The Ben Shapiro Show - Prince Andrew Arrested

00:00:00.000 Prince Andrew is apparently arrested on charges that we will explore in just a moment, thanks to the revelations in some of the Epstein files.

00:00:08.000 We'll also get to a litany of fake victims, those fake victims ranging from James Tallarico, the Texas Democrat Senate candidate to, yes, Tucker Carlson.

00:00:16.000 First, all week, we have been telling you episode six of the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, is the big one, and now it is here.

00:00:23.000 Honestly, if you haven't started the series yet, you should start with this episode.

00:00:26.000 Everyone who has seen this episode says it is their favorite.

00:00:29.000 Even Tom Sharp, the dude who plays Merlin, called and said he would do whatever it takes to make sure people watch this episode.

00:00:34.000 The fight scenes go toe-to-toe with anything Hollywood makes.

00:00:37.000 The love story is going to own the group chat.

00:00:38.000 The ending launched us straight into the finale in the most ridiculous, epic way possible.

00:00:42.000 It is streaming right this very moment only on Daily Wire Plus.

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00:00:52.000 Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Prince Andrew, as he is known in the UK, although he was stripped of his formal title, has now been arrested.

00:01:00.000 He is being held in custody on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

00:01:04.000 This is based on apparently revelations in the release of all of the Epstein papers, all the Epstein files.

00:01:11.000 Our standard when it comes to literally any case should be evidence.

00:01:14.000 I know this has fallen out of public favor because we have this thing called X, where people sort of just find one page of a thing and then take it out of context or obscure certain data or simply misinterpret.

00:01:24.000 And then that becomes the story of the day.

00:01:25.000 But actual evidence is the standard when it comes to making actual legal allegations about people.

00:01:30.000 And if we don't do that, then we got kind of a problem with regard to both public information and also equal rule of law.

00:01:38.000 When it comes to the evidence in this particular case, we now have 3.5 million pages that have been released into the public.

00:01:43.000 If you, like an individual human being, were to try to read those pages 24-7, no sleeping, no eating, no breaks.

00:01:53.000 And let's say that you are reading it carefully.

00:01:56.000 Let's say you're doing like 25 pages per hour.

00:01:58.000 It would take you like 16 years to read through that.

00:02:01.000 So I understand that the internet is sort of group sourcing this thing, but that doesn't mean that everybody is reading everything, nor does it mean that the analysis is in any way truly methodical.

00:02:11.000 The internet is what the internet is.

00:02:11.000 And again, that's fine.

00:02:13.000 The only point that I'm making is when you're talking about somebody who actually gets arrested, it would probably behoove us to find out for what he was arrested and what the best available evidence suggests about that arrest.

00:02:23.000 With that said, everyone who committed a crime, every single person, obviously, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

00:02:30.000 And prosecutions ought to be based.

00:02:32.000 I know this is controversial.

00:02:33.000 Prosecutions ought not be based on speculation on X rooted in non-evidentiary allegations.

00:02:39.000 They ought to be based on the evidence.

00:02:40.000 I know this is a very strong standard that we ought to actually prosecute Andrew for the crimes he committed, not for the crimes you think he committed based on the stuff that you read by some rando anon account on X.

00:02:52.000 But that's actually how functional civilizations are supposed to work.

00:02:56.000 He's been charged again with misconduct in public office.

00:02:59.000 That is a relatively vague and complex charge in Great Britain.

00:03:03.000 Dominic Caschiani is the home and legal correspondent for the BBC.

00:03:07.000 And he says that essentially that charge boils down to an allegation that someone who was doing a job on behalf of the British public did something seriously wrong, knowing it to be wrong.

00:03:17.000 And there are four elements that the police actually have to fulfill in order to arrest somebody.

00:03:21.000 First, the police have to establish whether the person they are investigating was a public officer and the incident in question was plausibly part of those duties.

00:03:29.000 And then if you breached that duty, then you look for evidence that the suspect willfully neglected to perform the duty or willfully misconducted themselves in some other way.

00:03:39.000 And then the question is whether this amounts to an abuse of the public trust.

00:03:42.000 And finally, police need to examine whether the person under investigation acted without reasonable excuse or justification.

00:03:51.000 So I think that a lot of the speculation right now around Prince Andrew is that he is being arrested based on his activities, his nefarious activities, apparently, with Virginia Giufre, who is one of the alleged victims in the Epstein case.

00:04:03.000 She, of course, is the most famous of the alleged victims in the Epstein case.

00:04:07.000 She was not used by prosecutors anywhere because she was an unreliable witness. 0.65

00:04:11.000 And it turns out that many of the details that she gave didn't match actual timelines.

00:04:15.000 That does not mean that she wasn't victimized.

00:04:17.000 Obviously, Prince Andrew paid her a pretty sizable settlement in a civil suit.

00:04:21.000 It doesn't mean that she didn't have a horrible and terrible life in which she was treated just horrifically.

00:04:26.000 And obviously, she committed suicide. 0.98

00:04:28.000 It does mean that if we are attempting to elicit information on what exactly happened, you have to base that on the most verifiable possible evidence, generally speaking, with any case.

00:04:39.000 In 2001, there's a very famous photo, of course, of Virginia Giufrey at Ghalen Maxwell's home in London with Prince Andrew.

00:04:46.000 Andrew flew on Epstein's private planes.

00:04:49.000 We know this.

00:04:50.000 Giufrey alleged abuse, and eventually she filed a civil suit against then Prince Andrew.

00:04:56.000 He settled that with her in 2022 and he paid her millions of dollars, possibly up to $16 million to settle that lawsuit.

00:05:05.000 Andrew was photographed walking with Epstein in December 2010.

00:05:08.000 That was after he pled guilty on that charge of sex trafficking of a minor.

00:05:13.000 He even offered to have Epstein to Buckingham Palace.

00:05:17.000 Now, Andrew has never been criminally charged for the allegations with regard to Virginia Giufrey.

00:05:23.000 In October 2021, London's Metro Police said they did not have sufficient grounds to prosecute him in the UK.

00:05:29.000 When the DOJ investigated Epstein back in the late aughts, they didn't end up charging Andrew.

00:05:36.000 So what is he being arrested based upon?

00:05:39.000 If you had to guess, and of course, at this point, we're waiting for more information.

00:05:43.000 If you had to guess, it is very, very likely that he is being prosecuted for the same sorts of activities for which Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador from Britain to the United States, is now being investigated.

00:05:55.000 That is to say, he was probably passing financial and insider information to Jeffrey Epstein.

00:06:01.000 The police have not made clear yet exactly what the specificity of the charges is.

00:06:07.000 Their statement says, quote, as part of the investigation, we have arrested a man in his 60s from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.

00:06:17.000 The man remains in police custody at this time.

00:06:21.000 We will not be naming the arrested man as per national guidance.

00:06:23.000 Please also remember that this case is now active, so care should be taken with any publication to avoid being in contempt of court.

00:06:29.000 So, I mean, no details being provided at all.

00:06:32.000 What we do know, however, is that emails that were revealed in the correspondence between Epstein and Andrew in that latest tranche of Epstein files suggest that Prince Andrew shared confidential UK trade reports and official itineraries with Epstein while he was Britain's special representative for international trade.

