The Ben Shapiro Show - March 12, 2026


CATASTROPHE?! Oil Shocks and Drone Threats As Iran Strikes Back


Episode Stats


Length

41 minutes

Words per minute

191.09952

Word count

7,937

Sentence count

511

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

38

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Iran regime is on its last legs, and it knows it. The question is, how long will it last? And what will we do to end this? This episode is brought to you by The Cipher Briefing Show.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You're waking up to a lot of bad stories this morning, but that dying regime can still be dangerous.
00:00:05.000 Wounded animals can still bite.
00:00:07.000 So, the question is, can Iran still hurt the United States? 0.90
00:00:11.000 How much?
00:00:12.000 From chaotic oil prices to drone attacks in California, are we actually susceptible to Iranian retaliation?
00:00:18.000 What will Iran do? 0.75
00:00:19.000 And what do we need to do to end this?
00:00:21.000 This is the Bench Bureau Show.
00:00:26.000 Oil tankers on fire in the Strait of Hormuz, leading to large-scale oil disruptions and a spike in the price of Brent crude oil.
00:00:33.000 Rumors of impending drone attacks, Iranian drone attacks in California, Iranian schoolgirls killed in a botched missile attack.
00:00:40.000 We're not going to sugarcoat what's going on because war is ugly.
00:00:43.000 What's happening right now is that Iran is fighting back. 0.81
00:00:46.000 The regime is on its last legs and it knows it.
00:00:49.000 Even if it survives the current conflict, the question is for how long?
00:00:53.000 Because if they're heavily damaged and if it turns out they can't defend against insurgents in their streets or against air flights, air sorties from opposing forces, how long does the regime last?
00:01:03.000 And so what we're watching right now are the dying throes of a poisonous snake.
00:01:07.000 But that doesn't mean the snake can't do serious damage before it goes.
00:01:11.000 This is typically what the end game of a war looks like.
00:01:13.000 The enemy lashes out with all of its final strength, pulling out every stop, pulling every lever.
00:01:18.000 And then, unless we lose our willpower, they lose.
00:01:23.000 As Japan collapsed at the end of World War II, American casualties went up, not down.
00:01:27.000 The Battle of Okinawa, which was fought on territory controlled by Japan since 1879, populated heavily with Japanese citizens and entirely with Japanese subjects since that point, that was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War.
00:01:38.000 Over 12,000 Americans ended up dead.
00:01:40.000 Between 36,000 and 49,000 Americans were wounded, alongside some 110,000 Japanese military killed and another 100,000 to 150,000 Japanese civilians, many of whom committed suicide.
00:01:52.000 That battle ended June 22nd, 1945, and within seven weeks, the war was over.
00:01:58.000 Again, this sort of activity isn't uncommon as America's enemies realize that they are in their final hours.
00:02:04.000 The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler's final attempt to stave off defeat. 0.63
00:02:07.000 It was bloody.
00:02:08.000 It was terrible.
00:02:09.000 And Hitler lost.
00:02:10.000 At the end of the Gulf War, actually, even after a ceasefire had been declared, the Iraqi Hammurabi Republican Guard Division attacked the U.S. 24th Infantry Division.
00:02:18.000 That was a large-scale mistake.
00:02:20.000 The U.S. ended up destroying nearly 200 tanks and erasing the Hammurabi Division entirely, but that was sort of the last gasp.
00:02:26.000 And again, that's quite common.
00:02:28.000 In the 2001 war in Afghanistan, the final Taliban stand a few months later before the launch of their large-scale insurgent warfare strategy that lasted years was something called Operation Anaconda.
00:02:38.000 That's where the Taliban fighters dug in in the mountains and then they tried to engage U.S. forces.
00:02:43.000 This was in 2002, and they lost.
00:02:46.000 Again, the losing side very often will launch a last stand or a final push or pull out all the stops.
00:02:51.000 And that's what we're actually watching right now.
00:02:53.000 Now, the question of whether Iran's activity represents the death throes of the regime or the reconsolidation of regime power, that's the question.
00:03:01.000 And the answer is actually not up to Iran.
00:03:03.000 It's up to the United States and Israel. 0.97
00:03:06.000 The only hope for the Iranian regime right now is that the United States and Israel somehow stop in their tracks before the Iranian regime suffers irreparable damage.
00:03:14.000 That is precisely why American enemies make that final push.
00:03:17.000 It's the last gasp attempt to prevent the increasingly inevitable.
00:03:21.000 Now, Iran is a terrorist regime, and so it's pursuing terror tactics. 0.84
00:03:25.000 Three lines of terror tactics. 0.85
00:03:26.000 One, terror targeting the American homeland.
00:03:28.000 Two, terror targeting the Strait of Hormuz and other Gulf oil supplies.
00:03:32.000 And three, terror targeting our allies.
00:03:35.000 So, begin with the American homeland.
00:03:37.000 Yesterday, ABC News reported that the FBI has warned police departments about the possibility of an Iranian drone attack on American soil.
00:03:44.000 According to the FBI, quote, as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California in the event that the United States conducted strikes against Iran.
00:04:01.000 The L.A. Sheriff's Department assures the public that everything is under control, that they've deployed more resources to houses of worship and other prominent locations.
00:04:08.000 Governor Gavin Newsom says that drone issues have been top of mind for him.
00:04:12.000 As this relates to the broader concern as it relates to drone strikes, we've been aware of that information.
00:04:19.000 We've been working collaboratively through the SOC, which we established right after the war began, the State Operations Center, working with the Office of Emergency Service, but also working locally to make sure we transmit any information that we have received.
00:04:32.000 And we're aware of that, which has been reported, I think, by ABC 7.
