U.S. forces strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial shipping in the Babel Mandeb Strait, a key supply route for much of the world's oil supply routes through the Red Sea, and a place where the Houthis have been trying to exert pressure on the Saudi-led coalition involved in the fight against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. This is a story about a group of terrorists who have taken over a large swath of Yemen and are trying to act as an Iranian proxy arm, and generate support for Iran by attacking Israel, and then by more largely attacking ships in the Red sea. And it's not hard to see how this could all come about. The Iranians have been funding the rebels for years and years, and they've been planning attacks on Israel for years. And now they're doing it in Yemen, and the result is a coordinated attack by the United States, the Saudis, and other allies on a ragtag group of rebels known as the "Houthis" a group that is trying to overthrow the Saudi Arabia-backed government in Yemen and take control of the country. This is the latest installment in a war that started with a few rockets and missiles fired at Israel by the rebels, and escalated into a full-on attack on the Saudis and their allies in Yemen . the latest episode of The War Room is on the latest in our new series on the war on Yemen and its impact on the Middle East, The Middle East and North Africa, hosted by Alex Blumberg and the Arab press. Subscribe to our new podcast, War Room, wherever you get your news and updates on events happening in the region. Subscribe to War Room. and listen to our newest episodes on the breaking news, including the latest breaking news and our most listened to by your favorite podcast, Anecd of the Middle Eastern and Latin American podcast, The Diplomatic Commentaries. , The Diplomat and The Middle Eastern Report Subscribe on social media platforms! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices and become a supporter of our new show, The Arab Echoes Subscribe and subscribe to our podcast, wherever else you get the latest episodes are listening to us on the pod? Subscribe on your favourite podcast? We'll be listening to our latest episode on this podcast, we'll be giving you the latest updates on all things Middle Eastern & Western news and more!
00:00:08.000The Houthis are a ragtag group of terrorists who have taken over a large swath of Yemen after a massive civil war between the Houthis and the Saudis over control of the country.
00:00:19.000The Iranians have been funding the Houthis for years and years and years.
00:00:22.000And we'll get into the history of what exactly happened with the Houthis.
00:00:24.000Suffice it to say, the reason That all of this is happening right now is because the Houthis decided that they were going to try to act as an Iranian proxy arm and generate support for Iran by attacking Israel and then by more largely attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
00:00:39.000Now shooting off a few rockets or missiles at Israel to get down by American ships or by the Saudis, that really didn't have much of an impact on world opinion or on the world at large.
00:00:48.000But attacking ships in the Red Sea absolutely does.
00:00:52.000According to CENTCOM, the Houthis have carried out at least 27 attacks on commercial ships since mid-November.
00:00:58.000Between December 16th and January 4th, according to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S.
00:01:01.000Navy said it had shot down 61 missiles and drones.
00:01:04.0001,500 commercial vessels had safely crossed the Red Sea.
00:01:07.000But the biggest problem with the hubbub in the Red Sea and in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait,
00:01:11.000which is where a huge percentage of the world's oil supplies travel through
00:01:15.000and a huge percentage of shipping generally travels through that strait,
00:01:48.000So if you like the supply chain bottlenecks created by COVID, basically, this group of pirates, in an attempt to generate support for Iran among the Arab street in the Middle East, They have basically created massive cost for American and Western consumers, and they've shut down large swaths of world trade.
00:02:05.000Now you have a 90% reduction year over year in traffic through the Red Sea from the prior year.
00:02:12.000Well, all of this drove last night an allied attack on certain resources in Yemen controlled by the Houthis.
00:02:19.000It was a telegraphed punch, meaning this entire exercise was designed to deter the Houthis, not designed to actually kill or destabilize the Houthis, who in fact, as we say, are a terrorist group that governs a large swath part of Yemen.
00:02:32.000The reason to telegraph the attack is to allow Iranians to get their military forces out of the way so as not to provoke some sort of escalation with Iran more directly.
00:02:42.000Because, of course, Iran has lots of forces on the ground helping out the Houthis in Yemen.
00:02:46.000According to the Wall Street Journal, that U.S.-led coalition launched more than a dozen strikes on Houthi rebel targets in Yemen two days after the Yemeni rebel force defied an ultimatum to halt its attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea with a barrage of missiles and drones.
00:02:57.000Those strikes were conducted by the United States and British forces.
00:02:59.000They were supported by Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands.
00:03:03.000Now the Saudis, they said that they were concerned about the escalation, but let's be real about this.
00:03:07.000Bahrain works very closely with the Saudis.
00:03:10.000Bahrain would not have joined this coalition or allowed its airspace to be used for an attack like this without the go-ahead of the Saudis.
00:03:16.000The coalition strikes early Friday morning local time, targeted radar systems, air defense systems, storage and launch sites for one-way attack, unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, said U.S.
00:03:27.000submarine, several destroyers and jet fighters, part of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Aircraft Carrier Strike Group took part, according to a U.S.
