A (20:44)
Ben, you know, there's an expression for tennis players that you don't want to be in dead man's land or no man's land, which is kind of right in the middle, right between the net and the back area of the court. Because once you're in the middle, you kind of have to commit to one way or the other other, right? Am I going to go to net? Am I going to stay back? And Donald Trump is in kind of no man's land or no person's land in the war. He's not committing ground troops and doing a ground invasion, which our military leaders say that they believe that they can take Cargill and they can take control of Iran. But it will cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of service member deaths. And it will be bloody. And it will be one of the, I think, think biggest death situations, I think, in the history, perhaps even bigger than World War II of our soldiers ever. I think worse than Vietnam. But our military says, if that's what you want to do, here's how we do it, here's the plan. And the top generals and admirals that here's how you do it. Let me be very clear. In my view, I think this whole war is unlawful, is unjust, is catastrophic, that we were pulled into it by Netanyahu. I just want to give you, give you my opinion. So I'm not endorsing that plan. I'm just telling you what the military generals have said. We can do it. It's going to cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. We'll have to see. I mean, to me, I don't think we could do it. Even if the generals claim, I think it'll look like what's happening with Russia and Ukraine where there's been, you know, potentially millions of deaths of Russian soldiers, you know, in that catastrophic unlawful invasion of Ukraine. But, but they're saying that's a path. The other path is Donald Trump negotiates with Iran, but then you have to concede defeat or concede a loss because Iran's not moving away from its framework. So you're gonna have to agree that Iran can enrich uranium at some point. You can't say we're gonna take everything. We take the Strait of Hormuz, you can support Hezbollah and the Houthis and the Shiite militia groups in Iraq and you have to destroy your ballistic missiles, missiles and we're gonna excavate and get all the nuclear dust and we get to choose the regime. You can't try to do in a negotiation that which you cannot accomplish on the battlefield. And you know, I don't know, maybe cuz Donald Trump's so used to dealing with sycophants and a media that bends the knee and so many weak corporations that Trump's used to like thinking that he's so smart and that he tricks people. He's not tricking. You know, even the people here domestically, they just believe it's in their self interest to sell out people and to be, in my view, trait to this country and democracy for short term profit, over the long term stability, frankly of their companies and interest in this country in order to be Trump's sycophants like Iran realizes what he's doing. So Trump's in no man's land. In other words, he thinks that he's gonna social media post his way out of it and that he can just do extensions. Two weeks ceasefire. Two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks. 2 weeks. Maybe everybody forgets about it, like the healthcare plan and everyone's like a miracle, nobody's gonna talk about it. And then maybe a new crisis develops or maybe Donald Trump just keeps on delaying it and then he gets bailed out by Gulf countries who try to reach a solution or he gets bailed out because Europe is in a jet fuel crisis or Asia is running very low on fuel. So China maybe figure it out and then Donald Trump swoops in and goes, I figured it out, I solved it. When other countries come in and now try to figure it out. But Trump just keeps 2 weeks, 2 weeks, 2 weeks, 2weeks. I mean, in terms of bankruptcies, if we think about Trump bankrupting his casino, this would be a bankruptc terms of the US security umbrella in the Middle east. It's bankrupt to the extent there was a version of a chapter 7 or chapter 11, we've experienced it in the Middle East. Nobody trusts the United States security guarantees anywhere in the world at this point. Yes, Other countries recognize that still America makes some of the most powerful weapons and the American military industrial complex is the strongest. That they're is for certain types of weapons, not the nimble weapons necessarily, the drones, the unmanned vessels and some of the weapons that work today. But there's a lot of very powerful weapons. The US has the F35s and the 15s and the, and the, and certain types of drones and other types of equipment and the himars and things like that. But overall, the security umbrella broken. I mean there was a big conference that was held in Turkey over this past weekend. Lots of Gulf countries were there and the constant theme was, and they were delicate in how they said it, but it was basically like, yeah, why do we have American military bases in our country? What was the point of giving Donald Trump all of the. Didn't say it as direct as this, but if you read between the lines of their diplomatic language, what did we get in return? Why did he not even let us know about the war was even going to start? Him and Netanyahu just went alone. We didn't even get a heads up up. And they weren't able