Hi all, Ben here. It’s Wednesday. Let me catch you up on this morning.
Here are the top stories we’re tracking right now:
Israel has launched over 100 airstrikes on Lebanon in ten minutes, hitting Beirut, South Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley simultaneously — at least 300 killed from what we are hearing now, hundreds more wounded
Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz again in response to the Israeli strikes
An oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island was attacked; Iran retaliated by striking Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline and hitting Kuwait’s water desalination and power plants
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, the ceasefire mediator, says Lebanon was absolutely included in the deal; Trump now says it wasn’t
Trump is claiming a joint U.S.-Iran venture to charge tolls on Strait of Hormuz shipping. He seems to be the only person to know about this
Pete Hegseth held another unhinged press briefing this morning
JD Vance is in Hungary pushing pro-Putin talking points ahead of that country’s elections
The DOJ is trying to blodck Pam Bondi’s deposition before the House Oversight Committee on the Epstein files
At MeidasTouch, we don’t waste resources chasing access and pushing regime talking points. We invest in real reporting, holding power accountable, and building independent media that actually tells the truth. If you’re already a Meidas+ Substack member, thank you. If not, join us today and help fuel what we’re building.
Let’s get into it.
Yesterday, Donald Trump was bragging about a ceasefire with Iran that, as I told you at the time, was essentially a complete capitulation to every one of Iran’s ten demands. I said it clearly: Iran presented their ten-point framework, Trump agreed to it, and that was a humiliation for the United States dressed up as a victory lap.
Well, this morning, the whole thing is blowing up.
Israel launched over 100 airstrikes on Lebanon in the span of ten minutes. Beirut, South Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley… all hit simultaneously. The footage coming out of Lebanon right now is apocalyptic. We’re talking at least 300 people killed per reports, hundreds more wounded, hospitals overwhelmed. This is one of the largest coordinated IDF strikes against Lebanon to date. And in direct response, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz again.
The entire ceasefire framework that Trump agreed to, that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif mediated and announced, explicitly included Lebanon. Sharif said it. Iran said it. It was in the announcement. He posted it himself: an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere, effective immediately.
So what does Trump say this morning when reporter Liz Landers asks him about Lebanon still being bombed? He says Lebanon wasn’t included in the deal. Because of Hezbollah. That it’s “a separate skirmish.” Then he told her to talk faster and hung up on her.
Then he called Jonathan Karl at ABC and floated the idea of a joint U.S.-Iran venture to charge tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump called it “a beautiful thing.” Iran has not agreed to this and will never agree to this. They were publicly mocking the concept when Trump floated something similar at the beginning of all this. Trump went from calling Iran “crazy bastards” to wanting to be in business with them in about 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Sharif put out another statement this morning reaffirming that the ceasefire does include Lebanon, and confirmed that both delegations will sit down in Islamabad on Friday for further negotiations. So we have the ceasefire mediator saying one thing, and the guy who supposedly agreed to the ceasefire saying the complete opposite. This is not a diplomatic gray area. Someone is lying, and based on Trump’s track record across roughly five decades of documented fraud, I think we can take a pretty good guess at who it is. Sharif also explicitly warned that the ceasefire was actively being violated.
Trump’s social media feed was predictably unhinged this morning. He declared that Iran has undergone a “very productive regime change.” What actually happened is that the supreme leadership structure of the Islamic Republic remains intact, just with a somewhat younger and more hardline configuration.
He also posted that there will be no uranium enrichment and that the U.S. will work with Iran to remove all the nuclear material. Here’s the problem: the ten-point framework he agreed to yesterday explicitly allows Iran to continue enriching uranium. It’s right there in the document. The document he said he agreed to. Now he’s out here saying the opposite. This is what he does. He agrees to a deal, then immediately starts pretending the deal says something different, daring everyone to litigate it while the chaos continues. It’s essentially the same strategy he’s used when it comes to the court and in his businesses.
And then there’s the 15 points versus 10 points situation. The U.S. had a 15-point plan that amounted to Iran surrendering. Iran had a 10-point plan that amounted to the U.S. surrendering. Trump posted yesterday that he agreed to Iran’s framework. Now he’s posting about “15 points.” This is the same con he’s run in real estate for his entire career… Agree to a contract, then act like the contract says whatever’s convenient in the moment, and dare the other side to spend the next decade in litigation. Now, the stakes are much higher.
Even Mark Levin, Fox host, staunch Trump ally, one of the loudest voices pushing for this war, said the ten points are “an absolute disaster.” Many of Trump’s closes allies are appalled by this “deal.”
The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign policy correspondent, who is famously even-keeled in his reporting, posted this morning that Trump’s ceasefire appears to be entirely unilateral: the U.S. stopped bombing Iran, Iran is still bombing Gulf states, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to free navigation.
Over at the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth held a press conference that was, as has become standard, completely unmoored from reality. He claimed that nothing the administration has done has put a single American troop in greater danger, brushing of the 13 U.S. soldiers killed in the combat zone. He suggested the Iranian people should seize this moment of “opportunity.” He warned that if Iran moves its forces around, those forces just become easier targets. He said the U.S. will be “hanging around” to make sure Iran complies with the ceasefire, the ceasefire that is currently a ceasefire in name only while Lebanon burns.
While all of this is happening, JD is still in Hungary pushing pro-Putin talking points and backing Viktor Orbán ahead of upcoming Hungarian elections. He’s over there spreading claims about Zelensky that he says he “almost couldn’t believe.” This is the Vice President of the United States, doing the Kremlin’s electoral work in Europe while a ceasefire falls apart in the Middle East.
One more thing before I go. The DOJ announced this morning that Pam Bondi, who was fired as Attorney General, will not be appearing for her deposition before the House Oversight Committee on April 14th, claiming she was subpoenaed in her capacity as AG and no longer holds that role. Ranking Member Robert Garcia has made clear that the subpoena is to Pam Bondi the individual, not to her title, and that contempt charges are on the table if she doesn’t comply. This is the Epstein files cover-up, still ongoing, still being protected at every turn by this administration.
The ceasefire is falling apart, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, people are dying in Lebanon, and Trump is out here talking about toll roads with Iran and claiming credit for a regime change that didn’t happen.
Let me know what you all think in the comments. And if you’re not subscribed yet, please do — very one of you makes this possible. We’ll keep covering it all as it develops.
