Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 7/9/2026
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How did Trump’s airstrikes on Iran escalate tensions during the NATO summit?
welcome to ben on breaking news i'm ben mycelis and this is your breaking news the breaking news from last tuesday while we were live while the first day of the nato summit was taking place donald trump attacks iran escalation of the war ensues the memorandum of understanding which was already tenuous at best was ripped to shreds. Trump strikes Iran. Iran responds against U.S. air bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. The same thing happens on Wednesday. Trump pretty much waits until the markets close, launches the strikes. Iran responds. And here we are today on Thursday. What I've been consistently trying to warn about and discuss is This is the worst possible time for Donald Trump to be doing these war games.
And there's never a good time to be doing it. Let me be clear. His war on Iran is unlawful and catastrophic. Trump and genocidal maniac Netanyahu doing this together is abhorrent and unforgivable. Let's just start off with that. And so there's never a good time to escalate. Let me be very clear about the morality and ethics of it all. It's always very important to us at the Midas Touch Network. What I mean to also suggest is America is in a very dire economic situation right now, which you all know the global economy is. And these strategic reserves in the United States in an area called Cushing, Oklahoma, which pretty much holds those strategic reserves. Those reserves have been depleted, depleted significantly.
And there's basically 19 million barrels left from the estimated minimum operating levels, where very soon there will no longer be any safety buffer to protect the world from further losses out of the Strait of Hormuz. there is an effort to manipulate the crude market, which is different than the refinery market. That difference is called a crack split. To get more technical, it's called a 3-2-1 crack split. Because of the three barrels of crude, you have two that go to gasoline, one is diesel or jet fuel distillation as well, hence 3-2-1-3, and then a And that gap right now is about $65 per barrel, which is not just a historic high, but very, very, very, it exceeds all possible expectations. So the refinery market, to make this simple, is very different than the crude market.
That's a crack split, as it's called. And a big concern is that these strategic reserves are being depleted right now. And also what China is able to do, if it activates what it refers to sometimes as its teapot refineries, if it starts gobbling up also a lot of supply, then those strategic reserves that are sold in the US or out of the US, they go on the world market. And so one of the issues is that simply running out simply running out and it seems that donald trump is too emotional It's too unstable. That's an understatement. And there's a lot to criticize him for. He's an evil, horrible, despicable human being. He's a sexual predator, right? He was found liable separately in a criminal case for felonies.
He was found civilly liable for sexual assault, which E. Jean Carroll's finally getting her money now after Donald Trump continues to appeal. Even after losing in the Supreme Court, he files appeals after losing in the Supreme Court. But also set aside the fact that I just said all those things about him, which is hard to set aside. There's just also no thinking at an intelligence list. This isn't a Democrat-Republican thing. There's no real strategy taking place here because it should be obvious right now if bombing Iran was going to make them submit – They haven't submitted when you engaged in a bombing campaign that was 10 times what the bombing campaign looked like when the U.S. invaded Iraq under George W. Bush.
Iran's not submitting. They're not going to give up. You bombing them on their coastal cities, although the most recent bombings took place a little bit deeper inside Iran as well. One was at an airport. One was kind of in Bushir near a nuclear power plant, although the power plant itself wasn't hit. All you've done is unite Iranians around the regime more than they were before.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did Trump’s airstrikes on Iran escalate tensions during the NATO summit?
0:00–5:13
2
Why is Ben warning that now is the worst time for military escalation with Iran?
5:13–8:47
3
How are U.S. strategic oil reserves and crack spreads affected by the Iran conflict?
8:47–18:54
4
What evidence does Ben cite that media and political rhetoric are numbing public empathy?
18:54–1:11:30