00:06:52.000 This, I would guess, is the locus of these charges because it fulfills the elements that we're talking about.

00:06:57.000 One, he was holding an actual public office at the time.

00:06:59.000 It wasn't just a member of the royal family.

00:07:01.000 It was an actual public office.

00:07:03.000 Two, he was sharing confidential UK information, allegedly, with Epstein.

00:07:08.000 And this is why I'm comparing it to the Peter Mandelson scandal.

00:07:10.000 Peter Mandelson, of course, was the British ambassador to Washington, but years and years and years ago, when he was working in actual official facilities with the UK government, he was apparently passing inside information about UK government decisions to Epstein, who then may have traded on that information.

00:07:30.000 And evidence ought to be our standard whenever we adjudicate these cases, either in the court of public opinion or when it comes to an actual court of law.

00:07:38.000 What we do know is that he was engaged in high-level financial impropriety.

00:07:42.000 That's the stuff where there really is a fair bit of evidence that he was engaged in financial impropriety.

00:07:45.000 The New York Times, as we've talked about at length on the show, did a full-scale rundown of what he did during his early years to get rich.

00:07:51.000 And the answer is some pretty scurvy stuff.

00:07:55.000 He was bilking billionaires out of their money.

00:07:57.000 He was conning them.

00:07:59.000 He was telling them he was uncovering funding while simultaneously stealing money from them allegedly.

00:08:05.000 That we know he was doing.

00:08:06.000 There's actually tons and tons of evidence of financial impropriety and financial law breaking with regard to Jeffrey Epstein.

00:08:12.000 And of course, there's evidence that he was trafficking minors to himself and that he was trafficking in overage women to himself.

00:08:20.000 But the evidence that he was trafficking minors to other people, that evidence is in short supply at this point.

00:08:26.000 That doesn't mean that it won't ever emerge or that people won't uncover it or anything like that.

00:08:30.000 I'm just giving you the state of the evidence as it currently stands.

00:08:34.000 And speculation is not a substitute for evidence.

00:08:37.000 Well, some of this came to a head yesterday when billionaire former Victoria's secret CEO Lex Wesner testified before the House Oversight Committee.

00:08:45.000 He actually testified that he was conned by Jeffrey Epstein.

00:08:47.000 He denied wrongdoing.

00:08:49.000 Wexner, of course, has been under fire over his many appearances in the DOJ records on Epstein.

00:08:54.000 He denied allegations that he was Epstein's co-conspirator.

00:08:58.000 There have been allegations with regard to Wexner in some of the documents that the FBI considered him a secondary co-conspirator with Epstein, but it was never made clear in those documents why they said that or what they meant by that.

00:09:09.000 Did they mean that he was funding Epstein's lifestyle?

00:09:11.000 Did they mean that he himself was trafficking?

00:09:13.000 None of that was evidenced in the actual papers that have been released so far.

00:09:18.000 In his prepared statement, he told lawmakers he never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein's criminal activity.

00:09:23.000 And in fact, he claimed essentially that he was victimized by Epstein to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

00:09:29.000 Wexner, in his prepared statement, said, I have done nothing wrong.

00:09:31.000 I have nothing to hide. 0.99

00:09:32.000 I completely and irrevocably cut ties with Epstein nearly 20 years ago when I learned that he was an abuser, a crook, and a liar. 0.71

00:09:37.000 And let me be crystal clear, I never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein's criminal activity.

00:09:44.000 A video and transcript apparently are soon to be released.

00:09:48.000 Representative Robert Garcia of California told reporters during a break in the deposition that Wexner was trying to downplay how close his relationship with Epstein was.

00:09:56.000 Garcia said there would be no Epstein Island.

00:09:58.000 There'd be no Epstein plane. 0.61

00:09:59.000 There'd be no money to traffic women and girls. 1.00

00:10:01.000 Mr. Epstein would not be the wealthy man he was without the support of Lex Wesner.

00:10:04.000 Now, again, what's interesting about even that statement from Garcia suggests that this is mostly about the money passing from Wexner to Epstein, not about specific evidence allegations of Wexner engaging in sexual impropriety.

00:10:18.000 Man, maybe he did, but the evidence actually has to be presented at a certain point.

00:10:23.000 I know that we live in a world in which asking for evidence for propositions is considered passe, and that if you even ask for evidence, then this makes you a co-conspirator in whatever gigantic theory people have constructed.

00:10:37.000 This is why, for example, Michael Tracy, who's actually been doing granular work going through these documents, is now being labeled speciously as somebody being paid off by foreign powers or something for the great sin of actually looking at the evidence.

00:10:49.000 And again, Michael Tracy and I disagree on nearly everything politically, but Michael Tracy is actually looking at evidence.

00:10:54.000 And I think that when we are looking at very, very large allegations, groundbreaking allegations, allegations that basically our entire society is run on the back of satanic pedophile cults, it behooves us, when there's an outsized allegation, to find outsized reams of evidence to support those allegations.

00:11:13.000 And then if the evidence shows that's what's happening, then obviously that is something not only worthy of note, but worthy of panic.

00:11:19.000 But this is why we ought to have evidence because otherwise you end up in a bizarre world in which allegations are tantamount to actual condemnation.

00:11:26.000 Now, when regard to Andrew, allegations are now tantamount to criminal charges.

00:11:32.000 And we'll have to see the nature of those criminal charges again based on the information we have and the evidence, the actual evidence in the Epstein files with regard to Andrew and the fact he was not prosecuted over Giufre and the allegations there for decades.

00:11:47.000 My strong suspicion is he's being prosecuted over passing essentially inside information when he was a trade representative to Epstein. 0.99

00:11:54.000 The reason I focus in on this is because once you have a standard that basically any allegation is tantamount to guilt, any allegation, that's how you end up with Representative Ted Liu, a complete dunderheaded moron, going out in Congress and suggesting that Trump is raping children. 0.97

00:12:12.000 I mean, again, he has just as much evidence for this proposition as people have of evidence of a gigantic transnational conspiracy run by intelligence agencies to traffic underage people to prominent people and then blackmail them, which is to say none. 0.96

00:12:27.000 Here is Ted Liu.

00:12:30.000 Why are Republicans so interested in Bill Hillary Clinton?

00:12:35.000 It's because they're trying to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files thousands and thousands of times. 0.98

00:12:43.000 In those files, there's highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump raping children, of Donald Trump threatening to kill children. 0.67

00:12:54.000 So I encourage your press to go look at these allegations. 1.00

00:13:00.000 So again, this is ridiculous. 0.92

00:13:03.000 And by the way, it is also ridiculous that Rokana did the same routine the other day. 0.51

00:13:07.000 So you'll recall that I said that if Rokana and Thomas Massey had actual evidence of men trafficking in underage girls with Jeffrey Epstein, and they said that the names had been redacted and been hidden, they should actually just go and announce that on the floor of the House because you actually do have congressional privilege to be able to do that sort of stuff without being sued.

00:13:27.000 And then Rokana actually went and did it.

00:13:29.000 And we played it on the show, him naming all of these guys.

00:13:32.000 Well, it turns out that there was only one problem, as it turns out.

