00:00:01.000Well, America is breaking down into two parties, not the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, two new parties, the American Exceptionalists and the bipartisan Grievance Party.
00:00:11.000The American Exceptionalists believe in American exceptionalism, that America is awesome, that we have historically been awesome, and that we will be awesome again if we do the hard things that we must do.
00:00:21.000The Grievance Party members believe America is not awesome, was never awesome, and will only be awesome if we fundamentally rewrite the American bargain and also retreat from the world for our great sins.
00:00:31.000That battle between the American exceptionalists and the grievance party, left and right, will define our future as Americans.
00:00:38.000And right now, that battle is being fought over Iran.
00:00:41.000You're listening to The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:49.000So, the American exceptionalist versus the grievance party.
00:00:52.000The American exceptionalists think that America is unique and awesome.
00:00:56.000We may argue over tax rates and the prosecution of particular wars, whether to do them, how to do them, but we generally agree America has the best constitutional system, the strongest and best free market economy, and the most powerful military in all of human history.
00:01:09.000We know that America, in order to preserve the freest and most prosperous nation in world history, sometimes has to do the tough stuff, but that doing the tough stuff is part of what makes America great.
00:01:19.000And then, there are the members of the grievance party.
00:01:23.000They're the people the president calls low IQ these days, and they become largely indistinguishable from one another.
00:01:28.000Hassan Piker on the left say, and Tucker Carlson on the right.
00:01:31.000They seem to believe that America's constitutional system is a mockery and a sham, that our free market economy is actually just a rigged oligarchy created by nefarious and evil elites at the expense of the poor, that our military is a gigantic terrorist operation, and that the world would somehow be better off if America abandoned the international playing field.
00:01:50.000Now, that grievance party, they're gaining adherence because the world feels chaotic, and when the world feels chaotic, there is comfort to grievance.
00:01:57.000When you feel like nothing is in your control, it is easy and politically productive to blame mysterious forces beyond your control.
00:02:04.000That also happens to be a recipe for failure, both individually and nationally, which is what the propagandists for the Grievance Party are rooting for pretty openly.
00:02:12.000They're openly rooting for the United States to fail in its battle to rid the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, an apocalyptic death cult that cries death to America from obtaining nuclear weapons.
00:02:24.000They want America to give up power to China and to Russia, and they openly say so.
00:02:28.000But here's the thing America is not losing.
00:02:31.000And that is because American exceptionalists know that in a chaotic world, the only answer is to stand up for American values and to do that without apology, with strength, and with courage.
00:02:41.000President Trump is doing that right now in Iran.
00:02:44.000Now, if you listened to the low IQ grievance party propagandists and their left wing legacy media counterparts over the course of the last week, you thought that President Trump was caving in, that that ceasefire routine, that was chickening out, that was taco time.
00:02:57.000Well, if you listened to this show, you knew he wasn't.
00:03:01.000And then over the weekend, it turns out some of us were right and some people were wrong because he didn't cave in.0.79
00:03:07.000And now he has Iran's feet to the fire.0.61
00:03:10.000And they have really, really serious problems.
00:03:13.000So all this began with negotiations in Islamabad.
00:03:16.000The Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, arrived in Islamabad.
00:03:20.000He was along with Jared Kushner and Whitcoff, Steve Whitcoff.
00:03:24.000And here he was greeting the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shabazz Sharif.
00:03:29.000And, you know, shaking hands, being very friendly.
00:03:32.000Now, Pakistan is sort of like Qatar in the sense that they are sort of an ally of convenience for the United States.
00:03:39.000They do certain things for us in terms of anti terror.0.86
00:03:42.000They also tend to oppose America, generally speaking, they are an Islamist state.0.98
00:03:48.000The president on Wednesday put forward, on Friday afternoon rather, right before the negotiations began, he put forward a statement on Truth Social The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards.0.96
00:03:59.000Other than a short term extortion of the world by using international waterways, the only reason they're alive today is to negotiate, President Trump.0.99
00:04:06.000And of course, he is right about that.
00:04:09.000The reality is that the Iranian government, people see the attempt to control the Strait of Hormuz as a sign of strength from the Iranian government, as we've been discussing for a while here.
00:04:21.000Basically, the Iranians, in order to remain in power, given the fact that they have a completely defunct economy, an economy where the real, the Iranian real, is trading at zero.0.84
00:04:30.000Remember, there were millions of protesters in the streets before the current U.S. Israeli action against Iran.0.89
00:04:38.000Basically, Iran had only a couple of levers that it could pull in an attempt to maintain its power.0.71
00:04:44.000One is it could shoot its protesters in the streets en masse, and they were doing that.0.92
00:04:48.000The second was they could ramp up conflict via their terror proxies in an attempt to Extort the world.0.62
00:04:58.000It began long before that with Hezbollah, but in sort of most modern iteration, it began October 7th, 2023, and that failed too.0.60
00:05:05.000And then they could try to rush their way to a nuclear weapon, and that failed because President Trump and the Israelis called their bluff.0.73
00:05:12.000And then finally, as a last gasp, they could try to shut down shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:05:16.000The problem is, once you shut down that shipping, that is a problem that affects everyone.
