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All hell is breaking loose as Russia has entered Donald Trump's war against Iran in a big way. Russia ain't hiding the fact that it has been sending drones to Iran along with satellite imagery, targeting data and intelligence support that has been crippling to the United States. And Vladimir Putin is. And Lavrov and Ushakov and Dimitriov, the crew that keeps on meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, who keep getting more concessions out of the United States. They're out there bragging and boasting that the United States military bases throughout the Middle east have been obliterated. You want to use the word obliterated, Donald? New York Times is reporting how Iran just wrecked all of America's Gulf bases, Kuwait gutted with collapsed roofs and smashed radar. Seventeen US sites have been hit in the Middle east region, $800 million or more in damage in weeks. Our troops have basically abandoned all of the American military bases in the Middle East. May I repeat that? Our troops have abandoned basically all of the military bases in the Middle east and now they are working remotely from hotels, while Iran is utilizing a spy network to try to find which hotels US Troops are at to target those hotels. As Anthony Scaramucci writes, a forever basing empire is, is a $1 trillion liability. Time for a lean navy over the horizon posture before the next war bleeds us dry. The next war. Anthony, how about this right here? I mean, I'll throw up this B roll right here. You want to see how they are developing or have already developed the military of the future in China right here with these drone swarms. You see, unlike the United States that has continued to build these outdated THAAD and Patriot systems which we forced on and pushed on the Middle east allies and others, these drone swarms and the drone interceptors, because that's how wars are fought now in 2026, have been perfected by China. And China has been boasting and bragging throughout this entire week by showing these videos about just how successful their preparedness is for the battle of the future. Just take a look at this New York Times article, though, about how successful Russia has been at transferring this data to Iran to target these American bases, while Donald Trump continues to be a Putin bootlicker publicly. Now, the New York Times doesn't say, oh well, Russia gave these coordinates. Just put together the Financial Times story of about Russia just announcing that it's doing this and the New York Times story. And it's obvious what is taking place right here. Just take a look right here with the New York Times Article says many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable. Iran has bombed U.S. bases across the Middle east in retaliation for the U.S. israeli war, forcing many American troops to relocate to hotels and office spaces throughout the region, according to military personnel and American officials. By the way, this is leaking out because our commanders, our military leaders in the Middle east are trying to send messages back home for us to hear them. What a freaking disaster this war is. We hear you, we know the message you're trying to send. That's why we're making a video about it right here to educate the people how Donald Trump has thrown you all under the bus and now you're all in hiding in hotels. Should be a pretty big story, right? And all our, all, all our military bases are abandoned right now and our soldiers and troops are hiding in hotels. So now much of the land based military is in essence fighting the war while working remotely with the exception of fighter pilots and crews operating and maintaining war plans and conducting strikes. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has urged people to report these new locations as it hunts for the dispersed troops. U.S. military officials say that the threat is not stopping the Pentagon from carrying out the war against Iran, which is in its fourth week. Many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable with the ones in Kuwait, which is next door to Iran, suffering perhaps the most damage. Six U.S. service members were killed in a strike on Port Shoaba that destroyed an army tactical operations center. Iranian drones and missiles also targeted the Ali Al Salat air base, damaging aircraft structure and injuring personnel at Camp Buring, damaging maintenance and fuel facilities. In Qatar, Iran struck the Al Udid Air Base, the regional air headquarters of U.S. central Command, damaging an early warning radar system. In Bahrain, a one way Iranian attack drone struck communications equipment at the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Iranian missiles and drones damaged communications equipment and several refueling tanker. And folks this data, these strike targets, these resources are coming from Russia. By the way. You know who was saying it? The foreign minister of Iran, three weeks ago, Iraq. Chi. He was asked, remember I showed you the clip, who is helping you? China and Russia. You sure? Yes. What are they doing militarily, economically, politically? He said the guy said it out loud. I appreciate that the Financial Times is reporting about it now, but Deep said it three weeks ago. That's what I was talking about here. So according to the Financial Times, citing officials briefed on the matter Russia is sending these phased shipment of drones, medicine and food to Iran. The deliveries began early March. They're continuing to right now, as John M. Larry our explains. This is notable because earlier