00:13:35.000 These six people that he named were not actually guilty of anything like what he sort of suggested they were guilty of.

00:13:43.000 He admitted this in a tweet: quote: I appreciate reporting, confirming today that Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Michaladzi, Leonid Leonov, and Nicola Caputo were just part of a photo lineup and are not connected to Epstein's crimes.

00:13:55.000 But that was after he literally went on the floor of Congress and read their names into the congressional record in order to imply that they were part of a sex trafficking scheme.

00:14:07.000 And then he blamed the DOJ for adapting their names.

00:14:09.000 Well, I mean, maybe the reason their names were redacted in the first place is because there was no evidence they'd done anything wrong.

00:14:14.000 And when you unredact the names, it turns out that a bunch of people, like, for example, Rokana, are going to cynically play on that in order to slander people.

00:14:23.000 And there is something that is peculiarly dangerous about the way that we are now approaching the release of the Epstein information.

00:14:30.000 Not that the information shouldn't be released, but if the way that law enforcement now goes about its business is they gather millions of pages of documents on alleged crimes, and instead of guarding the people who they have no evidence of crimes being committed by, instead of guarding those people, instead of redacting that information, instead of actually protecting the victims, you just release everything into the public sphere.

00:14:53.000 I wonder what you do about anything like the basic right to privacy for people who are not Jeffrey Epstein, but whose names are in the files.

00:15:02.000 Is that a thing we even care about?

00:15:03.000 Maybe we don't care about that anymore.

00:15:04.000 Okay, fine.

00:15:05.000 But at that point, we should basically just make public all IRS filings.

00:15:08.000 Why not?

00:15:10.000 What if we can just pass a congressional act to force the IRS to release tax returns?

00:15:15.000 Is that a thing also that we can do?

00:15:18.000 I understand that we all want the real evidence and all the information.

00:15:24.000 The way this has been handled from soup to nuts, let us say, has not been a general boon to humanity.

00:15:30.000 It was retailed extraordinarily poorly by the Attorney General Pam Bondi.

00:15:35.000 It was retailed before that in terms of broad outsized theories by people who really didn't know very much.

00:15:42.000 The original sort of we'll release nothing but a small press release, but we won't explain what we're doing.

00:15:46.000 Release was a disaster area.

00:15:48.000 The gigantic release of millions of pages of documents into the public sphere without any real effort at fully redacting people who are innocent or any explanation of what was being released.

00:15:57.000 That turns out to be a disaster area also.

00:16:00.000 It's hard to spot a place here where there has not been a pretty significant misstep.

00:16:03.000 All righty, meanwhile, we now have a spate of fake victims.

00:16:07.000 Victimhood is in short supply in a free and prosperous West.

00:16:11.000 It really is.

00:16:12.000 There are people, obviously, who are victimized by systems, but the number of prominent people who claim to be victims of systems, let's just say that the supply is overwhelming.

00:16:22.000 And it is certainly, it is basically a Gucci bag on the streets of New York.

00:16:28.000 It is fake, pretending to be real.

00:16:32.000 These are Timu victims. 0.98

00:16:34.000 We'll get to more on this breaking news in a moment.

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00:18:38.000 Let us point out one Timu victim, James Tallarico.

00:18:41.000 So James Tallarico, of course, has been making hay over the allegation made by Stephen Colbert that basically he was banned from CBS because the Trump administration couldn't stand him being out there in public. 0.90

00:18:51.000 That's really ridiculous.

00:18:53.000 It turns out that the FCC gave an instruction to CBS that if James Tallarico appeared and was given a softball interview by Stephen Colbert, Jasmine Crockett would similarly have to be given a softball interview by Stephen Colbert under their equal times laws. 0.97

00:19:07.000 Now, again, I think equal times laws are stupid and we should do away with them, but that is currently the law. 1.00

00:19:12.000 And CBS said, instead of airing the Tallarico interview, and then that would force us to sacrifice airtime on Jasmine Crockett, the producers of the late show with Colbert, said, no, what we'll do instead is we'll just release the Tallarico interview on YouTube. 0.85

00:19:27.000 Now, has that been like a horrifyingly terrible thing for James Tallerico?

00:19:32.000 Far from it.

00:19:33.000 Dude's been raising money hand over fist.

00:19:37.000 His interview has been viewed 7.4 million times on YouTube, which for the record is way more than it would have been viewed on CBS.

00:19:47.000 Way more.

00:19:47.000 He has apparently raked in $2.5 million in fundraising in the aftermath of this pseudo-scandal.

00:19:54.000 Tallerico crowed in a statement, quote, this is a campaign of, by, and for the people.

00:19:58.000 So I'm proud that neighbors from all across our state and country stood together to defend free speech.

00:20:03.000 He said, this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes right from the top, a threat to one of our First Amendment rights as a threat to all of our First Amendment rights.

00:20:11.000 Well, none of us have a First Amendment right to appear on Stephen Colbert's show.

00:20:16.000 So there is that.

00:20:17.000 And also, it was the producers of the late show who made that call.

00:20:21.000 CBS has flatly denied the Colbert version of the story.

00:20:27.000 Jasmine Crockett, by the way, said, quote, the federal government did not shut down the segment.

00:20:32.000 She said it's our understanding that either Colbert or CBS decided not to put the Tallarico interview on TV because of a fear that the FCC may say something to them and that there may have been advice to just have me on and they could clear the equal time issue.

00:20:45.000 It was my understanding, says Jasmine Crockett, that someone somewhere decided we don't want to do that.

00:20:49.000 Instead, we're just going to do it this way.

00:20:50.000 So in other words, they wanted to have Tallarico on, but not Jasmine Crockett, disadvantaging Jasmine Crockett.

00:20:56.000 And then they used that as a pseudo-scandal in order to fundraise for James Tallarico.

00:21:01.000 This has not stopped the media from going hole hog against Trump.

00:21:04.000 CNN's Nico Perino slammed Trump over the Tallarico controversy.

00:21:11.000 I do think that the administration has come out for these late-night talk show hosts.

00:21:15.000 We saw that with Jimmy Kimmel.

00:21:17.000 Colbert, his run, I think, ends in May.

00:21:20.000 And Brendan Carr has his marching orders.

00:21:22.000 He attended government meetings with a pin of Donald Trump's face on it, a gold pin.

00:21:27.000 And President Trump repeatedly truths out criticisms of these hosts.

00:21:32.000 And these hosts are perceived to be left-wing.

00:21:35.000 I think they probably are majority left-wing.

00:21:37.000 And so that's why he's going after late-night and daytime talk shows and not conservative talk radio.

00:21:43.000 Okay, so I mean, again, I think there's a strong case that we should get rid of the equal time rules altogether.

00:21:48.000 They are a vestigial organ of free speech regulation.

00:21:52.000 But pretending that somehow Tallerico was the victim in all this is really silly.

00:21:55.000 This whole thing was basically ginned up by the late show's producers in order to benefit Tallarico.

00:22:01.000 Precisely the opposite of what is currently being claimed.

00:22:04.000 Meanwhile, FCC chair Brendan Carr, he is going after Colbert.