00:03:35.000Who the officials reported explosions in the capital of Yemen, which is called Sana'a, and the provinces of Hodeidah, Sa'dah, Damar, and elsewhere.
00:03:41.000They blame this on the American-Zionist-British aggression against Yemen.
00:03:45.000Israel did not take part in these attacks, though.
00:03:47.000Obviously, Israel does have aircraft that are capable of taking part in attacks like this.
00:03:51.000Sena hosts the Houthis missile inventories attack on vessels were launched from the port of Hodeidah according to shipping executives.
00:03:57.000President Biden immediately issued a statement he said these targeted strikes are a clear message the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world's most critical commercial routes and will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.
00:04:14.000Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the Royal Air Force participated in the strikes also because, quote, the United Kingdom will always stand up for freedom of navigation and the free flow of trade.
00:04:23.000Four British Typhoon jet fighters targeted a Houthi drone base in northwestern Yemen and an airfield used to launch cruise missiles over the Red Sea.
00:04:29.000Quote, early indications are that the Houthis' ability to threaten merchant shipping has taken a blow.
00:04:34.000The Houthis, of course, say they're not going to be deterred because the way this works in the Middle East is that you have basically terrorist groups that provoke a response from an overwhelming power, they get their asses absolutely kicked, and then they claim that just because they survived, they won.
00:04:46.000That's what's currently going on in the Gaza Strip.
00:04:47.000Hamas provokes a gigantic Israeli military response, the largest Israeli military response to any attack since 1973.
00:04:53.000And they get their asses absolutely handed to them, and most of their fighters killed, and most of their leadership killed, and then, if they are breathing at the end of it, they claim victory.
00:05:02.000The Houthis are playing the same game.
00:05:04.000It's really, honestly, cowardly sort of stuff.
00:05:08.000Nasser al-Din Amir, a Houthi official, told the Wall Street Journal, this is a brutal aggression.
00:05:15.000If America and its allies wanted to commit, quote-unquote, brutal aggression against the Houthis, this guy would not be alive to talk about it.
00:05:20.000He said, we will undoubtedly pay its price.
00:05:22.000We will not waver in our stance to support the Palestinian people, regardless of the cost.
00:05:41.000And then on New Year's Day, Biden convened his national security team to discuss the options.
00:05:45.000And then despite the coalition warning, the Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile that fell into the water within sight of a commercial vessel.
00:05:52.000Now, the Houthis knew that the United States and its allies were going to strike all of these targets, and so they had relocated some of their weapons and equipment and fortified others.
00:05:59.000The question is whether this is going to deter further action from the Houthis.
00:07:32.000Every time I turn ExpressVPN on, I'm given a random IP address shared by other ExpressVPN customers, which makes it much more difficult for third parties to identify me and harvest my data.
00:08:00.000Ongoing Houthi attacks, say the allies, in the Red Sea are illegal, unacceptable, profoundly destabilizing.
00:08:06.000There is no lawful justification for intentionally targeting civilian shipping and naval vessels.
00:08:10.000Attacks on vessels, including commercial vessels, using unmanned aerial vehicles, small boats and missiles, including the first use of anti-ship ballistic missiles against such vessels, are a direct threat to the freedom of navigation that serves as the bedrock of global trade in one of the world's most critical waterways.
00:08:23.000These attacks threaten innocent lives from all over the world and constitute a significant international problem that demands collective action.
00:08:29.000Nearly 15% of all global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including 8% of global grain trade, 12% of seaborne traded oil, 8% of the world's liquefied natural gas trade.
00:08:38.000International shipping companies continue to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding significant cost and weeks of delay to the delivery of goods.
00:08:45.000And ultimately jeopardizing the movement of critical food, fuel, and humanitarian assistance throughout the world.
00:08:50.000Let our message now be clear, say the Allies, we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews.
00:08:56.000The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and the free flow of commerce in the regions of critical waterways.
00:09:03.000We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks.
00:09:09.000Now, Part of this is directed at the Houthis.
00:09:11.000Part of it is directed at Iran, because Iran actually did seize another ship just yesterday.
00:09:17.000And part of this is directed at China, because China obviously has a very large interest in a Taiwanese election that is about to happen over there.
00:10:14.000So what's happening right here is if the Chinese look and they see that global shipping could be threatened by, again, a group of poverty stricken pirates, In Yemen, then they would say to themselves, OK, what sort of damage can we do with a weak West in the Taiwan Strait, where a huge percentage of the world's trade is located in the South China Sea?
00:10:38.000They could project theoretically to the Straits of Malacca, where nearly 100 percent of global trade has to pass through.
00:10:43.000So China is looking on and they are seeing whether Western weakness would allow, again, for a bunch of not insanely well-equipped pirates, terrorists, to hold up all of global trade and double supply chain prices.
00:10:57.000And so it's very important that the West did something about this, just on a practical level.