00:04:37.000 We're aware of that information, and we transfer that information in real time to our local partners.
00:04:43.000 Drone issues have been always top of mind, and we've assembled work groups specifically around those concerns.
00:04:52.000 President Trump, too, says that we are watching what Iran is doing, that we've got our eyes on the terrorists. 0.91
00:04:58.000 Have you been briefed about how many Iran sleeper cells there could be inside the U.S. right now? 0.99
00:05:04.000 I have been, and a lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border. 0.98
00:05:09.000 But we know where most of them are. 0.99
00:05:11.000 We've got our eye on all of them, I think.
00:05:14.000 If it doesn't, they came in through the open border policies of sleepy Joe Biden, one of the worst, the worst presidents in the history of our country.
00:05:26.000 And we've got our eyes on all of them.
00:05:30.000 The president is not wrong about the open border.
00:05:32.000 The president also added that when it comes to these threats, all we can really do is take them as they come, which, of course, is a reality.
00:05:40.000 President Trump, what have you heard about this bulletin that some law enforcement put out about a possible Iran revenge plot in California where there would be some kind of a boat offshore launching drones?
00:05:52.000 Of course, being investigated, but you have a lot of things happening, and all we can do is take them as they come.
00:06:00.000 Now, listen, this shouldn't be a major shock.
00:06:02.000 Iran has infiltrated South and Latin America. 0.99
00:06:05.000 That is one of the reasons that the Trump administration moved against Venezuela, which was the center of Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere.
00:06:11.000 Under Nicolas Maduro, now a treasured guest of President Trump in prison, Iran and Venezuela even signed a 20-year cooperation agreement, and that included drones and missiles shipped from Iran to Venezuela.
00:06:23.000 And as the president says, an enormous number of people have crossed our southern border over the course of the last few years.
00:06:28.000 Here's Chad Wolf, former DHS acting secretary, talking to Glenn Beck about it.
00:06:33.000 It's bad, right?
00:06:34.000 We talked about four years of the Biden administration.
00:06:37.000 So over the course of four years, you had over 11 to 12 million individuals come into the United States, over 18,000 known or suspected terrorists, right?
00:06:47.000 The National Counterterrorism Center just testified about that.
00:06:50.000 Over 18,000 known or suspected terrorists tried to enter the country during Joe Biden's tenure, and a variety of them made it in.
00:07:00.000 The current threat of terrorism at home has led a lot of people to suggest that Trump's war on the Iranian regime is somehow unjustified, which seems to me wildly backward.
00:07:09.000 In other words, if Iran is more threatening and more terrorist, then somehow we have to leave them alone more, and we should leave them alone even more than that so they can do more of that stuff and therefore deter us further. 0.98
00:07:21.000 If a criminal syndicate were to threaten your home and your family, you would not be morally unjustified in attacking them, even if that attack were to cause them to initiate violence.
00:07:31.000 No country worth its salt can be held hostage to the whims of an increasingly powerful terrorist enemy.
00:07:36.000 Waiting doesn't decrease your risk.
00:07:38.000 It raises it.
00:07:40.000 That is the point of taking on the bad guys when you have a unique opportunity to do so.
00:07:44.000 You don't wait until Iran develops its terror capacities further. 0.98
00:07:47.000 You don't wait until they have the total capacity to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, not just the temporary capacity to fire a few drones at a few boats.
00:07:55.000 You don't wait until they have nuclear weapons.
00:07:57.000 You take the opportunity to hit them when you can and stop the threat before it fully blooms.
00:08:02.000 And that's precisely what President Trump has been doing, as he explained yesterday.
00:08:07.000 It's an excursion that will keep us out of a war.
00:08:12.000 And the war is going to be, I mean, for them, it's a war.
00:08:16.000 For us, it's turned out to be easier than we thought.
00:08:22.000 Okay, and we'll see how all of that turns out.
00:08:24.000 But the idea that it's an excursion to prevent a war, that is largely right. 1.00
00:08:28.000 Because, again, in historic terms, what the United States is doing right now is an extraordinarily low-cost opportunity, low-cost.
00:08:37.000 We're not talking again about hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of American troops boots on the ground in Iran.
00:08:42.000 We are not even talking about a months-long war at this point.
00:08:46.000 We are on day 13.
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00:09:54.000 Okay, then there's what Iran has been doing in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:09:56.000 And this is making a lot of headlines because it should.
00:09:58.000 It's important.
00:09:59.000 Iran has been firing ordnance at oil tankers that have been shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:10:04.000 But here's the point.
00:10:06.000 If you leave in place a regime that is increasingly powerful and can choke off that waterway anytime it wants, that doesn't make things better.
00:10:14.000 The Wall Street Journal says, quote, leaving in place Iran's theocratic regime, angry, defiant, and in possession of its nuclear stockpile and what remains of its arsenal of missiles and drones would essentially grant Tehran control over the world's energy markets.
00:10:25.000 It would also sacrifice the security of America's partners and allies and possibly make another more devastating regional war likely.
00:10:32.000 While the United States has sunk much of the Iranian Navy, the Iranians are using short-range missiles and drones to harass shipping. 0.89
00:10:38.000 This is precisely what they have been doing.
00:10:40.000 They set a couple of tankers on fire last night.
00:10:43.000 This is in Iraqi waters.
00:10:45.000 They set an oil tanker on fire.
00:10:47.000 On Wednesday, the IRGC hit three cargo ships in an attempt to pressure the Trump administration.
00:10:53.000 And then Iran said that all vessels, apparently other than Chinese vessels, because again, Iran and China, very closely tied together, will be targeted.