00:22:09.000 I will say that the optics here for Brendan Carr, I mean, I don't know how many times Brendan Carr has to go after late night hosts before he sort of appears to be over his skis.

00:22:19.000 I don't see the win here, particularly for Brendan Carr.

00:22:22.000 But here we go.

00:22:24.000 Sad, what he probably views as a long and distinguished career in the limelight.

00:22:28.000 He sees that that limelight is fading, is coming to an end.

00:22:31.000 That's got to be a difficult time for him.

00:22:33.000 I get it.

00:22:34.000 But that doesn't change the facts of what happened here.

00:22:38.000 I mean, he is right about that.

00:22:39.000 It does not change the facts of what happened here.

00:22:40.000 Now, if you want to talk actual cancel culture, how about the fact that Barry Weiss was supposed to give a lecture on the future of journalism at UCLA, and she actually was canceled, like full-scale canceled.

00:22:50.000 Not like it happened and then it was broadcast to YouTube to the tune of millions of dollars raised.

00:22:55.000 Nope, it was actually canceled amid student protests and online criticism.

00:22:59.000 The annual lecture is held in remembrance of Daniel Pearl, that is the Wall Street Journal journalist who was beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.

00:23:07.000 It will be rescheduled for some unspecified date.

00:23:11.000 A reason was not provided for the cancellation.

00:23:14.000 Code Pink, which allegedly receives foreign funding, organized a student action to cancel the event back in January.

00:23:24.000 So again, the Heckler's veto taking shape.

00:23:26.000 Meanwhile, other fake victims, James Tallrico, a fake victim.

00:23:30.000 Other fake victims.

00:23:32.000 Democrats claiming that President Trump is a racist because he is apparently deploying help to clean up the giant poop spill in the Potomac.

00:23:42.000 The Washington Post reported three days ago that federal authorities will respond to a major sewage spill that occurred four weeks ago in the Potomac River, which flows between Maryland, Washington, and Virginia.

00:23:53.000 In a post on his social media network, Trump said that the federal emergency management agency would play a key role in a response involving management direction and coordination to protect the Potomac.

00:24:05.000 Trump blamed local Democrat leaders for gross mismanagement in his post.

00:24:09.000 He singled out Maryland governor Wes Moore, suggesting that he was incapable of handling the situation.

00:24:14.000 Trump said, I don't like the fact he did a horrible job with the pipes.

00:24:17.000 I'm going to have to get the federal government involved in getting it fixed because he can't fix anything.

00:24:23.000 And then Wesmore tried to claim that it was actually the federal government's fault, which is weird because it actually is not under the federal government's.

00:24:31.000 So Wesmore is now a victim too.

00:24:32.000 Everybody is a victim.

00:24:33.000 So here is Wesmore trying to run for president in 2028.

00:24:36.000 I think that is a quixotic run by Wes Moore.

00:24:39.000 I do not think that he has it, whatever it is.

00:24:42.000 And he says he's a victim of President Trump now.

00:24:44.000 Sure, it's his state that is pumping raw sewage into the rivers, but it is President Trump who is the real exploiter here.

00:24:54.000 I think the president just seems to have a very real issue with the fact that I do not bow to him, and I will stand up to him because I will always defend my people.

00:25:06.000 But the fact that I'm the only black governor in this country and the fact that he seems to have a real issue with me, I think that's an issue he's got to take up.

00:25:17.000 Well, it's very sad.

00:25:19.000 What a victim Wes Moore is. 0.94

00:25:20.000 Also, by the way, Wes Moore claims that President Trump may be a racist because he is, quote, assaulting employment opportunities for black women. 1.00

00:25:29.000 This is ridiculous. 0.99

00:25:30.000 I'm sorry. 0.89

00:25:30.000 It's ridiculous. 0.89

00:25:32.000 The unemployment rate in the country right now is 4.3%. 0.99

00:25:36.000 He is not undercutting black women.

00:25:38.000 If the claim by Wes Moore is that government employment has been cut in certain areas and that demographically this disproportionately affects black women, that does not mean that Trump is targeting black women in particular by cutting federal jobs.

00:25:51.000 But here is Wes Moore doing the victimhood routine.

00:25:54.000 Well, I mean, he also has spent the past year making a direct assault on scholarships for HBCUs, that the past year we have seen the greatest assaults on employment for black women that our country has ever seen.

00:26:07.000 That he's spending his time attacking history and banning books.

00:26:14.000 I honestly think that it's a question not just for the president, but frankly, I think it's also a question for white America if they are looking at his actions.

00:26:23.000 And I think that's something that people need to wrestle with.

00:26:28.000 I'm sorry. 0.84

00:26:30.000 Claiming victimhood on behalf of black women everywhere because President Trump is cutting federal jobs is truly silly, especially the same day that President Trump was celebrating Black History Month over at the White House. 0.98

00:26:42.000 Here was our apparently incredibly racist president yesterday. 0.97

00:26:47.000 Black Americans have stepped forward to defend the flag and to defend our country. 0.95

00:26:53.000 Like few others, really, like few others.

00:26:56.000 And you've never really been given the recognition that you should get for that.

00:27:00.000 You know that, Ben?

00:27:01.000 They never, I don't think a lot of people have given the kind of recognition, but everyone knows all about the Tuskegee Airmen.

00:27:08.000 They were great and amazing.

00:27:11.000 The Buffalo Soldiers, do you know the Buffalo Soldiers?

00:27:14.000 Good stuff, right?

00:27:16.000 Black leaders from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King, right?

00:27:21.000 Little relative over here have made our country freer.

00:27:26.000 And really, what they've really done is made life more just. 0.67

00:27:33.000 What a racist.

00:27:34.000 I mean, truly, that is egregiously KKK type racist stuff there. 0.97

00:27:38.000 So many victims here.

00:27:40.000 One reporter took the opportunity to ask about whether he is a racist since he has been called racist so many times.

00:27:48.000 Where or when does the president believe he's been falsely called racist?

00:27:53.000 You're kidding, right?

00:27:56.000 I will pull you plethora of examples.

00:27:58.000 I'm going to get my team in that room to start going through the internet of radical Democrats throughout the years, Ed, who have accused this president falsely of being a racist.

00:28:08.000 And I'm sure there's many people in this room and on network television across the country who have accused him of the same.

00:28:14.000 In fact, I know that because I've seen it with my own eyes.

00:28:19.000 That is Caroline Lovitt, of course, being asked about Trump's supposed racism.

00:28:23.000 I mean, one D.C. resident gave a very live speech at this event at the White House.

00:28:29.000 Her grandson was killed in violence in Washington, D.C.

00:28:33.000 And here she was raving about President Trump.

00:28:34.000 Again, so much racism just pouring out of President Trump here.

00:28:38.000 And then we need National Guard and which we did years ago.

00:28:44.000 He brought it on.

00:28:48.000 I love him.

00:28:49.000 I don't want to hear nothing you got to say about their racist stuff.

00:28:52.000 And don't be looking at me on the news, hating on me because I'm standing up for somebody that deserves to be standing up for. 0.86

00:28:59.000 Get off the man's back. 0.84

00:29:00.000 Let him do his job.

00:29:01.000 He's doing the right thing.

