The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Just Secretly Retreated…

Episode Date: October 4, 2026

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the USS George H.W. Bush’s departure from the blockade near Iran, the reduction in U.S. military assets, and how those moves contrast with the Trump administration’s public claims as mismanagement cripples the already catastrophic war. Pre-order the new book from MeidasTouch, WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy, today: https://bit.ly/wtfamericayoutube Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af Sidebar with Katie Phang: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sidebar-with-katie-phang/id1886801652 The Parnas Perspective: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-parnas-perspective/id1869165949 The Intersection with Michael Popok: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intersection-with-michael-popok/id1818863274 MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Five Minute News: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/five-minute-news/id1471715443 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump and his regime appear to be in retreat mode in connection with the catastrophic war in Iran. One of the two aircraft carriers forming the so-called blockade in the Strait of Hormuz appears to be abandoning its position. That's right. The USS George H.W. Bush has left its position in the blockade alongside the USS George Washington. And the USS George H.W. Bush, this aircraft supercarrier, has a right. in Pouquet in Thailand. It has turned its tracking device, its AIS, on, and it appears it will be there for at least several days.

This leaves only one aircraft carrier now as part of this so-called U.S. impenetrable blockade in the Strait of Removes. That's the USS George Washington. Now, yesterday we were tracking the USS George H.W. Bush, as it was in the Indian Ocean, you had Pete Hegsith denying this yesterday, and I said, hey, I can see in the satellite footage where it's located. It's a very big ship. You can literally locate it, and it appeared to be headed towards Pouquet and Thailand. We can see that it has docked there. We believe our service members, our sailors and Marines are heading into Thailand. Now, we previously saw that with the USS

Abraham Lincoln, and it's unclear if the USS George H.W. Bush will return. return to its mission in the Middle East or if it will return home thereafter. But it does appear that we will only have one aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. That would be the George Washington, at least through the midterms. And I think that's a big deal. Now, there are other signs as well that we do not have the same amount of resources as when there was other incidents of escalation. Let's take a look at what's going on here as well.

So in addition to this Bush Carrier Strike group that's now arrived in Thailand, we also see that Sencom has dropped below 100 aerial refueling tankers for the first time since March 2026. Overall, tanker numbers are down to about 165 from the peak of 232 during the war. The Fairford bomber fleet now rarely flies the train. training sorties into the Mediterranean, opting for shorter runs in the UK North Atlantic airspace. The fast jets being rotated with mostly F6s being sent into Centcom. Electronic warfare attack aircraft numbers have been reduced for now down to about 7 EA 18Gs

on land, 1EA 37B, will, which lots of people, defense Greek and include. it expects to leave soon. And of course, here in the United States, Donald Trump said, well, after the midterms, that's when we're going to escalate. We're going to wait until the midterms. And of course, Donald Trump has been extorting, threatening European countries

to release 100 million barrels of diesel and gas from its strategic petroleum reserve, 50 million of diesel, 50 million of crude to try to manipulate gas and diesel prices before the election, although one of the things that we've seen is it dropped 3% on the news of 100 million barrels being released with a heavy front load of those 100 million barrels. And then the price of crude went up and the price of diesel continues to be bidding at a higher amount. same thing with gas so this has not actually had the impact that the trump regime was planning and i said it this way in another video as well

let's just assume Arguendo for the sake of argument that all the oil's getting out of the Strait of Hermuz, which it's not. But just assume more oil is getting out right now than when before the war started. Now, one of the things we're learning is that these VLCCs, these very large ships that have decrewed on them, they're charging somewhere in the range of a million three, a million five. Each time it takes a trip, it's about 47. times what it costs before the catastrophic war started. And so you're already adding about $33 to $34 a barrel on the shipping costs to get through the Strait of Hormuz.

So even if you said same amount of oil is getting out, which it's not, it's far less. It's fractions of what was getting out before. The cost to get out is so much higher because Iran continues to strike ships in the Strait of Hormuz that that cost is spread throughout the production chain, the refining chain, and ultimately passed on to the consumer or the business or the end user of the fuel or the end recipient of the fuel, be it diesel or be it gas. Speaking of which, Iran struck another tanker in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. We can see on the satellite imagery, it appears to have been a major tanker.