00:11:00.000 For now, the United States is not saying that we'll actually escort tankers from the oil companies.
00:11:05.000 And this is troubling because obviously, if the United States is concerned about casualties by ushering these tankers through, a lot of tankers are going to say, well, why should we do that if you won't even do that?
00:11:16.000 One official told the Wall Street Journal, the strait, because it's so narrow, could become what he called an Iranian killbox.
00:11:22.000 Right now, President Trump is holding down oil prices largely by talking about the incipient end of the war and through the release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
00:11:31.000 But the problem about talking about the end of the war is that that's the kind of talk that actually emboldens the Iranians to increase their attacks on shipping, hoping that exerting more pressure on the Strait of Hormuz will force President Trump to stop.
00:11:42.000 Well, you know what would be really, really helpful here?
00:11:44.000 America's Gulf allies.
00:11:46.000 So the Saudis, UAE, Qatar, our supposed best ally, none of them have actually engaged in forward action against Iran, even though they're the ones who are getting pounded, truly pounded. 0.67
00:11:57.000 You know what they could do?
00:11:59.000 They could increase.
00:12:00.000 their pumping.
00:12:01.000 They could pump to areas that are not controlled by Iran, like in the west of Saudi Arabia.
00:12:06.000 As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Strait handled 38% of the world's seaborne crude oil trade in the week before the war began, according to UN trade agency.
00:12:14.000 Saudi Arabia and the UAE are working to ramp up exports through alternative pipeline routes that bypass the strait entirely.
00:12:19.000 In the Saudi case, that means redirecting crude away from its refineries, tightening the market for fine fuel in the process.
00:12:25.000 We should facilitate such action immediately.
00:12:27.000 We are defending Saudi and UAE, which again, those are the places Iran is targeting.
00:12:32.000 Disproportionately, Iran has fired multiple times more ordnance at UAE than it has fired at Israel.
00:12:38.000 If our allies are not going to join us offensively in the fight, they can at least relieve pressure on the oil markets created by the Iranian attacks. 0.52
00:12:45.000 Again, we are defending them, which brings us to the third tentacle of Iranian terror, terror against our allies. 0.92
00:12:54.000 Now, Iran knows that the entry of the Saudis and UAE directly into the war would be quite bad for them.
00:12:59.000 And they know that the Saudis and UAE could help the United States calm world markets, and that would allow the U.S.-Israel operation to continue, which is why they've been firing more missiles at the Gulf states than at Israel, trying to convince them to cower in fear. 0.94
00:13:11.000 This is a chart of Iranian attacks against the Gulf state and Israel.
00:13:15.000 Look at this.
00:13:16.000 This is astonishing.
00:13:17.000 Okay, so Israel has been targeted with 550 strikes by Iran.
00:13:22.000 That is 14% of all strikes.
00:13:24.000 Kuwait has been targeted with 24%.
00:13:28.000 UAE with 44% of all strikes.
00:13:31.000 Bahrain has been hit with almost as many strikes as Israel.
00:13:35.000 And Saudi has been hit with 176.
00:13:37.000 Qatar is low on the list because obviously Qatar and Iran are half allies.
00:13:42.000 Iran has been taking indirect counteraction against Israel.
00:13:45.000 They've been using their proxy, Hezbollah.
00:13:47.000 So Hezbollah has been absolutely shellacked by Israel over the last couple of years since the Bieber operation, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, and the ground operation in Lebanon.
00:13:56.000 Now, Hezbollah is hoping that drawing Israeli resources toward Lebanon might somehow save the Iranian government.
00:14:02.000 They're counting on the Lebanese government to back down because the Lebanese government could theoretically exert some sort of pressure or push the Americans to stop Israel.
00:14:09.000 That is why overnight they were raining rockets on northern Israel.
00:14:13.000 Here's some of the video of what that looks like.
00:14:16.000 You can see all these rockets in the air, a lot of them being shot down by Iron Dome and also by lasers.
00:14:24.000 Well, if the Lebanese government doesn't stop Hezbollah from its offensive action, if Israel is forced to stop its destruction of Hezbollah yet again some other way, that, by the way, would be a disaster for the region's Christians, among others.
00:14:34.000 Lebanon used to be a Christian country before it was wrecked by the Palestine Liberation Organization, before it was wrecked by the Iranians, by Hezbollah. 0.69
00:14:43.000 Hezbollah is moving to destroy Lebanon's Christian population.
00:14:46.000 As Rami Naeem writes in the Wall Street Journal, quote, across Iran's sphere of influence, Christian communities have experienced demographic collapse.
00:14:53.000 In Iraq, the Christian population fell from about 1.5 million in 2003 to an estimated 250,000 today.
00:15:00.000 In Syria, more than half the Christian population is estimated to have left since 2011.
00:15:04.000 This is why many Lebanese Christians hope for structural change in Iran. 0.97
00:15:08.000 Hezbollah's military capacity, financial networks, and ideological legitimacy are inseparable from Tehran.
00:15:13.000 Again, this is, again, a sort of last gasp here.
00:15:16.000 And it is worth noting before we go any further that Israel is already moving toward a massive ground operation in Lebanon.
00:15:22.000 They've informed people in the south of Lebanon to move north, like significantly north, and basically abandon the lower third of the country because otherwise Israel is going to be forced to take its own citizens away from northern Israel again.
00:15:36.000 So, what does all this mean?
00:15:37.000 Well, it means that in the end, only the true collapse or serious damage leading to collapse of the Iranian government will bring lasting victory. 0.93
00:15:48.000 That's what it means, which is why President Trump correctly says we have to finish the job.
00:15:54.000 As we end this threat to America and this threat to the world, we don't want to leave early, do we?