00:29:03.000 Back up off of him.

00:29:05.000 And grandma said it. 0.98

00:29:13.000 I mean, look at that vicious racist right there. 0.99

00:29:15.000 There's so many victims. 0.68

00:29:16.000 So many victims.

00:29:18.000 Democrats also claiming, of course, victimhood on behalf of trans people everywhere.

00:29:22.000 Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, yesterday suggested that conservatives are jealous of trans people, which is that's a hell of a take.

00:29:33.000 To trans people everywhere, I also want you to know this.

00:29:38.000 Those people are threatened by your strength, by your joy in being fully who you are.

00:29:46.000 Those who fight against trans people are just jealous of the freedom that they have taken to be fully who they are.

00:29:56.000 And so those people just want to destroy that rather than imagine what it would be like to be fully who they are.

00:30:08.000 Okay.

00:30:11.000 That's a take.

00:30:12.000 It's not a good take, but it's a take.

00:30:15.000 Conservatives are jealous of people who are suffering from a DSM-5 delusional disorder in which people wish to mutilate their own bodies.

00:30:25.000 That is because of freedom.

00:30:27.000 Okay.

00:30:29.000 Sure.

00:30:30.000 Why not?

00:30:31.000 But the litany of fake victimhood goes on.

00:30:34.000 U2 has now released a song in honor of all of the fake victims.

00:30:40.000 They've released an anti-ICE song, which soared up the charts.

00:30:43.000 We are now going to get, I guess this is the thing now.

00:30:45.000 I guess that every artist from the 1980s and early 1990s is now going to be releasing protest songs as though they're like Bob Dylan.

00:30:54.000 Okay, let's see it.

00:30:55.000 You too. 0.99

00:31:02.000 Oh, this sucks. 1.00

00:31:03.000 This is a terrible song. 1.00

00:31:16.000 That's a great domestic.

00:31:17.000 It was.

00:31:24.000 This song is awful.

00:31:26.000 My goodness.

00:31:29.000 I'll admit, I'm not a U2 aficionado.

00:31:31.000 Is all their music this bad?

00:31:33.000 Or is this uniquely bad?

00:31:37.000 I legitimately don't.

00:31:43.000 I love you more than hate loves war. 1.00

00:31:46.000 This is trash. 1.00

00:31:47.000 The real victim here is my ears. 1.00

00:31:50.000 That is the real victim here.

00:31:53.000 My goodness.

00:31:54.000 And in honor of the fake victims of ICE, and here I'm speaking about people who are here in the country illegally who are now being deported.

00:32:01.000 Zorn Mamdani has now appointed an abolished ICE radical as the New York City immigration chief.

00:32:08.000 How could it go wrong?

00:32:11.000 Listen, I will admit to a sick sort of enjoyment in the fact that Democrats voted for this and now they get it.

00:32:16.000 According to the Daily Wire, New York City's Democratic Socialist Mayor Zorn Mamdani just tapped a new immigration officer to his administration who previously advocated to abolish ICE and has cozied up to radical figures and organizations.

00:32:28.000 Mamdani announced on Tuesday he had appointed Faisa Ali as commissioner of the mayor's office of immigrant affairs.

00:32:36.000 She says that she is the proud daughter of immigrant parents from Pakistan who came to New York City with courage, an unshakable belief in possibility and the determination to build a future here.

00:32:46.000 Also, she called to abolish ICE in 2019 and she was arrested during a protest in 2018 where she also called for the end of ICE.

00:32:55.000 So she is now going to be a special advisor on immigrants' affairs.

00:33:01.000 Man, New York, you asked for it and you got it.

00:33:04.000 I'd be remiss here if I did not name among the fake victims litany here, Tucker Carlson, who decided to Greta Thunberg himself, claim that he was basically kidnapped by the Israelis.

00:33:14.000 So Tucker Carlson was invited by the ambassador of the United States to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to do an interview, quasi-debate.

00:33:23.000 Apparently, that's supposed to be released sometime on Friday.

00:33:26.000 And Tucker Carlson then flew into Israel and did not get off the tarmac, basically.

00:33:31.000 He flew into Ben-Gorian Airport.

00:33:33.000 He was invited by a myriad of Christian groups to come visit with them and hear the actual experiences of Christians in Israel.

00:33:39.000 He didn't want to do that.

00:33:39.000 Instead, he imported an anti-Israel activist to do an interview with him at the airport, apparently.

00:33:45.000 Apparently, he never left the airport.

00:33:47.000 He flew private in.

00:33:49.000 He then was at the part of the airport that is reserved for VIPs.

00:33:54.000 You can pay like an additional fee to be processed not through sort of the main, the main terminal at Ben-Gorian Airport.

00:34:02.000 And then he just stayed there for a few hours, did the interview, and left.

00:34:05.000 True courage of his convictions. 0.84

00:34:07.000 But, you know, that would be silly enough. 0.91

00:34:10.000 What was truly silly is that then he leaked to a man who used to work for him a completely false story, just a complete nonsense story.

00:34:20.000 So a reporter named Philip Nieto, who literally used to work for Carlson, but now works for the Daily Mail, posted an exclusive, quote, Tucker Carlson detained in Israel.

00:34:30.000 Journalist, quote, dragged into interrogation room as explosive interviews, sparks diplomatic firestorm.

00:34:36.000 Nothing of this is true.

00:34:38.000 It is just a lie.

00:34:38.000 None of it.

00:34:40.000 It is an absolute overt lie because Tucker is looking for some sense of victimhood from Israel because, of course, he despises the state of Israel, like truly despises it, clearly, which is why he lies routinely about it.

00:34:54.000 In any case, according to this piece, Carlson exclusively told the Daily Mail, i.e., his former employee, that shortly after the interview, Israeli officials confiscated his passport and hauled one of his colleagues off to an interrogation room.

00:35:09.000 Men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room, and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about.

00:35:16.000 Carlson told the Daily Mail, it was bizarre.

00:35:18.000 We're now out of the country.

00:35:20.000 Oh, man.

00:35:21.000 The serious security risk.

00:35:23.000 I mean, he barely survived.

00:35:25.000 Okay.

00:35:25.000 So, as somebody who flies into and out of Israel pretty frequently, here's how it works: Tucker was not even in the main terminal.

00:35:32.000 Tucker was in the VIP terminal, in the VIP terminal, where you have basically all the perks and amenities available.

00:35:39.000 You have privacy.

00:35:40.000 There are rooms with actual lie-down couches, coffee machines, actual layouts of food.

00:35:49.000 It's like a first-class lounge, and you pay an extra fee to do it.

00:35:53.000 So that's where Tucker was.

00:35:55.000 And when he says that someone took his passport, what they mean is you go to the counter and then they take your passport to check to make sure that it is in compliance with all national international law.

00:36:04.000 And then they return your passport to you.

00:36:07.000 That's what he means.

00:36:09.000 As for the detention, what he means by detention is that apparently one of his producers, who may or may not have been in the VIP section, was taken aside and asked a few questions and then was let go.

00:36:21.000 This happens all the time.

00:36:23.000 Anyone who has flown LL knows this.

00:36:26.000 He was flying private.

00:36:27.000 So my guess is that it was even less than that.