00:05:21.000And now, if Iran releases that, if suddenly the Strait of Hormuz were to be clear, If oil were to move in and out unfettered by the Iranian government, they would have no lever.
00:05:35.000If it turned out the Strait was clear and they have no nukes and their terrorist groups are dying and they have no control over the Strait of Hormuz, they really have nothing.
00:05:43.000This is a point that President Trump was making Saturday afternoon saying, listen, if there's a deal, great.
00:06:08.000Maybe they make a deal, maybe they don't.
00:06:12.000From the standpoint of America, we win.
00:06:16.000Okay, and again, he is not wrong about this.0.94
00:06:18.000We should keep focusing on the fact that Iran's military has been wildly depleted.0.79
00:06:22.000Their Navy is at the bottom of the sea, their Air Force cannot fly.
00:06:26.000Their government is so discombobulated that you have factions within the Iranian government legitimately arguing with each other fairly publicly.
00:06:32.000You have Mohammed Khalibaf, who is the negotiator for the Iranians and the person who I suppose is who we are talking to.
00:06:39.000And he's arguing with Vahidi, who's the head of the IRGC, fairly openly at this point.
00:06:45.000So there's serious conflict, even within the Iranian government, as to who exactly is in the leadership.
00:06:49.000It's not Mustab al Khomeini, who is one legged and in a coma.
00:06:54.000So things are not going well for Iran.
00:06:57.000That actually, as the world reorients away from oil in the Persian Gulf, they're reorienting in the immediate term toward the United States.
00:07:06.000And by the way, globally, they're going to reorient away from transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
00:07:10.000You're going to see new pipelines being built from Saudi, probably all the way across to the Mediterranean Sea, possibly via Israel.0.98
00:07:17.000You're going to see new pipelines that are built in other directions in an attempt to avoid the overwatch of the Iranians.0.99
00:07:25.000But for the moment, the reality is that we are shipping a bushel of oil to the United States.
00:07:30.000The president put out a statement again.
00:07:33.000Quote, massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the world, are heading right now to the United States to load up with the best and sweetest oil and gas anywhere in the world.
00:07:42.000We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined and higher quality.
00:08:27.000They've donated over half a million dollars to America's Warrior Partnership.
00:08:30.000It's a fantastic organization that's on the front lines of preventing veteran suicide.
00:08:34.000And PureTalk is creating American jobs with a U.S. only workforce.
00:08:37.000Sure, it'd be a lot cheaper to send jobs overseas like other companies do, but they're committed to delivering the best experience possible for their customers.
00:08:44.000And of course, I love Pure Talk's service.
00:08:46.000They give you the same towers, the same network, the same 5G coverage as one of the big guys, but for a fraction of the price.
00:09:18.000So, number one, it turns out that Iran may have planted mines and then may have just lost control of the mines.
00:09:23.000Like they may not even know where they planted mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:09:25.000That's the New York Times reporting it Iran's inability to locate its own mines is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the Trump administration's admonitions to let more traffic pass through the Strait.
00:09:36.000Safe routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the Strait haphazardly.
00:09:41.000It's not even clear that Iran recorded where it put every mine.0.83
00:09:44.000And even when they recorded the location, they sort of let them drift or move.
00:09:49.000Well, this is a problem, not really for the United States.
00:09:56.000Because if the Straits of Hormuz were to be, let us say, permanently closed or harmed, the chief, the chief problem would lie with the people who get their oil from the Straits of Hormuz.0.98
00:10:34.000And this, I think, is part of the president's plan, as we'll get to in a little while.
00:10:37.000China has been attempting to prop up the Iranian regime because they see Iran as a counterweight to Saudi, to UAE, to Bahrain, and to Israel.
00:10:46.000They believe that Iran is the glue that sticks together their world coalition along with Russia.
00:10:54.000And so they have continued, according to the Wall Street Journal, to sell the Iranians sanctioned dual use technology to enable Tehran to keep building weapons.
00:11:02.000But what happens right now, the way that it was working, is that oil that was moving via the Persian Gulf was largely going to China, and Iran was letting it through, and so was the United States.
00:11:13.000What happens when that oil stops moving, and now China has a serious fuel problem?