00:16:01.000 We got to finish the job, right?
00:16:06.000 Over the past 11 days, our military has virtually destroyed Iran. 0.98
00:16:13.000 Tough country.
00:16:16.000 Okay, so he is correct.
00:16:18.000 We actually have to finish the job.
00:16:20.000 And the goals that have been spelled out by the administration are clear: ending the missile threat, ending the nuclear threat, ending support of terrorism.
00:16:27.000 Leaving an Iranian regime in power, or at least not seriously destabilized or weakened, would likely encourage China to take aggressive action against Taiwan.
00:16:35.000 Because let's be real about this again.
00:16:37.000 It is astonishing to me the level of uproar over a war that has lasted less than two weeks with extremely low American casualties by any historic comparison.
00:16:49.000 If China understands that the American attention span is so short that we can't even sustain a serious offensive action with low cost for longer than a few weeks, they will know they can move. 0.59
00:16:59.000 Not only that, if we don't do what we can while President Trump, who actually has some stones as president, then Iran likely will come back, mainly because weaker people will be president, people like Barack Obama or Joe Biden or pretty much anyone on this score, because Trump has been uniquely strong on this score.
00:17:14.000 President Trump is not wrong to call this out.
00:17:18.000 We don't want to go back every two years and let's see, because, you know, there'll be someday when you don't have me as president, you'll have perhaps, perhaps, perhaps you'll have a weak, pathetic person like we've had in the past, mostly all, like Barack Hussein Obama, who signed one of the worst deals ever with Iran, where they were going to give up everything. 0.80
00:17:48.000 Remember when he filled up a 757 with billions of dollars of cash and sent it to Iran? 0.85
00:17:54.000 Billions?
00:17:55.000 People forget that.
00:17:56.000 That's when I realized the presidency is very powerful.
00:17:59.000 When you could put over a billion dollars in an airplane and fly it over and give it to a foreign country that's your enemy. 1.00
00:18:05.000 How stupid was that? 1.00
00:18:08.000 The president is not wrong. 1.00
00:18:10.000 He is not wrong. 0.53
00:18:11.000 If you want to end threats to America, you actually have to end them.
00:18:13.000 But what does finishing that job look like?
00:18:15.000 Well, according to a new Reuters report rooted in unnamed leagues, and again, this is a leaky administration from one particular area of the administration, namely the isolationist wing.
00:18:24.000 That is the leakiest part of this administration.
00:18:26.000 It always has been.
00:18:27.000 Quote, a U.S. intelligence report indicates that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse anytime soon after nearly two weeks of relentless U.S. and Israeli bombardment, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
00:18:38.000 Of course, zero sources named, not even a branch of intelligence.
00:18:43.000 But what's the truth?
00:18:44.000 Well, the answer is we don't really know because there isn't tremendous transparency into Iran.
00:18:47.000 The internet is down.
00:18:48.000 According to Iran International, by contrast, the IRGC isn't doing too well.
00:18:52.000 Quote, Iran's armed forces are facing acute supply shortages, rising desertions, deepening friction between the regular army, that would be the Artesh and the Revolutionary Guards.
00:19:00.000 Among the most serious allegations are reports that wounded army personnel have been denied assistance by the IRGC, that some frontline units are operating with minimal ammunition, food, and drinking water, and that attempts to mobilize reserve forces have faltered.
00:19:12.000 Reportedly, the regime has even refused medical support for the wounded, and some units are being allocated 10 bullets per soldier.
00:19:18.000 In fact, according to Iran International, when the Revolutionary Guard summoned more forces for service earlier this week, a lot of people didn't even report.
00:19:26.000 Instead, quote, some individuals used the situation to leave their areas and assist family members in moving toward border regions in hopes of leaving the country.
00:19:34.000 We are close.
00:19:36.000 We are not months away.
00:19:37.000 We are a lot closer to the end than a lot of people think.
00:19:40.000 Iran has taken it directly in the head from the American and Israeli air forces.
00:19:45.000 The coordination between these two extraordinarily powerful and competent military powerhouses has been unbelievable and unprecedented.
00:19:52.000 Here's some pretty incredible tape of Israeli and American pilots radioing each other while in the middle of a sortie.
00:20:02.000 It is a great honor for us to fight with you.
00:20:06.000 You're doing a great job.
00:20:08.000 Thank you very much.
00:20:09.000 Likewise, gentlemen.
00:20:10.000 Please be safe out there.
00:20:16.000 CENTCOM is pointing out that we continue to dealing the regime a heavy blow.
00:20:20.000 One of the big issues right now is there aren't that many clear targets to hit anymore.
00:20:24.000 Here is CENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper giving the update.
00:20:28.000 To date, we have struck more than 5,500 targets inside Iran, including more than 60 ships using a variety of precision weapon systems.
00:20:37.000 Just yesterday, we had strike waves nearly every hour from different locations and directions going into Iran.
00:20:43.000 We also took out the last of four Solomania-class warships.
00:20:47.000 That's an entire class of Iranian ships now out of the fight.
00:20:51.000 I'd characterize our strikes as being unpredictable, dynamic, and decisive.
00:20:57.000 Since the first 24 hours of this campaign, Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks have dropped drastically.
00:21:03.000 But it's worth pointing out that Iranian forces continue to deliberately target innocent civilians in Gulf countries while hiding behind their own people as they launch attacks from highly populated cities in Iran.
00:21:16.000 Of course, forces executing Operation Effort Curie aren't just defending against Iranian threats.
00:21:21.000 We are methodically dismantling them by hitting Iranian missiles and drones as we also strike their defense industrial base. 1.00
00:21:28.000 Just last night, our bomber force hit a large ballistic missile manufacturing facility as an example.