00:11:02.000Now on the moral level, the Houthis are some of the worst people on planet Earth.
00:11:29.000They have their tentacles in Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
00:11:31.000And they have their tentacles with the Houthis.
00:11:33.000Those tentacles are all over the Middle East.
00:11:36.000Now, one of the big problems that Iran historically has had is that Iran is Shia, and a huge percentage of the Middle East is Sunni.
00:11:43.000And because of that, there is not a lot of solidarity between the Shia and the Sunni.
00:11:48.000I mean, the reality is that whatever the hatred is for the Jewish state in the Middle East, the hatred for Israel, that's mostly a sideshow between the ongoing wars that have been happening between Shia and Sunni over the course of the past several decades.
00:12:00.000A multiple more Arabs and Persians have been killed in a variety of wars since the 1980s than anything that's happened with regard to the Jews.
00:12:09.000And all the hatred of the Jews does is it allows for the possibility of some sort of cross-cultural communication between Shia and Sunni in the Middle East.
00:12:16.000And that's what the Houthis are trying to do right now.
00:12:17.000They're trying to rally support to the Iranian side in any sort of Shia-Sunni conflict by siding with the Palestinians.
00:12:23.000Because one of the things that's happened is that the Palestinians, being an incredibly radicalized population that literally no Arab state will take in, not only will no Arab state take in the Palestinians, Arab states have expelled the Palestinians before.
00:12:33.000In the aftermath of the Gulf War, 200,000 to 300,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait because they sided with Saddam Hussein in his war against Kuwait in the first Gulf War.
00:12:43.000So none of the Arab states are interested in taking in the Palestinian population.
00:12:47.000And so the Hamasniks went over to Iran and they Worked a deal where Ron became one of their chief suppliers.
00:12:55.000And it turns out that the Sunni states, they have no interest in working with the Palestinians.
00:12:58.000Again, very radicalized population, destabilized virtually every regime they've come into contact with.
00:13:03.000By the way, this is why you're seeing Jordan right now issuing these very loud statements because they are deeply afraid of their own population.
00:13:09.00070% of Jordan is Palestinian, and they are afraid that their kingdom will be overthrown.
00:13:14.000This would not be the first time they had feared this.
00:13:15.000Obviously, in the early 1970s, Jordan expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians because of threats of overthrowing the regime in what was called Black September.
00:13:23.000So, The basic idea here is that if you are Iran, and you are seeking to buy legitimacy with the Arab street, you polarize the region around the Palestinians.
00:13:33.000Because what you say is, look at all these Arab states, they want to make peace with Israel so they can side against us.
00:13:43.000And if we all remember that, then maybe we won't have any Abraham Accords.
00:13:46.000And Iran, of course, hates the Abraham Accords because it makes them a more minor player in the Middle East.
00:13:52.000It creates an overwhelming coalition of force that exists around its borders.
00:13:57.000That's the whole purpose of the Hamas attack.
00:13:58.000It's why the Yemeni Houthis are now involved in a fight that really has nothing to do with them.
00:14:03.000Because again, this is all being directed from above by Iran.
00:14:06.000We'll get to more on this in just one second.
00:14:08.000First, Balance of Nature fruits and veggies.
00:14:09.000They're a great way to make sure you're getting essential nutritional ingredients every single day.
00:14:14.000Balance of Nature uses an advanced cold vacuum process that encapsulates fruits and veggies into whole food supplements without sacrificing their natural antioxidants.
00:14:22.000The capsules are completely void of additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar.
00:14:26.000The only thing in Balance of Nature's fruit and veggie capsules are, you know, like, fruits and veggies.
00:14:30.000Right now, not only will my listeners get 35% off your first order, you'll now get a free fiber and spice supplement as well.
00:14:37.000Balance of Nature's fiber and spice supplement?
00:14:39.000It's a revolutionary fiber drink with a unique blend of 12 spices and whole foods.
00:14:43.000Producer Zach actually brings Balance of Nature's fruit and veggie capsules On the road.
00:14:47.000It helps keep him working at tip-top levels.
00:14:51.000There's never been an easier way to make sure you're getting your daily dose of fruits and veggies.
00:14:54.000Experience Balance of Nature for yourself today.
00:14:56.000Go to balanceofnature.com, use promo code SHAPIRO for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice.
00:15:05.000That's balanceofnature.com, promo code SHAPIRO, 35% off your first preferred order, plus a free bottle of fiber and spice.
00:15:12.000Now, the Houthis themselves, as I say, just that group, the worst people in the world.
00:15:16.000Their literal slogan, I kid you not, it's like on their bumper stickers or something.
00:15:20.000If they had bumper stickers on their goats.
00:15:21.000Their literal slogan is, quote, Allahu Akbar, death to America, death to Israel,
00:16:28.000But when you actually recruit children into your army, that's what you get.
00:16:32.000The Houthis have been doing this for years.