00:11:18.000Well, as of Saturday morning, the president put out another statement saying they were already clearing out the Strait of Hormuz.
00:11:24.000He put out a statement The fake news media has lost total credibility, not that they had any to begin with.
00:11:29.000Because of their massive Trump derangement syndrome, sometimes referred to as TDS, they love saying that Iran is winning when, in fact, everyone knows they're losing and losing big.
00:11:36.000Their Navy is gone, the Air Force is gone, their anti aircraft apparatus is non existent, radar is dead, their missile and drone factories have been largely obliterated, along with the missiles and drones themselves, and most importantly, their longtime leaders are no longer with us.0.73
00:11:49.000The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may bump into one of their sea mines, which, by the way, all 28 of their mind dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea.0.58
00:11:58.000We're now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to countries all over the world, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others.
00:12:05.000Incredibly, they don't have the courage or will to do this work themselves.
00:12:08.000Very interestingly, empty oil carrying ships from many nations are headed to the United States to load up with oil.
00:12:15.000And the president, again, is not wrong about this.
00:12:19.000Meanwhile, it turns out that on Saturday, actually, two American ships transited the Strait of Hormuz and are operating in the Arabian Gulf.
00:12:27.000Those would be the USS Frank E. Peterson and the USS Michael Murphy.
00:12:31.000According to Admiral Brad Cooper, who's the commander of CENTCOM, quote, today we began the process of establishing a new passage, and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce.
00:12:41.000Additional U.S. forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days.
00:12:48.000The president did make clear that if we're the ones who are going to do the work, this is not the little red hen.
00:12:52.000If we're the ones who do the work, then we are the ones who are going to reap the benefit.
00:12:56.000Other countries can't just free ride on us.
00:13:10.000And now all we do is we'll open up the strait even though we don't use it because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it that are either afraid or weak or cheap.
00:13:23.000I don't know what it is, but we were not helped by NATO, that I can tell you.
00:13:29.000Again, this we'll get to in a minute the international community's failure to actually be a community and instead to just sit there and let America do all of the heavy lifting.
00:13:37.000All right, so all this was happening while negotiations were supposedly taking place.
00:13:42.000And those negotiations went for something like 21 hours straight.
00:13:47.000This, of course, is not a surprise to those of us who have been pointing out that Iran was going to be intransigent on its nuclear weaponry.
00:13:55.000It was not possible for the Iranians to give up their nuclear program.0.59
00:13:59.000The minute that they do, their leverage is gone.0.96
00:14:01.000Again, they're trying to turn themselves into North Korea.0.98
00:14:03.000Remember, never forget when it comes to the Iranians, they could end.0.97
00:14:08.000All measures against them with one statement, all they would have to do is announce they are done developing nuclear weapons and they're going to give up the nuclear materials they have.0.71
00:14:16.000They're not going to block the Strait of Hormuz.
00:14:18.000They're not going to develop offensive ballistic missile capacity.
00:14:22.000And they're going to stop funding terrorist groups.
00:14:24.000If they did all of that, all of this would be over.
00:14:26.000And in fact, it would have been over decades ago.
00:14:29.000The reason they're not doing that is because they do have regional and global ambitions.
00:14:34.000That is the reason they are doing this.
00:14:35.000And so they're not giving up the ghost.
00:14:38.000Well, the Vice President, JD Vance, who no one could accuse of being a neocon warmonger, he was the one leading the negotiations.
00:14:45.000And even he had to say listen, the Iranians are not willing to make any sort of serious concession in terms of acting like a normal state.
00:14:57.000But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon.
00:15:08.000That is the core goal of the President of the United States.
00:15:10.000And that's what we've tried to achieve through these negotiations.
00:15:13.000Again, their nuclear program, such as it is, the enrichment facilities that they had before, they've been destroyed.0.76
00:15:22.000But the simple question is do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon, not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term?
00:16:26.000A U.S. official said that Vance entered the negotiations well aware the U.S. and Iran had hardly interacted with one another for half a century.
00:16:32.000Vance probed the Iranian assessment of their own position and discovered that they fundamentally misunderstood their own position walking into the negotiations.
00:16:40.000That was why the vice president left Islamabad after he gave that final offer.
00:16:44.000If the Iranians believe they have leverage that they do not have, the official said, no deal is achievable.
00:17:01.000Well, President Trump then issued a statement that followed hard upon JD Vance's statement Saturday night quote, Iran promised to open the Strait of Hormuz, and they knowingly failed to do so.
00:17:13.000This caused anxiety, dislocation, and pain to many people in countries throughout the world.
00:17:16.000They say they put mines in the water, even though all their navy and most of their mine droppers have been completely blown up.
00:17:21.000They may have done so, but what ship owner would want to take the chance?0.63
00:17:24.000There's great dishonor and permanent harm to the reputation of Iran and what's left of their leaders, but we are beyond all of that.0.60
00:17:29.000As they promised, they better begin the process of getting this international waterway open and fast.0.99
00:17:33.000Every law in the book is being violated by them.
00:17:35.000I've been fully debriefed, says the president, by Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Whitcough, and Jared Kushner on the meeting that took place in Islamabad.
00:17:43.000Through the kind and very competent leadership of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan.0.89
00:17:48.000Again, understand that Pakistan in this particular situation is a cutout for China.
00:17:53.000Pakistan and China have a very warm relationship.
00:17:55.000China is the one trying to get to an off ramp here because it is China that is worried about the Strait of Hormuz being closed, considering that 37% of imported Chinese oil comes via the Strait of Hormuz.
00:18:06.000According to the president, I always appreciate hearing that the amount of humanity that he has saved, he's talking about the war with India, is incomprehensible.
00:18:15.000And then he says, the meeting with Iran began early in the morning and lasted throughout the night, close to 20 hours.
00:18:19.000I could go into great detail and talk about much that has been gotten, but there is only one thing that matters.
00:18:23.000Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions.0.82
00:18:26.000In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our military operations to conclusion, but all of those points don't matter compared to allowing nuclear power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people.0.50
00:18:36.000My three representatives, As all of this time went by, he became not surprisingly very friendly and respectful of Iran's representatives, Mohammed Bagher Khalibaf, Abbas Araki, and Ali Bagheri.0.67
00:18:45.000But that doesn't matter because they were very unyielding as to the single most important issue.
00:18:48.000And as I have always said right from the beginning and many years ago, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.0.89
00:18:54.000And that, in the end, is the thing that matters.
00:18:56.000Okay, so the president then said what would happen next Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the finest in the world, will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz.
00:19:09.000At some point, we will reach an all being allowed to go in, all being allowed to go out basis.
00:19:13.000But Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying there may be a mine out there somewhere that nobody knows about but them.
00:19:18.000This is world extortion, and leaders of countries, especially the United States, will never be extorted.0.56
00:19:22.000I've also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran.
00:19:28.000No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas, says the president.0.94
00:19:32.000We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the straits.0.76
00:19:35.000Any Iranian who fires at us or a peaceful vessel will be blown to hell.0.99
00:19:40.000Iran knows, says the president, better than anyone, how to end the situation, which has already devastated their country.0.98
00:19:46.000Other countries will be involved with this blockade.0.85
00:19:48.000Iran will not be allowed to profit off this illegal act of extortion.0.51
00:19:51.000They want money, and more importantly, they want nuclear.0.83
00:19:53.000Additionally, and in an appropriate moment, we are fully locked and loaded, and our military will finish up the little that is left of Iran, President Trump.0.78
00:20:00.000And that blockade was commenced this morning at 10 a.m. Eastern.
00:20:04.000It was effective on vessels attempting to reach Iranian ports or that were leaving Iranian ports.
00:20:10.000The president also pointed out on Truth Social this morning that the United States would be obliterating any fast attack ships.
00:20:17.000These are the small boats that Iran has been launching at tankers.
00:20:20.000He says if they come anywhere close to our blockade, they will be immediately eliminated.
00:20:31.000The Iranian economy was already basically screwed.
00:20:35.000They had continued to benefit economically from the blockade because as the supply of oil was lowered, as they blockaded pretty much all non Iranian ships or Iranian flagships or Iranian allied ships, the supply of global oil declined and the price of Brent crude skyrocketed.
00:20:51.000And so Iran was shipping out more oil at higher prices.
00:20:53.000And so the United States just said under President Trump, you don't get to do that anymore.
00:20:59.000Pretty much everything except your own stuff?
00:21:00.000Well, now we are going to blockade your stuff, and you're going to have to deal with the fallout.
00:21:04.000Well, Myad Maleki of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy points out what that means in terms of Iran's economy.0.83
00:21:10.000And the answer is it means they have no economy.
00:21:12.000Quote The U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cost Iran approximately $276 million a day in lost exports and disrupt $160 million a day in imports, a combined economic damage of $435 million a day or $13 billion per month.
00:21:27.000Over 90% of Iran's $110 billion in annual trade transits the Persian Gulf.
00:21:33.000Oil and gas accounts for 80% of government export earnings and 24% of GDP.
00:21:38.000Karg Island alone generates $53 billion a year or $78 billion a year in energy revenue.
00:21:44.000The rial has already cratered from $42,000 to $1.5 million per dollar.
00:21:49.000Banks are currently limiting withdrawals in Iran to $18 to $30 per day.
00:22:12.000So the blockade basically ends the Iranian economy.
00:22:18.000Now, the Iranians presumably are hoping that this only lasts for a short period of time, but the New York Post is reporting this morning that the Iranians are already talking about the possibility of giving up the ghost and ending their nuclear program.
00:22:29.000This is exactly what President Trump predicted yesterday with Maria Bartiromo over on Fox.
00:23:21.000The United States had a week to rearm.
00:23:23.000The amount of material that's being reshipped back into the Middle East in preparation for even further action is quite large at this point.
00:23:31.000And the United States still has a lot of cards left to play.0.68
00:23:34.000Sure, we can embargo all of the oil that is coming out of Iran, we can blockade it.0.99
00:23:39.000We could also just blow up Kharg Island and create a permanent problem for them.0.97
00:23:43.000The Israelis could do a special operation and grab the nuclear materials right now.0.90
00:23:48.000And as the economy collapses, if you believe that there won't be bread riots, meaning people just don't have any money at all in Iran, and they don't have a choice but to try to overthrow the government and restore normality, well, that is a thing that is happening too.
00:24:01.000Iran is in very, very serious trouble.
00:24:02.000Coming up, we'll get to where Americans are on this war.
00:24:05.000You keep hearing that Americans hate it.
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00:25:08.000This raises the only possibility Iran has left, and that is convince members of the grievance party that if they complain loud enough, the president will stop.
00:25:17.000So, first of all, the American people, there are a lot of polls out there saying the American people, they don't love the Iran war, that a minority like it or a plurality like it.
00:28:16.000You'll recall that last year, during the 12-day war, The Iranians fired some missiles at the very end of the 12 day war.
00:28:23.000Israel had planes in the air to retaliate, and the president called them up and told them no.
00:28:28.000One of the reasons that Israel ramped down action in Lebanon over the course of the last couple of days is because the president told them that he wanted them to stop so he could pursue negotiations.
00:28:38.000It was the president's deal to end the war in Gaza, and there are certain provisions of that deal that I am sure members of the Israeli government did not particularly like.
00:28:48.000The notion that Israel controls America's politics is asinine.
00:28:51.000Truly asinine at every level, but because Tucker Carlson is a conspiracy theorist who believes that America ought to give up its global leading role to China and Russia, because he believes that, he believes that the President of the United States is a slave.
00:29:23.000Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, clearly with relief, and made its terms or most of its terms public.
00:29:31.000And then that ceasefire ended within two hours because Israel intentionally violated the terms by attacking not just southern Lebanon, but the city of Beirut.
00:29:40.000So are you saying he's a slave to Benjamin Netanyahu?
00:29:45.000So I don't think it's as simple as he's under the control of Netanyahu.
00:29:51.000But you could summarize it that way and you wouldn't be totally inaccurate.
00:29:57.000He believes that because he's a fifth columnist.
00:29:59.000By the way, this is the same schmuck who says that Senator Ted Cruz is morally worse than Nick Fuentes because Senator Ted Cruz is a supporter of Israel.
00:30:07.000Well, Nick Fuentes, you know, just loves Stalin and Hitler and openly roots for Iran to win and hates black people and hates Jews.
00:30:15.000But don't worry, Tucker Carlson says that Ted Cruz is the true threat.
00:30:21.000I've said that I disagreed with Fuentes on those questions.
00:30:24.000I don't think that you should ever judge or attack people on the basis of their bloodline.
00:30:41.000But I've interviewed Ted Cruz, as you noted.
00:30:43.000And both of them have defended the genocide in Gaza, the murder of children.
00:30:48.000And I would say that sending money to a military that murders children.
00:30:53.000Is a little bit more significant a moral crime than saying ugly things.
00:30:59.000Well, I mean, it is kind of saying an ugly thing and also a moral crime to claim that a defensive action in the Gaza Strip with specific attempts to prevent civilian casualties is somehow a genocide.
00:31:10.000But of course, Tucker Carlson is no different from Hassan Piker.
00:31:13.000They're going to hold hands and walk off into the distance together.
00:31:17.000It is not a shock to see them on the same page with regard to the Iran conflict because that has become the flashpoint for that divide that we are talking about between America being exceptional and our allies being good.
00:31:28.000And America being evil and our allies being horrible.
00:31:33.000Hassan Piker, who again, the left is now treating Hassan Piker with undue respect.
00:31:40.000Ezra Klein, who again, I like Ezra, but he's off his rocker in suggesting that Hassan Piker ought to be treated as a mainstream voice in the Democratic Party.
00:31:48.000Hassan Piker has supported pretty much every terror group on planet Earth, he has supported open communist states, repressive tyrannies everywhere.