00:21:34.000 So it's not just about what's shooting at us today.
00:21:37.000 It's also about eliminating the threat in the future.
00:21:41.000 Okay, this is the key.
00:21:42.000 It's about eliminating the threat in the future.
00:21:45.000 So this brings us to the question of what we have to do to actually finish this war.
00:21:50.000 So Iran is a moral abomination of a country, but there are moral abominations all over the place. 1.00
00:21:54.000 One of the big ones, maybe the biggest one, is of course abortion. 0.65
00:21:57.000 All across America, women are being pushed into making life-changing decisions in moments of fear and confusion. 0.81
00:22:03.000 They're being told you have to decide this moment as if love, hope, or motherhood should ever be rushed.
00:22:07.000 That's not freedom.
00:22:08.000 That's actual pressure.
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00:22:12.000 When a woman walks through their doors, she's not met with judgment or manipulation. 0.75
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00:22:17.000 She's offered a free ultrasound, the chance to see the baby growing inside her and real support to help her choose life.
00:22:22.000 And here's the incredible part.
00:22:24.000 When a mom sees her baby on that screen, more than 80% of the time, she will choose life, not out of fear, but out of love.
00:22:30.000 My wife and I are pregnant for the fifth time.
00:22:31.000 Technically, she's the one doing all the work.
00:22:33.000 So technically, she's the pregnant one because men can't be pregnant, but every time we see an ultrasound, we are seeing our baby, and it's an incredible experience.
00:22:39.000 That is true for everyone.
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00:23:08.000 Well, first, there are a few things that we could do.
00:23:11.000 The United States could seize control of Iran's oil facilities on Kharg Island that is cutting off the lifeline of the Iranian regime.
00:23:17.000 So, the Iranian government is relying totally on oil exports to China, entirely.
00:23:22.000 Karg Island is kind of the exhaust port in the Iranian Death Star. 1.00
00:23:25.000 It's a place of unique vulnerability, subject to very specific and meticulous action.
00:23:29.000 Approximately 90 to 95% of Iran's crude oil exports pass through this tiny coral island, 15 miles off the coast of Iran.
00:23:37.000 The island features a massive tank farm with a storage capacity of somewhere between 28 and 30 million barrels of oil.
00:23:43.000 So far, we've left that untouched.
00:23:44.000 The reason we've left that untouched is because we're afraid that if we take action against Karg Island, then the price of crude is going to spike even more because that is where Iran is shipping oil out to China.
00:23:55.000 But if the Iranians keep harassing all the oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, except for that Chinese oil traffic, since again, Iran and China are allies, then the United States may grow tired of this game and simply seize control.
00:24:07.000 And the price of Brent crude would spike for a short time, and then there would be a long-term decline in the price of oil because the Iranian regime would basically be toast.
00:24:14.000 They would basically lose its own endgame.
00:24:17.000 The Americans would not be retreating and they would have no economic lifeline.
00:24:21.000 Yes, they could up the ante even more in the Straits of Hormuz and close it temporarily, not for very long because the Iranian government would have no money.
00:24:30.000 They would have no resources flowing out.
00:24:32.000 And the Americans would be sitting on their most precious resource, which is their capacity for oil export.
00:24:37.000 The Iranian governmental failure might not be immediate, but it would become inevitable, not merely possible.
00:24:42.000 Second, the United States could actively facilitate boots on the ground, even if they're not our boots.
00:24:47.000 Now, this would require helping to relieve the Iranian crackdown on internet access to facilitate the flow of small weapons to allies on the ground.
00:24:53.000 This is the biggest question.
00:24:55.000 And you see an enormous number of Iranians, millions, tens of millions of Iranians who hate the regime.
00:25:00.000 The problem is they don't have the guns, which is why you saw these gigantic protests beginning in December and you saw 32,000 people shot in the streets.
00:25:06.000 I know that we're supposed to forget about all that because opponents of the war, as we'll get to, are very, very upset about a girls' school that got hit in the war.
00:25:14.000 And then we're supposed to totally pretend that the Iranians don't slaughter innocent Iranians at the rate of tens of thousands the minute they pop their heads out of the ground. 1.00
00:25:22.000 In any case, the Israelis have been pummeling IRGC stations in Iran's western regions, particularly the areas that border Azerbaijan and Iraq.
00:25:29.000 Those happen to be areas that are largely comprised of Azeris and Kurds.
00:25:33.000 Remember, Iran is actually less Persian than America is white.
00:25:37.000 There are huge minority populations in Iran, and they largely live in the border areas with other countries.
00:25:43.000 The Kurds, for example, live on the eastern side of the border with Iraq.
00:25:48.000 So you have Iraqi Kurds on one side, Iranian Kurds on the other, and some interplay between the two.
00:25:53.000 We could see serious incursions into Iran from both Azerbaijan and from Iraqi Kurdistan by Iranian Kurds.
00:26:00.000 And if that happened, there would be a serious challenge to IRGC forces.
00:26:04.000 Those forces are now isolated from Iran because of the fracturing of the IRGC leadership class.
00:26:10.000 Basically, with the destruction of the top levels of the IRGC, the lines of command have now broken down and you have specific IRGC areas governed by specific IRGC commanders.
00:26:21.000 Many of these brigades are maybe 3,000 to 5,000 people.
00:26:24.000 And so the entire structure could begin to collapse piece by piece.
00:26:27.000 And if that happens, then more and more Iranians in the center of the country will understand that the moment has come for action.
00:26:34.000 And this is being facilitated pretty actively by the Israeli government.
00:26:38.000 Right now, we are reading astonishing reports of Israeli drones that are so specific.