yesterday news broke that Israel struck a keynote for the Russo Iranian trade networks. The Bandar Anzali port on the Caspian Sea striking C2 hubs, warships and shipyard infrastructure addition. By the way, take a look at the map though, where the Caspian Sea is. You'll see it's like right there between Iran and Russia. So it's right. We've been focusing on the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Right. You go a little bit more west and that's where you have the Red Sea. But you go a little bit more north and you have the Caspian Sea right there. Right. And that's that sea essentially connecting Iran with Russia. So in the past 24 hours, we saw Israel strong striking ships in the Caspian Sea. Why? Because Russia has been giving Iran all of these weapons. I believe China has been as well. But I think there's a more reluctance to strike at China right now. So when I say the world is literally in a war right now, whether you choose to call that a world war or not, can we observe what is actually happening? I'll give you more data points on that as well. Well, additionally, to those who think that Russia sending drones back to Iran is foolish due to Iran being the original producer of the Shahi drones. Wrong. Russia has onshored production for much, for much of its shahid supply during the ongoing Russian Ukrainian war. And such measures have allowed them to produce and field shaheeds at a massive scale. So you know how like car companies, right? Like Japanese car companies, right. They have factories in the United States. There are Toyota plants and Honda, Hyundai plants. Right. There are shahi drone plants in Russia where they manufacture these. So when the US Is striking the shahi drone plants, say in Iran, they're being brought over through the Caspian Sea from Russia to Iran. And also Iran keeps a lot of its shaheeds underground in these structures that almost look like super malls, but they're underground. And that's where Iran keeps its ballistic missiles and Shahid drones. So it's just worth mentioning that as well. Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours, President Zelensky who courageously, heroically and against all odds, continues a strong counteroffensive against Russia keeping Ukraine safe. They've developed such incredible drone interceptor technology in Ukraine. Their own proprietary stuff. Drone interceptors use drones to intercept drones. They also have this like netting systems. It's really complex and complicated. And they have the intellectual know how to know how to work these radars against these shaheds and the ballistic missiles better than anyone else in the world. And one of the things that Zelinsky saying is, hello, we know this for a fact, that Russia sought to blackmail the United States by offering to stop sharing military intelligence with Iran if Washington cut off Ukraine from any of its intelligence. Zelensky says, I have reports from our intelligence services showing Russia is doing just that. But again, at every step of the way, Donald Trump, J.D. vance the whole Trump regime keeps rewarding Russia, right? You have the fact that Wyckoff and Kushner keep on meeting with Ushakov and Dmitriev. Donald Trump continues to blame Zelensky and not Putin for Putin's war against Ukraine. Right? You have Donald Trump and his despicable regime removing sanctions from Russian oil. Russia's been able to make billions and billions of dollars and revive its economy. That was teetering.
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D A s and then you have JD Vance being sent by Donald Trump to Hungary April 7th and 8th to try to prop up Viktor Orban in Hungary. The right wing authoritarian who is a Putin puppet put there to destroy the European Union. Now, if you look at the Hungary elections coming up pretty soon, those elections are set for April 12, right? JD Vance making the final pitch for Putin's guy in Hungary. Look at the polling right now where the ties of party, which is the pro democracy party, is beating the Fides party. The Fides is Orban's party. The Taiza party is the pro democracy, pro EU party, as Michael Weiss points out. So if Orban tries to steal this, and he almost certainly will, it'll be Euromated on steroids in an EU NATO country. Watch closely, America, because Taisa Party has widened its lead over Orban's fight des to 23 points among decided voters. So Orban and Putin are going to pull some stunt, the same thing that Donald Trump's going to try to do in the midterms here. Focus a lot on what's happening there. It has these international repercussions, but the broader point I want to make is our military bases in the Middle east have actually been obliterated with the help of Russia to Iran, and we're out there helping Russia. So when Donald Trump's like, russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, do we see the damage that Russia has inflicted? We've been eviscerated in the Middle east in terms of our military bases. You also have Russia mocking the social media posts that have been made by Donald Trump. So rt, which is Russia's propaganda, this is what they post. White House mistakenly posts nuke launching soon. What the F u c K are you tweeting? That's what Russian propaganda. They're mocking Trump because Trump's White House posted a cryptic video that makes like a ding. This is a real post on the Instagram and other social media channels like X, formerly Twitter of the White House. Play this clip. And here's this other strange video posted by the White House that Russia was calling out and saying, what the f is this here? Play this clip.