00:16:34.000According to VOA News, Yemen's Houthi rebels are still recruiting children into their military ranks to fight in the country's grinding civil war.
00:16:40.000By the way, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war.
00:16:43.000Once again, demonstrating the world does not give any bleeps at all.
00:16:47.000About dead Muslims, so long as other Muslims are killing them.
00:17:16.000So when you see, by the way, statistics from the Gaza Strip put out by Hamas, where it says how many women and children are killed, The designation of children, meaning in the West, would be anyone under the age of 18.
00:17:26.000That includes a bunch of people who are, in fact, Hamas operatives.
00:17:30.000Because they start them real young in the Gaza Strip.
00:17:32.000It doesn't mean everyone who's being killed, obviously, is a member of Hamas or a Hamas operative.
00:17:36.000But Israel is being very, very meticulous about who they are killing.
00:17:40.000And a lot of the people that they are killing, unfortunately, are, in fact, minors who have been recruited into the ranks of terrorist groups by terrorists.
00:17:46.000Because terrorists don't have your moral standards.
00:17:48.000They think that your morality is stupid and they take advantage of it.
00:17:52.000The Yemeni conflict, of course, erupted in 2014.
00:17:55.000That is when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and they took Sana'a.
00:17:59.000And a Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015.
00:18:02.000And this brings up exactly what Joe Biden did.
00:18:05.000Okay, so, what is happening right now?
00:18:08.000The only question as to Western strikes on the Houthis is whether those are sufficient to deter the Houthis from continuing their paradical activity in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandib Strait.
00:18:18.000All the talk about Iran getting directly involved in the war or escalating into a larger war with the United States, that'd be the dumbest thing Iran ever did.
00:18:25.000The way that the Iranian mullahs are thinking right now is, we're about five minutes from developing a nuclear weapon, at which point we're untouchable.
00:18:31.000Why would we get in a shooting war with the most powerful military force in the history of the world?
00:18:35.000That'd be like the dumbest thing they ever did.
00:18:36.000So right now, a lot of what's going on is trying to uphold the credibility of their supposed commitment to Hamas.
00:18:42.000And they made a commitment to Hamas that they were going to back Hamas.
00:18:44.000Hamas, again, succeeded beyond its wildest dreams on October 7th.
00:18:48.000They're getting their asses absolutely handed to them in the Gaza Strip.
00:18:51.000And so what you see is Iran's other proxies, Hezbollah, the Houthis, you're seeing them do these sort of low-level attacks against Israel and its allies in the region in an attempt to establish credibility with the Arab street or the Muslim street.
00:19:06.000But they don't want to provoke a general war.
00:19:08.000I mean, again, if Iran provoked a general war, it would be the worst thing they ever did.
00:19:12.000By the way, unlike Iraq, during the Iraq War, there were certainly people who wanted to rise up against Saddam Hussein's regime.
00:19:18.000The biggest problem with Iran is the IRGC, which is a generalized terrorist group.
00:19:22.000That is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, their giant army.
00:19:25.000But, the actual population of Iran is significantly more moderate and significantly more modernized than the population of Iraq, for example.
00:19:31.000Again, none of this is a case that we should get into a war with Iran.
00:19:33.000The point here is that Iran doesn't want us to get into a war with Iran.
00:19:36.000Which is why we're going to back them down.
00:19:38.000The only question is whether the actions of Joe Biden by effectively hitting empty buildings is going to be enough to back the Houthis off or whether the United States and its allies are going to have to escalate this thing far enough that the Houthis actually back down.
00:19:50.000Are they going to have to threaten to destroy the Houthis in order to back them down?
00:19:54.000All of this, by the way, could have been prevented.
00:21:14.000If you're currently hiring, you can probably relate.
00:21:15.000It's challenging to find those qualified candidates, which is why you need ZipRecruiter.
00:21:18.000ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds the right people for your roles fast.
00:21:23.000And right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.
00:21:27.000Immediately after you post your job, ZipRecruiter's smart technology starts showing you candidates whose skills and experience match it.
00:21:33.000To encourage top candidates to respond to your job post even sooner, ZipRecruiter lets you send them a personal invite to apply.
00:21:38.000And as you rate those candidates, ZipRecruiter will send you more of the ones you like from the thousands of new job seekers who join the site.
00:21:44.000This month, find the talent you need to fill all your roles with ZipRecruiter.
00:21:47.000See for yourself why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within day one.
00:21:52.000Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter for free.
00:22:20.000So back in 2020, you'll recall that Donald Trump authorized the killing of an Iranian terror official named Qasem Soleimani.
00:22:27.000He was one of the masterminds of pretty much all of Iran's terror wings all around the globe.
00:22:32.000And he traveled to Iraq, so he wasn't inside Iran, and he was killed in Iraq.
00:22:37.000And Joe Biden, who was running for president at the time, gave this response to the killing of Qasem Soleimani, which again, was a way for the Trump administration to tell the Iranians, stop facilitating terror.