00:36:29.000 It has happened to me.

00:36:30.000 It has happened to my wife.

00:36:32.000 It has happened to our nanny. 0.96

00:36:33.000 It has happened to pretty much every producer on this show.

00:36:36.000 It is not a detention.

00:36:37.000 It is not an arrest.

00:36:38.000 It is not a grilling.

00:36:39.000 It is not a third degree.

00:36:40.000 No one's getting beaten with hoses.

00:36:41.000 It's just horse. 1.00

00:36:43.000 But Tucker is the Greta Thunberg of Israel floating his flotilla of stupidity over toward Israel to try and claim that what? 0.99

00:36:50.000 You think the Israeli government is going to detain Tucker Carlson? 1.00

00:36:53.000 You think they're that stupid? 1.00

00:36:54.000 Even if you think they're nefarious, which they are not, you think that they attribute to them some modicum of intelligence at the very least. 1.00

00:37:01.000 You think they would do that? 0.97

00:37:02.000 It's just ridiculous. 0.94

00:37:06.000 Apparently, Mike Huckabee then came out with his own statement. 0.98

00:37:10.000 Quote, everyone who comes in and out of Israel, every country for that matter, has passports checked and routinely asked security questions, even me going in and out with a diplomatic passport and diplomatic visa because Tucker is a liar who lies a lot.

00:37:23.000 It is also worth noting here that, by the way, Israeli security when it comes to airports is really high.

00:37:27.000 I wonder why.

00:37:28.000 Could it be there's a history of hijacking of Israeli airplanes?

00:37:32.000 In fact, one of the factors that is very frequently used when passports are checked is what countries you have been to.

00:37:37.000 If you have been to a wide variety of, for example, radical Muslim countries over the course of the last year, that might be a reason for them to check your passport.

00:37:45.000 But again, nothing that Tucker is saying here is true.

00:37:48.000 He is the Jussie Smollett of airport security.

00:37:52.000 Apparently, two airport attendants from El Al came out and yelled, This is BB country.

00:37:58.000 And then they hit him with bleach as he ate his kosher subway sandwich.

00:38:04.000 The fact that people take this person intellectually seriously remains something beyond amusement.

00:38:12.000 So not a gigantic shock here.

00:38:13.000 But fake victimhood is the order of the day.

00:38:16.000 And meanwhile, in the Middle East, obviously a lot of talk about what's going on in Iran.

00:38:22.000 The United States has mobilized exorbitant resources in the Middle East as Iran continues to stymie and stonewall on its nuclear program, ballistic missile program, and support for terrorism. 0.71

00:38:32.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran's leaders want to reach a nuclear deal with the United States, but they are also rushing to prepare for war in case talks between the countries fail.

00:38:40.000 Tehran is deploying its forces, dispersing decision-making authority, fortifying its nuclear sites, and expanding its crackdown on domestic dissent.

00:38:47.000 The moves reflect its leaders' beliefs.

00:38:48.000 The survival of the regime itself is at stake.

00:38:51.000 Domestically, the Islamic Republic is more vulnerable than it has been in decades.

00:38:55.000 Its leaders are facing widespread popular discontent over worsening economic pictures and the mass killing of protesters last month.

00:39:03.000 Apparently, according to Farzan Sabet, an analyst at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, Iran is preparing for strikes by putting its security and political leadership on high alert to prevent decapitation and to protect its nuclear facilities.

00:39:17.000 Iranian officials are still, again, stonewalling on their nuclear program.

00:39:23.000 They're not going to kill their nuclear program.

00:39:24.000 They're not going to kill their ballistic missile program.

00:39:26.000 They're not going to kill their support for terrorism.

00:39:28.000 It is literally the only thing that they can take back to their military infrastructure.

00:39:32.000 Understand that when it comes to repressive authoritarian regimes, the number one thing you have to do is please your military apparatus.

00:39:38.000 If you don't do that, you're out in your air.

00:39:41.000 And so the Ayatollahs understand that money has to keep pouring into the military apparatus to keep bribing top-level military men to support the regime.

00:39:52.000 And that means supporting terrorism abroad.

00:39:54.000 It means supporting the development of these weapons programs.

00:39:59.000 Iran's leaders are preparing for an attack that could disrupt its chain of command.

00:40:05.000 Naval units of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard were deployed this week to the Strait of Hormuz.

00:40:09.000 By the way, if the United States decided to sink that fleet, that would take approximately three minutes flat.

00:40:17.000 There is strong evidence that Chinese are actually providing some surveillance apparatus to the Iranians.

00:40:24.000 China, of course, is a support system for the Iranians.

00:40:29.000 A Russian warship also arrived at the Strait of Hormuz and docked at the Iranian port town of Bandar Abbas ahead of a military exercise planned for Thursday.

00:40:37.000 And those exercises are supposed to be taking place not far from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sailing off the coast of Oman.

00:40:46.000 Iran is also attempting to harden its nuclear sites because they're afraid that the United States will once again bomb those nuclear sites.

00:40:55.000 According to CBS News and Jennifer Jacobs reporting, top national security officials have told Trump that the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond Saturday or Sunday, according to sources.

00:41:08.000 Trump has not yet made a final decision.

00:41:10.000 Over the next three days, the Pentagon is moving some personnel out of the Middle East region ahead of potential action or counterattacks by Iran.

00:41:18.000 That doesn't necessarily mean that action is imminent.

00:41:22.000 Apparently, one source says that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is planning to visit Israel and meet with Netanyahu in about two weeks for further discussions.

00:41:31.000 The United States currently has the most air power in the Mideast since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

00:41:37.000 U.S. officials say that the firepower will give the U.S. the option of carrying out a sustained weeks-long air war against Iran instead of a one-and-done midnight hammer type strike.

00:41:49.000 Unclear whether Trump is going to pull the trigger here.

00:41:52.000 It seems to me that just on a geopolitical level, for Trump not to pull any trigger here would be an open sign to America's enemies that it is time to go.

00:42:03.000 This is the box that the president has sort of created for himself geopolitically.

00:42:08.000 The president came out and he said, if you shoot protesters in the streets, there will be serious consequences.

00:42:14.000 Stay in the streets, help us on the way.

00:42:15.000 If help is not forthcoming, and instead what ends up coming out of this is some sort of weak-style Obama deal in which Iran makes a bunch of pledges that are unfulfillable, and that prevents and forestalls Israeli air action against, for example, ballistic missile development, then not only will that be a historic foreign policy failure by the administration, but it will also be a green light to China to take Taiwan.

00:42:41.000 So, one of the things President Trump frequently said is that the pullout, the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan in the style that Joe Biden did it, led directly to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

00:42:53.000 I think that is obviously true.

00:42:54.000 The timeline matches up.

00:42:56.000 It is clear that Vladimir Putin thought Joe Biden was weak, and so he made a move on Ukraine.

00:43:00.000 Can you imagine what China and Russia will do if they see that the United States, the most powerful military force on planet Earth, makes overt threats to Iran, tried to eradicate its nuclear program back in June of last year, and then backs off after this gigantic military buildup and the Iranians get off the hook here?

00:43:21.000 What will that say to Russia?