00:31:58.000If there were grounds to deport Hassan Piker for his viewpoint, if there were legal grounds, certainly on a moral level, this person is as anti American as anyone in the country.
00:32:09.000And he sounds just like Tucker Carlson these days.
00:32:11.000Here he was calling the GOP the biggest terrorist group on the planet.
00:32:17.000I think that the Republicans are far more damaging.
00:32:21.000The biggest terrorists, the biggest domestic terrorists in this country, the biggest terrorists internationally is the Republican Party.
00:32:27.000And not only that, but it's just like.
00:32:29.000They like, I want to fight against the growing fascist movement in this country.
00:32:35.000My frustration with the Democrats is their conciliatory attitude towards that and their lack of investment in this struggle.
00:32:43.000This idea that, you know, on the one hand, you say Donald Trump is a dangerous force.
00:32:49.000But then you turn around and you take on his anti immigrant narratives and anti immigrant messaging from the 2020 election that you won and decide you're going to be the sincere candidate that ends up, you know, Dealing with the growth of migration in this country, it's a failure.0.52
00:33:07.000What, I mean, the fact that he's on Pod Save America, those are the Obama bros.
00:33:11.000And the Obama bros try to proclaim that they are some sort of mainstream moderate Democrats.
00:33:17.000I mean, again, the grievance party is real and it is indeed bipartisan.
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00:34:45.000And of course, it is eaten all the way into left wing entertainment.
00:34:49.000Saturday Night Live's Michael Che over the weekend did the same routine.
00:34:54.000He suggested that the United States military, again, when Michael Che and Tucker Carlson are on the same side, says something.
00:35:00.000He suggested that somehow Benjamin Netanyahu controls the United States military, which, again, if that is the case, I would really, if Israel were truly controlling America, I would truly like to understand how it is that Tucker Carlson and Hassan Piker and all these folks are so wildly successful.
00:35:46.000The reality is that if the United States had forced Israel to stop attacks on Iran's proxies a thousand miles away in Lebanon, then that would have been a victory for Iran.0.87
00:37:52.000Okay, but the demoralization effort must continue at pace.
00:37:55.000One of the cases that people like Tucker Carlson or Hassan Piker or all the members of the Grievance Party make is that people who are young in the United States have no future.
00:38:04.000This is why we must withdraw from the world.
00:38:06.000It's why we must rewrite the American bargain.
00:38:08.000It's why we must take free markets and grind them under our boot heel in order to make it easier for the youngs.
00:38:43.000Well, they find actually that if you take a look at, for example, the 25 to 34 age group for boomers and also for millennials, what you find is that millennials earn more.
00:38:56.000And in the age group 35 to 44, so baby boomers who are in that age group in, say, 1980, versus millennials who are in that age group in, say, 2017, millennials earn way more, way more.
00:39:09.000Okay, if you take a look at the median price of a new home in 2025, Adjusted for median household income and mortgage rates, what you will find is that baby boomers remember how we keep hearing that your parents could afford a house, but you can't afford a house?
00:39:45.000Now, where you can see serious problems for people who are younger is the elevation in the cost, for example, of things like college tuition and fees, which have skyrocketed, which have skyrocketed since the 1980s, right?
00:40:13.000So much of what we're talking about right now is an op.
00:40:16.000An op to demoralize Americans, make them feel terrible about the country, make them feel terrible about the state of the world, make them believe that the only future for America is a weak America.
00:40:25.000An America that takes free markets and pretends that free markets are bad.
00:40:29.000An America that looks at America's role in the world, keeping the sea lanes open and preventing evil states from going nuclear.
00:40:36.000And that not only can't we do it, we shouldn't do it.
00:40:46.000There are lots of pragmatic questions that we can ask about whether particular interventions or particular measures in an intervention are good or bad, productive or unproductive, or even counterproductive.
00:40:57.000But the main difference that we are seeing emerge in American politics right now, and this will decide the future of the country, is between the American exceptionalists, the people who believe that America was good, is good, and will be good again, and the people who believe that America was never good, fundamentally gave up the ghost decades ago, if ever it had one.
00:41:17.000And that the only cure for the United States is, as Barack Obama once suggested, fundamental change.
00:41:26.000The fact that it's infused a little part of the right, a splinter fragment of the right, not a great shock and a time again of social media brain rot algorithmic nonsense.
00:41:54.000The only question is how long they can last in the face of overwhelming firepower, in the face of overwhelming economic downturn, in the face of the fact that most of their leadership class is dead.
00:42:06.000But there is no question that on any raw level, the United States has done tremendous damage to Iran and is continuing to do so right now.0.55
00:42:14.000Okay, now, meanwhile, that was the positive part of the weekend the president taking a strong position.