00:22:47.000If you keep facilitating terror, you never know, your head might be in a different place from your body tomorrow morning.
00:22:53.000When it comes to Joe, but here was Joe Biden's response at the time.
00:22:57.000Donald Trump does not have, let me make it clear, does not have the authority to go to war with Iran without congressional authorization.
00:23:05.000Without working with Congress, it is not optional.
00:23:10.000It is not an optional part of his job.
00:23:12.000Presidential notification of Congress about the need to exercise war powers cannot be satisfied in 280 characters or less.
00:23:23.000And no president should ever take the United States to war without securing the informed consent of the American people.
00:23:31.000So first of all, this is idiotic when he said it.
00:23:33.000The killing of Qasem Soleimani was not taking America to war in Iran.
00:23:36.000And as we'll see, this is now a common talking point against the United States and its allies ensuring freedom of shipping in the Red Sea.
00:23:44.000But this was Biden's angle on Iran from the very beginning.
00:23:46.000And in fact, one of the very first things that the Biden administration did when they entered office, like one of the very first things in the first month of his administration is they delisted the Houthis as a global terrorist organization.
00:23:58.000According to PBS.org, this is February 16th, 2021, the Biden administration officially lifted the designation of the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen as a global terrorist organization.
00:24:08.000That announcement came within a large review of the U.S.
00:24:30.000expert class, think tankers, journalists, the Hill, Democratic operatives, always considered anything Trump did illegitimate.
00:24:37.000So, they said they were going to reverse course.
00:24:39.000Robert Malley, who had hired operatives who literally answered to the Iranian regime, was put in charge of America's Iran policy.
00:24:47.000So, Tony Blinken, at his first press availability, the Secretary of State, on January 28th, 2021, he was asked which Trump administration policies from the last several months he was going to prioritize reversing.
00:24:57.000He said that getting rid of sanctions on the Houthis was, quote, the priority.
00:25:03.000He said, quote, the Houthis control territory, I believe contains about 80% of Yemen's population.
00:25:07.000We want to make sure that any of these steps, including the designation, don't make what is already an incredibly difficult task even more difficult.
00:25:12.000That is the provision of humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen.
00:25:16.000Okay, then Biden officials suspended terrorism sanctions on the Houthis, January 25th.
00:25:21.000They announced revoking them February 5th.
00:25:24.000Within days, the Houthis started launching mass murders of Yemeni civilians and attacking Saudi Arabia.
00:25:31.000So then they tried to futz their way out of it, but eventually they just released the terrorism designation on February 16th.
00:25:39.000So that was a move that was made overtly by the Biden administration.
00:25:46.000Meanwhile, you recall, Joe Biden took a very anti-Saudi position with regard to Yemen.
00:25:50.000Because pushed by his left, the idea was that backing the Saudis in their war against the Houthis was more trouble than it was worth and the way to create a humanitarian We're also stepping up our diplomacy to end the war in Yemen.
00:26:01.000A war which has created humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.
00:26:03.000The Houthis, by the way, literally enslave people.
00:27:11.000The White House showed its neck to the Houthis and the Houthis decided to take a bite.
00:27:16.000Meanwhile, Iran continues to escalate.
00:27:18.000According to the Wall Street Journal, the Iranian Navy said it had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Oman that has been at the center of a dispute between Tehran and Washington, raising the stakes as a U.S.-led coalition launched strikes on rebel targets in Yemen.
00:27:29.000Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen have repeatedly targeted the waterways, of course.
00:27:34.000Apparently, Iran's Navy identified the boarded tanker as a Greek-managed ship called St.
00:27:39.000The tanker was impounded in retaliation for the theft of oil by the American regime, according to the Iranian Army.
00:27:45.000Iranian state media showed Iranian commandos landing on the ship's deck from a military helicopter.
00:27:50.000Now, it's a little bit more complex because that particular vessel, which used to be known as the Suez Rajan, its charters pled guilty to charges filed in U.S.
00:27:57.000court that it actually carried sanctioned Iranian oil.
00:28:04.000The vessel sat idle off the coast of Texas for months because federal prosecutors were trying to figure out who exactly would be willing to offload the oil.
00:28:10.000Eventually, the Justice Department eventually contracted help to fulfill its forfeiture action.
00:29:12.000So, it's not a broader conflict when the hoothies are shutting down global shipping and everybody has to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope.
00:29:47.000We have to let the Houthis do this thing.
00:29:48.000So Ro Khanna, who again, I know Ro, nice enough guy, but this is ridiculous.
00:29:52.000He says, the president needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another Middle East conflict.
00:29:58.000That is article one of the constitution.
00:30:50.000The president has 40 hours to inform Congress and Congress has been duly informed.
00:30:54.000Meanwhile, Pramila Jayapal says this is an unacceptable violation of the Constitution.