We saw the smoke and we can see what's going on over there. Now, yesterday Pete Hegesith was saying in response to a question, will the USS Roosevelt, which is coming from San Diego, is that going to replace one of the two carriers that's part of your so-called impenetrable blockade? Watch what Hegset says here play this clip. It's a fair question, but I'll never answer it. I'd say maximizing the decision space for the commander-in-chief at any point is my job, while also recognizing the way we balance global demands as a force with global responsibility.

So the president's going to have options. Let's put it that way. And I'll leave it there. Interesting. When Higgs had said that, we knew at the Midas Touch network that and lots of other people knew if you looked at the satellite footage that the USS George HW. was heading to Thailand and that there would only be one aircraft carrier, which is really the first time that that has existed really since, what, February 28th, where there was only one U.S.

aircraft carrier in that area of operations. So the USS Theodore Roosevelt is leaving from San Diego, and it's also arriving with another amphibious assault group that will be supporting or be accompanying the carrier strike group. So amphibious assault group, carrier strike, group they're heading and they're and they'll arrive mid-November so i think if we're thinking realistically like when is this catastrophic escalation when could it take place iran knows the stuff that i'm saying you know if i have access to it trust me they've got access to this data that would seem to indicate mid-november for any type of catastrophic escalation by the trump regime but you see Iran knows that. Iran knows the vulnerabilities and that Donald Trump and Hegsef and

Cooper, the admiral who leads sent comp incompetent. The plan, the catastrophic plan, should never have been happening in the first place. Like we should never have been in this catastrophic war with Iran, which was to cover up Donald Trump's cover up of child sex trafficking rings with the Epstein files and Trump and Netanyahu engaging in these war crimes. crimes absolutely heinous. We need to hold war criminals accountable. I want to see Trump, Heg-Syth Cooper, anybody who's been involved in slaughtering little children in Manab, Lamar, anybody who's been involved, Netanyahu, I want to make sure that they get sent to the Hague, that they're a war crime tribunals, and any person running for president and the Democrat needs

to call for that. In addition, the way this has been handled is completely incompetent, right? the Trump regime ran out of interceptors, ran out of weapons, ran through a trillion dollars. And if you add the prior years of military budgets, trillions of dollars as part of military budgets, ran through them and we ran out of weapons. Iran realizes that too. Donald Trump and the regime, the Trump regime, it's always projection. We know that, right? So when the Trump regime says Iran doesn't have missiles, Iran, Trump's referring to the United States. And Iran has massive amounts of ballistic missiles, massive amounts of shaheed drones, and upgraded shahed drones that have that jet fuel powered Shaheeds like the Garen Fores and the Garen Fives that we're seeing Russia use against Ukraine right now. But the Trump regime now doesn't even have like an aircraft carrier there.

It's got one aircraft carrier right now in the Arabian Sea. It's lost an aircraft carrier. And so Iran sees weakness as well. And Iran's strategy is this is why we've seen them strike anywhere from eight to as many as 20 tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. I think the numbers probably closer to eight to ten tankers have been hit in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran. But UK.MTO, that was the group that. used to report all of these things. And they did a decent job, an accurate job early on in the war. And they always did a decent job before the war started. They're almost worthless now. They're an

arm of the Trump regime. They're an arm of Trump's manipulation at this point. So their data is not accurate. The reporting is voluntary. And so the same way the Saudi defense minister doesn't report the strikes taking place in Riyadh, in Yambu, in Abkhak, in Jazeen, in these areas. Same, UKMTO, all these Arab nations in the Middle East. They just pretend that none of this is happening. And that's why here at the Midas Touch Network, we're breaking down for you piece by piece what's actually happening here and where we're seeing the troop formations. Where's this aircraft carrigo?

When's the Theodore Roosevelt arrived? And I think this is important data that we know about and we talk about more from Hegsseth right here on Iran where Hegson says, we can hold this blockade as long as we have to here play this clip. That alongside the blockade and they run out of options, which means the longer we hold the blockade and we can hold it as long as we need to. Trust me. We can adapt that as necessary, which I know is bad news for Iran and limits their options. So they will never have a nuclear weapon and we'll decide. Okay, well, we only have one aircraft carrier now that's there, right?