00:43:22.000 What will that say to China?

00:43:23.000 Because China, Russia, Iran, they're all in bed with each other. 0.99

00:43:26.000 What exactly will that mean for geopolitics in the future?

00:43:29.000 Because let's be clear.

00:43:31.000 Well, Iran has a ballistic missile arsenal that's capable of hitting U.S. bases in the region.

00:43:37.000 The suggestion that tens of thousands of Americans will die or thousands of Americans will die in Iranian counter-strikes is false.

00:43:44.000 It is not true.

00:43:46.000 Iran does not have that sort of overwhelming capacity.

00:43:49.000 The United States is already hardening its own defenses against the possibility of counter-strike.

00:43:54.000 Presumably, any strike delivered by the United States would be, in the first run, delivered directly at the ballistic missile program to take out as many bases as humanly possible.

00:44:03.000 Iranian air defenses remain non-existent at this point.

00:44:06.000 You could essentially fly a biplane over Iran and drop TNT from your hands onto IRGC bases at this point.

00:44:15.000 The skies are naked above Iran. 0.91

00:44:18.000 And so, in the face of that Iranian weakness and the threats that the president has already levied against the Iranians, if this massive mobilization of material, which is costing, I assume, tens of billions of dollars, it costs a lot of money to do what's being done right now.

00:44:31.000 If that ends up being basically just a bluff and the Iranians end up negotiating their way out of this with a future for their nuclear program and a continuation of ballistic missiles and a continuation of terrorism and a continuation of the murder of protesters, if they're able to do that, the chances that China makes a strong move to blockade Taiwan inside the next two years are extremely high. 0.72

00:44:54.000 Because would China believe that a country that is unwilling to fulfill the president's red line promises on Iran, which is eminently weaker than China, is willing to stand up to China over a country that is all the way around the globe in Taiwan and just a little ways from the coast of China?

00:45:14.000 That's going to be the logic in Beijing.

00:45:17.000 The logic in Russia, by the way, is going to be that the United States, if pressed hard enough, will simply back out of Ukraine and the Europeans don't have the capacity to ramp up fast enough.

00:45:27.000 I think you are looking at, at this point, a serious conflagration on multiple fronts if the United States does not either achieve some sort of signal deal by which Iran surrenders pretty much all of its forward capacity nuclear program and starts to open up to the protesters, or you're going to end up with something that is really dangerous, a very dangerous geopolitical situation.

00:45:47.000 And again, the signals that are being sent by the administration are pretty mixed because the reality is you have a mixed administration when it comes to its approach to things like China.

00:45:56.000 So, for example, according to the Wall Street Journal, a major U.S. arms sale package for Taiwan is in limbo following pressure from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and concerns among some in the Trump administration that green lighting the weapons deal would derail President Trump's coming visit to Beijing.

00:46:09.000 In a phone call earlier this month with Trump, Xi urged caution on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

00:46:15.000 Trump wants to avoid antagonizing China ahead of his visit.

00:46:19.000 So let's get real.

00:46:20.000 If in February, March, the United States backs off arms sales to Taiwan and caves to the Iranian regime, why in the world would China not make a move on Taiwan?

00:46:30.000 What would be the compelling case?

00:46:33.000 Seriously, it's geopolitics is a zero-sum game in terms of power.

00:46:40.000 When you create a power vacuum, somebody bad tends to fill the gap.

00:46:44.000 That is the history of the United States in foreign policy.

00:46:48.000 The same, by the way, I think will hold true in Russia-Ukraine.

00:46:51.000 I think Russia is likely to significantly ramp up operations in Ukraine if nothing is done in Iran.

00:46:58.000 Number one, it'll free up Iranian resources to ship more Shahid drones over to the Russians for use in Ukraine. 0.75

00:47:04.000 But second of all, and the administration keeps claiming meaningful progress in these Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

00:47:10.000 I would love to see some evidence for this proposition.

00:47:12.000 Here's Caroline Levitt yesterday at the White House.

00:47:15.000 I think the president would respond to that by saying he does not think it's fair that thousands of Ukrainians are losing their lives and Russians too in this deadly war.

00:47:24.000 And that's why the president and his team have committed a tremendous amount of time and energy in bringing this war that is very far away from the United States of America.

00:47:32.000 But nevertheless, this is a president of peace.

00:47:35.000 And so he's committed a tremendous amount of time and energy to bringing this war to an end.

00:47:39.000 Just yesterday, there was another round of trilateral talks between the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine.

00:47:44.000 There was meaningful progress made in both parties.

00:47:48.000 Both sides agreed to update their respective leaders and to continue to work towards a peace deal together.

00:47:53.000 So there will be another round of talks in the future.

00:47:55.000 But I think the president views this entire situation as very unfair, not just for Russians and Ukrainians who have lost their lives, but also for the American people and the American taxpayer who were footing the bill for this war effort before President Trump put a stop to it.

00:48:12.000 So, again, we will have to see if any evidence emerges at all that the Russians have shown flexibility with regard to these negotiations.

00:48:19.000 We've been going for months, over a year, on these negotiations.

00:48:23.000 The Russians so far have shown zero flexibility. 0.99

00:48:25.000 They are waiting.

00:48:26.000 They're biding their time.

00:48:27.000 They're waiting for a moment of weakness, clearly.

00:48:31.000 So, high stakes happening in the Middle East right now.

00:48:34.000 Joining us on the line is Mary Margaret Olihan.

00:48:36.000 She, of course, is our White House correspondent, and she's been all over everything happening at the White House.

00:48:40.000 There's a lot going on.

00:48:41.000 Mary Margaret, thanks for the time.

00:48:43.000 Hey, Ben.

00:48:44.000 It's great to be here.

00:48:46.000 So you were in the White House press room, as you often are yesterday, when Caroline Levitt was asked about President Trump and racism.

00:48:54.000 I have to say, it was a little bit funny to watch, considering that he was simultaneously holding an event paying tribute to black Americans at which Black Americans were praising him and hugging him.

00:49:03.000 But what was the room in the, what was the press room like?

00:49:07.000 Well, Ben, first of all, I was sitting in our seat because we now have a seat in the White House briefing room, which I'm very excited about.

00:49:13.000 So I'm sitting there and I hear this reporter at the front of the room from CBS ask Caroline why people would suggest that the president has been called racist by Democrats.

00:49:25.000 And Caroline just looked him in the eye and goes, you're joking, right?

00:49:28.000 And a number of reporters in the room started laughing.

00:49:31.000 And I don't think they were all conservative.

00:49:32.000 It was just, it was a humorous moment because we all know and we've all heard the president be called racist by, in fact, some of the reporters who were in the room yesterday.

00:49:42.000 And so, you know, she came back at him.

00:49:44.000 And our social team I saw did a fantastic job compiling a list of these Democrats who have called the president racist.

00:49:51.000 I mean, Ben, you and I have heard the president called racist ever since he came down that escalator to run for president in the first place.

00:49:58.000 It's just one of the most common insults that he's received.

00:50:01.000 But of course, in this instance, the legacy media would far prefer to suggest that that never happened and to gaslight us about that.