00:30:58.000Article 1 requires military action be authorized by Congress.
00:31:00.000I love that all of the exact same members of Congress who said that Joe Biden had the inherent authority to cancel a trillion dollars in student loan debt.
00:31:11.000That Joe Biden had the inherent ability to mandate that 80 million Americans take a vaccine.
00:31:18.000That Barack Obama had the inherent power to simply pardon millions of illegal immigrants through prosecutorial discretion under DACA.
00:31:26.000These same people are like, if the president fires a missile and hits a camel in the ass, he better inform us it's a violation of Article 1.
00:31:32.000That's like, that's the most important thing.
00:32:39.000There's an entire article in Politico called, If they really want to take Taiwan back, what can we do?
00:32:43.000On the eve of elections, Taiwanese voters face a choice between appeasement and resistance.
00:32:48.000So why exactly would they appease China?
00:32:49.000Because they're afraid the West is not going to come to their defense, is the real answer.
00:32:52.000And honestly, under Joe Biden, why would they believe the West is going to come to their defense?
00:32:56.000I know that Joe Biden has tried to restore some level of credibility completely lost during Afghanistan.
00:33:00.000The United States made a 20-year commitment to tens of thousands of American allies in Afghanistan, people who actively worked with the American government, made a commitment to tens of millions of people that the Taliban would not remain in control of the government.
00:33:14.000And then they left all of those people to be ruled by the worst people on earth.
00:33:17.000Again, the Taliban, the Houthis of a piece.
00:33:20.000This is not that they work together, but they have the same general view of the world.
00:33:25.000despite religious differences. The Biden administration tried to restore deterrence
00:33:32.000by providing aid in Ukraine. And to a certain extent they did. The question is whether it was
00:33:40.000Is that enough to stop China from doing what it must?
00:33:42.000Now, again, here's my out-of-the-box prediction for how the rest of this year goes.
00:33:46.000If Joe Biden continues to trail Donald Trump in the polls, if we get to June, July, again, assuming Trump is the nominee, if we get to June, July, and Donald Trump is up in the polls by four or five points nationally and leading in the swing states, I think China will make a move on Taiwan.
00:34:01.000And the Taiwanese, I think, know this.
00:34:03.000Because the Taiwanese are thinking to themselves, okay, if the U.S.
00:34:06.000isn't going to come to our defense, then what exactly are we supposed to do?
00:34:11.000Congress recently rejected, of course, a Biden administration proposal, according to Politico, to send more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
00:34:18.000That legislation failed a procedural vote, according to Angela Ong, a Taiwanese-American clean energy advocate, she used to say that if China stepped in and tried to shut down the Taiwan Strait, the United States would step in.
00:34:46.000It's about the US's commitments in Iraq.
00:34:47.000It's about the fact that the United States population Generally does not have the will for long occupations or wars, which is fine, but you can't get involved in those things in the first place.
00:35:00.000If you're not going to get involved in those things, you have to involve yourself in preventative measures so that you don't actually have to engage in the long standing sort of occupations and wars that the United States engaged in for the first 20 years of the new millennium.
00:35:33.000It is crafted with a luxurious tungsten handle, five welded steel blades, a precision trimmer for a close, smooth shave around hairlines and hard-to-reach places.
00:35:40.000But remember, The Precision 5 is no ordinary razor.
00:35:42.000It is a sword in the battle for beliefs.
00:35:44.000It's a banner's wave into a new economy.
00:35:46.000A precision instrument to force woke companies to earn back your dollar and stop denigrating your values.
00:36:04.000Head on over to Jeremy'sRazors.com today.
00:36:07.000Meanwhile, in the midst of all of this chaos, the Army's recruitment efforts continue to be a complete disaster area.
00:36:13.000According to Breitbart.com, the Army's recruiting of white soldiers in 2023 had dropped by almost half in the last five years, according to a report.
00:36:20.000A dramatic decline has coincided with a push by the service to increase recruitment of a more diverse population.
00:36:25.000According to that report, that decline of white recruits has also coincided with the Army missing its target of 65,000 recruits in 2023 by 10,000.
00:36:33.000Again, the kind of Army strategy, which seems to be promotion of diversity above Actual military capacity is kind of an amazing thing.
00:36:44.000And the fact is that disproportionately, the military draws from conservative areas of the United States.
00:36:49.000Promoting the individual sexual exploration of your recruits is probably not the thing that is going to draw people to the American military.
00:36:57.000Meanwhile, Joe Biden, of course, has taken a rather weak position on foreign policy, and it's led to all of these conflicts.
00:37:04.000When it comes to the economy, by the way, the economy continues not to be Joe Biden's friend.
00:37:10.000According to the Wall Street Journal, inflation edged up in December, a reminder of the pressure still facing consumers.
00:37:16.000Inflation's cool down from the historic highs of the last three years keeps the Federal Reserve on track to hold rates steady later this month.