00:26:43.000 These are suicide drones.
00:26:44.000 They're targeting specific IRGC checkpoints in Iran.
00:26:49.000 So when we say checkpoints, we mean like areas on a street where IRGC soldiers are standing waiting for people to emerge so they can shoot them.
00:26:58.000 And Israel has been from a thousand miles away directing suicide drones to take out specific IRG soldiers, IRGC soldiers, at specific intersections, essentially killing the suppression forces necessary to kill protesters en masse in the streets if there should be some sort of popular uprising.
00:27:16.000 And finally, the United States could simply bomb until the bombing is done.
00:27:19.000 Now, again, that might not entail the immediate fall of the regime.
00:27:22.000 It could entail going after nuclear facilities at Pickaxe Mountain with its facilities that are buried under rock 80 meters deep.
00:27:29.000 Now, last year, you'll remember that the president of the United States authorized Operation Midnight Hammer, which was designed to hit the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordo.
00:27:37.000 There are multiple nuclear facilities in Iran, Isfahan, Florida, Pickaxe Mountain.
00:27:43.000 The entryways to some of those facilities were destroyed.
00:27:46.000 Many of those facilities were heavily damaged.
00:27:48.000 The president said obliterated.
00:27:49.000 Obliterated was language that was, I would say, overdone, heavily damaged was right. 1.00
00:27:55.000 It's difficult to get 300 feet underground just with bombs.
00:28:00.000 So you might require the work of a special operations unit or Mossad.
00:28:06.000 The same is true when it comes to locating and destroying any remaining stockpiles of nuclear material.
00:28:10.000 Now, none of these options are mutually exclusive.
00:28:12.000 In fact, all of them could theoretically happen at the same time.
00:28:15.000 But all of them depend on the willpower of the president to carry this operation to a successful conclusion, which is why the president should know, and I'm sure he does, that 90% of Republicans support him, despite the nonsense that you hear online from the caterwalling, chattering class, the people who keep complaining that it's all about Epstein or that it's an endless war or that Israel forced him into it.
00:28:37.000 The vast, vast, vast majority of Republicans support the president here.
00:28:42.000 They do.
00:28:44.000 And if we want America to defeat Iran, which I think we all should, regardless of political affiliation, the American people are going to have to recognize the realities of war and the evils of our enemies. 0.95
00:28:55.000 All of this brings us to the tremendous media focus on what appears to be the accidental bombing of a girls' school in Iran in the early hours of the war.
00:29:01.000 This has been the chief point of pushback by the legacy media and again, members of the grievance party, meaning Democrats and the horseshoe theory right, many of whom are just openly rooting at this point for Iran, openly rooting.
00:29:12.000 And by the way, lying.
00:29:14.000 People suggesting, seriously, that the United States is going to launch some sort of false flag operation in California in order to initiate further action against Iran.
00:29:22.000 That is a suggestion literally made yesterday by some of the top grievance party podcasters in the space.
00:29:28.000 And these are the same people who are apparently very, very concerned about this bombing of a girls' school by accident in Iran.
00:29:34.000 On February 28th, ordinance fell on the Shajarat Tayeba elementary school in Iran.
00:29:39.000 According to the Iranian government, 175 people died, most of them children.
00:29:42.000 First off, we should definitely verify how many people died and who they were.
00:29:47.000 Trusting the Iranian regime on casualty numbers is about as trustworthy as the Hamas Health Ministry. 0.96
00:29:53.000 But we are getting new information as to what actually happened here.
00:29:57.000 Was it a misfire by the Iranians or was it American ordinance?
00:30:01.000 According to the New York Times, the February 28th strike on the Shajara Tayeba Elementary School building was the result of a targeting mistake by the U.S. military, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base, of which the school building was formerly a part.
00:30:13.000 The preliminary investigation found officers at U.S. CENTCOM created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, people briefed on the investigation, said.
00:30:25.000 Well, obviously, this is a tragedy, a very serious tragedy.
00:30:29.000 As you can see on this map, the elementary school was located directly next to, directly next to, the Iranian compound, the IRGC military base, which, again, you have to ask yourself, why does the IRGC locate its military bases directly next to large girls' schools?
00:30:47.000 In any case, this terrible incident is being used as an excuse by opponents of Iranian action to castigate the United States and President Trump for the intervention itself.
00:30:56.000 Jon Favreau, one of the Obama bros from Potsdam of America, lit into President Trump while lamenting, quote, a U.S. missile strike killed more than 100 little girls at an Iranian elementary school.
00:31:05.000 Nearly 1,400 civilians have been killed.
00:31:07.000 Hundreds of thousands have had to flee their homes.
00:31:09.000 Do any of these people really believe that the U.S. military wanted to kill a bunch of schoolgirls? 0.98
00:31:14.000 Well, I mean, some of them probably do because they've been indoctrinated into this idiotic system of belief for generations by our crappy public school system, the Howard Zinification of American education. 0.96
00:31:24.000 There are a lot of people in the United States who are imported from other countries who hate America in the first place and lied when they were asked to take that oath of citizenship. 0.98
00:31:31.000 There are a bunch of people who are cynically pretending.
00:31:33.000 I think that's the biggest group here.
00:31:35.000 The people who are cynically pretending that we did this on purpose, that the American military is blunderbussing around in Iran, just randomly hitting targets they don't care about or that they actually want dead schoolgirls.
00:31:45.000 Listen, if you, here's the bottom line.
00:31:47.000 If you believe for any of these reasons that the United States military is deliberately seeking to kill schoolgirls, leave the country.
00:31:55.000 Leave the country. 0.98
00:31:55.000 You hate the country, period. 0.98
00:31:58.000 Seriously, you believe the men and women of the United States military know that that's a girls' school with a bunch of second graders, and they're like, go and hit the tomahawk? 0.98
00:32:08.000 If that's what you believe about the American military, get the hell out.
00:32:11.000 Seriously, you hate our military.
00:32:13.000 You hate the country if you believe that.
00:32:14.000 Again, I'm not saying that if you oppose the war or if you're critical of the war, this means you hate the country.
00:32:18.000 I'm saying if you believe that the United States military and the Trump administration or any other administration, by the way, Democrat or Republican, is deliberately trying, trying to kill civilians with no military purpose, then you really believe such horrible things about the country that you should leave.
00:32:35.000 But if in reality you know that this was just a bad accident, a terrible, horrible, tragic accident, then why are you treating it as the dispositive critique of the American military?
00:32:44.000 Why are you using it to discredit an entire military operation?
00:32:47.000 You want to make an argument against the military operation?
00:32:49.000 You want to say that it's going to lead to long-term oil shocks and that there'll be no way to topple the regime.
00:32:54.000 Make that argument.
00:32:55.000 That's a fair argument.
00:32:56.000 I think it's wrong, but it's at least a fair argument.
00:32:58.000 And maybe in the end, you'll be right and we'll find out. 0.98
00:33:01.000 But focusing in on one tragic and horrifying accident to discredit the entire effort is asinine and immoral.
00:33:10.000 I see no such upset from the same exact people over the fact that the Iranian government has been holding hostage tens of millions of Iranians for 50 years, that the Iranian government is so incompetent, that Tehran was going to be evacuated because of lack of water five minutes ago, that the Iranian government is so bad at this, that all civilians in Iran have been suffering from inflation that makes Weimar Germany look like Fort Knox.
00:33:37.000 And very few of these people had anything of merit to say about the fact that the Iranian government, on purpose, not accidentally, not through mistargeting, on purpose, murdered 32,000 innocent people a few weeks ago. 0.56
00:33:49.000 None of these people had anything to say.
00:33:51.000 None of them, not even one of these false, not nothing.
00:33:54.000 Zip Zilch.
00:33:56.000 But when the United States mistargets a former military target, they jump to the conclusion that the U.S. has engaged in a unique evil, an evil so grave that we have to cancel everything here on out.
00:34:05.000 And the Iranian government, which is the most evil government on the planet, must somehow be maintained. 1.00
00:34:12.000 I just have a simple question for these people.
00:34:14.000 Do any of them really believe the U.S. military wanted to kill a bunch of schoolgirls?
00:34:20.000 Do they really believe that?
00:34:21.000 Or are they lying to you?
00:34:22.000 Are they liars?
00:34:24.000 The answer is they don't believe that.
00:34:25.000 Or by the way, if they do, they truly hate the country.
00:34:28.000 If you believe that the U.S. military, that CENTCOM is sitting there and they're saying, hey, bunch of little girls, let's go for it. 0.61
00:34:33.000 If you truly believe that, you should leave the country because you clearly think that you live in a place of tremendous evil, like true, unbridled evil.
00:34:43.000 But if realistically speaking, these people understand that this was, in fact, a terrible accident, then why treat it as a dispositive critique of the American military, which is delivering some of the most targeted strikes in the history of warfare, in the history of warfare.
00:34:58.000 We are using next-gen technology to target specific individuals in Iran, not just specific buildings or specific streets, specific humans in Iran.
00:35:11.000 But if there's a tragic accident because of bad intel, then suddenly that is the thing that cancel it.
00:35:16.000 Let's all go home.
00:35:17.000 Let's leave Iran in control. 1.00
00:35:18.000 Let them build up those ballistic missile facilities. 0.97
00:35:20.000 Let them build up their drones. 1.00
00:35:22.000 Let them build up their nuke program and then talk to them while they do that until they become essentially untouchable.
00:35:28.000 That is your case.
00:35:29.000 It's a bad faith attack.
00:35:31.000 But that's all opponents of the Iran action seem to be pursuing these days.
00:35:35.000 Well, meanwhile, if you haven't noticed online, things are happening.
00:35:39.000 If you've been browsing social media the past few days, you may have stumbled upon me or even tripped upon one of my most striking features.
00:35:47.000 Let's be honest, you could have seen these babies coming from seven posts away.
00:35:50.000 It's time to address the caterpillars in the room.
00:35:51.000 The internet is clearly asking for it.
00:35:53.000 So behold, the Brow Shapiro t-shirt is now available at the DailyWire shop, dailywire.com/slash shop.
00:36:01.000 Emblazon with the most discerning eye umbrellas, this side of sanity.
00:36:04.000 The optical awnings on this comfy tee strike fear in the heart of every talking head too scared to say what they actually mean.
00:36:11.000 Open your browser right now.
00:36:12.000 Head on over to dailywire.com slash shop and get yours.
00:36:15.000 Keep your eyebrows strong and your principles stronger.
00:36:18.000 Also, every weekday here on the Ben Shapiro show, we take the news, try to make it all make sense.
00:36:22.000 Sometimes it's more fun to argue about it.
00:36:24.000 So we have Friendly Fire.
00:36:25.000 Join me, Michael Knowles, Andrew Clavin, for a completely live conversation about the biggest stories in the headlines.
00:36:30.000 And of course, the Oscars are coming up.
00:36:31.000 So we will do a big Oscars preview.
00:36:33.000 Yeah, I watched all the movies for you, so you don't have to.
00:36:36.000 Watch Friendly Fire live tomorrow at 2 p.m. Eastern on dailywire.com and the Dailywire Plus app.
00:36:40.000 Meanwhile, on the home front, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz just announced that he is leaving Seattle.
