting people. If you're safe, what you do is consensual. I will not judge your King. I will not shame it. Do you privately do it consensually? Do it safely? What you do in your privacy? That ain't my business. And it sure as hell ain't the government's business. And let's be clear about that. So anybody reporting on this, I think from the perspective of shaming the idea of being like this, I want to be very clear. I'm not supportive of that at any way. But what I am supportive over is pointing out the hypocrisy of people like Kristi Nome, who judge, who wag fingers,

1:03:03who attack the gay community, who attack transgender people, who bully and demean, and behind closed doors, this is what they do. This is their behavior. And they're the ones who want to attack us. Not okay with that at all. None of us should be okay with it. You don't have to be a, oh, I'm a libertarian. I mean, this just government. Stay the hell off. Remember, you know, those don't tread on me flags, right? These MAGA Republicans turned out to be the biggest, I don't know, this is an appropriate word or not cucks, right? And it's like tread on me, tread all over me. I want to be tread it on. Tread, tread, tread. And it's like, what the hell are you doing? You want them to mass that you want these people to tread on you? What the hell are you talking about? What are you doing? What are you doing? I mean, it's the ultimate tread, right? You know, and so there's so much going on. It's such an honor to be able to keep this to do this show. Jeremy, do we have the automatic transfer into Katie Fang show? I just want to make sure that people here don't have to do anything. Do we have the the transfer set up so people go here? Yeah, I want them to ask. So

1:04:07you could just go to Katie Fang show, but I know there's like a feature where we send you we, we we transport you to Katie Fang show. They're going to double check that. In the meantime, throw some blue hearts if you subscribe to both Scott McFarland and Katie Fang's channel. If you subscribe to Scott and Katie's channels, their own channels throughout those blue hearts right now confirming that you're subscribed. All right, the slingshot is good to go. Subscribe here to our YouTube channel. Help us get to seven million subscribers. You're about to be slingshot over to Katie Fang show. And if for whatever reason, you're not slingshotted, then just go look at Katie Fang on YouTube and then get there on your own. All right, prepare to be slingshotted in three, two, one at Katie Fang news. You are here by I hear by Dean you slingshotted. This has been on breaking news. Thank you everybody for watching and have a good one.

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