00:37:22.000But it's not clear they're going to end up cutting all of those interest rates.
00:37:25.000And Joe Biden really needs the interest rates cut if he wants to see some sort of Artificial economic boom before the election.
00:37:30.000Economic stagnation, by the way, is the recipe for the next few years in the United States.
00:37:34.000The consumer price index increased 3.4% from a year earlier in December.
00:37:39.000That acceleration from November's 3.1% advance shows inflation is not fully beaten.
00:37:43.000By the way, when you say not fully beaten, I understand that we all got used to like crazy numbers like 9% inflation year on year.
00:37:48.000And a large part of that was because of supply chain shocks.
00:37:51.000But normally, the inflation rate is supposed to be 2%.
00:37:54.000They are missing that 2% by a large margin when it's coming in hot at 3.4%.
00:38:55.000Meanwhile, speaking of other massive disruptions to the American way of life, and one of the biggest problems for Joe Biden is that he could have run as a moderate and governed as a moderate.
00:39:16.000Again, what's amazing right now is that Joe Biden could fix so many problems with his administration if he would just acknowledge that the border needs to be closed.
00:39:24.000Remember, there is a bill waiting to be passed that involves massive funding for Ukraine that would get Ukraine through probably another year of fighting off Russian aggression.
00:39:32.000There's a bill that would provide $14 billion in aid to Israel so Israel could finish the job with Hamas and also push off Hezbollah in their north.
00:39:40.000That same bill provides defense aid to Taiwan to prevent the possibility and deter the possibility of a Chinese blockade or invasion of the island.
00:39:48.000All Joe Biden has to do to get that is solidify the border.
00:40:13.000Because his own base, large swathes of his own base have taken the ideological position that people have a right to come to the United States.
00:40:21.000That is literally the position that's being taken by so many members of his own caucus.
00:40:24.000So Representative Pramila Jayapal, a wild left progressive, Crazy, kooky person.
00:40:29.000She says that Joe Biden has been too heavy-handed on the southern border.
00:40:32.000I mean, I don't even know what to say to that.
00:40:55.000But the only, I guess Pramila Jayapal is just mad that the Border Patrol agents aren't bringing like fizzy drinks for the illegal immigrants.
00:41:02.000Like that's the only thing I can think of that she's talking about here.
00:41:06.000There is so much fear mongering going on that it is difficult to know exactly where to start.
00:41:14.000The Biden administration is enforcing immigration laws.
00:41:18.000In fact, the administration has been so heavy-handed in recent months that I have serious concerns about how they are conducting border enforcement.
00:41:51.000Again, if Joe Biden chooses to allow his campaign to be held hostage by these people, he's going to lose and he deserves to lose.
00:41:56.000Which is why Republicans should probably get out of his way.
00:42:01.000First rule of politics, don't get in the way of your opponent when he's making a mistake.
00:42:05.000It's why All the fights that are happening right now about budgeting and all the rest of this, let's be real about this.
00:42:10.000The serious drivers of federal debt are not all the discretionary programs that are currently being greenlit in whatever budget deal Mike Johnson cuts with the Democrats.
00:42:25.000What Republicans need, what the country needs more than anything else, is Joe Biden out of office and Democrats not in control in the Senate.
00:42:31.000If you get in the way of that, you're going to end up with more Democratic governance.
00:42:35.000In order to actually effectuate your agenda, you have to hold power.
00:42:38.000You can't just hold some of the power, you have to hold enough power to be able to do what you want to do.
00:42:42.000This is why, you know, I have nothing but sympathy for people who are very upset with the deal that Mike Johnson is about to cut with regard to the continuing funding of the government.
00:42:53.000But this notion that you're going to oust him because you're mad at him now.
00:42:55.000Yeah, Sid McCarthy because you're mad at him.
00:42:57.000Maybe the incentive structure is that he's going to have to cut that deal.
00:43:20.000Now, what was always funny about the Trump administration is Trump himself felt like he was not in control, but it felt like the administration was in control.
00:44:07.000But at least I know at least I know that the economy is good and peace is breaking out in the Middle East and we don't have an ongoing supply chain crisis in the Red Sea.
00:44:14.000And we're not super worried about China invading Taiwan.
00:44:17.000And that's how it feels with Joe Biden.
00:44:20.000Number one, he can't actually speak anymore.
00:44:22.000Every time he speaks, as I've said before, it's like watching Nick Wallenda cross a volcano on a tightrope.
00:44:27.000You're just waiting for him to fall down.
00:44:29.000That's the real reason you're watching is because you want to know where you were the moment that Joe Biden collapsed.
00:44:53.000They're now trotting out Jill to basically say, you should have sympathy for my aged husband.
00:44:59.000So yesterday, Joe Biden did the rounds talking about how Joe Biden's age was an asset.
00:45:03.000If his age were an asset, don't you think it would be Joe Biden in this interview and not Dr. Joe, the greatest doctor of all who can heal your heart attack with an education paper?