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So cool. It's launching soon, right?
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What are we doing? What the hell is going on with our country? I mean, seriously, what the hell is going on? Who are these people running our country? They're running it into the ground. Not sure if you knew about this, but yesterday the UN General assembly adopted a resolution on the enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. 123 countries voted in favor of to say that, yes, enslavement of Africans was one of the greatest crimes against humanity. But the U.S. israel and Argentina were the only countries that voted against it. US Israel And Argentina voted against the idea that enslavement of Africans was the gravest crime against humanity. Just, that's just a random thing that happened in the day yesterday as I've been talking about on other videos as well, the United States military base in Erbil, Iraq, also one of those bases that have been constantly under attack. Also the US Embassy's there constantly under attack. And so the US has been striking Shiite militia groups in Iraq. But these Shiite militia groups are closely linked to the government in Iraq and part of the Iraqi army. And so it's interesting because you have Islamic resistance groups with part of these militias who are attached to the Iraqi army because there's a very, there's this tapestry holding it all together with all of the sectarian violence in history in these countries. Any straw that breaks the camel's back can lead to all out war. All hell breaking loose, if you will. So now the Islamic resistance in Iraq is carrying out multiple operations against US bases over the past 24 hours using dozens of drones and posting these drone swarms attacking U.S. bases in the region after the United States killed seven Iraqi soldiers and wounding 13 at a military clinic in other areas where the U.S. and then the U.S. on a separate day killed 15PMF fighters, including their commander, Saad Al Balji. And Iraqi officials say that 80 security personnel have been killed and 150 have been wounded. Especially some of this was taking place during a ceasefire. So here you'll see this video right here. The Iraqi militias firing at the US Essentially war. There's a war in Iraq again right now. War in Iran, war in Iraq, war in the Caspian Sea. Putin's invaded Ukraine. I mean, there's war all over. War in Lebanon, right? Israel's essentially invaded Lebanon, destroyed all of southern Beirut, blew up all the suburbs, blew up hospitals there. They said they're targeting Hezbollah, but they're killing lots of innocent people there as well. I think it's important that we reflect again on just what's happening here internationally. You have this joint statement that was issued by ksa, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, condemning Iranian attacks and calling on the Iraqi government to stop militias attacking their countries. It's a direct message to the Iraqi government to take responsibility for the action of militias in Iraq. But Iraq has now authorized its militias to go and attack American bases. And now these other countries are basically saying Iraq control your militias. And Iraq saying, no, America hit them, they can hit back, they're allowed to strike back. And so now you have again, Iran Wouldn't it be Iran and Iraq against Saudi Arabia, uae? I mean, it's a mess. You see what's happening in the region. You see why it's important that we really specifically talk about these things that are happening. Not to mention the ground invasion planned on the Kharg island by the United States. We know how dangerous that's going to be. Lots of people are predicting there will be mass casualties, mass slaughter of U.S. troops. If we send this ground invasion on the Kharg island, it will be brutal and bloody and just overall horrible and, and I hope that doesn't happen. But it seems that we're moving closer and closer to that ground invasion. And meanwhile you take a look at, like, what's happening in France. So France is holding a video conference with its own army chiefs to see if France can create its own alliances right now to try to deal with the Strait of Hormuz on its own without the United States. Like, no one, like no one views the United States as being anywhere reliable anymore. I mean, and just think about the cruelty of the United States. Like, just stuff like this that's happening. US Ways making life saving HIV treatment conditional. In order to access Zambia's minerals, the Trump administration is negotiating a deal that ties funding for HIV treatment for over a million people in Zambia to access critical minerals linking survival to geopolitical leverage. Or what about to all of our friends in Australia? More than 500 service stations across Australia's two largest states have run out of gas or diesel as the Hormuz closure fuel crisis worse worsens. So what is it? Roughly 13% of stations in South Wales have run out of diesel, with diesel supplies being hit the hardest. Right. I mean, everywhere. The US Is causing pain and suffering everywhere. In Asia, Taiwan's about to run out of its own liquefied natural gas. We've removed the Thaad and Patriot systems from South Korea. We've taken troops out of Japan. I mean, it's been just the biggest betrayal of America to the world. The weakest America has ever been in its history. Right now, the world, I would say laughing at the U.S. but it's, it's actually horrified. Horrified at the U.S. horrified. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million. Thanks for watching. I know these are very detailed and there's a lot I pack into these videos, but it's important that we know what's going on. Okay, Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. Be sure to add the Midas touch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for new updates every every single day.