to protect us when we needed them. And so this is what Trump wants to do and he thinks he can do, which he can't with Iran, is be in no man's land. Right? Well, he'll do his threats and his social media posts and you know, he'll all caps, I'm going to obliterate you. That doesn't make Iran scared. And then what Donald Trump does, because he wants to act a little tough, but it actually makes him look very weak. And Iran's mocking it is he puts on this blockade right around the Persian Gulf. So Trump's view of opening the Strait of Hormuz is further blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Because Donald Trump doesn't want to commit to a ground invasion. Cuz he's scared to do it and he shouldn't do it. Let me Be very clear. I'm glad that he's scared to do it because it's unlawful, but I'm not glad that we got in this unlawful catastrophic war to begin with. But this blockade makes him feel tough, but at the end of the day, it makes him look really weak internationally. And what Iran's saying is the most powerful navy in the world, the United States, they went from saying he's going to do minesweepers and he's going to control the Strait of Hormuz, to basically now the US Navy is acting like pirates going after cargo ships. It's like we're trying to get our ships to go to China to deliver food. And the American Navy is bragging about interdicting. Out of maybe eight ships, it's able to interdict one of them. And then CENTCOM brags like, this is some major accomplishment that the most powerful navy in the history of the world is able to jump on an Iranian ship. And so Trump thinks that's a point of strength, it's a point of weakness. But more significantly, it is something that is anathema. It's something that prevents negotiations from taking place. Because how could you negotiate when Trump views that the blockade is going to put pressure on Iran to negotiate? And Iran says, we're only going to negotiate if you respect our sovereignty, if you respect our 10 point framework, if you respect our right to exist, if you respect us as a country and you demonstrate that that's how you can rebuild trust for us to be at the negotiating table. And now some of you may watch this go, why would we do that? Screw that. Why? You know, or whether you, you were the U.S. why would we respect. Okay, then don't do that. Then I guess do a ground and like, you have to choose which way you want to go, then do a ground invasion and lose tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of American soldier lives, try to take over Carg Island. It would be catastrophic. But you have to like, one of the reasons why leadership is so important and temperament and experience and successfully running things before is that you're entrusted to make very difficult decisions. And sometimes the decisions may have to mean withdrawal and you have to concede a defeat, or sometimes it means escalation. But this no man's land, this no person's land that Trump's doing, all that is very much reminiscent of It's Covid all over again. It's saying, like a miracle, it's all gonna go away. Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks,. And that's the plan. We're in a two week cycle. But what's happening behind the scenes is that we have this oil shock that is going to cause damage for years, perhaps decades right now because so much oil is not being shipped and is not even being, you know, drilled for at this point because there's nowhere to contain the oil anymore. Supply shocks across the board on other things, liquefied natural gas and fertilizer and all of these things are going to catch up and someone's going to have to fix it eventually. Right? And then what's Trump's? This is why we need to frame these issues appropriately. Because then what Trump does is, is blame the person who fixes it, right? He's the arsonist. Let's be clear. He's breaking everything. An adult is going to have to come in at some point to fix it. But what Trump's done his entire life, whether it's with COVID his bankrupt businesses, is that he then blames the fixer. He blames the person who tries to make things better. So that's why we have to, to finally have a news company like the Midas Touch Network that gives you the like, we've laid it out. This is what his plan is. And what you have to do is relentlessly call it out every day over and over again. Here's what's happening and that's why. So we'll take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to talk about Donald Trump firing a cabinet member, Lori Chavez Duriber. That's the third woman on the cabinet who has been terminated thus far. It's not a surprise to me that he gets rid of all of the women on his cabinet Cabinet when look, there's a lot of blame. They were all pretty bad. Let's be clear. Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Laurie Chavez Darim are horrible. But I could just as much make the case that RFK Jr. And Pete Hegseth and Howard Lutnick and others should have gone before them or at the same time. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, subscribe help us get to 7 million subscribers here. And in addition, subscribe to the Midas Touch on Audio as well. Wherever you get audio podcasts, help us get to help us grow that audio platform. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