We only have the USS George Washington. Iran realizes that, and they realize that Hegzeth has no clue what the hell he is doing right now as well. And that's pretty obvious. But what Hegsitt says is more oil is going through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war. Here's what Hegson says. Let's play it. By the way, more oil is going through the Strait of Hormuz today than before the conflict even started because incredible pilots, pilots control the airspace?

Okay, entirely false, maybe 20%, 30% of what existed before the catastrophe, in my opinion, getting out before now versus before the catastrophic war. In any event, as I said, even if you assume the same amount as getting out, it's far more expensive to pay a VLCC or another type of tanker to carry the crude and get it out of the Strait of Hormuz, because let's just assume Iran has one out of every 20 ships. I think it's more than that, gets struck and destroyed. Well, that's a risk premium that has to get priced into the cost of shipping, which adds 33, based on my estimates and other experts I've been reading. About $33 a barrel potentially is being added to the cost of a barrel of a barrel of oil based on the,

the costs attendant to the transport of it. But you have Treasury Secretary Bessent on Axios bragging for the first time in history since they started pumping oil. Iran will have no oil this week. They will be totally begging here, play this clip. The isolating them economically like this never happened before. You know, right now, the score turns of barrels out of the straight. U.S., about 1.1 billion Iran's zero.

For the first time in history, since they started pumping oil, they will have no oil on the water this week. They will have no revenues. And so that leaves us kind of with the propaganda machine because this is really what the Trump regime and the Netanyahu regime have, propaganda and one of, and kind of the psych, the sciops, the psychological operation. So what they tried to spread yesterday is this rumor that foreign minister Araghi of Iran was begging the Trump regime for asylum when he was here for the United Nations. But Donald Trump denied Aragqi asylum. And then the Iranian regime found out that foreign minister Aragi wanted asylum. So they killed Aragi's family. It's this whole cosplay fiction.

None of this happened. Foreign Minister Araghi is one of the most well-respected. You can say what you want about Iran, this, that, and the other. The fact is, foreign minister Arachi's treatise on international diplomacy is something that's read by foreign ministers across the world. It's actually a book on deal-making. It's one of the most well-respected foreign ministers that there is. And again, setting aside your views,

just known in terms of just the kind of different. diplomatic treatise that he wrote. He's not defecting. It's nowhere near. It's just a completely made-up story over there. That's being spread. And then there was like contradictory stories. They're like, and then Marco Rubio demanded foreign minister Arrogchi,

get the hell out of here and kicked Arrogchi out of New York. So part of the story is he begged for asylum. And then part of the story is Rubio kicked him out. It makes no sense. It's all false. It is part of this sciop that's being launched consistently by the Trump regime and people kind of in the proximity of the Trump regime. And then I'll just leave us with this right here, which is the latest reporting on the alleged co-pilot who attacked the pilot on the fly Dubai, Al-Hamami 29 years old, the son of an Omani father and a Syrian mother. He was apparently banned from flying in Oman because of his extremist views.

The latest reporting from this is that he used the emergency axe and then use this emergency axe in the cockpit to try to kill the pilot. And then I've gone over all of the things that I have a lot of questions about in other videos. I don't need to repeat all of that here. I'll just give us the latest update. Israel received the passenger and crew list. for fly Dubai 48 hours in advance, including the Omani citizenship of the co-pilot who allegedly tried to crash the plane. Security sources said the Transportation Ministry's security division and Mossad were supposed to review foreign flight crews and flagged potential threats. The tax authority

confirmed the list was received, but the Transportation Ministry would not say whether it examined it. A 2023 law created a system for passenger and crew data to be shared. with police, Shinbet and Mossad. And also, there was a law in Israel that they don't allow Omani pilots to fly into Tel Aviv from Dubai. And especially this pilot, who was banned in Oman from flying planes, how did he get the job in the UAE? And how was he allowed to fly into Tel Aviv? And how was this not flagged by Mossad? And why did the plane, after it allegedly nosedive 17, hundred feet. Why did the interior not have any oxygen masks drop? Why did the plane by and large look pretty intact? There's so many questions to be asked. How was it a guy who was not a pilot and who was

a plumber? He pulled the control yoke up as it was no diving, 17,500. It's a lot of questions. But the point is, as the Trump regime is in retreat mode and is moving the aircraft carrier, They really ramp up these sciops right in here. And I think it's incumbent upon us to call them out and talk about it. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Appreciate you.

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