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Date: March 26, 2026
Hosts: Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas
In this urgent and highly charged episode, Ben Meiselas dives deep into the rapidly deteriorating status of the United States’ military presence in the Middle East, arguing that Donald Trump’s foreign policy—and ongoing connections to authoritarian powers—has led to the obliteration of US bases and unprecedented vulnerability for American troops. The episode blends breaking news analysis, international context, and the brothers' signature impassioned commentary, painting a stark picture of American decline and global conflict.
Major Theme:
Ben lays out a bleak situation: Russian-backed Iranian attacks have rendered numerous US military bases in the Middle East uninhabitable. American troops are abandoning these bases and are now relocated to hotels, attempting to continue operations remotely.
Insightful Analysis:
Ben strongly criticizes the lack of media coverage, emphasizing that “our troops have basically abandoned all of the American military bases in the Middle East. May I repeat that? Our troops have abandoned basically all of the military bases in the Middle east and now they are working remotely from hotels…” (01:55)
Memorable Quote:
“While Donald Trump continues to be a Putin bootlicker publicly…the United States military bases throughout the Middle east have been obliterated.” (01:20)
Data Points Shared:
Timestamps:
Detailed Reporting:
Ben links the precision of the attacks to sophisticated Russian support—drones, satellite imagery, phased shipments of targeting data—while crediting China’s advancements in drone swarm technology for shifting the nature of warfare in 2026.
Notable Quotes:
International Connections:
Discussion of pipeline routes (Caspian Sea) for arms deliveries and recent Israeli strikes on the Russo-Iranian trade network.
Timestamps:
US Political Dynamics:
Ben lambasts Donald Trump’s continued support for Putin, emphasizing the lifting of sanctions on Russian oil and intermittent criticism of Zelensky rather than Putin.
J.D. Vance & Hungary:
Trump’s surrogate JD Vance is being sent to help Orbán and the Fidesz party against the pro-EU, pro-democracy opposition. The implications for global democracy and a warning to watch for election interference.
Quote:
“JD Vance making the final pitch for Putin’s guy in Hungary…Orban and Putin are going to pull some stunt, the same thing that Donald Trump’s going to try to do in the midterms here.” (12:04)
Social Media Mockery:
RT (Russia Today) mocks the Trump White House’s cryptic ‘nuke launching’ social media video, highlighting global ridicule and dangerous messaging.
Timestamps:
Iraq and Regional Alliances:
US strikes on Shiite militias and intense fighting with Islamic resistance groups, many tied to the Iraqi army—murky lines as sectarianism erupts.
Quote:
“Now these other countries are basically saying Iraq, control your militias, and Iraq saying, no, America hit them, they can hit back…” (16:26)
Lebanon, Israel, and Wider Regional Conflict:
Israel’s campaign in Lebanon has devastated Beirut’s suburbs, with lingering questions on civilian suffering.
Humanitarian Leverage & Betrayal:
De-globalization of American Alliances:
France seeking new alliances, Taiwan’s pending gas crisis, and US military assets withdrawn from South Korea/Japan.
Pivotal Line:
“It’s been just the biggest betrayal of America to the world. The weakest America has ever been in its history. Right now, the world, I would say laughing at the U.S. but it’s, it’s actually horrified. Horrified at the U.S. horrified.” (19:08)
Timestamps:
This episode is a high-intensity critique of US foreign policy under Trump, interwoven with vivid reporting on the shifting military landscape, technological escalation (drones and remote warfare), and the unraveling of traditional American alliances. The brothers frame these crises within both a humanitarian and pro-democracy lens, forcibly arguing that the US is not just losing global ground, but actively enabling authoritarian regimes at the expense of both its own soldiers and international standing.
Tone: Alarmed, urgent, unapologetically pro-democracy, and infused with focused, outraged humor.
For Further Discussion and Updates: