The Ben Shapiro Show - MASSIVE LAWSUIT: Did Social Media DESTROY The Kids?

00:00:00.000 There is a not-so-secret war being waged for control of your kid's mind.

00:00:04.000 So, who owns your child's mind?

00:00:06.000 Is it the social media companies or the government, or is it you?

00:00:09.000 There's a landmark lawsuit that just sent a gigantic shockwave through Silicon Valley with Meta, that's Facebook, and YouTube found negligent in facilitating social media addiction.

00:00:17.000 So, today we're going to break down the case that could upend big tech, reshape AI regulation, and force a national reckoning over parenting, power, and responsibility.

00:00:25.000 Plus, we'll get into the latest on Iran.

00:00:27.000 Is the U.S. about to take down the regime wholesale?

00:00:29.000 This is the Ben Shapiro show.

00:00:31.000 get into it.

00:00:39.000 All right, major legal news in the world of social media and AI.

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00:00:55.000 So, are you responsible for what your kids watch when it comes to social media?

00:00:59.000 That is the big issue at the heart of a new legal case against Meta and YouTube.

00:01:03.000 That legal case found both companies were negligent in facilitating social media addiction.

00:01:08.000 So, according to the New York Times, the Bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as KJM or Kaylee, had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos.

00:01:21.000 KJM sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google's YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, she claimed led to anxiety and depression.

00:01:32.000 Kaylee said she'd begun using social media at the age of six and claimed the sites caused personal injury, including body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm.

00:01:39.000 Now, Variety reports on this too, and they say that the verdict is rooted in an argument around cigarette addiction.

00:01:45.000 So, remember, back in the 1990s, there were all these settlements with the big tobacco companies where it was found that the tobacco companies fraudulently marketed products they knew were addictive as non-addictive, and that drew millions of people into serious health risks like lung cancer.

00:02:00.000 And honestly, that doesn't seem like a crazy take.

00:02:03.000 We were told originally that social media would be a gigantic benefit for all of us, it would open new vistas, we'd all experience new worlds, we'd have so many friends.

00:02:12.000 Yeah, they'd be Facebook friends, but they were still friends.

00:02:15.000 We'd never have to go outside again.

00:02:16.000 We'd all live in the metaverse and all the, well, all of that was untrue.

00:02:20.000 All these social media companies are click machines.

00:02:23.000 That is literally what they are designed to do.

00:02:25.000 I mean, literally in Pavlovian style, designed to do.

00:02:28.000 There's a Stanford psychiatrist named Anna Lemke.

00:02:30.000 She has a book called Dopamine Nation, and she talks about this.

00:02:33.000 She says, quote, we're wired to connect.

00:02:35.000 It's kept us alive for millions of years in a world of scarcity and ever-present danger.

00:02:39.000 Moving in tribes safeguards against predators, optimizes scarce resources, and facilitates pair bonding.

00:02:45.000 Our brains release dopamine when we make human connections, and that incentivizes us to do it again.

00:02:50.000 Social connection has now become druggied by social media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

00:02:56.000 These apps can cause the release of large amounts of dopamine into our brain's reward pathway all at once, like heroin, math, or alcohol.

00:03:03.000 They do that by amplifying the feel-good properties that attract humans to each other in the first place.

00:03:08.000 And it's not just the social connection, it's also because when you scroll on, say, X, it's literally designed.

00:03:13.000 So you get a brief dopamine rush.

00:03:15.000 That's why there's that little sound effect.

00:03:17.000 It's almost a literal Pavlovian response, right?

00:03:19.000 A Pavlovian response originally was like you ring a bell in front of a dog and you feed that dog a piece of meat at the same time.

00:03:26.000 And eventually, when you ring the bell, the dog will start to salivate, even if the meat isn't there because the brain has now been trained.

00:03:32.000 Bellamines meat.

00:03:33.000 So bell means salivate.

00:03:35.000 And so social media companies do that too.

00:03:37.000 This is why when you scroll, there's like a little sound effect that you do.

00:03:40.000 Again, the idea there is that you're going to get a dopamine hit, even if nothing new appears, just because you hear that little sound effect.

00:03:47.000 Well, social media companies are arguing that they're not the ones who are actually doing the addicting to the really serious stuff.

00:03:53.000 So they say, sure, our algorithms are designed to make you click, but it's the videos themselves that are responsible for the harm, not the design of the product.

00:04:01.000 So, in other words, if you were watching lots of cooking videos and it fed you an infinite loop of cooking videos and not skinny influencers, you'd be totally fine.

00:04:10.000 And you're the one who decides whether you are clicking on skinny influencers or whether you're clicking on cooking videos.

00:04:16.000 And what's more, it turns out that these social media companies aren't the ones who are actually making the content.

00:04:24.000 The social media companies say we're a platform like a phone line.

00:04:28.000 Now, yes, they make money by featuring viral content, but it's the consumer who is picking which content to actually watch.

00:04:35.000 And it is the person who is posting the content who's actually responsible for the content, unless it's an AI or a bot these days.

00:04:43.000 Well, so far, social media companies have been avoiding legal culpability by citing section 230.

00:04:48.000 Section 230 is a section that says that if you're a platform, meaning like your website, you have a comments section, you're not responsible for what's in the comments.

00:04:57.000 If you're YouTube, you're not responsible for the content of the videos that are on YouTube because you're just providing the platform on which others can post.

00:05:06.000 So, Section 230 says that all of these platforms ought not be held liable for content produced by others.

00:05:12.000 But that's not really kind of on point.

00:05:14.000 The actual argument here is that these social media sites are by their very nature addictive, and that almost no matter what the content is, the medium is damaging to kids.

00:05:24.000 According to Variety, during opening arguments, one of KJM's lawyers, again, Mark Lanier, presented the jury internal company documents from Meta and YouTube that showed tech executives knew of and discussed the negative effects of their products on children.

00:05:37.000 Meta countered that KJM's mental health issues were not caused by social media.

00:05:41.000 They were caused by familial abuse and turmoil.

00:05:44.000 YouTube said it's not even a social media company and that its features are not designed to be addictive, which, again, is sort of true about YouTube, right?

00:05:52.000 They have an infinite feed where if you just watch, it goes to autoplay, but Netflix has autoplay too.

00:05:57.000 According to ABC7, Meta consistently argued that Kaylee had struggled with her mental health separate from her social media use, often pointing to her turbulent home life, apparently.

00:06:07.000 Meta also said, now one of her therapists identified social media as a cause of her mental health issues in a statement following closing arguments.

00:06:14.000 But the plaintiffs didn't have to prove that social media actually caused Kaylee's struggles.

00:06:18.000 They just showed that it was a substantial factor in causing her harm.

00:06:22.000 So this raises a broader question for parents.

00:06:25.000 Are you responsible for your children and their social media use?

00:06:28.000 The answer here should be yes.

00:06:32.000 My kids aren't on social media because they are banned from using social media.

00:06:36.000 And it turns out that kids who are addicted to TV also don't have great lives, but we don't actually hold the TV companies responsible for that fact.

00:06:45.000 Like nobody's suing Apple because your kid is watching Apple TV all day.

00:06:49.000 That's a point made by Meta's president, Dina Powell McCormick yesterday.

00:06:53.000 You know, as a mom, this is really important to me and very personal.

00:06:59.000 I see firsthand just how hard the company is trying to ensure that there's not harmful content, to ensure that we're empowering parents to the best of our ability.

00:07:09.000 And it's something that I watch being focused on every single day.

00:07:13.000 We respectfully disagree with that decision and we're appealing.

00:07:18.000 Now, again, she's not totally wrong here.

00:07:21.000 And the fact is that as a parent of four kids going on five, I'm all over what my kids are consuming.

00:07:27.000 I decide what movies they watch.

00:07:28.000 I decide what TV shows they watch.

00:07:30.000 They're not allowed on social media.

00:07:32.000 They do not have interactive capability on social media or anything like this.

00:07:35.000 So this issue is kind of a sticky wicket because, of course, social media companies are responsible for part of the problem because, again, dopamine response.

00:07:42.000 And yes, parents are responsible for the problem.

00:07:45.000 So here's the actual solution.

00:07:46.000 The actual solution here is not gigantic lawsuits.

00:07:49.000 It's not.

00:07:50.000 The actual solution is, yes, governmental legislation banning social media for kids under 18, period.

00:07:56.000 That is the thing we should be doing.

00:07:58.000 It's what lots of countries are doing right now, and they are correct to do it.

00:08:02.000 Users should have to register as over 18. 0.53

00:08:04.000 Companies that don't do it should be held legally accountable.

00:08:08.000 I mean, again, if we're going to actually carry this analogy all the way through, right, if we're going to treat social media like tobacco or alcohol, then the answer wasn't to sue tobacco companies for kids smoking.

00:08:18.000 It was to ban kids from smoking.

00:08:21.000 And the same is true for alcohol.

00:08:24.000 The reason I'm a little bit averse to the lawsuit of all of this is because I think that it's going to extend now to adults.

00:08:29.000 I think what's actually going to happen is this is going to be used as a broader argument, not just against social media, where I'm relatively indifferent to tell the truth, but to actual useful technologies like AI.

00:08:40.000 Because this is a big societal question.

00:08:42.000 Should we blame technology for our own failures as adults?

00:08:45.000 Again, kids are a different story.

00:08:47.000 The reason that this particular lawsuit is emotionally appealing is because it's about a kid who got addicted.

00:08:52.000 And kids do get addicted.

00:08:54.000 And honestly, I blame their parents as the primary source.

00:08:58.000 I don't let my kids get addicted to things.

00:09:00.000 It's my job to prevent that.

00:09:02.000 I don't give my kids candy bars, even though they want candy bars every single day all the time.

00:09:07.000 And if I decide to feed that to them, then they get type 1 diabetes.

00:09:10.000 I don't think that's on the candy company.

00:09:11.000 I think it's on me.

00:09:13.000 My biggest problem here is that we start blaming technologies for our failures as adults.

00:09:19.000 We actually have to look to ourselves to solve some of these problems.

00:09:23.000 Now, again, I'm going to point out AI here because AI, unlike social media, I think social media, there's an argument to be made that social media barely has positives.

00:09:32.000 I think that for a person who runs a company that uses social media because that is the way people consume information, I will say that I think that social media has been a massive net negative for humanity in general, a massive net negative.

00:09:47.000 I do not think the same thing is true of AI, which is a world-changing technology.

00:09:51.000 So six days ago, the Trump administration issued a six-point comprehensive national legislative framework.

00:09:57.000 The first point of that framework was the most salient in this context.

00:10:00.000 They said, quote, protecting children and empowering parents.

00:10:03.000 Parents are best equipped to manage their children's digital environment and upbringing.

00:10:07.000 The administration is calling on Congress to give parents tools to effectively do that, such as account controls to protect their children's privacy and manage their device use.

00:10:15.000 And again, I think that parents ought to be the first line here because, you know, should we have a ban on kids using chat GPT?

00:10:22.000 I don't think so.

00:10:23.000 I mean, it just needs to be supervised.

00:10:27.000 I do, in supervised fashion, use things like Gemini or Chat GPT or Perplexity with my kids.

00:10:33.000 They're doing homework.

00:10:34.000 I think that the AI is going to do a better job of explaining it in language that they understand than I will.

00:10:40.000 I think a lot of parents are using these things for their kids this way to really productive effect.

00:10:46.000 Remember, my daughter, who is now 12, my daughter, she didn't understand a particular math problem.

00:10:53.000 I was trying to explain it.

00:10:54.000 I wasn't doing a good job.

00:10:55.000 And so I went over to Gemini and I said, I need you to explain this to me like I'm a 12-year-old.

00:11:01.000 And it explained it, and I just had her read it, and suddenly she understood it.

00:11:04.000 So it is a useful technology, and parents should be the first line of defense here.

00:11:09.000 The Trump administration has formed a technology council.

00:11:12.000 It's filled with some heavy tech hitters to look into regulation of technologies like AI.

00:11:17.000 The Wall Street Journal is reporting that President Trump installed some of the biggest names in business, including Meta Platform's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to a technology council to weigh in on AI policy and other issues.

00:11:32.000 The president's council of advisors on science and tech, or PCAST, will be co-chaired by David Sachs, which makes sense.

00:11:38.000 He has served as the White House AI and CryptoZAR, as well as Michael Kratios, another tech advisor.

00:11:43.000 President Trump named an initial batch of 13 members from the industry, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell on Wednesday.

00:11:51.000 The council could ultimately include 24 people according to an executive order.

00:11:56.000 And again, that makes sense.

00:11:58.000 I don't want a bunch of Congress people making the recommendations.

00:12:02.000 I mean, have you ever met the people in Congress?

00:12:04.000 They do not understand what computer is, they don't computer.

00:12:08.000 I've literally sat in front of Congress people who do not understand what an internet is.

00:12:13.000 So letting the people who actually understand the tech make recommendations and then holding them accountable for those recommendations, that is a hell of a lot better than allowing our legislators, many of whom are double-digit IQs, who are still fighting the advent of the internet.

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00:13:53.000 Okay.

00:13:53.000 I mean, the Democrats in particular have now become total tech doomers, which is kind of amazing because if you go back a few years, they were not doomers.

00:13:59.000 They were hanging out with the tech bros.

00:14:01.000 And then it turns out that their heavily regulatory views on tech and also their insane social liberalism drove a lot of tech founders to move toward the right.

00:14:11.000 And now all of a sudden, everybody on the left is anti-tech.

00:14:15.000 So you have Bernie Sanders explaining that AI is an existential threat to the human race.

00:14:19.000 I mean, how this person is a respected human is beyond me.

00:14:22.000 I will never get over it. 1.00

00:14:23.000 This man is a leech on the ass of society. 1.00

00:14:25.000 He has always been a leech on the ass of society. 1.00

00:14:27.000 If you want to talk about existential threats to the human race, how about the philosophy that he expounds, the Marxist philosophy that treats all human individuals as part of a broader collective to be manipulated, to be manipulated by people like him. 0.99

00:14:42.000 But here's Bernie saying AI is an existential.

00:14:44.000 Again, do I think that Bernie Sanders even knows how to use Gemini?

00:14:50.000 I think Bernie Sanders sits there and writes in longhand requests to his aides who then go on Gemini.

00:14:58.000 Listening to Bernie Sanders talk about Gemini is like watching a monkey try to understand quantum physics.

00:15:03.000 Here's Bernie Sanders.

00:15:06.000 We need to develop a sense of urgency here.

00:15:10.000 The economic impacts are going to be enormous.

00:15:13.000 The impacts on our children will be enormous.

00:15:15.000 And again, there is literally an existential threat to the existence of the human race.

00:15:21.000 Now, you tell me, do you think that leadership here on either side of the aisle is saying, whoa, we better get moving on this thing?

00:15:27.000 The answer is no.

00:15:30.000 Okay, now, of course, he doesn't have any solutions other than just banning technology.

00:15:34.000 A lot of the AI doomers do this sort of thing.

00:15:36.000 When you ask them, what would you actually do?

00:15:38.000 Then their answer is, I would form a government commission to look into it.

00:15:42.000 You're like, well, who should be on that commission?

00:15:43.000 Like, you know, people, people should.

00:15:45.000 Maybe some congresspeople, maybe some senators, maybe all those kinds of people.

00:15:48.000 You're like, well, but that's not, that's not a solution.

00:15:51.000 Should tech people be on it since they're the ones who actually understand the technology and where it's going.

00:15:56.000 Nope, they should definitely not be. 1.00

00:15:57.000 It should be idiots. 1.00

00:15:58.000 It should only be idiots. 1.00

00:16:00.000 So his chosen heir apparent, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who is better-looking Ilhan Omar, basically. 0.99

00:16:09.000 She says that since ChatGPT, everything was fine.

00:16:14.000 It was hunky-dory until ChatGPT.

00:16:16.000 Now everything is falling apart, says Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who again barely has a couple of neurons to rub together.

00:16:24.000 You know, just a few short years ago, Sam Altman came before Congress and in a direct plea, he begged us to regulate this industry.

00:16:39.000 He said that these tools were under no circumstances ready, nor should they be integrated into weapons of war.

00:16:48.000 That we must impose severe regulations immediately to prevent mass layoffs and to ensure that any productivity that comes of this industry can benefit working people.

00:17:01.000 Three short years later, none of that has happened.

00:17:04.000 And in fact, in many cases, the opposite has happened.

00:17:08.000 And it is no surprise that in the four years since ChatGPT was released, we have seen AI deployed at a massive scale to create big brother-like surveillance.

00:17:20.000 I mean, again, the idea of AI is to raise productivity.

00:17:23.000 When you raise productivity for each worker, that tends to mean you need fewer workers, at least in the midterm.

00:17:29.000 And then you get workers on the other end who are able to do those different kinds of jobs.

00:17:33.000 But the Democrats have just turned anti-tech entirely.

00:17:37.000 AOC is slamming the energy demands of AI, despite the fact that a huge percentage of our current job creation is coming from the building of these data centers.

00:17:47.000 Because of the massive amounts of energy they use, power and water utility companies must build multi-billion dollar infrastructure to keep up with the demand.

00:17:58.000 And these companies are not paying for their own energy infrastructure.

00:18:03.000 People's energy bills around the country are skyrocketing in order to pay for these AI data centers for them.

00:18:13.000 Now, again, I am fine with the idea that if you're going to suck up an outsized share of the energy market, then maybe you ought to pay for the building of new energy facilities yourself and not be a burden on the collective.

00:18:27.000 That I get.

00:18:28.000 But here's the reality.

00:18:29.000 The reason AOC is not in favor of any of this stuff is because, like all the AI doomers, she doesn't actually know anything about AI or care anything about AI.

00:18:37.000 I mean, here she was yesterday saying she doesn't even use AI.

00:18:40.000 One of my favorite things about Democrats, honestly, it really is amazing, is they say that they should control things they don't even participate in.

00:18:46.000 So you remember that Tim Walz, when he was running for vice president, you know, before he was the disgraced governor of Minnesota, who was unable to run for reelection because of fraud, you'll remember that Tim Walz did this routine where he said, I don't even own real estate.

00:19:01.000 Right?

00:19:01.000 He was saying that he didn't even participate in the market.

00:19:03.000 This was a talking point. 0.99

00:19:05.000 Being a moron who has no actual investment in the market was apparently a good thing for Tim Walz. 0.98

00:19:12.000 And apparently, AOC thinks she should regulate AI while never using, like, not knowing anything about AI. 0.98

00:19:17.000 I have like a baseline here.

00:19:19.000 You should know something about the thing that you are attempting to regulate before you do it.

00:19:24.000 Here's AOC. 0.99

00:19:24.000 Apparently, again, this is like a bragging point for her: being an ignoramus. 0.99

00:19:27.000 Here she is talking about not using AI.

00:19:30.000 As far as AI, I do not regularly integrate it into my daily life, but I know many people do.

00:19:39.000 I think our job tends to be a little bit more for me.

00:19:42.000 My job, a lot of my job is quite writing-based, and I like to do my own.

00:19:47.000 Thank you.

00:19:48.000 Very old-fashioned.

00:19:49.000 She likes to do her own work. 0.99

00:19:52.000 If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale.

00:19:56.000 Her doing her own work.

00:19:57.000 You know, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, he says that AI disruption is going to be bigger than we think.

00:20:04.000 Now, again, I don't disagree that it's going to be disruptive.

00:20:06.000 It will be disruptive because every major technology is in the short run disruptive.

00:20:11.000 But the idea that this then requires massive over-regulation, that's the part I got a problem with.

00:20:17.000 All these bills are nice, but not anywhere near sufficient to the problem.

00:20:25.000 I am as AI optimistic long as maybe even all you guys at Axios, but long meaning eight to 10 years.

00:20:37.000 I am very and increasingly AI on the short-term economic disruption.

00:20:45.000 I believe today it is going to be exponentially bigger than I believed as recently as last November or December.

00:20:55.000 So Democrats are dooming.

00:20:56.000 So why?

00:20:57.000 Again, as I say, I think a lot of these Democrats are dooming because the tech bros have been associated with President Trump.

00:21:02.000 Until just a moment ago, Silicon Valley was beloved by all of these people.

00:21:07.000 These were the forward-looking environmentalist, uber-cool people.

00:21:11.000 And then it turns out the tech community actually wants a president who's not going to ban their business.

00:21:16.000 Well, you know, that would be the reason why Democrats are now reacting negatively to so much tech.

00:21:21.000 Again, I think some tech needs to be regulated, like social media for kids.

00:21:24.000 When it comes to AI, listening to these people broaden out the general perspective, which is that the people who build tech companies are responsible for every use of the tech is totally, totally crazy.

00:21:35.000 So things continue to percolate in Iran.

00:21:39.000 Iran, right now, they appear to be suffering from a Passover disease, maybe a case of Pharaoh. 0.99

00:21:46.000 God almost seems to be hardening their hearts.

00:21:48.000 I have no other way to explain their current insane behavior.

00:21:51.000 Truly.

00:21:52.000 So President Trump has already offered the off-ramp, denuclearization, an end to large-scale building of ballistic missiles and drones, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, an end to offensive ballistic missile barrages.

00:22:06.000 President Trump wants to get to the end of this.

00:22:08.000 I mean, that's where we are.

00:22:09.000 President Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal, has told associates in recent days he wants to avoid a protracted war in Iran, and he hopes to bring the conflict to an end in the coming weeks.

00:22:17.000 Nearly one month into the war, the president has privately informed advisors he thinks the conflict is already in its final stages, and he's urged them to stick to the four to six week timeline he has outlined publicly, according to people familiar with the matter.

00:22:29.000 Now, at the same time, according to the journal, President Trump has directed the military to keep pressure on Tehran.

00:22:34.000 The Pentagon is deploying thousands of ground troops to the Middle East to give the president options.

00:22:39.000 Once additional soldiers and Marines are in position, Trump could quickly order a targeted raid either inside Iran or on one of the islands along the southern coast.

00:22:47.000 Now, again, this is a smart way to do negotiation because sure, if negotiations work, then we should do it.

00:22:54.000 But if not, we got to press Iran still further, press them to the map. 0.99

00:22:57.000 And as for all of the concerns about where the American people are on this, the American people, we like victory.

00:23:04.000 It's a thing we, we don't like losing.

00:23:06.000 We like winning.

00:23:07.000 Now, one of the things that's happening right now is this bizarre media-driven ADHD idea that the American people are sitting there on tensor hooks every single hour of every single day thinking, when is it over?

00:23:19.000 When is it over?

00:23:20.000 Here is the thing.

00:23:21.000 If you look historically, the American people actually have some patience.

00:23:24.000 Our shortest wars were longer than the current conflict.

00:23:29.000 The Persian Gulf War involved 43 days of active operations.

00:23:33.000 The Kosovo-NATO air war lasted for 78 days.

00:23:36.000 Even deposing Noriega in Panama in the late 80s, that lasted for six weeks. 0.98

00:23:42.000 And also, Americans are not dumb.

00:23:44.000 We don't believe that if you're involved in military activity, you're not going to lose anybody.

00:23:49.000 Because again, if necessary military activity can only be pursued at zero cost, there's no use in having a military.

00:23:56.000 Literally, the point of a military is to do hard and dangerous things.

00:23:59.000 That's why our military members are heroes.

00:24:01.000 That's because they're willing to undertake that sacrifice for a greater good.

00:24:05.000 That is literally why we uphold their valor and celebrate it.

00:24:10.000 So the idea that Americans are sitting here and they're freaking out every single moment, that is not what the polls show.

00:24:16.000 Some Americans are, but they were kind of generally against whatever President Trump does.

00:24:20.000 Now, Iran, for its part, seems to be counting on this view of Americans that have been shared by pretty much all of our enemies at one time or another, that were weaklings, that were incapable of mobilizing for victory. 0.67

00:24:31.000 Hitler famously thought that America was decadent and unstable.

00:24:35.000 In one private conversation, according to sort of Hitler's notes, reportedly he said, quote, I don't see much future for the Americans.

00:24:41.000 It's a decayed country.

00:24:42.000 They have the racial problem, the problem of social inequalities.

00:24:45.000 Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaized and the other half nigrified. 1.00

00:24:51.000 And this is Hitler talking. 0.58

00:24:52.000 How can one expect a state like that to hold together?

00:24:54.000 Well, that didn't work out amazing for him.

00:24:56.000 Osambin bin Laden.

00:24:57.000 He kept saying we were a weak horse.

00:24:59.000 He actually said, quote, America's combat strategy is heavily dependent on the psychological aspect of war, which hides the cowardice and lack of fighting spirit of the American soldier.

00:25:10.000 Now, America's enemies, again, this is a tactic during war.

00:25:13.000 They're always seeking to undermine the home front morale.

00:25:16.000 That's part of war.

00:25:18.000 During Vietnam, the Viet Cong counted on the idea that Americans would get tired, that Americans would get bored. 0.90

00:25:23.000 And after a while, they were right.

00:25:25.000 Americans did get tired.

00:25:26.000 After a while, they were right.

00:25:27.000 Americans did want out. 0.95

00:25:29.000 We should know that there were 50,000 American dead by that point.

00:25:33.000 In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, our enemies thought, okay, they can just outlast the Americans.

00:25:38.000 But here is the point. 1.00

00:25:39.000 To outlast Americans typically requires not months, not weeks, years, because Americans are not nearly as stupid as our enemies think we are. 0.99

00:25:50.000 Now, listen, there are serious questions to be asked about the war in Iran, particularly right now. 0.98

00:25:55.000 People are looking at their 401ks right now, and they're saying it's down.

00:25:59.000 They're looking at their stocks, their holdings.

00:26:01.000 Those are down.

00:26:02.000 Gas prices are up.

00:26:03.000 It would be foolish not to at least be thinking about it, not to be worried about it.

00:26:08.000 And there are serious questions to be asked about whether we are going to have a sort of broader oil shock that spills over into a larger recession.

00:26:16.000 Historian Neil Ferguson thinks that that's likely to happen.

00:26:19.000 He wrote today, quote, were the Strait of Hormuz reopened to normal traffic.

00:26:22.000 It would take between two and four weeks to bring this back online, with some estimates as high as two months.

00:26:27.000 Thanks to Iranian drone strikes, Qatar's Ras Laugh and plant, the source of nearly one-fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas, LNG, has been shut since March 2nd.

00:26:35.000 A missile strike has seriously damaged nearly a fifth of its capacity.

00:26:38.000 Repairs could take up to five years.

00:26:41.000 He says, he's quoting another piece, quote, even if Donald Trump and Iran reached a deal to stop fighting tomorrow, it would thus be another four months before markets regain some semblance of normality.