00:50:09.000 And then I head into this Black History Month event with the president where I couldn't even see him because the attendees were so excited to see the president, to take photos of him, to applaud their friends and their family who were talking to him.

00:50:23.000 Some of the speakers were very emotional and went up and praised the president, thanked God for putting him in the White House.

00:50:31.000 So just a very emotional and excited ceremony.

00:50:34.000 And of course, it was pretty ironic to be in such a great place and to see all these people applauding the president only a couple hours after a reporter in the front row of the White House press briefing room goes, who's called the president racist?

00:50:49.000 So, meanwhile, obviously, the operations in Minneapolis from ICE have been drawn down.

00:50:53.000 That began earlier last week.

00:50:56.000 It seems as though the controversy around ICE is not going away because Democrats continue to claim that basic enforcement of law is somehow a violation of moral precepts.

00:51:05.000 What is the feeling around the White House with regard to ICE and immigration policy right now, given the sort of chaos of the last few weeks?

00:51:12.000 I think the feeling around the White House is mostly that Tom Homan has brought a sense of more calm, of more peace to Minneapolis.

00:51:19.000 People are happy with the job that he's doing.

00:51:22.000 He himself has, you know, when you see him in his press conferences, which he's done about once a week since he got there, he's very calm.

00:51:28.000 He's very serious.

00:51:29.000 He talks about the importance of working with local officials and also getting the job done, de-escalating.

00:51:35.000 And then, meanwhile, on the DHS front, our colleague Jenny Terra has done some really good reporting showing kind of the drama that's been going down over there.

00:51:43.000 You have reports in a lot of legacy outlets about concerns about Christy Noam and her relationship with Corey Lewin, all the different things that are going on in this side, this department.

00:51:53.000 You have Tricia McLaughlin, who we've worked with many times, leaving DHS, going on to another role.

00:51:59.000 They're filling her role with two other women who will be taking on the role of the DHS spokesman and assistant secretary. 0.97

00:52:06.000 We're excited to work with them, hear what they have to say.

00:52:09.000 And Tricia has not said where she's going next.

00:52:12.000 There's been rumors floated that she could possibly fill in for Caroline when Caroline goes on maternity leave, since Caroline will be having a baby this early summer, late spring.

00:52:23.000 So lots of different movement shifting parts.

00:52:26.000 There's a lot of speculation about where Christy Noam stands with Trump.

00:52:30.000 The president met with her and with Corey Lewandowski as all this drama was going on with Holman going to Minneapolis.

00:52:35.000 So we don't know her fate yet.

00:52:38.000 She seems to be fine right now, but you never really know how these things play out.

00:52:42.000 The legacy media wants that scalp.

00:52:44.000 They want her gone, but they also want a lot of other Trump officials to leave the administration. 0.88

00:52:49.000 And the president hasn't really anyone yet in Trump 2.0.

00:52:53.000 So we'll have to see how that plays out.

00:52:55.000 But absolutely keeping an eye on Minneapolis and happy that the unrest seems to have died down a bit.

00:53:03.000 Meanwhile, obviously a lot of eyes on Iran on the Middle East right now.

00:53:07.000 The United States has deployed extraordinary resources to the Middle East as negotiations continue to go on between Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and Abbasar Rachi, the foreign minister of Iran, sort of through channels.

00:53:18.000 What are you hearing around the White House about the mood with regard to those negotiations and where we stand with Iran right now?

00:53:25.000 So the White House is so incredibly cautious about what they share with the media about this move.

00:53:29.000 And, you know, they are a very transparent administration.

00:53:32.000 We're lucky for that.

00:53:33.000 But when it comes to this sort of thing, they will not only not share, but they will kind of mock you for asking and assuming that the president would share this type of huge big deal situation with a mere reporter.

00:53:46.000 You know, I'm not so lucky as to have a thing that got me slapped on national television, but I did kind of venture a guess to her one time to Caroline, and she said, as she said to many other reporters, basically, why would we tell you that?

00:54:00.000 And, you know, it's a good question.

00:54:02.000 This is a huge matter of national security of significance to the whole world.

00:54:08.000 So they're being very cautious.

00:54:10.000 That being said, I believe we've deployed more ships to Iran than we have ever seen since 2003.

00:54:19.000 That is a massive fighting force that is assembled near a lot of speculation about which way the president will go on this.

00:54:28.000 You know, some White House officials had talked about how when we saw, for example, with Maduro, this was a very quick endeavor.

00:54:35.000 They went in and out.

00:54:36.000 They completed the mission in less than two hours.

00:54:39.000 With the B-2 strikes on Iran that we detailed in our documentary last year, this was also a very quick mission, took place very quickly.

00:54:47.000 So the president, you know, he may be considering a quick mission like this.

00:54:51.000 He may also be considering something more serious.

00:54:53.000 And we're hoping to get more information from him on that.

00:54:57.000 I know he is assembling his board of peace today, and he'll be having a meeting with them to discuss a lot of things going on.

00:55:05.000 And this obviously will play into their discussions given the massive implications for the region.

00:55:11.000 So looking forward to hearing about that as well.

00:55:14.000 Mayor Margaret, I also know that you are headed over to the Smithsonian with the First Lady.

00:55:18.000 Why don't you tell us about that?

00:55:20.000 Yes, I'm so excited, Ben.

00:55:23.000 You know, maybe I could call it a fun girly endeavor that I get to go on tomorrow, where the First Lady will be donating her inaugural gown to the Smithsonian. 0.99

00:55:33.000 So this is actually the second gown that she's donated to the Smithsonian, and they don't accept all gowns from all First Ladies.

00:55:39.000 So it's an honor for her.

00:55:41.000 And it's particularly interesting because since she released her documentary earlier this year, there's a whole bit in the documentary about how she designed this dress and the designer and who she was working with.

00:55:52.000 And she tries it on and they make alterations.

00:55:54.000 And it's a very interesting little peek into the first lady's, her interactions with her designers and how much input she has on the dress that she wears and why she wants this color and that color.

00:56:04.000 And, you know, we might think some of it is trivial, but at the end of the day, it does lend itself to her image, to the aura, you might say, of the first lady of the United States.

00:56:14.000 And so she'll, I believe, be delivering remarks there.

00:56:17.000 And I'm excited to hear what she has to say.

00:56:22.000 It's Mary Margaret Olahan, our White House correspondent.

00:56:24.000 Mayor Margaret, great to talk to you.

00:56:27.000 Thanks so much, Ben.

00:56:28.000 All righty, coming up, we'll get into the Republicans' midterm chance.

00:56:32.000 Apparently, a big behind-closed doors meeting got held, and Republicans are figuring out their strategy first.

00:56:37.000 You have to be a member.

00:56:39.000 So if you're not, become a member right now.

00:56:40.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:56:43.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

00:56:45.000 Okay.

00:56:59.000 No, not even close.

00:57:01.000 Two, three.

00:57:03.000 Whatever.

00:57:03.000 You know what?

00:57:04.000 One, two, three, four.

00:57:12.000 I cannot believe we're back here again, Ben.

00:57:15.000 If the Ben Shapiro shows a mom, then Ben After Dark is a cool mom.

00:57:21.000 Jay.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 19, 2026

Prince Andrew Arrested

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