00:36:45.000 In a LinkedIn post, Howard Schultz explained, quote, for those of you who know us well, we have entered the retirement phase of our lives, a term we are both just getting used to.
00:36:54.000 Last year, we traveled to dozens of places around the world, places we are too busy to see when building Starbucks and raising kids.
00:36:59.000 And we have moved to Miami for our next adventure together.
00:37:01.000 We are enjoying the sunshine of South Florida, and it's a lure to our kids on the East Coast as they raise families of their own, says Howard Schultz.
00:37:07.000 Like many other Seattle-based companies, Starbucks today stands on the shoulders of the many Pacific Northwesterners who built the company.
00:37:13.000 They helped shape the culture, the benefits, and the brand, contributing to the civic community and public life of the city and state.
00:37:19.000 It is our hope that Washington will remain a place for business and entrepreneurship to thrive, creating essential opportunity for those in Seattle and the surrounding areas.
00:37:26.000 Sounds normal and innocent.
00:37:28.000 They're getting older.
00:37:29.000 It's time to retire.
00:37:30.000 Head on over to Miami, sunny Miami, and just like grandma used to.
00:37:35.000 Well, there's a little bit more to the story.
00:37:37.000 It turns out that Howard Schultz announced he would be ditching Washington State for Florida on precisely the same day that Washington state lawmakers advanced a 10% annual tax on all personal earnings over $1 million. 0.75
00:37:49.000 Idiot Governor Bob Ferguson announced in December he would love a wealth tax. 0.76
00:37:53.000 That wealth tax would amount to for a billion billionaire, somewhere between $50 and $100 million. 0.98
00:38:01.000 Now, it's not as though all that government money has been going to good use.
00:38:04.000 Homelessness in Seattle's King County has been on an upward trend since 2012.
00:38:09.000 But since they abdicated all basic law and order measures in 2020, homelessness increased 43%.
00:38:14.000 The city's violent crime rate, property crime rate, ODs are all hitting national highs.
00:38:18.000 Its police is notoriously short-staffed.
00:38:21.000 And of course, they then elected a socialist mayor who has promised a people's paradise.
00:38:26.000 Here's Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson. 0.94
00:38:29.000 I want everyone in this great city of ours to have a roof over their head.
00:38:33.000 I want universal child care and free K-through eight summer care.
00:38:38.000 I want world-class mass transit.
00:38:40.000 I want great, safe public spaces where kids can run around with abandon.
00:38:45.000 I want stable, affordable housing for renters.
00:38:48.000 I want social housing.
00:38:49.000 I want much more land and wealth to be owned and stewarded by communities instead of corporations.
00:38:58.000 Who's going to pay for all of that?
00:39:00.000 The answer was Howard Schultz.
00:39:02.000 And so he was like, nah, out.
00:39:04.000 So he just bought a $44 million mansion in Florida.
00:39:07.000 Listen, Schultz's business isn't even sticking around.
00:39:09.000 Starbucks operations are expanding radically into the Southeast, including into Tennessee, ditching additional employment in liberal Seattle.
00:39:16.000 So, why is this like a national story?
00:39:18.000 Why is it a big story?
00:39:19.000 Lots of billionaires have been fleeing liberal jurisdictions for low-tax conservative ones.
00:39:23.000 Not all of them were quite so vocal about the magic of Democratic political rule.
00:39:28.000 Howard Schultz is a longtime donor to Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell in the state of Washington.
00:39:33.000 He supported Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer.
00:39:37.000 He gave over the course of his giving career in hard money $150,000 to Democrats.
00:39:43.000 In 2020, when he was exploring running for president as an independent, Schultz said, I myself should be paying higher taxes, and all wealthy Americans should have to pay their fair share.
00:39:51.000 But when it came time to pony up, Schultz, like every other rational human being, moved to a low-tax, zero income tax state, Florida.
00:40:01.000 Listen, welcome.
00:40:02.000 We're always happy to have more great people, but please, Howard, leave your tax policies back in the state you just abandoned after having pushed for many of those same politicians who wrecked the state.
00:40:13.000 We do not need anyone Washingtoning our Florida. 0.96
00:40:17.000 There is a broad-scale problem with leftists who wreck their states and then, seeking to avoid the consequences of that failure, move to red states.
00:40:27.000 Okay, well, if you're going to do that, then please leave your politics behind. 0.99
00:40:31.000 Do not bring your crap politics from California and New York down to Florida or down to Texas or to Arizona or to any other place that is not governed by trash. 0.98
00:40:39.000 The reason that you're moving is because the politics of your home state are bad. 1.00
00:40:43.000 Do not make the same, don't wreck, don't set your house on fire over there and then immediately move to a house in our neighborhood and start setting things on fire.
00:40:52.000 Please don't do that.
00:40:53.000 All right, folks, there is more show, but it only continues for our members.
00:40:56.000 And I will ask all of your burning questions.
00:40:58.000 I see one of our members is asking about Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson.
00:41:01.000 Yes, I will answer that, but only if you become a member.
00:41:04.000 Become a member, use Code Shapiro at checkout and try it out.
00:41:07.000 Two months free on all annual plans.
00:41:09.000 Click the link in the description and join us.
00:41:11.000 Legal sent this list of everything we're not allowed to do in season two.
00:41:16.000 We're going to do all of it.
00:41:18.000 We've got games, more celebrity guests.
00:41:20.000 And yes, the mailbag is somehow worse.
00:41:23.000 If you thought season one was extra, season two, we're doubling down.
00:41:26.000 We're not supposed to be doing this.
00:41:28.000 Exactly.
00:41:29.000 Been after dark season two, streaming on Daily Wire