00:42:20.000So, first of all, we should point out that Pope Leo, you know, I think there are great hopes from some of us who are not big fans of Pope Francis that he would steer more toward Pope Benedict or toward Pope John Paul II.
00:42:34.000And it turns out that that seems less and less likely these days.
00:42:38.000Again, you're talking about someone when I speak who has tremendous respect for the Roman Catholic Church.
00:42:46.000Again, I traveled to Rome and literally went to a service at the Vatican and then gave a gift to Pope Leo.
00:42:52.000So I have no animus for Pope Leo, particularly in his office.
00:42:57.000I think that the Catholic Church has been a bulwark of Western civilization for millennia.
00:43:03.000And I think that that's why it's important what the Pope says.
00:43:06.000The Pope, this Pope, just like the last Pope, tends to make extremely political pronouncements in broad and vague terms that then either require cleanup or are broadly interpreted as critiques of conservative American policy.
00:43:21.000So, on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV denounced what he called the delusion of omnipotence.
00:43:28.000That is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, according to AP, and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace.
00:43:36.000He presided over a weekend evening service in St. Peter's Basilica.
00:43:42.000On the same day, the U.S. and Iran began face to face negotiations.
00:43:45.000Now, again, he didn't mention the U.S. or President Trump in his prayer, but his tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials.
00:43:52.000And he said, enough of the idolatry of self and money, enough of the display of power, enough of war.
00:43:57.000Now, again, if the Pope wants to make a fulsome case, may I discuss this with Matt Frad just last week?
00:44:03.000If the Pope wishes to make a fulsome case as to why he believes that.
00:44:08.000The war in Iran is somehow a violation of just war principles.
00:44:12.000We can have an open argument about that.
00:44:13.000Some Catholics will agree, some Catholics will disagree.
00:44:16.000But when he says things like enough of war, it sort of depends on the war you're talking about.
00:44:21.000And if the Pope expends significantly more ire at the United States for attempting to stop the nuclearization of a terror state that sponsors anti Christian, anti Jewish, and anti Muslim, depending on which Muslim, terror all across the region.
00:44:38.000If he spends more time on attacking the U.S. for attacking that state than he does on attacking that state, I would suggest that his political suasion is being misplaced.
00:44:47.000And while this ticked off the president, and the president then went directly at the Pope.
00:44:53.000The president, shall we say, on truth social, lets it all hang out.
00:44:56.000So he said, Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy.
00:44:59.000He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear the Catholic Church and all other Christian organizations had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else for holding church services, even when going outside and being 10 and even 20 feet apart.
00:45:11.000I like his brother Louis much better than I like him because Louis is all MAGA.
00:45:15.000I don't want a Pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:18.000I don't want a Pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United States, and even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our country.
00:45:28.000And I don't want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in a landslide to do, setting record low numbers in crime and creating the greatest stock market in history.
00:45:37.000Again, he's not just criticizing the Pope here over what he said at this peace vigil.
00:45:41.000He's also criticizing the Pope because the Pope.
00:45:44.000Did some sort of event with migrants who were attempting to go from North Africa to Italy.
00:45:49.000And it seemed as though he was critiquing the president's immigration policy.
00:45:53.000And President Trump continued Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise.
00:45:59.000He wasn't on any list to be Pope and was only put there by the church because he was an American.
00:46:03.000And they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Trump.
00:46:18.000And again, I wish that the Pope would be clear in what he is saying about what is spiritual and what is political, what exactly he's saying.
00:47:07.000He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime.
00:47:12.000He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world.0.75
00:47:21.000Okay, so again, when it comes to the politics, and when it comes to Pope Leo's critique of America's war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and building ballistic missiles and all the rest of it.0.65
00:47:33.000I agree with the president, not the Pope.
00:47:35.000Is it smart to go after the Pope this way?
00:49:15.000So, not only is Eric Swalwell famous for sleeping with a Chinese spy, but also it turns out that he now has a bevy of sexual misconduct and rape allegations following him around.
00:49:29.000CNN reported over the weekend quote, a former staffer of Representative Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor.
00:49:36.000Says the congressman raped her when she was heavily intoxicated and left her bruised and bleeding, an allegation Swalwell strongly denies.
00:49:43.000I was pushing him off of me, saying no, the woman told CNN of the incident, which she said happened in 2024 after she had stopped working in Swalwell's office.
00:50:20.000So, CNN reports three other women who spoke with CNN also alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by the Democratic congressman, including Swalwell sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.
