Primaries; Mail votes; Immigration; Iran; China; Jones Act; Inflation; MAGA Media | Yaron Brook Show

Live August 12, 2026  | Yaron Brook Show
(Season 12, Episode 134)
Primaries; Mail votes; Immigration; Iran; China; Jones Act; Inflation; MAGA Media | Yaron Brook Show
Watch Now: https://youtube.com/live/fVGsHVEbtSM

"If MAGA was never about stopping illegal immigration — if it was about stopping all immigration, even the PhD who wants to build the next Silicon Valley company — what does that tell you about who's actually driving this presidency?"

On this episode Yaron breaks down district by district on why Democrats are going to win the midterms — and why it has nothing to do with anyone actually liking them. Then he breaks down why Mike Lindell lost his primary with Trump's endorsement, why the DSA is becoming to Trump what MAGA was to Obama, and why the administration's new mail-ballot power grab is headed for a wall named "the Constitution."

Yaron goes to war on the Jones Act — a 1920s law so absurd that Trump's own "fix" now requires a bureaucrat's sign-off for every single ship voyage — and explains why Iran is betting it can outlast us, because dictatorships are built to make their own people suffer. Plus: China's tariff failure is turning into full industrial central planning, July's inflation numbers, and a live audience Q&A covering Fort Knox's gold, social media liability lawsuits, and Gaza casualty numbers.

If you think both parties are lying to you about immigration, inflation, and Iran — you're right. Let's get into why.

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TIMESTAMPS 
00:00 – Cold open: Mike Lindell loses his Trump-endorsed primary 
07:09 – Q: "Shouldn't Objectivists support Mike Lindell?" 
09:18 – Why Democrats win the midterms without anyone actually liking them 
11:58 – How Trump created the DSA the way Obama created MAGA 
15:14 – Trump's mail-ballot executive order: an unconstitutional power grab 
18:45 – Will your mail ballot even count this fall? 
21:30 – The $100K fee that outs MAGA as anti-immigration, period 
28:05 – Why sanctions alone will never break the Iranian regime 
36:47 – The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at a 40-year low 
39:58 – China: how tariffs failed and morphed into subsidies and equity stakes 
43:18 – Xi's leverage and why Beijing isn't blinking 
46:47 – The Jones Act "waiver" that needs a bureaucrat's permission per voyage
50:18 – July inflation: relative prices or the real thing? 
1:08:26 – Fort Knox: is the gold actually there? 
1:11:15 – What America should do with $644 billion in government gold

LIVE AUDIENCE Q&A 
1:22:09 – Kicking off viewer questions 
1:26:23 – Q: Are social media companies liable for addicting your kids? 
1:38:16 – Q: Did "woke" already peak? 
1:41:07 – Q: How many real civilians actually died in Gaza?

#Immigration #Iran #ChinaTariffs #MAGA #Midterms2026 #Capitalism #Inflation #AynRand #democrats #dsa #ObjectivismToday #ForeignPolicy #FreeMarkets #AynRand

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Yaron is the executive chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute and a world class speaker. He is the coauthor of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government, Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality and In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. He speaks around the world on a variety of topics including the morality of capitalism, Ayn Rand and her philosophy, finance and economics, and the value of inequality.