00:46:21.000He doesn't even know who's in the room.
00:46:22.000He thinks dead people are alive in rooms that he goes into.
00:46:25.000He doesn't know the names of the members of his own cabinet.
00:46:28.000He doesn't know where he is half the time, which is why, again, that video last week of Joe Biden giving what was essentially his kickoff campaign speech over at Valley Forge and Jill Biden charging up there like a night nurse trying to drag him back to bed because he's wandering the halls and may pee in a corner somewhere.
00:47:16.000So you can go down to the local Denny's for the early bird special.
00:47:18.000And I think what people don't see is how hard Joe works every single day
00:47:26.000that he gets up thinking what he can do for the American people.
00:47:31.000Oh, is that is that what he gets up doing?
00:47:35.000Again, I've said before, and it's true, Joe Biden must be the happiest person in the world because every morning he wakes up and somebody tells him he's president.
00:48:20.000Just barring a political miracle or an act of God, it is overwhelmingly likely that Donald Trump will again be the Republican Party's nominee for president.
00:48:27.000Lord help us, what should those of us who have consistently opposed him do?
00:48:31.000You can't defeat an opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable.
00:48:34.000Too many people, especially progressives, fail to think deeply about the enduring sources of his appeal.
00:48:38.000Since I will spend the coming years strenuously opposing his candidacy, let me here make the best case for Trump that I can.
00:48:47.000Arguably, the single most important geopolitical fact of the century is the mass migration of people from South to North and East to West, causing tectonic, demographic, cultural, economic, and ultimately political shifts.
00:48:56.000Trump understood this from the start of his presidential candidacy in 2015.
00:49:01.000Many of Trump's opponents refuse to see virtually unchecked migration as a problem for the West at all.
00:49:06.000Only now, as the consequences of Joe Biden's lackadaisical approach to mass migration have become depressingly obvious on the sidewalks and in shelters and public schools of liberal cities like New York and Chicago, are Trump's opponents on this issue beginning to see the point.
00:49:18.000The second big thing Trump got right was about the broad direction of the country.
00:49:22.000Trump rode a wave of pessimism to the White House.
00:49:24.000Pessimism his detractors did not share because he was speaking about and to an America they either didn't see or understood only as caricature.
00:49:31.000But just as with this year, when liberal elites insist things are going well, while overwhelming majorities of Americans said they are not, Trump's unflattering view captured the mood of the country.
00:49:40.000Finally, there's the question of institutions that are supposed to represent impartial expertise from elite universities and media to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI.
00:49:47.000Trump's detractors, including me, often argued his demagoguery and mendacity did a lot to needlessly diminish trust in these vital institutions.
00:49:54.000But we should be more honest with ourselves and admit, those institutions did their own work in squandering, through partisanship or incompetence, the esteem in which they had once been widely held.
00:50:05.000And then he says, you know, there are a lot of readers, and this is the New York Times, who are saying, yes, but what about January 6th?
00:50:10.000What about election denialism and the threat to democracy?
00:50:14.000But it's important to stretch one's mind a little, says Bret Stephens, and try to understand why so many voters are unimpressed about the end of democracy argument.
00:50:19.000For one thing, haven't they heard it before and with the same apocalyptic intensity?
00:50:23.000In 2016, Trump was frequently compared to Benito Mussolini and other dictators, including by me, says Bret Stephens.
00:50:29.000The comparison might have been more persuasive if Trump's presidency had been replete with jailed and assassinated political opponents, rigged or canceled elections, a muzzled or captured press, and Trump still holding office today.
00:50:41.000Many rank-and-file Republicans regard the January 6th assault on the Capitol as a disgrace and the lowest point of Trump's presidency, but they also believe it wasn't so much an insurrection as it was an ugly temper tantrum by Trump and his most rabid supporters, which never had a chance of succeeding.
00:50:54.000An American version of Vladimir Putin, he simply is not.
00:50:57.000As it is, the 2024 election will not hinge on questions of democracy, but of delivery.
00:51:01.000Which candidate will do more for voters?
00:51:58.000I'm going to move you all around and disappear you.
00:52:00.000If that's the country you want, you know who to vote for.
00:52:04.000If that's not, if that's not the country you want, you have to make a decision.
00:52:10.000Or maybe the decision is between somebody who says wild and crazy things, and I disagree with a lot of the things, but actually did the president thing kind of well, and somebody who sucks at the president thing.
00:52:45.000This week has once again revealed that extreme MAGA Republicans have zero interest in doing anything productive that is designed to benefit the American people.
00:53:03.000House Republicans are the party of insurrection, impeachment, and illegitimate investigations.
00:53:15.000Insurrection, Impeachment and illegitimate investigations.
00:53:21.000These extremists have made clear once again this week that they have no ideas, no agenda, no vision, and have made no progress on solving problems for everyday Americans.