00:50:32.000So, first of all, note to dudes, ain't no lady on earth who wants a nude photo.0.97
00:50:51.000In any case, CNN continues, one woman who connected online with Swalwell over her interest in Democratic politics says she ended up extremely drunk inside his hotel room after a night out with the congressman with little memory of what happened.
00:51:02.000Earlier in the night at a bar, he kissed her and touched her leg without consent, she said.
00:51:06.000Another woman who described receiving unsolicited nude messages from Swalwell was social media creator Ali Samarco.
00:51:11.000She said she initially reached out to the congressman on Twitter to discuss politics.
00:51:52.000And apparently everyone knew about this.
00:51:57.000So, apparently, similar pattern of events.
00:51:59.000Swalwell, who is married and has three kids, showed close interest in their lives when they were in their 20s and finding their footing professionally.
00:52:05.000Then he would send them increasingly sexual messages.
00:52:08.000Many said they reciprocated and engaged with him in part because of his position of power.
00:52:11.000So, again, this is where it starts to get into is it Me Too territory?
00:52:15.000But in some cases, these inappropriate exchanges escalated to alleged unwanted physical touch or sexual assault, often tied to episodes of heavy drinking.
00:53:57.000They have never happened, and I will fight them with everything that I have.
00:54:02.000They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the frontrunner candidate for governor in California.
00:54:08.000I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a saint.
00:54:13.000I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past.
00:54:16.000But those mistakes are between me and my wife.
00:54:19.000And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.0.77
00:54:25.000Someone might have wanted to exercise a little restraint.
00:54:30.000Well, 55 of Swalwell's former staffers signed a letter calling for him to resign from Congress and for a full law enforcement investigation.
00:54:37.000In fact, by the way, there's now a movement afoot in Congress to kick a bunch of Congress people out people who have engaged in sexual misconduct and all the rest.
00:54:44.000They said, quote, as leaders of teams working for Eric Swalwell were horrified.
00:54:48.000By the recent reporting in the San Francisco Chronicle and by CNN.
00:54:51.000We stand with our former colleague and the other women who have come forward.
00:54:54.000We believe you should stand with them too.
00:54:57.000So, a bunch of people are going to resign for sure.
00:55:01.000A local reporter named Stephen Tavares admitted that a lot of people knew about all of this.
00:55:05.000He's author of something called Bay Area Insider.
00:55:07.000Quote I've covered Eric Swalwell since he was a member of the Dublin City Council.
00:55:10.000Shortly after being elected to Congress in 2013, his behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party.
00:57:19.000Is there anything you've done or said that you regret that did not come from the stresses you internalize from post traumatic stress itself?
00:57:29.000That is to say, is PTSD the explanation for everything?
00:57:34.000Or did you also just make some additional human errors that you want to explain or contextualize?
00:58:17.000I'm sure it was the military that did it weird because I know a lot of members of the military and members who have served in the military before, people who have served in the military, and none of them have a Nazi tattoo.
00:58:33.000In international news, meanwhile, Viktor Orban's 16-year rule has ended.
00:58:37.000If you want to learn more about Viktor Orban, what his rule meant, what he was doing, I did an hour-long interview with Viktor Orban last year.
00:58:44.000You can go and you can watch that over at our YouTube channel.
00:59:08.000In fact, he used to be a member of the Fidesz party, which was Orban's party, and then he broke out because he was opposed to Orban on a couple of issues.
00:59:15.000One was allegations of corruption inside Fidesz, and the other was The issue of the Ukraine war because Orban had taken a very pro Russia position with regards to Ukraine, and Magyar took a pro EU position trying to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
00:59:30.000Magyar, according to Breitbart, attempted to portray Orban and his party as beholden to Russia.
00:59:35.000And then there were a bunch of scandals in the final days of the campaign.
00:59:38.000There were recordings emerging of Orban's foreign minister, a guy named Peter Zhuzarto, allegedly passing on EU classified information to Moscow's top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov.
00:59:48.000And also, Magyar had broken with Orban over allegations of corruption.
00:59:52.000It was revealed a couple of years ago that the then Hungarian president, Katalin Novak, had pardoned the ex-deputy director of the Kasuth Zhuza's children's home after being convicted of helping cover child sex abuse by his boss.
01:00:08.000He was actually campaigning against Orban from the right on immigration.
01:00:11.000He has stronger anti immigration views even than Orban.
01:00:15.000He still has sort of vague views on LGBTQ divided by sign, which is a big issue over in Hungary.
01:00:21.000When it comes to Russia, obviously he's significantly more anti Russia than Orban was.
01:00:27.000And he has vowed that he is going to take the International Criminal Court and the rest of the EU's institutional framework on sort of a case by case basis.
01:00:37.000So, is this a wild switch away from conservatism in Hungary?