00:26:50.000 So he quotes an author named Tyler Goodspeed and Neil Ferguson.

00:26:53.000 Again, I'm friends with Neil.

00:26:55.000 I think he's brilliant.

00:26:56.000 He says that energy shocks tend to reduce disposable income.

00:26:59.000 They create uncertainty.

00:27:01.000 They delay consumption.

00:27:02.000 Often they increase interest rates because you have price inflation.

00:27:05.000 But markets are forward-looking, as Neil Ferguson says.

00:27:09.000 And I don't think there are that many people who believe it will take years for energy prices to come down again, unless Iran maintains control of the strait. 0.84

00:27:18.000 Unless Iran maintains control of the strait. 0.74

00:27:21.000 First, today's episode is sponsored by our friends over at American Beverage.

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00:28:11.000 Okay, we'll get some more on this in a second.

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00:29:30.000 The reality is that there is no way to extricate ourselves from this situation right now.

00:29:36.000 There is no way to extricate ourselves from this situation by simply running away.

00:29:39.000 That does not leave Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz, which means $100 to $150 barrels of oil from here to forever.

00:29:48.000 That is a point that was made by Larry Fink over at BlackRock, not a Fink fan, but he's right about this.

00:29:54.000 If there's a cessation of war and yet Iran remains a threat, a threat to trade, a threat to the Straits of Hormouth, then I would argue that we could have years, years of above $100 closer to $150 oil. 0.91

00:30:12.000 What happens to the glib economy if that happens?

00:30:15.000 We'll have global recession.

00:30:18.000 Okay, again, he's right about this.

00:30:20.000 That's the point: it's not as though if things ended today, things would be better a month or two months or four months from now with Iran still in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

00:30:29.000 There is no way out but through.

00:30:32.000 And here's the thing: once we get to the end of this, if the Iranian regime falls, energy will become cheap again because the Strait of Hormuz will be free again.

00:30:39.000 Not only that, you'll actually have American energy companies working with a friendly Iranian government to radically increase oil production.

00:30:47.000 And because markets are forward-looking, the price of energy will then go down.

00:30:51.000 Now, again, we're covering all the news here, folks.

00:30:53.000 This is one reason you should subscribe over at dailywire.com.

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00:30:58.000 We have our members asking questions that we answer directly.

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00:31:10.000 We have many, many more breaking news shows.

00:31:12.000 You only get a few subscribers.

00:31:13.000 So head on over there.

00:31:15.000 So here is where the Iranian intransigence is really kind of shocking, honestly, because they make it impossible for the United States not to push harder. 1.00

00:31:28.000 If they continue to close the Strait of Hormuz, they are forcing the United States to do the thing.

00:31:33.000 Now, I think maybe they're just misreading the room.

00:31:35.000 They think that if they push hard enough, then President Trump will cave.

00:31:38.000 They're talking a big game right now.

00:31:39.000 They're claiming that there are no negotiations taking place at all.

00:31:42.000 I think that is highly unlikely.

00:31:44.000 Here is Abbas Araki, who, again, may not have longed for this earth, denying that negotiations have even taken place at all on Al Jazeera.

00:31:57.000 He says, at present, our policy is the continuation of resistance and the continuation of defending the country.

00:32:02.000 We do not intend to negotiate.

00:32:07.000 So far, no negotiations have taken place.

00:32:11.000 I should point out at this point, things are not going particularly well for the Iranians.

00:32:14.000 How badly are things going for the Iranians?

00:32:16.000 According to IRGC official Rakheim Nadali, they are now, I'm not even kidding, they are now lowering the draft age in Iran, the minimum age for joining the war, to 12.

00:32:29.000 To 12.

00:32:31.000 They're starting to put children in their army because they're having such a tough time.

00:32:36.000 By the way, demonstrates full scale how evil this regime is, basically drafting 12-year-olds.

00:32:41.000 That is nuts. 0.98

00:32:42.000 That is nuts.

00:32:43.000 Does that sound like a strong regime?

00:32:44.000 Does it sound like they're winning?

00:32:45.000 The regimes that are winning start drafting 12-year-olds.

00:32:48.000 If all you knew about a war is that the United States had been reduced to drafting kids the age of my oldest daughter, like 12, would you think we were winning or that we were losing? 1.00

00:32:57.000 I have to say that the media coverage of this war is so perverse and stupid. 0.99

00:33:02.000 By what metric are we losing? 1.00

00:33:04.000 That the price of oil is higher in the middle of a war?

00:33:06.000 Yeah, that's what happens in the middle of a war.

00:33:08.000 Now, again, the Iranians are counting on the grievance party to save them. 1.00

00:33:13.000 This is why the foreign minister, he is out there suggesting that President Trump was sold the war by outside nefarious forces and that he's selling the war to the public.

00:33:27.000 But Iran does not have a lot of choices here. 0.77

00:33:30.000 Iran is still insisting on its own terms. 0.61

00:33:33.000 According to the Associated Press, quote, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Iraqi, said in an interview on state TV that his government has not engaged in talks to end the war, and we do not plan on any negotiations.

00:33:47.000 And that follows a report from Iranian State TV's English language broadcaster, Press TV, that quoted an official saying, quote, Iran rejected America's ceasefire proposal and has its own demands for an end to the fighting.

00:33:58.000 Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met. 0.62

00:34:02.000 And it attributed to the anonymous official an Iranian five-point proposal that included a halt to the killings of all of its officials, means to make sure that there is no future war waged against it, reparations we're supposed to pay them, the end of hostilities, and Iran's total exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, which is the, like, that can't be.

00:34:21.000 That can't be.

00:34:22.000 If Iran is still in control of the Strait of Hormuz, then how exactly would that not be of massive benefit to the Iranian regime?

00:34:31.000 The rest of the world could not sit still for that.

00:34:34.000 But of course, President Trump has already announced that there have been certain concessions from Iran.

00:34:38.000 He suggested yesterday that there was a big, beautiful prize that had been handed to him by Iran.

00:34:43.000 It turns out that that is likely a few ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz unharassed.

00:34:48.000 The Times of Israel reported that Iran had agreed to allow a number of fuel tankers not tied to the U.S. or Israel through the Strait of Hormuz in order to help calm global markets.

00:34:56.000 Now, again, Iran publicly continues to maintain they're doing nothing to foster negotiations, and President Trump says privately they're negotiating.

00:35:03.000 I think that if they want to play chicken, they have picked the wrong guy to play chicken with.

00:35:08.000 Here was Caroline Levitt at the White House yesterday. 0.81

00:35:10.000 President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell.

00:35:14.000 Iran should not miscalculate again.

00:35:17.000 Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their Navy, their Air Force, and their air defense system.

00:35:24.000 Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refused to come to a deal. 0.57

00:35:34.000 President Trump put out a statement on Truth Social: The Iranian negotiators are very different and strange.

00:35:40.000 They are begging us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state they are only looking at our proposal.

00:35:49.000 Wrong.

00:35:50.000 They better get serious soon before it is too late, because once that happens, there is no turning back and it won't be pretty.

00:35:54.000 President Trump.

00:35:57.000 Well, President Trump is also pointing out that it's hard to find leadership over there, mainly because every time a new leader is appointed, that leader is dead within 48 hours.

00:36:07.000 Here's the president yesterday.

00:36:09.000 Seen anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran?

00:36:13.000 And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it because they figure they'll be killed by their own people.

00:36:22.000 They're also afraid they'll be killed by us.

00:36:25.000 There's never been a head of a country that wanted that job less than being the head of Iran.

00:36:33.000 Now, again, he is not wrong about that.

00:36:34.000 Last night, Israel apparently killed the Iranian officials responsible for closing the Strait of Hormuz itself.

00:36:40.000 The Times of Israel reports: quote, Defense Minister Israel Katz says the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, Ali Reza Tangsiri, was killed in an Israeli strike.

00:36:50.000 He said, quote, the IDF eliminated the commander of the IRGC Navy, the person directly responsible for the terror operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic.

00:36:59.000 Okay, let's get into what comes next.

00:37:02.000 The most obvious answer is Kharg Island.

00:37:04.000 I've been saying that all along, and I'm 40 years late.

00:37:06.000 President Trump said it in 1988.

00:37:08.000 The Iranians are already trying to threaten President Trump out of such a move. 1.00

00:37:11.000 Mohammed Khalibaf, that's the guy who supposedly we're negotiating with, the supposed moderate in Iran, who, you know, is friends with the IRGC, who blows away 30,000 Iranians last month or two months ago.

00:37:22.000 He said yesterday there would be hell to pay if Harg Island, again, that's the small island that houses 90% of Iranian oil capacity for export, if it were attacked.

00:37:31.000 So he threatened relentless attacks if Kharg were attacked.

00:37:34.000 He said, our forces are monitoring all enemy movements.

00:37:37.000 If they take any step, all the vital infrastructure of that regional country will be targeted with relentless, unceasing attacks.

00:37:42.000 That's actually fascinating because it sounds as though he is concerned that UAE or Saudi is actually going to attack Kharg Island.

00:37:51.000 That's kind of fascinating.

00:37:52.000 He says the infrastructure of that regional country, right?

00:37:54.000 He's not talking about the United States there, which, as we'll get to in a moment, it's possible.

00:37:59.000 America's Arab allies are not in favor of us leaving Iran's government in place.

00:38:04.000 This is like their worst fear: that Iran's government is left in place to sort of restock.

00:38:09.000 According to CNN, Iran has been building up defenses of Kharg Island in order to protect against a potential U.S. ground assault.

00:38:18.000 According to CNN, quote, Iran has been laying traps and moving additional military personnel and air defenses to Kharg Island in recent weeks in preparation for a possible U.S. operation to take control of the island, according to multiple people familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting on the issue.

00:38:32.000 But U.S. officials and military experts say there would be significant risks involved in a ground operation, including a large number of U.S. casualties.

00:38:39.000 The island has layered defenses.

00:38:40.000 The Iranians have moved additional shoulder-fired surface-to-air guided missile systems known as man pads there, as well as anti-personnel and anti-armor mines around the island and on the shoreline where troops would make an amphibious landing.

00:38:51.000 Now, again, I would assume that our military planners have thought of this.

00:38:55.000 We are constantly hearing about the magical defense capabilities of the Iranians. 0.86

00:38:58.000 And so far, the magical defense capabilities of the Iranians appear to be putting their bodies in the way of American bombs. 0.97

00:39:04.000 It's not working amazing.

00:39:06.000 And our Arab allies are getting antsy. 0.95

00:39:08.000 They're becoming more clear in their support for open military action.

00:39:13.000 In fact, six Arab states put out a statement, again, condemning the Iranian attacks.

00:39:20.000 The UAE ambassador to the United States wrote in the Wall Street Journal: More needs to be done to remove the missile and drone threats.

00:39:28.000 We are ready to join an international initiative to reopen this trade and keep it open.

00:39:32.000 We aren't asking the U.S. to carry the full burden.

00:39:34.000 We're defending our people, protecting regional stability and global prosperity, and demonstrating that real alliances are built on cooperation and contribution, not dependency.

00:39:42.000 We want Iran as a normal neighbor.

00:39:44.000 It can be reclusive and even unwelcoming, but it can't attack its neighbors, blockade international waters, or export extremism.

00:39:49.000 Building a fence around the problem and wishing it goes away isn't the answer.

00:39:52.000 It would simply defer the next crisis.

00:39:54.000 And of course, UAE is totally right about this. 0.99

00:39:56.000 Again, that's not the Israelis. 1.00

00:39:58.000 That is UAE. 0.91

00:40:00.000 So, what is the end game here?

00:40:02.000 The real endgame?

00:40:03.000 The answer is regime change behavior.

00:40:05.000 And if that won't happen, then actual regime change.

00:40:08.000 Caroline Levitt said we want an Iranian leader who doesn't chant death to America.

00:40:12.000 That would be preferable.

00:40:14.000 As I've said repeatedly, I think the president obviously believes the United States wants to have someone in leadership position in the Iranian regime that will be much more favorable, that will be willing to work with the United States, that will no longer chant death to America.

00:40:33.000 Well, I mean, yes.

00:40:35.000 And Iran knows this, by the way.

00:40:36.000 And that is the reason why probably they're stuck between Iraq and a hard place.

00:40:39.000 See, here's the thing: if they cut a deal with the United States that ends with them out of control of the Strait of Hormuz, under the continued overwatch of Israel and our Arab allies, like UAE and Saudi, excise from the world economy, it is only a matter of time until they collapse. 0.95

00:40:54.000 One U.S. dollar is currently trading for 1.3 million Iranian reals.

00:41:00.000 Their currency is absolutely worthless, totally worthless.

00:41:04.000 By the way, that was even before the war.

00:41:07.000 The real back in December was trading at $42,000 to the dollar.

00:41:12.000 That was a fake number, by the way, because Iran's real is totally worthless. 1.00

00:41:15.000 So basically, the Iranian government restricted its own citizens from actually being able to buy things from abroad.

00:41:21.000 And that created a black market for American dollars, in which one American dollar was already going for close to a million Iranian reals.

00:41:30.000 And then the Iranian government was unable to uphold its nonsense, fake levels of value on its real. 0.88

00:41:40.000 And so in January, it completely collapsed.

00:41:42.000 There was a 3,000% decrease in value.

00:41:45.000 Again, that preceded the current action.

00:41:47.000 That was in January.

00:41:49.000 So imagine now what the real is worth.

00:41:52.000 The answer is less than zero.

00:41:54.000 So here's the thing that's kind of amazing here.

00:41:56.000 People are acting as the time is not on America's side because of the public's paying threshold for gas that has increased in price over the last three weeks.

00:42:05.000 But let's be real about that.

00:42:06.000 If we can't outlast the Iranians, who again have no economy and no military and no real forward capacity other than firing a few drones at our allies and trying to harass shipping, if we can't outlast them, that is not about Iran being strong. 1.00

00:42:24.000 That is about our own political weakness.

00:42:26.000 This, by the way, is why President Trump keeps saying we're not in the middle of a war.

00:42:29.000 We're in the middle of a military operation.

00:42:31.000 Because let's be real about this.

00:42:33.000 A war usually involves your opponent killing large numbers of your soldiers and doing you serious damage, not just randomly throwing bricks at your friends, which is basically what Iran has been relegated to. 0.97

00:42:45.000 Here was President Trump yesterday.

00:42:47.000 Number one is they want to deflect from all of the tremendous success that we're having in this military operation.

00:42:55.000 I won't use the word war because they say if you use the word war, that's maybe not a good thing to do.

00:43:00.000 They don't like the word war because you're supposed to get approval.

00:43:04.000 So I'll use the word military operation, which is really what it is.

00:43:08.000 It's called a military decimation.

00:43:13.000 Okay, so he's right about that.

00:43:15.000 Now, the biggest critique of the administration is they haven't spent a lot of time explaining themselves, which okay, fine.

00:43:20.000 I think probably that's true.

00:43:22.000 But their failure to properly explain themselves doesn't mean that what's happening right now is wrong or that America is losing.

00:43:29.000 That's not true.

00:43:30.000 Caroline Lovitt was talking to young voters yesterday and said, Trump is doing this for you, which is totally true.

00:43:35.000 By the way, this is an act of political courage.

00:43:37.000 I know sometimes it happens.

00:43:39.000 It's so funny.

00:43:40.000 We're having this conversation on Friendly Fire the other day with Michael Knowles and Andrew Clavin and Chris Ruffo.

00:43:45.000 We were talking about the political fallout theoretically from what's going on in Iran.

00:43:49.000 It could hurt Trump politically.

00:43:51.000 And I said, like, guys, maybe Trump is doing a thing because he thinks it's the right thing to do.

00:43:57.000 And that is a good thing.

00:43:59.000 You elect leaders to do the right thing, even when the public isn't necessarily in favor of it.

00:44:05.000 Leaders are not elected to simply put their finger in the wind and follow the latest polling.

00:44:09.000 And President Trump has never done that.

00:44:11.000 He's always gone his own way.

00:44:13.000 And the reality is, of course, that President Trump is doing this for young Americans.

00:44:17.000 Can you imagine a world in which Iran is not threatening all of its neighbors and exporting terrorism and building ballistic missiles and nuclear weaponry? 0.99

00:44:24.000 Can you imagine a world in which the axis of Russia, Iran, China is broken?

00:44:29.000 Can you imagine free flow, open flow of trade via the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea?

00:44:36.000 The possibility of investing in moderate regimes all throughout the Gulf and those regimes investing their money in the United States?

00:44:43.000 Because that's what's coming.

00:44:44.000 If we get what we seek to do here, that is what is happening.

00:44:47.000 A new world, a better world.

00:44:49.000 It is the biggest foreign policy victory in modern American history.

00:44:53.000 If President Trump is able to effectuate regime change behavior or regime change itself, here is Caroline Lovitt explaining yesterday.

00:45:02.000 President Trump is doing this for you.

00:45:03.000 He's doing this for young people so that we are no longer threatened by a rogue terrorist regime in the Middle East that seeks to kill the brave men and women who serve in our country in the Middle East, many of them young people themselves, young men and women who serve this country honorably in uniform and have been threatened, killed, and maimed by the rogue Iranian terrorist regime. 0.99

00:45:25.000 Okay, so the responses from the idiotic left and the grievance party right and foreign sympathizers with Iran continues to be astonishing. 1.00

00:45:32.000 Ruben Gallego immediately said, The best thing you can do for young people is not send them to die in a stupid war. 1.00

00:45:38.000 Okay, can we stop treating American soldiers as though they are somehow pawns, as though they are victims? 0.99

00:45:44.000 It's so, it's so diminishing.

00:45:47.000 We do not have a draft in the United States.

00:45:50.000 President Trump is quote unquote, he's not sending American troops to die in the Middle East.

00:45:56.000 Again, this has been the most successful military operation in terms of damage done to America and damage inflicted upon our opponents in American history. 0.80

00:46:05.000 The American military is 2 million people strong.

00:46:09.000 The notion that President Trump is sending people to die in a war for no reason, that every war is Vietnam or Iraq or something, is just, it's nonsense. 1.00

00:46:16.000 It's trash and stupid. 1.00

00:46:18.000 It's stupid people talk. 1.00

00:46:20.000 Well, speaking of stupid people, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, who finds sympathy for terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and also, of course, in Iran, he's saying that he's like the Pope, which, again, the Pope is not a political leader. 1.00

00:46:35.000 He is a spiritual and religious leader. 0.99

00:46:37.000 And so when the Pope says he doesn't like conflict and that everybody should be peaceful, that is a different thing than you, an elected political leader with a military at your disposal, coming down on the side of the Iranians. 0.57

00:46:58.000 Again, he's comparing himself to the Pope.

00:47:00.000 I mean, my dude, just going to say no on that.

00:47:04.000 It's a no from me, dog.

00:47:06.000 How much does Iran appreciate the Spanish prime minister?

00:47:08.000 They're literally putting stickers of him on their missiles that they are then firing at civilian centers.

00:47:14.000 Well done, Spain. 0.91

00:47:15.000 You've done an amazing job.

00:47:16.000 Meanwhile, the Doltettes over at The View, they say, you know, they don't love Iran, but they can't trust Trump either.

00:47:24.000 Guys, get over yourselves.

00:47:26.000 Seriously.

00:47:29.000 Regardless of what Iran is saying about whether the president's spoken to them or not, I don't trust the feedback of President Trump.

00:47:35.000 I really don't trust Iran either because the kind of regimes over there, they send out propaganda, they manipulate numbers of what's happening. 0.98

00:47:44.000 Like we've been doing.

00:47:45.000 Yeah, you exaggerate.

00:47:49.000 Oh my gosh.

00:47:50.000 Yeah, we're just like the Iranians, according to these geniuses. 0.98

00:47:54.000 Meanwhile, Joe Kent continues to run around saying silly, silly, and terrible things about not only the Middle East, but about the murder of Charlie Kirk. 0.91

00:48:02.000 He's actually slated to appear with, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. 0.81

00:48:06.000 Chenk Uyghur today.

00:48:08.000 There's a shock.

00:48:09.000 The horseshoe's coming all the way around.

00:48:10.000 Again, Joe Kent is indistinguishable from Hassan Piker, who is indistinguishable from Tucker Carlson, who is indistinguishable from Chenk Uyghur, and all of them are indistinguishable from Howard, Dean and Noam Chomsky at this point. 0.70

00:48:22.000 Caroline Lovitt slapped at Joe Kent yesterday, and she is right to do so.

00:48:27.000 I think the president and I have both strongly responded to the criticism by Mr. Kent, who unfortunately resigned in disgrace and accused the president of basically being controlled by foreign countries and foreign manipulation, which is a ridiculous and laughable assertion.

00:48:44.000 So his accusations have zero credibility as far as this White House is concerned.

00:48:50.000 That is correct.

00:48:50.000 One of the things that Kent has been saying, by the way, is that the FBI didn't do a full investigation into Charlie's murder.

00:48:58.000 Ben Williamson, who's the FBI assistant director, slammed Kent.

00:49:01.000 Quote, the FBI assistant director Ben Williamson, he slammed Kent.

00:49:05.000 He said, quote, a number of people have asked for response to this.

00:49:07.000 So here it is.

00:49:08.000 Joe Kent is being a dishonest hack.

00:49:10.000 He worked for NCTC, which is not a law enforcement or investigative agency.

00:49:15.000 He had zero role or 1811 investigative authority in this.

00:49:18.000 This is like me saying I was blocked from playing receiver for the commanders.

00:49:22.000 It's an issue of having no business or, frankly, ability doing something, not an issue of access.

00:49:26.000 Kent said that he was blocked from investigating.

00:49:28.000 Furthermore, FBI actually made an early exception and allowed NCTC to assess intelligence reports and international terrorism returned zero connections.

00:49:36.000 Now, Joe Kent kept making things up.

00:49:37.000 Anyway, the shameless media tour he's on reeks of being desperate for attention and the baseless conspiracy theories he's spreading around the administration, particularly Charlie's murder, could very well make it more difficult to get justice for our friend.

00:49:48.000 If he had any shame, Joe Kent should be ashamed of himself.

00:49:51.000 Of course, he has no shame.

00:49:53.000 So here is the bottom line.

00:49:55.000 America, victorious in the war in Iran, will change the world in tremendously positive ways.

00:50:01.000 And what that requires of the American people, yes, is some patience.

00:50:04.000 It requires some patience.

00:50:05.000 And again, I find it kind of astonishing that we have to argue patience when the war is 26 days deep, 26 days.

00:50:12.000 Okay, that is shorter than Kim Kardashian's marriage to Chris Humphreys.

00:50:17.000 Okay, that's how short we are talking now.

00:50:20.000 26 days is shorter than your 30-day trial to Netflix.

00:50:24.000 So the idea that America's patience has run and that Iran is now standing over us, dominant, there is no measure by which this is true. 0.99

00:50:33.000 Now, if all y'all have questions about the news or my latest hat take, be sure to submit them in the mailbag.

00:50:39.000 This segment is sponsored by our friends over at Pure Talk.

00:50:43.000 Daryl says, when did the crossover from committed authentic love to jilted cheating romance begin to be the norm?

00:50:49.000 It seems every romance book or movie centers around unfaithful lovers these days.

00:50:52.000 When did this begin?

00:50:53.000 Well, I mean, one of the things about romance very often is the obsession with the taboo.

00:51:00.000 So in a world in which sex outside marriage was the taboo, then the idea was the way you solve for that is the people fall in love and then they get married and then the taboo becomes acceptable.

00:51:10.000 This is why all comedies in Shakespeare's era ended with marriage at the end, right?

00:51:14.000 The tension has to be resolved in a marriage.

00:51:17.000 And then we decided that sex outside of marriage was totally normal.

00:51:20.000 And so you had to find the next taboo.

00:51:21.000 So what's the next taboo?

00:51:23.000 And there are a bunch of taboos that open up at that point because the mind is always looking for taboos.

00:51:29.000 Again, all drama is based in creating a sense of dramatic tension and then resolution of that tension.

00:51:35.000 But there's no tension these days about sex.

00:51:37.000 Anybody can have it at any time with anyone.

00:51:40.000 So how do you create the tension?

00:51:41.000 The tension is created by infidelity, which is still a thing that people have a problem with, at least at a heart level.

00:51:48.000 Rhea says, hey, Ben, if you were to reincarnate into an animal, what animal do you think you would be based on your personality?

00:51:56.000 The wise owl.

00:51:57.000 The wise owl.

00:52:00.000 Scott says, should we be concerned about our allies' nuclear capabilities as they begin to fall to foreigners with Islamist ideologies like England? 0.96

00:52:08.000 Yeah, of course we should be worried about that.

00:52:10.000 Of course we should.

00:52:11.000 But England is not on the verge of being an Islamist state.

00:52:13.000 It's on the verge and actually is in present a surrender-oriented left-wing state.

00:52:17.000 That's not quite the same threat.

00:52:19.000 It's a problem, but it's not quite the same thing as Pakistan having nukes or something, which actually is a real threat. 0.93

00:52:25.000 And one more question.

00:52:27.000 Jen says, hey, Ben, do you think the shift to the two-income household was good or bad for society?

00:52:31.000 Do you think it is contributing to people's decision to not have children?

00:52:35.000 The two-income household, it's not a matter of was it good or bad for society.

00:52:40.000 The reality is we had a break from history in the 1950s.

00:52:44.000 Until that period, the two-income household was actually quite normal throughout human history.

00:52:50.000 Think back to agricultural times.

00:52:52.000 That was a two-income household because it wasn't as though mom was doing no work and she was a quote-unquote stay-at-home mom.

00:52:58.000 She actually was out there in the fields.

00:52:59.000 She was out there milking the cows. 1.00

00:53:01.000 She was turning the butter, like doing all the things.

00:53:04.000 The reality is that families have always done what they need to do to get by.

00:53:06.000 That is not the reason for the massive downturn in childbearing and child rearing.

00:53:11.000 The real answer is that, because you see this, right?

00:53:15.000 Countries where women are in complete poverty have lots of kids. 0.93

00:53:20.000 It is a cultural thing.

00:53:21.000 It is a spiritual thing.

00:53:22.000 It is not predominantly a materialistic thing.

00:53:25.000 All righty, folks, coming up, we'll answer some more of your questions in the vaunted mailbag.

00:53:30.000 Remember, as always, if you want your question to be answered, if you wish to hang out with us, if you wish to see all of our magical paywall content, you need to actually go become a member.

00:53:37.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout.

00:53:38.000 Try two months free on all annual plans.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - March 26, 2026

MASSIVE LAWSUIT: Did Social Media DESTROY The Kids?

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